Sheer Luck
Authors: Kelly Moran
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual
persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or
locales, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Kelly Moran
All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Smashwords eBook Edition
ISBN: 9781311083562
Cover Art by Kelly Moran, Images courtesy of
Dollar Photo Club
Published in the United States of America
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Covington Cove
Series
Phantoms
Trilogy
Single Titles
Kelly Moran
About the Book:
Declan O’Leary’s family is cursed. For the
past one-hundred years, bad things happen if they fall in love. So
Declan lives his life one woman at a time. Until he meets Lily
Durand and he finds himself wishing for a forever that can never
be. Yet their fate encounter and one week of bliss just might be
enough to turn his luck around.
T
he first time I
saw her was in late summer. St. Louis had been at the tail end of a
blistering heat wave, so hot the asphalt radiated like a cast iron
skillet and merely blinking was enough to land you in the hospital
from too much exertion. She was sitting on a bench in the park next
to the library, a book in her hand and back to me. I’d had my
eight-year-old nephew Liam with me. I’d thought to let him run
through the wading pool before we headed back to my apartment after
our lunch. One look at her and she’d stopped me dead in my
tracks.
I’m still not entirely sure if it had been
her dark hair trying to break free of the orderly knot at the back
of her head, the pencil skirt and white blouse that had made her
seem so sophisticated, or the shamrock tattoo on her elegant nape
that had first drawn my attention. Probably the ink. Clovers had
been a bone of contention in my family since my great-grandfather
had thrust us into our one-hundred year curse. Irish or not, myth
or not, the shamrock was not a lucky charm in the O’Leary clan.
Regardless of what had drawn me to her, the
sizzle in my gut and pull on my balls had been something akin to
impact. Sending my nephew ahead to the playground within sight, I’d
rounded the bench and said something brilliant like, “Hot one
outside today.”
Which was interesting because beauty didn’t
typically strike me stupid. I’d had women before, had basked in
their loveliness, had taken many to bed. All had been left
satisfied—screaming my name, mewing their post-coital pleasure,
panting for breath...and wishing for more. That’s not arrogance,
it’s fact. Due to my family’s...bad luck, picket fences and ever
afters would never be in the cards. So, I’d learned long ago to
take—and give—pleasure and happiness where I could. Practice made
perfect. I was a master at foreplay, verbal or otherwise. I did not
get tongue-tied or flustered in a female’s presence.
She’d glanced up from her book and had
struck me blind with a pair of cerulean blue eyes. Framed by thick
black lashes, they were the kind of eyes that made a man notice
that particular feature before all others. Even an ass like myself
had been trapped by them for what seemed a good hundred years
before I’d taken in her slight curves, full breasts, and long
holy-hell legs. Fantasy after fantasy had pummeled my brain as I
devoured her.
I said I was an ass.
With a tilt of her head, those bow-shaped
lips of hers had started moving. It had taken concentration, but
I’d focused on what she’d said. And that had proved fruitless
because whatever wonderful insight had drifted from her perfect
mouth had been spoken in another language. French, I believe.
My gaze had dipped to the book in her lap.
Wuthering Heights
. I should’ve lost interest at that point.
Any woman who read Bronte for fun was dangerous. Alas, it had only
peaked my curiosity. The edition had been in English. Which meant
she’d been trying to brush me off by responding in French.
With a dip of my chin and smile tugging my
mouth, I’d said, “Have it your way,
a mo rún
.” Irish
Translation: my secret. I hadn’t planned on giving up. I’d figured
I’d let Liam cool down in the pool and swing back that way to see
her again. Much to my errant discontent, she’d been gone when we’d
returned.
To say she’d crossed my mind in the ensuing
months would be like saying the Atlantic Ocean was a puddle. I’d
drifted to the same park countless times and had never spotted her
there again.
One week before Christmas, however, I’d just
stepped out of the office building where I worked after a staff
meeting I’d wished I’d called in sick for, and there she’d been.
Across the street from the newspaper headquarters, she’d worn a red
peacoat, white scarf, and black pants as she walked with purpose on
the sidewalk. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders and
trailed halfway down her back. In her hand had been a to-go cup of
coffee from an independent bean house I loved. I’d done a
double—and then a triple—take, not believing it had been her.
Frozen in my spot, I’d stared as she’d gotten farther and farther
away.
Then, she’d turned her head, as if someone
had called her name. Her blue gaze scanned the area, landed on me,
and stalled. The breath left my lungs in a whoosh, expelling frost
before my face that had been carried away by a bitter wind. She’d
tilted her head, much like she’d done a few months prior, and
smiled.
Then, she was gone. Again.
Kicked into gear, I’d crossed the busy
street, nearly gotten myself killed in traffic, and chased after
her for several blocks. With no sign of her, I’d ventured into the
coffee house to ask around and had received not one stitch of
information. I’d even visited the shop every day for a week at the
same time each morning, and nothing.
A few weeks later, while attending the
mayor’s annual New Year’s Eve party at the St. Louis Art Museum on
Fine Arts Drive, champagne halfway to my mouth and five minutes
until midnight, I’d glanced across the crowded room. And saw her.
Alone in a corner, she had on a strapless emerald dress that
enhanced her hourglass curves and dipped low enough in the front to
draw my attention from her eyes to the creamy white swell of her
breasts. Her hair had been loosely pinned off her neck in some
elaborate feminine style.
Champagne flute in her hand, a wistful,
distant smile on her lips, her gaze drifted from the people dancing
to the caterer’s table and, finally, to me. For a moment, her brows
arched, as if she’d realized running into each other had become an
epidemic, too. Slowly, her mouth widened into a grin that had me
dizzy and grappling for stable ground.
One of the men I’d been chatting with tapped
my shoulder to say his goodbyes, and I’d reluctantly torn my gaze
from her to extend courtesy. I’d shaken the banker’s hand as the
crowd started counting down the new year.