Page 6 of Bad Luck Club

His answer was almost immediate:Strict as a heart attack.

I think the saying is serious as a heart attack.

Semantics. You know what I meant. Keep in mind that there are seven of us now. Eight will throw off the whole lucky number thing. But if this is your way of helping someone, I’m not going to stand in your way. Want to come over to discuss?

She glanced down at Buford, who twitched his nose and nudged her, as if encouraging her to get over herself already, and texted:Yeah. You at the Cluster?

Yes. I have banana bread in the oven.

Interesting. Although she’d only known Bear for a couple of months, she’d discovered baking washisway of dealing with nerves.

Maybe they could help each other instead of him just helping her. That was what Bad Luck Club was all about, wasn’t it?

* * *

She’d found out about the club through a Craigslist ad. Bear’s ad, hence Bear was her sponsor.

She still remembered what it said.Do you feel like you’re left-handed living in a right-handed world? Like every choice you make is a mistake? Maybe you belong with us sad sacks in the Bad Luck Club. Together, we can turn our luck around. Or at least have one hell of a time trying.

She’d been sifting through the offerings on the “free” page when she found it, hoping to score some free yarn. People sometimes gave away the excess if they’d bought too much for a project. Using borrowed yarn, yarn that would have been thrown away otherwise, added an energy she liked to her pieces. That’s where the ad had been listed—the “free” page, as if to say some help didn’t need to be paid for. Something about it had captured her…maybe the description of living left-handed in a right-handed world. Hadn’t she felt like that most of her life? She’d closed out of the page and held her regular Tuesday morning yoga class, but the ad had distracted her so much she’d fallen out of Tree Pose.Tree Pose!It wasn’t high up there on the difficulty list, at least not for practitioners.

So she’d said goodbye to her students and headed straight back to her desk to pull up the ad.

Thank God she had. Since meeting Bear and the others, she felt more at home in Asheville, and in her own skin, than she ever had anywhere. Of course, it wasn’t only the Bad Luck Club that was responsible. Over the last few months, she’d opened up to other people in a way she’d mostly avoided since leaving Philadelphia.

It had all started with Dottie Hendrickson, an artist she’d met at a show last winter.

It was Dottie who’d told her about the enormous rabbit at Dog Is Love, sweet as can be andgoodness, someone better adopt the poor thing before someone makes meat of him,although Idolike a good rabbit pie, putting her on the path to both Buford and Maisie, who owned and ran the shelter. Only later had she realized Maisie would have sooner put herself on a platter than allowed anyone to do so to Buford. Dottie had wanted her to meet Maisie.

Just like she’d wanted her to meet Adalia. She’d sent Addy and her boyfriend, Finn, to Blue’s studio for a meeting about the Asheville Art Display. And now Adalia and Blue were co-chairing the next event, scheduled for early summer.

Her life was so much fuller for having met both Maisie and Adalia. They’d become friends of her heart.

She’d crocheted Dottie a model of Jezebel, Beau Buchanan’s cat, for Christmas as a thank-you, and Dottie had remarked, “Dear, anyone could see you were lonely. I just wanted you to know how very welcome you are.”

She supposed it was true. The loneliness had been such a constant companion by then, it had become woven into the fabric of her being. Exceptshehadn’t seen it.

She parked at the Cluster, which was less than optimal to drive to at night given the narrow, winding road leading there—something that still raised her blood pressure two years after moving here from Philadelphia, where the roads were busy and confusing but never quite so narrow. She tucked her multicolored scarf closer around her neck as she got out. It was five thirty and already mostly dark, and the cold had gotten sharper now that the sun was descending.

Bear’s truck was in the drive, but there was no sign of his son Cal’s truck. They lived together in the cabin, which Cal had nicknamed the Cluster, saying everyone knew it was a real clusterf when a thirty-year-old man moved in with his father—except Cal had not kept his language quite so PG.

The front door burst open, revealing Bear—a seventy-something man who had the energy of someone half his age. He was no taller than Blue, but he had broad, muscular shoulders from his time as a foreman of a construction crew.

“Come in!” he said. “Cold out here tonight.”

She hurried inside, unwinding her scarf as soon as she got into the warm, cozy interior of the house. Bear’s dog, Ruby, rushed up to her with a wildly swinging tail, and she patted her head as she took in the atmosphere of the cabin. There was a fire going in the fireplace of the great room, and the scent of freshly baked banana bread hung in the air. Cal was a carpenter, and most of the furniture had been made by him, stunning pieces that incorporated swirling, honey-colored wood, bringing out the beauty of the materials he’d used.

It felt cozy and pleasant, like the kind of place people went home to for the holidays in a movie.

Except her home had been nothing like that.

“Why the banana bread?” she asked, as she pulled away from Ruby and hung her coat.

He ran his hands through his silver hair, then padded into the open kitchen. After a few more pets, Ruby headed over to the fireplace and settled onto her enormous dog bed with some sort of dog chew.

“Cal’s not answering his texts. He walked under a ladder this morning at the house we’re fixing up, and I can’t stop worrying something might have happened to him. He was going to run some errands, but he should be home by now.” He grabbed two plates from the cabinet, then took out a knife and cut two thick slices, revealing chocolate chips. Her mouth watered. She hadn’t had much of an appetite for lunch after seeing Lee.

“Were you worried the ladder would fall on him?” she asked, trying to focus.

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