Page 20 of Bad Luck Club

And when Lee looked up at her again, his eyes were full of wonder. And warmth.

“You made this?”

She nodded once.

“You said something happened to it. What?”

She smiled a little, although part of her wondered if Thaddeus would be doomed for the trash can after she told him. “The same thing that happened to a certain pair of shoes last month. Let me know about Saturday.”

Then she got up and walked away.

Chapter Seven

“Aren’t you going to eat your burger?” Dottie asked.

Lee dragged his gaze away from the retreating woman, who equally intrigued and terrified him. Intrigued because she was a mystery wrapped up in a beautiful package, terrified because for a few moments, he’d actually considered trying her Bad Luck Club.

Dodged a bullet there.

He shook his head. “I really should head back to the house and work on my résumé.”

But not before he got in a long, demanding workout at the gym.

She gave him a disapproving look. “You need to eat.”

“I think I’ll get it to go.” He reached into his back pocket for his wallet.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, waving her hand toward him. “Your money’s no good here. I’ve already taken care of everything.” The server came back into view, walking toward them with a bowl heaped with lettuce. “There’s my salad now. We’re going to have a lovely lunch.”

He almost argued with her, but her stubbornness was notorious. It seemed easier to eat the burger and then get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

The server set the salad on the table, and Dottie said, “Thank you, dear. You can wait for my signal.”

Wait for her signal? He started to reconsider his decision to stay, not that she’d budged from her seat on the outer edge of the booth.

“Dottie, shouldn’t you at least sit on the other side now that Blue’s gone?”

“Nonsense.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Unless you were hoping to start something with Lettie? She’d be quite eager to speak with you if you were sitting over here alone.”

“I would!” Lettie piped up.

He just grunted and took a bite of his burger, which easily became the high point of his day. Dottie was right. They knew how to make a good hamburger here.

“So you’ve had a bad day?” Dottie asked as she stabbed some lettuce with her fork. “You know, talking about it really does help.”

“My father always said unpleasant topics at the table were bad for digestion,” he said more gruffly than intended. Something within him unlocked, or maybe that had happened earlier, with Blue, because he found himself letting out some of the bitterness he’d been holding back for weeks. “But thenyoumust not subscribe to that belief.”

She lowered her fork so it rested on her bowl. “You must be talking about the conversation between your father and me, the one Maisie recorded.”

“The one youtoldher to record.” There was no love lost in his tone. He held Maisie as responsible for the disintegration of his life as he did Dottie. Jack got some of the blame too, but he had to admit that his half-brother had shared that recording to protect him. Dottie had done it out of spite for his father. And Maisie…she and River were childhood friends. She’d probably done it to get back at Prescott for treating River like shit.

“Weshouldhave this conversation,” Dottie said carefully. “And Ihavetried to bring it up before, but you’ve always changed the topic.”

More like he’d shut her down entirely. She’d approached him twice now, wanting to talk about the dinner where she’d entrapped his father, but he had no desire to discuss it with her. She was incapable of turning back time, which meant there was nothing to discuss. He ignored the little voice in his head that said she’d done him a favor. If not for her warning, delivered by Jack, he could have been facing charges too. As for Victoria…he’d already been halfway out the door of their relationship after discovering she was cheating. But he would have preferred never to have found out she was cheating on him with his father.

His feelings for Dottie were complicated. One moment he appreciated all the little things she did to make him feel special, and then on the flip of a dime, he reminded himself that she was the reason he was in this situation in the first place. Of course, it was all too convenient to ignore that the blame lay squarely at his father’s feet. Dottie had merely been the messenger.

“I don’t care to have it now.”

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