Get Lucky (7 page)

Chapter Four

London thought for sure the walking tours would take her mind off the second package that had shown up on her front porch Friday night. Marc didn’t seem too concerned by it, which was what she hoped for. Until she figured out who was sending the pictures she wasn’t going to talk about them to anyone. Especially not a stranger. She’d known Marc a week, had incredible sex with him, and unfortunately that still qualified him as a stranger. She didn’t even know what he did for a living.

At least this was her last tour of the weekend. Heading into the lodge, she hung around with some of the guests and enjoyed small talk or tried to appear like she did. Part of her couldn’t wait to get home to a hot bath. The other part of her dreaded returning home, where she knew she would mull over all the pictures sent to her. She had one more activity, dinner at Meryl’s family’s house, then her obligations would be done. Finally breaking away from the guests and letting them continue to chatter among themselves, London couldn’t help glancing around to see if Marc might be nearby. When he wasn’t, she grabbed her coat and headed out.

As the week dragged on, London hoped she would think less about the pictures. Instead they seemed to distract her from almost everything she did. Every night when she got off work and drove home, she half-expected to find another package and blew out a sigh of relief when one wasn’t there.

This had to stop, she told herself after changing into her pajamas and warming up some soup for her supper. If she wasn’t obsessing on the pictures, it was Marc. She slipped the newest silk rose he’d given her in with the others and watered the flowers he’d brought her the previous weekend. Then finishing up her soup, she made quick work of cleaning her kitchen and padded into her bedroom.

Maybe if she could figure out where the pictures came from or who was taking them, she’d quit stressing over them. A different tactic was needed. This whole time she had tried putting the pictures out of her head. It might give her more peace of mind if she gave them her full attention and tried understanding them.

London crawled onto her bed, memories of having sex with Marc flooding her thoughts for a minute. Doing her best to shove him out of her mind, she put the two packages in front of her on the bed and studied them.

“No return address. Same amount of postage,” she mused, focusing on the stamps in the corner of each package. “Both large manila envelopes.”

She flipped the packages over, noting whoever had mailed them had used clear tape instead of licking the glue to secure them. Nothing odd or unusual about how they were mailed to her, though. Other than the one showing up at her doorstep Friday night instead of with the rest of the mail. Had the first package shown up the same way?

“Crap,” London hissed, suddenly wondering if the second package had been delivered while Marc had been there.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want anyone knowing he was there. There really wasn’t anyone to worry about. Other than Meryl, who really was more of a friendly co-worker than a good friend, there wasn’t anyone in London’s life. She wasn’t opposed to having a best friend. There had been times when she’d craved such a person being in her life. Right now would be one of those times. Having someone to talk this over with, brainstorm and try to figure out the meaning behind it all, would be nice.

Her fingers were damp when she dumped the contents of each package out on her bed. The second group of pictures seemed to be more in focus than the first set.

“Why are you doing this?” she wondered, spreading the pictures out on her bed and staring at each one of them.

There were three eight-by-tens in the second package she’d received Friday night. All pictures were in color, one of her mother, one of her father, and the third a picture of the two of them together.

London figured it had been over four years since she’d last seen her mom and dad. She’d been in Chicago, working in a restaurant, and they’d arrived in town for a weekend. Life must have been good for them at the time, because they’d stayed at a nice hotel, taken her out to eat, and not asked for any money. They’d checked out without saying good-bye. London hadn’t batted an eye at that. That was how her parents were. The fact that they’d sought her out, in their eyes, was showing their love and affection. She tried remembering if either of them had hugged her during that visit. She didn’t think they had.

“What’s going on, Mom?” London touched the picture of her mother.

Ruby Brooke was grinning at the camera, as if she knew the picture was being taken. She held a large straw hat to her head, and the small dots of white in each lens of her sunglasses implied a flash had gone off when the shot was taken. Her thick black hair, which London wondered if she dyed, since there wasn’t any gray and she was past fifty, was pulled up under the hat, although several long strands blew free past her shoulders. She looked happy, relaxed, maybe even amused at whoever took the shot.

Jonnie Brooke also faced the camera in the picture of him. He had that same cocky, crooked grin he’d always had. London leaned forward, taking her time studying the picture. There really wasn’t much to see other than her father, his ornery look and stance the same as it was when she was a child, and the stretch of street behind him.

The third picture was taken inside. Her mother and father were in a restaurant, and there were other people in the picture, too. No one was at the table with them, but all tables around them were filled with people eating. Her parents were enjoying a meal, focused on their food, and possibly not aware the shot was taken.

So who would be taking pictures of her parents without them knowing? If it was the police, London doubted they would send her copies and not include a return address. She couldn’t decide if it was better or worse that there wasn’t a note with the second package.

“What have you two done?” she asked the pictures, but then laughed dryly at her question. What hadn’t her parents done?

Jonnie and Ruby Brooke were criminals. They were thieves. They were con artists. Name it and they’d probably done it. When London did the math and figured they were probably fifty-five and fifty-seven years old by now, she had to give them both credit for never doing time. At least not yet. London was twenty-five years old and her parents had run on the wrong side of the law her entire life. Whether those were good odds or bad would depend on who was asked.

“I don’t hate you,” she told the pictures, and wondered why she did.

She and her parents had the best relationship possible considering her parents quite possibly didn’t understand what love was. She didn’t know how many times she’d heard growing up that they probably wouldn’t have stayed together if her father hadn’t knocked her mother up. London could see him now, rocking up on his heels as he informed her that Jonnie Brooke always did the right thing. He would ruffle her hair and tell her never to spend any length of time with anyone who didn’t always do the right thing.

It took her years to understand half of what her father had told her. Probably because it took her a lot fewer years to figure out that her parents were crooks. “I know I held that against you both for a long time.”

She continued touching the pictures, staring at them, and letting memories flood her brain. There had been times when she’d scream at her mother and father, threaten to turn them in to the cops. Most of the time it was the threat she’d use just to get them to buy her something she wanted.

“I really was a brat,” she mused, remembering some of the hateful things she’d screamed at both of them.

Neither one of them had changed. If these pictures were recent, and London guessed they might be, they looked great, both of them happy, obviously still together. Although it had been four years since she’d seen them, they didn’t hold her rebellious growing-up years against her. And neither one of them would qualify as a candidate for Parent of the Year.

There were parents who would come to the lodge, hauling their children along with them, and speak more hatefully to them than her parents ever did to her. Maybe there was a time or two when she’d been left behind, but only because they wouldn’t involve her in any of their business deals. London had slept in cars, searched Dumpsters for food, and worn the same clothes for more days than she could remember. Whenever her parents came back for her, and they always did, it was with kind words.

She didn’t remember a lot of “I love you” being said. Jonnie and Ruby never blessed her with lots of hugs and kisses. But they didn’t yell at her and they always came back. Did that make them better or worse parents than the ones she’d see at the lodge who would bite their kids’ heads off, call them names, and stuff a few bills in their hands and tell them to get lost so their parents could have fun?

London looked at the first group of pictures, then the second group again. The note that accompanied the first group sat to the side, and when she noticed it her reminiscing moments ended. A knot formed in her chest and she suddenly hated that note.

Say good-bye to your mother and father. You’re never going to see them again.

Someone had a lot of nerve telling her she wouldn’t see her parents again.

That was probably the best plan. If she could find her parents, she could talk to them about this. They really needed to know, especially if someone was taking pictures without her mom and dad knowing it. London wouldn’t go as far as to think either of them would protect her or assure her everything would be okay. Neither of them had ever done that with her.

“And how in the hell am I going to find them?” London remembered deciding to search for her parents once when she’d been about twelve.

They’d told her to stay put in a motel room. The room had been paid for through the following few days. She had a six-pack of Coke, several TV dinners, and a bag of cookies to live off of while they were gone. If memory served, London seemed to recall also having some money she’d managed to save up from the times her father had slipped her a dollar bill for some task she’d done. Her parents had told her to stay in the room and not leave. She wasn’t supposed to open the curtains, and no way was she to answer the door.

It was the only time she’d decided to go searching for them. The details of the memory blurred in and out of her thoughts, but it was the thunderstorm that stuck clearly in her mind. She’d looked everywhere for them, never found them, and then couldn’t get back in her room. It was the only time she’d ever broken into a place, and she endured the scrapes on her knees silently, without her parents ever noticing they were there, after she managed to climb in the bathroom window.

London had learned two things that night. One, finding her parents when they took off was an impossible task. And two, breaking and entering was not for her. She’d been terrified, soaked and shaking miserably, and all she’d done was work an old, dilapidated window open, hoist herself to the windowsill, and fall to the bathroom floor. That was when she’d hurt her knees, not trying to get in but after she was in the motel room, when she’d hit the bathroom floor. A life of crime wasn’t for her. She seriously sucked at the very basics.

“And it’s not like I can hire a private detective to find them,” she decided, speaking to the pictures. “Like I can send someone who makes a living out of chasing down criminals after my parents.”

London dragged her fingers through her hair and fell back on her pillows. The pictures remained scattered around her. There was no one to turn to for help with any of this. She couldn’t help herself, either. When it came down to it, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do other than live without knowing why someone was sending her pictures.

*   *   *

Marc rolled over in bed when the phone in the room rang a second time. He fumbled with the receiver, rubbed his eyes, and propped himself up on an elbow.

“Hello,” he grumbled, wondering what time it was.

“You sound good when you first wake up.” London’s soft, sultry tone in his ear brought his dick to full attention.

“I was just dreaming about you,” he said, falling back on his pillows. “And trust me, if it had been anyone else on the other end of the line I probably would have chewed them out for interrupting us.”

Her laughter sounded just as good. “Well, I’m sorry to break up the party. You’ll have to tell me about it sometime,” she added, sounding cheerful and relaxed.

He could see her in his head and knew her well enough after just under two weeks to know no one else was around. Her professional tone was flat, friendly sounding but lacking the sensuality and smooth, sexy sound he was enjoying right now.

“I would love to do more than just tell you about it.” It was an invitation, if she would take the bait. The moment of silence that followed encouraged him. She was thinking about it. “So did you miss me so much you had to call? What time is it anyway?”

“It’s ten o’clock.”

“Oh crap!” Marc sat up and tossed the covers off him.

“I didn’t know you slept this late.”

“I don’t, usually. It was a late night last night.”

“Oh really? What did you do?” she asked.

He’d driven around in town a lot longer than he should have fighting the urge to show up over at her house. “I went out to eat and did a bit of shopping,” he told her, which was also all true. Instead of heading back to the lodge afterward, he’d gone by her house.

“Sounds fun,” she told him, a bit of her cheerful tone fading.

Had she wanted to see him? Did she need him again as much as he wanted her? Their first time fucking had been so damn intense it hardly qualified as friends with benefits and sure as hell outrated a one-night stand. Marc hated admitting he was in a predicament he hadn’t seen coming and wasn’t sure how to play it out properly. It would be too easy to get seriously involved with London, and although giving her space seemed the logical answer, doing it was proving harder than he thought.

“I was alone,” he added, not sure why he told her that but sensing she wanted to hear it.

“Do you like going out by yourself?” she asked.

He’d guessed right. That cheerful, almost flirtatious tone returned in her voice.

“I’d much rather go out with you.” He was at a disadvantage. His brain was still foggy from sleep. If he were more clearheaded he was sure he would give better responses, keep the conversation light, maybe even playful. Instead he was dropping hard-core honesty on her. “I want to see you again,” he added, doing it again. Maybe caffeine would help.

“Sounds great.” Her professional tone—someone was at the counter. “Oh, and there is a delivery here for you. It’s at the front desk and you can pick it up when it’s convenient for you.”

“You won’t bring it up to me?” he asked.

There was a slight pause. They both knew upon request guests could have almost anything brought to their rooms. London had already told him she wouldn’t enter his room. Marc knew he’d just put her on the spot and decided to wait out her hesitation to see what she would say.

“Of course,” she finally conceded. “I’ll bring it up shortly.”

“Give me fifteen minutes. I want to be freshly showered when you get here. Unless of course you’d like to join me and scrub my back.”

He could have sworn she groaned. Smiling as he pictured her facing another guest and trying her damnedest to retain her professional composure, Marc felt no remorse as he stood next to his bed naked and stretched.

“As you wish. Thank you, Marc.” She hung up on him without allowing him time to respond.

He wasn’t sure which sounded better, coming up in fifteen minutes or cleaning his back. Not that he cared. Knowing he’d see London soon put him in a better mood than it should have. Marc grabbed clean clothes and headed for the shower fantasizing about having her in there with him before he even turned on the water.