Getting Lucky

by Susan Andersen

  Face warm with both pleasure and embarrassment, Jessica joined them and found herself talking to the artist on duty about her work. Agreeing to submit some samples for consideration, she finally eased away and made her way down to the far end of the co-op, where she stood for a moment with one hand over her rapidly beating heart as she pretended to look at the handcrafted stationery and cards racked in front of her.

  Once her pulse had settled down a bit, she walked over to peek into the café to check on the availability of a table. The silly smile, though, continued to play across her mouth.

  It froze when she glanced toward the back corner of the café and saw Christopher seated at a small table near the door, talking intently to an unfamiliar woman.

  Pain splintered through her with such ferocity she could barely catch her breath. Seeing him here when he’d specifically told her he’d be elsewhere, with a woman who was everything she wasn’t, shouldn’t have caught her by surprise. She’d known he was up to something—for weeks she had known that. Hell, sometimes it felt as if she’d been waiting for this very occurrence since the first night they’d met, yet nothing, she realized now, ever could have prepared her for seeing her worst fears realized. She numbly watched the single-minded attention her husband lavished on the other woman until Christopher’s head started to lift. Then she scrambled backward, desperate not to be seen.

  She would die if he saw her.

  Lily glanced up as Jessica strode rapidly up the center aisle, and after one good look at her friend’s face, frowned and went to meet her. “What is it?”

  “I want to go now.”

  “Well, sure, but what’s wrong. Are you sick?”

  “Yes. All of a sudden I feel like I could die.”

  “You don’t look so hot,” she agreed. “Good Lord, Jess, you don’t have a drop of color in your face.” She took Jessica’s arm and helped her out of the store, concerned when her friend leaned heavily in her grasp. “Give me your keys. Could you have food poisoning? Do you want me to take you to the clinic?”

  “It’s not food poisoning, Lily. I haven’t had anything to eat since last night.”

  “Well, maybe that’s it.” She gestured back toward the café. “I could go get you—”

  “No! I just want to go home.”

  “Are you sure?” Something about Jessica’s stillness worried Lily, but when she gave a curt nod, Lily simply said, “Okay, then.”

  As she was settling Jessica in the passenger seat, she heard a car door close. She glanced up as she circled the hood to climb in the driver’s side and froze for a moment as she saw the same young man she’d run into at the pharmacy.

  The same young man, she suddenly remembered, that she’d seen before not in town, as she’d earlier assumed, but in a gas station parking lot on the other side of the state.

  That was stretching coincidence way too far, and her heart began to thud anxiously. She had a bad feeling that something was very, very wrong here.

  And suddenly she wanted to get back to the Beaumont estate every bit as much as Jessica did.

  19

  NO ONE WAS AROUND WHEN THEY ARRIVED home, so Lily escorted Jessica up to her apartment. After assurances from her friend that some rest would perk her up, Lily helped her into bed and dampened a washcloth to drape across her eyes. Hating to leave her, but getting the distinct impression Jessica wanted to be alone, she finally let herself out of the apartment. She stood indecisively out in the hallway for a moment, then went looking for Zach.

  She tracked him down in the parlor, where she found him pacing with long-legged strides between the French doors and the fireplace. As she paused in the doorway, he completed his circuit to the fireplace, swept a small objet d’art off the mantel, and restlessly tossed it from hand to hand without apparent thought for its value. Thinking he looked lonely and stressed, Lily walked into the room. “Where is everyone?”

  His posture immediately stiffened and, snapping the knickknack out of the air, he replaced it on the mantel. Then one broad shoulder hitched as he turned to face her. “Beats the hell outta me. Blown to the four corners of the earth, maybe.”

  “No one’s heard from the kidnapper, then?”

  “Not a word.”

  “I’m sorry, Zach. I know that must be difficult.” She closed the distance between them and peered up at him in concern. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Looking at her with those intense gray eyes, he ran his hand down her arm to her wrist, which he slowly circled with his fingers. He blew out a sigh and the tautness left his shoulders. “No, that’s a lie. I’m frustrated as hell.”

  “I’m not surprised. Did you meet with your friends?”

  “Yes.” The faint smile tugging up the corner of his mouth told Lily that getting together with them had been good for him. He fiddled with her fingers. “We’re ready to roll,” he said, “if only the damn kidnapper would call.”

  “He will, Zach.” Raising on tiptoe, she pressed a gentle kiss upon his mouth before settling back on her heels. “Meanwhile, try not to brood about it.”

  A distinct light entered his eyes, and transferring his hands to her hips, he pulled her in, bending his knees until their pelvises were snugged together. “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “Brooding’s damn tough to avoid when you’re worried. Seems to me if you don’t want me caving under the pressure, you’d give me an activity to help pass the time. Take my mind off it.” He swiveled his hips suggestively. “Ya know?”

  That reminded Lily of her earlier discovery. Since she’d never gotten to her room to drop off her stuff, the pharmacy bag was still in her hand, and she handed it to him. “I’ve got something for you first. It kind of falls into that better late than never category.”

  “What’s this?” He reached between them for the bag. Shaking it open one-handed, he peered inside. Then the hand still holding her hip dropped to his side, and he stepped back. “Oh, shit.”

  The set of his mouth turned grim as he stared into the open sack. “Christ, Lily,” he said hoarsely. “I can’t believe we’ve been having unprotected sex, and it never even occurred to me.” Paper crackled as his fist suddenly cinched the top of the bag closed, and his gaze snapped up to pin her in place. “Is it possible you’re pregnant?” A breath of derisive laughter escaped him. “Stupid-ass question; of course it’s possible. We haven’t used a damn thing to prevent it, and we’ve been fucking like—”

  She winced at his wording, but said levelly, “That at least shouldn’t be a problem. I’m on the pill.”

  “Good.” He blew out a breath. “Oh, God. That’s good.” Then, before she could decide if she was hurt by his obvious relief or perhaps the tiniest bit hacked off, he ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek, stared into her eyes, and said with soft intensity, “I’m sorry, Lily. I know what you must be thinking, but I promise you I don’t make a habit of this. Hell, I can’t believe I did it this time. I’ve never forgotten to wear protection in my life.”

  And just like that, she felt much better. She leaned into his touch. “I know what you mean. I’ve never been careless before, either. I don’t know what it is about you.” Okay, she did, but since Zach seemed to be pretty gun-shy when it came to emotional intimacy, she decided not to scare him off. She gazed at him solemnly. “We probably ought to talk about this, though. I’d like you to know that the number of my sexual partners is in the single digits. And since it’s been quite a while since the last one, and I have regular yearly exams, not only am I safe when it comes to pregnancy, but in all the other considerations, as well.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. My partners probably number more in the mid-double digit range, but—”

  “You’ve slept with fifty women?”

  “Hell, I don’t know; it’s not like I’ve counted. But I’m thirty-six years old, Lily, and I’ve been sexually active for twenty years. Let’s be conservative and say I’ve slept with two women a year—that would still be forty right there.” He shrugged. “So, realisti
cally it was probably closer to a hundred.”

  “My gawd.” Feeling her jaw drop, she said, “If a woman admitted to that much experience, she’d be labeled a slut. What the heck do you call a guy who has sex with a hundred partners?”

  “A marine.” He gave her a cocky smile, then sobered. “The point is, I was given a clean bill of health by the medics before I left for South America, and I, uh, haven’t been with another woman since. Maybe that’s why—”

  He broke off and shook his head, a leery expression in his eyes as he looked at her. Then his sexuality slammed back into place, and Lily had the craziest notion he was using it like a shield. But when he smiled lazily and his breath misted warm against her ear as he murmured, “What say we take this box upstairs and see if we can’t put a dent in the contents?” she forgot her momentary suspicion.

  “Um, yeah. Okay. That would be good.”

  The next thing she knew, she was up in her room, divested of clothing and flat on her back in the middle of the bed, with an equally naked Zach propped over her kissing her from forehead to toes.

  He was slow and thorough, and she was a writhing mass of inflamed nerve endings by the time he rolled onto his back, unfurled one of the new condoms down the length of his jutting erection, then lifted her to straddle him. Looking down as she found her balance, her heart slammed fast and furiously at the hot-eyed intensity darkening his pale irises. Then every corpuscle in her body stood at attention and shouted yes! as his rough-skinned fingers gripped her hips and slowly lowered her onto the hot, solid length pushing its way inside her.

  “All those women?” he said hoarsely as she quickly found a rhythm and rose and lowered herself upon him. “They’ve run together in my mind, Lily, and I can barely remember anything about them.”

  Absorbed in the slight adjustment she’d just made that drove him deeper to touch a sweet spot high inside, bringing her closer, closer, to satisfaction, she barely heeded his words. She was striving for a shining goal just out of reach, and oh, gawd, she was nearly…she was almost—

  Suddenly he arched his pelvis off the bed, and Lily cried out as mind-expanding pleasure exploded within her. Zach held her hips with a hard grip as he thrust up into her, and her climax roared through her body like sheet lightning, all but arcing and snapping as it went on and on and on.

  But somewhere in the midst of it, she heard him say, “I have a feeling, though, it’s gonna be a long, long time before I ever forget you.”

  Jerking her chin down to study his expression, she found that he, too, had begun to come. His eyes were blind and his mouth mute as he held her tightly to him, so she wasn’t certain if he’d actually said the words or she’d merely imagined them. Then she didn’t care, for the look on Zach’s face and the feel of that rigid source of pleasure throbbing powerfully inside her swept every other consideration from her mind and sparked a further round of contractions that were even sweeter than the ones preceding them.

  She couldn’t have said if minutes or hours passed before she became aware that the muscular body beneath her was losing its slackness. As some of her own postcoital lethargy dissipated, something important began to niggle at her memory. “Oh, shoot.” She peeled herself off Zach’s damp chest where she’d been lying limply. “I meant to tell you earlier: I discovered this morning that I might have another problem.” Looking down, she was surprised to find his eyes wide open and, just for a second, vulnerable.

  Then he blinked, and that endearing hint of confusion disappeared, leaving her wondering if she’d actually seen it at all.

  Zach, fearing he’d just given something away, raised a deliberately sardonic eyebrow. “You have had yourself a busy day, haven’t you?”

  “It’s sure as sugar been a long one,” she agreed. “And it’s not even noon yet.”

  He congratulated himself on successfully diverting her attention from whatever she’d seen in his face. But when she related the encounter she’d had with a young man in town, and told him how the youth had also approached her at the gas station on the Washington-Oregon border, Zach became all business. “I’m not a big believer in coincidence,” he said flatly, and rolled her off of him. He climbed to his feet and bent to sweep up his discarded jeans.

  “No. Neither am I.”

  He didn’t care to admit to himself that it was almost a relief to have something to concentrate on besides the way he seemed to lose all control around Lily. But how the hell could he have forgotten to use condoms with her? Worse, why had he just been so tempted to continue doing so?

  It wasn’t an issue he was anxious to delve into, so he hustled her into her clothes, seated her in the chair in front of the desk, and hunkered down in front of her, his hands resting on the arms of her chair. “Okay, let’s have it. Give me all the details you can remember.”

  “He didn’t speak today, but that day outside the gas station and minimart, he apologized for his poor English and asked for my assistance.”

  “To do what?”

  “Translate for someone having a difficult time with his accent, I think. At least that was the impression I got. But I’m not really sure, because you roared out a command to shake my tush or be left behind before we got very far into the conversation.”

  He ignored that. “So he’s not an American?”

  “No. Or if he is, English isn’t his first language, although I didn’t think it was nearly as bad as he seemed to believe.”

  “What nationality would you say?”

  “Well, since he said gracias, and has that dark-haired, dark-eyed, handsome Latino thing going for him, my guess would be Hispanic.”

  An unlikely thought occurred to Zach, but he shrugged it aside as farfetched. “Do you have any idea who he wanted you to talk to?”

  “No. I remember him waving toward either the minimart or the pumps on the other side.”

  Zach whispered a curse. If the initial encounter had been the extent of things, he might have blown it off as nothing. But his gut insisted this was definitely something. Orcas was a fairly remote island and mostly a rural one. What were the odds of Lily running into someone here who’d wanted to escort her to the unpopulated side of a minimart clear across the state?

  Slim to frigging none. Pulling on his shirt, he headed for the phone.

  She followed in his wake, standing so close he caught vagrant suggestions of her warm scent as he flipped through his dog-eared address book. She peered at the organizer over his shoulder. “Who are you calling?”

  “Camp Pendleton.” He paused in turning the pages to look at her. “When I came home from my last deployment, I brought back three South American nationals for a course of specialized training. I’d had a problem with one of them, but I thought we’d put it behind us.”

  “And you think this might be him?”

  “I don’t know. But I plan to make sure he’s still where I left him.” The line on the other end connected, and he pulled the receiver up to his lips. “Yes. Who am I speaking to?” The voice on the other end identified himself, and he said, “Corporal Sanford, this is Master Sergeant Zachariah Taylor. Put me through to Magnusson.”

  Put on hold, he had no problem hearing the hysterical squealing that broke out downstairs a second later. Actual words were indistinct, but the tone was clear, and he exchanged a look with Lily. Something was going on. The question was what?

  Then Mrs. Beaumont’s voice distinctly screamed, “David!” and he tossed the receiver back onto the hook and raced for the door. Lily’s phantom stalker could be dealt with later. Right now it sounded as if they had a more immediate emergency on their hands.

  Oh, man, he thought as he pounded down the stairs, his stomach churning anew as his sister’s face floated before his mind’s eye. Let that have been a scream of joy. God, please, if You’re up there, don’t let this be bad news. I don’t think I can bear to lose Glynnis.

  Lily was hot on Zach’s heels, so when he came to an abrupt halt at the foot of the stairs, she was moving too fast
and was too close behind him to stop. Slamming into his back, she bounced off with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs. The next instant found her sitting precipitately on one of the stair treads.

  Zach didn’t seem to notice. “Glynnie?” he said with soft wonder, and Lily’s swimming head jerked up.

  Dear Lord. Glynnis was here? Craning to see around Zach, she found herself blocked by the solid wall of his back, and to her frustration, it seemed to shift in synchronicity with her own movements. She started scooting her rear toward the banister.

  Before she’d shifted enough for a clear view, however, she heard Glynnis’s voice saying, “Zach? What are you doing here?”

  He moved then, and Lily finally saw Glynnis, who looked every bit as stunned as she felt, but also hale and hearty, thank goodness. As Zach strode toward his sister, Lily saw Glynnis catch sight of her struggling to get up off the stairs. The younger woman’s eyes grew even rounder, and she squeaked, “Lily? Holy shit—um, cow, I mean! You’re here, too? What on earth is going on?”

  Zach swept her into a hug so tight it lifted her feet clear off the ground, and burying his face in her dark hair, he rocked them from side to side. “God, Glynnie, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you safe. I was worried sick.”

  “You were?” She pulled her head back to peer at him. “Why?”

  Zach’s brows came together and he set her back on her feet. “What do you mean, why? You think ransom demands for you and your boyfriend here aren’t gonna cause a slight ripple of concern?”

  “Ransom demands!” exclaimed both Glynnis and a deep male voice, and Lily’s fascinated gaze left Zach and Glynnis to zoom in on David. Even as she watched, he disengaged his mother’s frantic hold from around his neck and held her at arm’s length to stare down at her. “You thought we were kidnapped? That’s what you’ve been screaming about?”

  “Yes,” she sobbed, and collapsed against his chest again. Once more David gently disentangled himself from her embrace, but he slung a comforting arm around her shoulders and escorted her across the foyer to where the Taylors stood. He thrust his free hand out at Zach. “You must be Zachariah. Glynnis’s told me a lot about you. But I don’t understand. Why would you think we’d been kidnapped?”