Page 80 of Bad Luck Club

She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could get anything out, Dottie had whisked away to talk to another customer, leaving her with the beer she hadn’t asked for, and even more confusion.

She pulled away from the bar, about to return to her seat, when Bear approached her.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he said with a warm smile.

Heart thumping in her chest, she said, “I’m not sure they’re worth it.”

“I’ll be the judge of that, thank you.”

Pressing her thumb and forefinger together in a mudra, something that always comforted her, she forced herself to say, “Bear. I don’t think Lee’s coming back. He says he’s done with the club, and I believe him. Speaking hypothetically, if we ended up dating…would I have to leave the Bad Luck Club?”

His eyes were as warm as honey as he looked at her. “I didn’t want to tell you in front of the others, but the luau’s your going-away party, Blueberry.”

She almost dropped the full beer in her hand. “What?” she squawked. “Did Augusta see—”

He lifted a hand. “This has nothing to do with Lee.” He tilted his head. “Or maybe it does. Because you’ve grown a lot in the past couple of weeks. You’re not afraid of being angry anymore. Of expressing yourself. Of asking for help. Of standing up for what you believe in. It hasn’t escaped me that you’ve done all of the challenges you once refused to do. You don’t need the club anymore, Blue. Your only challenge this week is to find joy. That’s what I want for you.”

“But Bear, I need…” She was going to say she needed him, because she did. She needed the Cluster, and the random loaves of banana bread and muffins, and Ruby running wild. She needed Bear’s fond but grumpy banter with Cal. She needed this family she’d found, since the one she’d belonged to had deserted her.

“Last I checked, I’m not going anywhere. And I haven’t seen any signs that indicate otherwise. Thereareusually signs, you know,” he added conversationally. “My cousin Maury had an owl trailing him for a week before he dropped dead of a heart attack.”

She smiled at him, her fear dissipating slightly. “Don’t get me started on owls.”

Dottie chuckled behind the bar. Blue wouldn’t have put it past her to slide half a dozen cups of tea across the counter in the hopes of getting a new, better reading for Blue. But instead she poured something into a pint glass and then slid it across the counter to Bear.

“This is what you need,” she said with a wink.

He held eye contact with Dottie as he tried it, probably something to do with his superstition that only someone courting bad luck would look away while toasting, then grinned. “Well, what do you know, you’re right.”

And suddenly it seemed like everything would be okay.

Whatever happened in Greenville.

* * *

“I like you,” the gallery owner said. She was a handsome woman with a blunt black bob and oversized wire-rimmed glasses. “I’ll take four of the octopuses, see how they do. It’s not the kind of thing we usually carry, mind, so we’ll need to take a larger percentage of the proceeds.”

They’d only been in the meeting for three and a half minutes—Blue had checked—so that seemed like a win. She was about to say so when Lee cleared his throat.

In the car, he’d been nothing but polite for the hour-and-fifteen-minute drive.Maddeninglypolite. Because even when Lee was sweet, there was a hint of grump to him. Somehow it made him more balanced. It made himhim. It meant if he complimented you, he really meant it. But polite? That wasn’t him. Not unless he was selling something. The fact that he had been that way with her suggested he really was done with this dance they’d been doing. But the man sitting beside her in this meeting was a different beast. This was salesman Lee, only the product he was pushing washer.

It made her hot in a way she hadn’t expected.

“We have other offers,” he said firmly.

Blue had it on the edge of her tongue to insist that wasn’t true, but he gave her a look that reminded her of her dwindling bank account.

“In the last show Blue participated in, the Asheville Art Display, she sold five in one night.” He glanced around, taking stock of the space. “You have high ceilings. You can hang her work from the exposed rafters while you show paintings on the walls. You get the advantage of being one of the first galleries to feature her art, without having to relinquish any space. I’d say you should take a smaller percentage, if anything.”

“Are you an art agent?” the woman asked excitedly, not the least bit offended.

“No, I’m Adalia’s brother. Lee Buchanan.”

If anything, the gallery owner looked more interested. As if she hadn’t heard the no, she said, “Did you discover Adalia as well?”

He glanced at Blue, his lips tipping into the slightest smile, then said, “I guess I did discover her, thirty years ago when my parents came home from the hospital with what I thought was a shrunken old man. But other than that, I’d say she did a good job of discovering herself.”

Laughter spurted out of Blue, and Lee’s lips tipped up again. He started laughing too, a great gust of it that made her laugh harder.

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