Lucky Streak

MIKE DROVE to his father’s place, lost in thought, and Amber didn’t intrude. She wanted him to think about everything she’d told him, but most important she wanted him to realize what it meant that she’d returned. Let him remember how special their wedding night had been and what awaited him if he agreed to give her a second chance again.

Besides, she wasn’t going anywhere. First, she couldn’t return to Vegas until King Bobby was gone and no longer looking for her. And to know that, she needed to track down Marshall. Amber couldn’t shake the memory of Caroline’s comment about King Bobby being “connected.” She couldn’t grow up in Vegas, hanging around the men her father ran with, and now know about the darker side of a gambler’s life. And she couldn’t risk the chance King Bobby had just been bluffing. She’d have to stay hidden.

But there was more to her being in Boston than simply her fear of King Bobby. She wanted to stay with Mike and convince him she wasn’t the kind of person he now thought she was. He needed to accept that his first impression, the gut feeling that allowed him to bond with her in the first place, was the correct one.

She wanted to get to know her husband. She hadn’t been able to put him out of her mind and not just because she had betrayed him and owed him, both an explanation and money. He was as sexy as she remembered, with a day’s worth of razor stubble and the sport jacket he’d worn to court giving him an edgy appeal. But gone were the easy smiles and relaxed aura he wore in Vegas. In their place was a wary man who’d been betrayed.

She gnawed on the inside of her cheek and glanced out the window. The cityscape had long ago been replaced by green grass, trees and open fields, so different from the dry desert of Nevada or the smog of L.A.

She could get used to the fresh new scenery. She definitely liked Boston, at least what she’d seen of it, and starting tomorrow, she’d explore more. It might be a great place to start over. And with luck, she could find a job at one of the big hotels here.

Her grandparents had passed away a few years ago and all she had left of family was her father. She could move him out here, too, so she could spend whatever time he had left with him without Marshall nearby to cause trouble. And she could know, for sure, if this marriage had any possibility of lasting. Not just because she wanted Mike to see she was a good person, but because she needed closure for herself.

She wasn’t a quitter. She’d entered into this marriage; she was going to do her best to make it work out.

Based on the hard expression on Mike’s face and the set of his jaw, Amber knew she was getting way ahead of herself, but that’s how she operated in life. Gung ho and full steam ahead, using her charm and photographic memory to their best advantage. That’s how she’d carved out a job as one of the best concierges in Beverly Hills.

Brad Pitt himself had requested her services, as did the rest of his pals. The only drawback to her life in L.A. was the fact that she couldn’t get her father on her health insurance plan. It had been the only thing that had drawn her back to Vegas and into Sam’s world of underground high-stakes poker.

But it had also inadvertently led her to Mike Corwin. The man was real. Her day with Mike had shown her what had been missing from her life in Beverly Hills. It wasn’t just that she’d been too busy for a social life of her own. Her job had consumed her and at the time, that had been fine with her. But the fear of losing her father, combined with her un-forgettable day-and night-with Mike had shown her that she needed someone to come home to at night. Someone to talk to. Someone who could make her feel as alive as Mike had in the twenty-four hours she’d spent with him.

She just wanted a chance to see if he was the one she was meant for. And she intended to get that chance in the same way she did everything else in her life.

She’d earn it.

“What’s wrong?” Mike asked, breaking the long silence.

“Nothing. Why?”

“You sighed.”

“I didn’t realize I had.”

“Listen, about my father…” He trailed off.

“You mentioned that he’s…off, I think is what you said.”

He nodded. “He’s reclusive and eccentric,” Mike said, choosing his words carefully. There were none to really prepare Amber for what she was about to encounter, but he might as well try.

No doubt Edward would scare her off, either by his crotchety attitude, the way he lived or the fact that once his father realized there was something between Amber and Mike, Edward would do his damnedest to run her off before the curse kicked in.

Mike shook his head and groaned. “You’ll see what I mean soon enough.” They were almost at the exit leading to Stewart, where his father lived in an old house on the edge of town.

“What about your mother?” Amber asked. “Does she live there, too?”

He shook his head. “They’re divorced. Have been for ten years. She’s remarried. She and my stepfather live about an hour from Boston, too, in the opposite direction from here.”

“I’m glad you’re talking to me again.” She curled her jeans-clad leg beneath her and turned toward him, obviously settling in for more “get to know you” talk.

“I just want you to be prepared when you meet my father.”

“My father-in-law,” she said too cheerfully.

“About that-” Without insulting her or getting into too much detail about the family curse, he needed to figure out how to ask her not to bring up their marriage to his father.

If she’d never stolen the money and bolted, he supposed he’d have brought her back and dealt with his father’s insanity. But she’d betrayed him. He couldn’t trust her, and he really didn’t even know her. And she wouldn’t be around much longer so there was no reason to upset Edward and get him started on the damn curse.

“Listen, I’d rather you not tell my father we’re-”

“Skunk!” Amber shrieked, pointing straight in front of them.

Mike slammed on his brakes, narrowly missing the animal in the middle of the old country road leading to his father’s house.

“Are you okay?” he asked Amber.

She nodded. “Close call.”

He agreed. He was about to drive around the skunk when he caught sight of his father, walking in front of the car.

Mike closed his eyes and muttered a curse. He shifted the car into Park and opened the window. “Dad, what the hell are you doing? It’s a skunk. Get in the car before it sprays us all!”

But to Mike’s surprise, his father bent down and grabbed the animal by the tail.

“What’s he doing?” Amber asked, wide-eyed with shock.

“It looks like he’s bringing it over.”

Before Mike could find the button to shut the window, Edward leaned over and said, “Michael, meet my new pet, Stinky Pete.”

“For the love of…Get that thing out of here.”

“He’s descented. But don’t tell that to anyone in town. It keeps people away.”

“They don’t come around anymore anyway,” Mike said, wondering how his father had allowed himself to descend so far into his own world.

Edward Corwin looked like a modern-day mountain man. His black hair, wiry and sprinkled with gray, hadn’t seen scissors in ages; neither had his beard. He wore khaki shorts, old shirts and beat-up sandals, but they were stylish enough for Mike to know his father still made trips to town from time to time.

The house he lived in had been built back when Edward and his brothers owned their own construction business, in the days before their generation of Corwin men had suffered from the curse, when the brothers had been on speaking terms and life had been as close to normal as Mike suspected his father had ever known it to be.

After the feud over Mike’s aunt Sara Jean, the business had gone bankrupt, the partnership ended and the brothers made their own living doing handiwork. Edward had worked as a plumber, at least until he’d became so strange. Now, no one wanted him in their homes.

But by that point, Mike had been making a decent living and deposited money monthly into his father’s bank account. By silent agreement the men never discussed it, although Mike knew his father used the money for