Which was exactly what those families needed.
As a first responder, Deanna had been trained to deal with tragedy. With life-and-death situations. She’d been trained how to remain calm and not show emotion. But that training had not prevented her from tearing up several times today.
Not Lucky though. He’d been a rock. Actually, more like a rock star. His charisma was palpable. He’d brought happiness and a sense of calm and authority into every room he’d entered, and everyone, even the doctors, had responded to that.
Seeing him now, looking so vulnerable and raw, touched a place in Deanna’s heart she hadn’t even known existed. A place that wouldn’t have been accessible if Lucky hadn’t already cracked the armor she’d carefully constructed around it.
“You were amazing today.” Her words were barely audible, her throat tight with emotion. “With the kids, the parents, even the doctors and nurses. Everyone loves you.”
She didn’t know if what she had said would erase the dark cloud that had settled over him, but she hadn’t known what else to say.
Sitting up, he rested his elbows on his knees and stared at the ground. “My mom was in the hospital for ten days before she died.”
“I’m so sorry.” Deanna touched his hand.
Lucky covered her hand with his and held it in place as he swallowed hard. “It happened fast. She had been feeling sick for a couple of months, but we didn’t have insurance. Then, one day—it was a Wednesday—I came home from basketball practice and found her unconscious on the kitchen floor. I called the ambulance. It took them over an hour to get there. I was all alone. I couldn’t feel her pulse. It didn’t look like she was breathing. She was cold, her lips were blue, and I thought she was dead. So I just sat on the floor, hugging her, begging her not to be dead. Pleading with God not to let her be dead.”
Deanna covered her mouth with her other hand as tears pooled in her eyes.
Lucky looked up and said in a soothing voice, “No, no, it’s okay. She wasn’t. The paramedics got there and they gave her mouth-to-mouth.”
He ran his thumb over the back of Deanna’s hand in a comforting motion as tears slipped out of her eyes. Just like when she’d been out on the dance floor and she’d pictured Lucky in a suit at his mother’s funeral, she pictured twelve-year-old Lucky terrified for an hour, alone with his mother. Thinking she was gone.
It was heartbreaking.
“They took her to the hospital, and when they told us that she was in the final stages of liver failure. I never left her side…except at night when they made me, but I would just sleep on the chairs in the waiting room. There was a girl in the bed next to her, her name was Cassidy. She had leukemia, her parents would take turns staying with her.”
“I remember thinking how brave she was, how strong, how amazing. We did puzzles and colored a few times. She always had to wear a mask, but I could see her smiling beneath it when I would joke around.”
A single tear slipped down his cheek and her heart lurched at the sight. He sniffed. “Then one morning, I walked in and her bed was stripped bare. There were no sheets, no blankets, nothing. The nurse who worked the morning shift told me that Cassidy had passed away in the middle of the night. My mom only made it two more days and she was gone too.”
Deanna couldn’t help the tears that were falling down her cheeks like a waterfall. She wasn’t a crier. She hadn’t cried since she’d been in that locker room when she was ten and she’d heard her dad talking to his agent.
“I’m sorry.” Lucky shook his head. “I shouldn’t have told you that—”
“No,” Deanna interrupted. She sniffed as she took a shaky breath. “I’m glad you did. Really.”
He continued shaking his head. “I’ve never told anyone about Cassidy and I never talk about my mom. In fact, I’ve never even told my brothers how long I waited for the ambulance. I don’t talk about her ever. But with you…I just… I don’t know. I just tell you things.”
He looked as confused as Deanna felt. Not about whether or not he could talk to her. She wasn’t confused about that. No, he seemed as baffled by whatever was happening between them as she was, which, in a strange way, made her trust it and him even more.
Yeah, the confident and cocky Lucky was fun, and even when she’d tried to not let his flirting affect her, it had. She’d loved it.
But this Lucky, the one she was pretty sure most people didn’t see, was her favorite. In this moment, while gazing into his caramel-colored eyes, she felt like she was seeing him. The real Lucky.
The energy in the room shifted as they stared into each other’s eyes. It grew heavy, and the tiny hairs on her arms stood up. In the back of her mind, Deanna knew this wasn’t the right moment to be thinking about the kiss they’d shared. Still, that didn’t stop her from doing it.
“Deanna…” he rasped. When he moved towards her, she closed her eyes.
“There you are,” Shelly said, and Deanna’s eyes popped open. “I was looking for you. I just have a few more items for you to sign before you leave.”
Lucky stood and walked over to the table where Shelly was laying out promotional pictures, posters, and T-shirts.
“Excuse me, where’s the restroom?” Deanna asked, needing a few minutes to gather herself.
“Right out the door and to the left. It’s at the end of the hall,” Shelly said in the same friendly and open tone she’d been using all day. Honestly, if jealousy hadn’t invaded Deanna’s opinion of the girl, she would probably want to be her best friend.
“Thanks.”
As she was leaving, she glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, Lucky was looking at her as Shelly talked about the different things he needed to write. When Deanna’s eyes met his, he grinned a full-blown, bad-boy, panty-melting grin and winked at her.
She escaped as fast as she could, her only hope that the tear stains on her face hid the blush his small smile and flirty wink had caused.
Her mind was reeling as she splashed water on her face in the thankfully deserted women’s bathroom. While looking in the mirror, she told herself that she needed to get it together. This whole out-of-this-world, cosmic-connection thing she kept thinking was going on between her and Lucky, was more than likely just in her imagination. Yes, he’d been flirting with her. But that was kind of his MO.
She was not going to fall victim to his charms. No way. No how.
After a few minutes, feeling moderately better and marginally in control, Deanna decided that she couldn’t hide out in the bathroom forever. Taking a fortifying breath, she opened the door and walked into someone. This time, it wasn’t the brick wall of a chest that belonged to the sexy man she was scared was getting way too close to obliterating her self-imposed boundaries.
It was a thin man, who was wearing glasses, a button-up shirt, and slacks.
“Are you here with Lucky Dorsey?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered, thinking he must work for the hospital.
“And what’s your name?”
She said, “Deanna Bishop.”
Then, in the blink of an eye, he started taking pictures of her with the camera he’d been holding behind his back.
She raised her hands to block her face. Within seconds, she was surrounded by more just like him. At least a dozen—it was like he was a Gremlin that’d been watered.
“What’s her name?” one of the men with a camera called out.
The man she’d just spoken to said, “Deanna Bishop.”
Then questions started flying at her like bullets from an automatic rifle.
“Deanna, how long have you known Lucky?”
“Where did you meet?”
“Deanna, did you know he’s seeing Gigi Savage?
“Deanna, do you really think you can tame Lucas ‘Lucky’ Dorsey?”
“When’s the wedding, Deanna?”
“Are you pregnant?”
“When are you guys having kids?”
“Do you care about the other women?”
“Is it true that he’s fighting Randall Moyer?”
Her initial reaction was fear. She froze. But then she remembered that she faced running into burning buildings for a living. She could navigate past a room full of bottom-feeders no problem. So she pushed her way through the aggressive paparazzi, doing her best to ignore their questions until…
“Deanna Bishop? You’re Doug Bishop and Victoria Lane’s daughter!”
Damn Google!
Then the tide of the ocean of questions crashing into her turned.
“Deanna, is that true?”
“Has he met your parents, Deanna?”
“Does your dad like Lucky?”
“Is your dad going to walk you down the aisle?”
“Do your parents know about the baby?”
“How does your mom feel about being a grandmother?”
“Are you a model, too?”
Just when she’d reached the middle of the sea of piranhas and she was afraid she was drowning, a strong arm her body recognized, even before she’d looked up to see who it was, wrapped around her waist. In an instant, Lucky had her tucked under his arm and his body was shielding her from the crowd.
“That’s enough,” he said in a commanding tone that, even in Deanna’s distraught state, made her lady parts sit up and take notice. “Move. Now.”
She kept her head down and didn’t bother to see if they’d listened. But they must have, because the next thing she knew, she was being ushered towards double doors. Once they had made it through the doors, she figured Lucky would release her, but he didn’t. He held her tight against him as they traveled through the hospital hallways and down the utility elevator. He still held her as they waited for his SUV to be brought around to the loading docks. And when it arrived, he picked her up and set her in her seat before shutting the door and rushing to the driver’s side.
As they pulled out onto a maintenance road, she looked out the window, trying to process what had just happened with the photographers. And also what had just happened to her heart, because if she weren’t mistaken, sometime during the last six hours she’d fallen in love with Lucky Dorsey.
Chapter 16
‡
“I’m so sorry,” he apologized for at least the twelfth time since they’d left the hospital.
Lucky’s heart was still racing, his adrenaline still pumping like he was in the cage, staring down an opponent—not driving home to Hope Falls with the woman he was falling so fast for that he had no idea how to catch himself.
“It’s fine. Really,” she said for the dozenth time as she continued staring out the window at the pine trees they were passing by.
They’d been driving for an hour and he still hadn’t been able to calm down.
When he’d walked out of the waiting room to find those vultures surrounding Deanna, he’d seen red. His first instinct had been to kill them. But he’d been able to keep his cool—mostly. He’d had to throw a couple of bows to navigate through the swarm of paparazzi.
Protective instincts were one thing, but what he’d felt had gone so far beyond that. He’d realized in that moment that he would not hesitate to kill someone if they hurt Deanna. In his mind, she was already his, and he protected what was his. Fiercely.
Glancing over at the beautiful girl beside him caused Lucky’s heart to squeeze. He’d shared more intimate moments with Deanna than he had with any other person in his life, and he hadn’t even seen her naked. How she’d managed to become so important to him, how he felt like he knew her so well, he honestly had no idea. But she had and he did.
She’d been chewing on her lip and shifting uncomfortably in her seat since they had left the hospital. Asking her if she was okay hadn’t been working. Obviously, she wasn’t. So now, he had to figure out what the real problem was.
He’d heard the photographers mention that her dad was Doug Bishop, one of Lucky’s idols when he’d been growing up. Bishop was an all-star pitcher for the Long Beach Waves, and Lucky had watched a few years ago when he’d been inducted into the Hall of Fame. It bothered him that he hadn’t known that about her.
Usually, he Googled girls he started messing around with, even ran background checks sometimes—just for safety purposes. There were crazies out there, and it was shocking how many people had shady pasts. But he hadn’t even thought about any of that with Deanna.
Figuring that maybe a change of subject—that also might be a path to get to know her better—might be just what they needed, Lucky asked, “So, your old man is Doug Bishop, huh?”
“Yes.” Deanna’s answer was clipped.
“So, you two aren’t close.” He figured that pointing out the obvious might help ease the strain between them.
“We’re…” Deanna paused, and Lucky sliced his eyes in her direction. She was still staring out the window, her head shook, but the movement was barely noticeable. “Fine.”
Okay. So that had not gone as planned. Not wanting to give up so easily, he remembered that every move had a twin and decided to work a different angle. “What about your mom? What does she do? Are you close?” he asked, going for broke.
Deanna didn’t answer right away, and Lucky was sure that he’d just stuck not only his foot, but his entire leg in his mouth. Figuring he’d let it go, wait a few minutes, and then try a different tactic, he started thinking of what his next move was going to be.
He was surprised when Deanna took a deep breath that sounded a lot like resignation and said, “My mom is Victoria Lane. She’s a model. We’re…fine too.”
“Wait. Your mom is Victoria Lane!?” Lucky asked.
Holy shit!
That’s where he knew her from. That’s why her lips looked so familiar. That’s why he’d felt like he’d looked into her eyes before.
He had.
“Yep.” She let out another sigh and again turned her attention to the greenery outside the window.
“You were in a perfume or clothing ad with her when you were a teenager!”
Lucky had ripped out every ad he’d found in magazines his senior year. He’d never particularly thought that Victoria was that hot, but when he’d seen her daughter beside her, Lucky had been one smitten kitten.
In fact, Deanna had been his first and only crush. He just hadn’t known it was her.
Deanna didn’t share his enthusiasm. “Yeah, I was.”
“I knew you looked familiar. God, I was obsessed with you. I stole every ad I could find and I would fold it in half and pin it up on my wall so only you were showing.”
Her head spun around, and she looked…mad. “No, you didn’t.”
Damn. He’d stepped in it again. He was really batting a thousand at that today. Oh well. He wasn’t about to try to dig himself out of this one. His only move was to dig in deeper.
“Yes. I did. I thought you were so damn hot—”
Her hand rose defensively. “Lucky, stop. I know that’s not true—”
“You don’t know shit,” he snapped back, still feeling the adrenaline from earlier. His tone made him cringe, so he softened his voice. “Sorry, but you don’t.”
“Whatever.” She crossed her arms in front of her.
Lucky saw it for what it was: a protective stance. But he’d be damned if she was going to feel she had to protect herself from him. He would never hurt her.
“Look, I’m sorry if it pisses you off that I had hundreds of pictures of you all over my wall and I used to jack it to you morning and night—”
“What!?” she screeched.
Glancing over, he saw the horror in her beautiful expressive eyes, but her lips were curled a little at the edges and not set in a grim expression. So he hadn’t pissed her off that bad by his oh-so-shocking admission.
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t think there was a red-blooded teenage boy who wasn’t jerking it to those pictures.” He’d said it to lighten the mood, but he was getting the same feeling he’d gotten when he’d seen Casey heading towards Deanna on the
dance floor. One word filled his mind.
Mine.
Deanna let out a harsh laugh. “Yeah, maybe, but it wasn’t me they were looking at.”
Lucky took his eyes off the road just long enough to see in the set of her jaw and her protective body language that she wasn’t joking. She really believed that she wasn’t hot. Or beautiful. And that her mom was.
Then it hit him.
She’d grown up the daughter of a supermodel and a professional baseball player. Maybe living in the shadows all of those years had caused her not to see herself for who she really was.
Well, it was time to shed some light on that subject.
Instead of arguing with her, Lucky decided to enlighten her. “My favorite was the one with you wearing a white tank top and jeans. Just a tiny sliver of your stomach was showing, and I used to imagine running my finger along that area and how soft your skin would feel. I loved how that one piece of your hair fell over your shoulder. Your eyes were looking right in the camera, and your lips were so full and… I won’t even tell you what I pictured you doing with them.”
Deanna sounded breathless as she said, “Oh.”
“Do you believe me now?” he asked as he kept his eyes on the winding, dark highway illuminated only by his headlights.
“Yes,” she said quietly. Then he felt her turn towards him, and her voice sounded lighter and hell of a lot sassier as she asked, “You know I was only thirteen when I shot that, right?”
“You were what!?” Lucky’s voice rose in shock, and it took everything in his power not to swerve the truck into the other lane. Now, he was the one who didn’t believe her. “No way. There is no way you were thirteen!”
“Yep. I really was. Whatever you were picturing me doi—”
“Stop!” If Lucky could’ve, he would have covered his ears and said, “Na-na-na-na-na! I’m not listening to you.” Instead, he said, “Stop talking. Now.”
Deanna’s head fell back and she started laughing. It was a full-bodied belly laugh that spread over him like a breeze on a hot day. The sound was so sweet that it almost made up for how big of a disgusting pervert he felt like right now.
Lucky Kiss Page 16
