Page 11 of Ms. Fortune
“I ran into a bit of bad—”
“Luck.”
I blinked in surprise when Risky finished my sentence for me. I saw him smirk out of the corner of my eye.
“I’ve noticed that’s your default explanation for everything that goes wrong. Big or small. It’s nothing more than luck. Somehow, the power going out and someone taking a shot at you are equally unlucky.” He turned his head slightly to give me a pensive look. “I think your perception might be off.”
I laughed for real this time and held up my hand and started ticking things off on my fingers. “I was born to parents who act like they’re on perpetual spring break. The first time my grandpa tried to teach me to ride a bike, I broke my arm. On my first day of school, I got attacked by a loose dog and ended up needing twenty stitches. The first time I went camping, I fell into a patch of poison oak and nearly died from an allergic reaction. I got lost in a blizzard when I was ten and had the state’s search andrescue teams out looking for me. I thought it would be fun to join a sport in middle school. I played one game of soccer and left the game with a broken nose. I got this truck for my birthday when I was sixteen. Thank God my granddad knew I needed a tank because the first time I drove it without him supervising from the passenger seat, I ended up in a multi-car pileup on the pass. And don’t get me started on my love life.” Because that was where things had really turned into a train wreck. The situation with Baker had been enough to turn me off of dating for the rest of my life.
“But I want to ask about your love life. I’m curious if there’s anyone you can think of who might want to take a shot at you.”
I frowned and shifted on the hard seat uncomfortably. “You don’t think it was a wayward hunter?”
He gave me a look that indicated I shouldn’t ask dumb questions that I already knew the answer to.
“I only have one ex capable of hurting someone. But his target was never me. It was himself.” I shuddered as memories of the bloody night broke free from the chains I’d kept wrapped around them. “He’s no longer a threat to anyone. He died.”
He’d told me he couldn’t live without me after years of isolating and controlling me. My biggest romantic failure to date was mistaking obsession for love. Something I’d sworn I’d never do after watching my parents’ ridiculous relationship all my life.
“He’s the reason I didn’t come home right after college. I was worried that if I left, he would do something drastic.” So, I stayed, and something awful happened anyway.
“Let me guess.” Risky’s voice was low, but not pitying or consolatory. “You attribute how things went down with that guy as part of your endless run of bad luck as well?”
I lifted a shoulder and let it fall in a careless shrug. “Meeting him certainly wasn’t lucky. Not like meeting you. You came along at the exact right time, Declan Risk.”
He snorted. “I’ve heard that once before.”
I rotated my sore ankle and asked, “Oh, really? Who else told you that? Did someone else find you wandering alongside the road and pick you up? Do you make a habit of imitating a stray dog?”
No one could resist those hypnotic eyes of his. They very much gave sad puppy when he wanted them to.
“She didn’t find me alongside the road. She found me at an abandoned meth lab when I was five or six. Not sure which one of my parents had left me behind after they traded me for a fix, but I guess it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. My mentor swooped in and took me into her home before anything unsavory happened to me. She spent years making sure I learned everything I needed to know. She told me I came along at the perfect time. The person who worked for her before me was thinking about quitting. He got tired of doing things he couldn’t tell anyone outside of the business about. I was sent to school, given a mostly normal home, and trained step by step to fill a certain invaluable role in my former boss’s business. I was there to take over when he left to start a new life with the woman he had fallen in love with. The timing was perfect. Just like the day we met.”
It was the first time I’d heard him speak so much and so glowingly of anyone or anything. I felt like I’d barely scratched the surface of whatever was brewing under his attractive facade.
“She taught you everything, but changing a fuse and how to stop a running toilet weren’t on the list?” I was just trying to tease him and lighten the heavy atmosphere. I wasn’t ready for his response or the way it sent chills rolling down my spine.
“No. But being able to tell the difference between how a shotgun and a handgun sounds when fired was. That’s how I know it wasn’t a lost hunter. Who else might have a score to settle with you, Lucky?”
I was taken aback by the matter-of-fact way he’d dropped that information. While my brain tried to process all he’d revealed, I stammered, “I don’t know. Maybe an upset guest. There’ve been a few. The guy I hired to handle maintenance before you came along was fired because he kept disappearing during his shift. He only worked for me for a few weeks though.”
I shifted on the seat to stop my butt from going numb and tapped my fingers on my thigh as I tried to think of who I might’ve pissed off recently.
“There’s always a real estate developer hounding me about selling the property. But there are four or five of them competing. I don’t see how they would benefit if something happened to me.”
“Who gets the lodge if you aren’t in the picture?”
I shivered at the cold-blooded way he’d asked the question. “My parents. Well, my dad, specifically.”
If I had anyone in my life who loved the lodge half as much as I did, I would give it to them instead. Since that wasn’t the case, my parents were the default.
I held up a hand before he could speculate further. “My parents barely remember I’m alive most days. They don’t have the capacity or wherewithal to try to harm me.”
He grunted again and gave me some serious side-eye. “You’d be surprised how cunning and capable people can be when money is a motivating factor. Give me a list of the developers who have approached you. Put them in order of who’s been the most insistent and pushy.”
I turned to stare at him. A million questions ran through my mind. The loudest one screaming for attention was,Who is this man I brought into my home and business? And why does he suddenly seem so scary?
“You said you used to fix things before coming to work for me. What does that mean exactly?” I tried to keep my voice calmand not let on that I was having an existential crisis because of him.
