Page 72 of Bad Luck Club

“Don’t be an idiot,” another bystander replied. “This is performance art. Don’t you see their matching sweatshirts? They’re some kind of troupe.”

“Oh, that woman’s filming it,” someone else said. “Are we going to be on TV?”

A laugh bubbled up inside Blue, stayed by the slight discomfort of being part of a spectacle. Would they get kicked out of the arboretum, maybe even banned? She glanced around but didn’t see anyone who looked like a staffer. No sign of Lee either, although maybe that was for the best. He wouldn’t want to be around for something like this.

“You wanted toruinme, Fred,” Nicole said, glancing up into the statue’s cool bronze eyes as if it had truly wronged her.

The statue was of Frederick Law Olmsted, the famous landscape architect whose vision had inspired the arboretum, so the name Nicole was using suggested this was some sort of bizarre one-woman play she’d written for the challenge. Except Blue didn’t think that was quite right. Although she didn’t know Nicole’s full story, it was clear someone had hurt her badly, the kind of hurt a person didn’t quickly bounce back from. And that look in Nicole’s eyes…she’d never seen her so vulnerable, so raw. This was her confronting the man who’d done her wrong. The first one, the one who’d set her on a path of jealousy and suspicion.

“You wanted to make me feel like I was nothing, and for a while I let you. But I don’t want that anymore. I don’t wantyouanymore. But I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to change. And I hope what you did to me happens toyou.” She still had her fists on the statue. “No, I hope it’s a hundred times worse.”

An elderly man gasped. His companion, a woman wearing glasses that looked to be an inch thick, glanced up at the statue in confusion. “Harold, that man has to be eight feet tall. Help the girl.Help her.She shouldn’t be bullied by a man that big.”

“It’s not the girl that’s being bullied,” he muttered, dragging her away.

A real crowd had gathered now, and someone else belted out, “You go, girl!”

Nicole gave the statue another kick. “I hope you get chlamydiaandgonorrhea. I hope you melt into a heap of gooey metal.”

A short guy with a bowl cut and a Panthers jacket stepped forward from the periphery of the crowd and shouted, “I’ll give you gonorrhea, baby!”

Nicole whirled around, her expression feral.

“Who said that?” she snapped, showing plenty of teeth.

The guy turned pale and melted back into the crowd, someone hissing at him to run. With some amount of amusement, Blue saw that he did, heading back toward the parking lots.

It was then she noticed the three uniformed employees rushing toward them. The employees here always looked serene, like people hanging out in their gardens, but the older woman in front looked like she was stepping into battle.

“Ma’am, step away from the statue.”

“There’s a ’possum out here!” Augusta suddenly shouted, waving her arms. “A giant opossum just ran over my feet!” Then everyone was running—not just the people in the club, but several of the bystanders who’d stopped to stare. Blue couldn’t move. She stood there, stock-still, like someone had frozen her, watching as the others raced away. The staff member laid eyes on Blue’s sweatshirt and started toward her, an expression of determination on her face, but then Blue felt a hand wrap around hers, a strong hand with long, capable fingers—a hand she recognized even before she looked up and saw Lee’s starlight eyes.

“Let’s go, Blue.” He sounded so assertive, so sure of himself it almost brought tears to her eyes.

“You’re late,” she said dazedly. “You’reneverlate. I thought you weren’t coming.” To her shock, she felt the beginnings of tears in her eyes.

“I know,” he said. “It couldn’t be avoided. I’ll explain later.”

Dimly, she registered that he was wearing a T-shirt under his open jacket. A graphic T-shirt. One of the old ones from before Adalia had redesigned everything.Do It the Buchanan Way,it said, and her first irrational thought was,God, I’d like to try.

They needed to leave—they should have already left, like the others—but the sight of him here, in that shirt, cracked the rest of her resistance like a candy shell, and God help her, she wanted the treat beneath it. She pulled him to her, lifting onto her toes, even as one of the employees called out, “Ma’am? Ma’am! You, in the pink sweatshirt.”

Lee’s eyes widened with surprise and then lust, the raw wanting that had always run beneath all of their interactions like an invisible river. She kissed him hard, and he speared a hand through her hair and kissed her back, his lips claiming her. In that moment, she wasn’t thinking about who was watching, or the possibility that someone from the group would see. She was only thinking of him. Ofthem.

Someone nearby gasped. “Is this part of the show?” And the next “Ma’am” from the employee was both scandalized and angry. Then Lee was pulling back, looking at her likeshewas the candy. She felt the compulsion to grab his hand and run into the woods, to hide in one of the lean-tos there so they could be alone, but the employees were almost to them now, and if they didn’t want to be caught, there wasn’t time to do anything but…

“Run!” she said, grabbing his hand and doing just that. And Lee, who was usually so buttoned up he’d earned the nickname of Sleeper Agent, ran with her like they were two kids. Someone in the crowd started applauding, but she could hear the arboretum employees shouting at them.

“The first parking lot,” she told Lee in an undertone, and they ran there hand in hand, legs pumping in rhythm, winding through the gathered crowd. The feeling was so freeing, so glorious, she wanted to keep running with him forever, but they got there, gasping, and sure enough, the others were gathered to one side, by a couple of trees that provided nothing in the way of cover. They’d all taken off the bright pink sweatshirts. Why hadn’t anyone told her that was the plan? She could have brought a jacket. The weather was temperate, for February, but not so much so she wanted to walk around in a tank top.

The pulse of annoyance about the sweatshirt barely registered over the beating of blood in her ears—over the pleasure of realizing her hand was still cradled in Lee’s. She glanced up at him, and from the look in his eyes, it was obvious he’d like nothing better than to lead her away from her friends, but he gave her a tight smile and stayed put. She heard again what Harry had told her in the car—he’s only coming because of you.

“I think that went well,” Bear said brightly, glancing back toward the gardens.

“You do?” Lee said flatly, making Blue wonder just how much he’d seen of Nicole’s performance. If he’d seen it all, she was shocked that he was still here, still with her.

Bear’s gaze shifted to them, immediately falling to their linked hands.

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