Lucky Charm (Lucky 1)

“It’s going to get worse,” Gabrielle said. “There’s one more part of this plan.” What she found fascinating was that Mary Perkins was so predictable that they were able to play this out exactly as they’d hoped.

Gabrielle picked up her phone and dialed. “Richard?” she whispered to her best friend’s fiancé. “It’s time,” Gabrielle said softly, and flipped her phone shut.

A few minutes later, the telephone behind the bar rang. George answered, then called out to the crowd. “Ms. Lawson?” the bartender called out to Kayla.

She turned. “Yes?”

“Phone call for you.”

Kayla shook her head. “Take a message, please?”

George spoke to the person on the other end of the phone, then called out, “It’s Mr. Richard Stern. He says he’s a personal friend of Gabrielle’s and he’d be happy to add his insights to your project. His fiancée, Sharon Merchant, is Gabrielle’s best friend. Isn’t that right, Gabrielle?” George asked her.

“It is. Sharon and I went to high school together, so you’ll want to interview them,” Gabrielle said to Kayla. “Besides, Richard is running for mayor. People will be interested in hearing from him, too.”

Beside her, Derek groaned. “Boy, when you plan, you plan big.”

Gabrielle didn’t meet his gaze.

Kayla glanced at her appointment book. “Tell him he can have 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning,” she called to George.

The older man gave her a thumbs-up and relayed the message.

Mary Perkins’s face turned beet red at the conversation shooting around the bar.

“I wasn’t keeping the plan from you.” Gabrielle pretended to work as she spoke to Derek. She lifted her laptop open and hit the power button. “If you’d been around yesterday, I’d have filled you in. And I would have done it last night, but you insisted I try on my newest purchase, and after that, you couldn’t keep your hands off me,” she said, deliberately reminding him of how good things had been between them.

The thought turned her insides soft, and despite the crowd and the intense scene playing around them, desire thrummed low in her belly. With Derek behind her, his body heat surrounding her, the yearning only grew.

“I can’t keep my hands off you now,” he said, his voice low in her ear.

Meanwhile, obviously feeling impotent, Mary glared first at Kayla, then unmistakably at the source of all the media attention—Gabrielle—before storming out of the Wave, extremely unhappy at being ignored.

Gabrielle shivered. “I think she left frost in her wake,” she murmured.

Derek’s hand moved from the chair to Gabrielle’s back in a warm, protective gesture. “I’m more worried about what she’s going to do to get even.”

DONALD WATSON, EDITOR-IN-chief of the Journal, the leading newspaper in both Perkins and Stewart, stared at the photograph in front of him in disbelief. Even if he hadn’t been forewarned and asked not to run this picture, there was no way he could print it, anyway. He was in charge of a newspaper, not a porn magazine.

When Richard Stern had approached him off the record and asked to be notified if any photographs of his future wife passed Donald’s desk, he’d agreed. Hell, he’d have endorsed Stern if he wasn’t afraid of Mary Perkins’s wrath.

The favor might be off the record, but Donald was a newspaperman and unable to contain his curiosity. He’d done his research. Donald glanced at the photo and shook his head. Poor woman. To be so violated at such a young age. At least she’d had the guts to send the guy who’d drugged and photographed her to jail.

But, then, who’d sent the photograph in an unmarked envelope to the newspaper? And how had they gotten their hands on police evidence?

Donald had earned the editor-in-chief position the old-fashioned way. He’d started sweeping floors during high school and worked his way up, earning the trust of the editor-in-chief before him. Along the way, he’d built up some good friends in important places. Even small-town papers had to get their scoops.

Another glance at the photograph, and he decided to call his “friend” who worked the evidence room at the police station. “Hey, Rob, I’m calling in that favor.” Two months ago, he’d covered for Rob with his wife, claiming Rob had been at their weekly poker game when, in fact, he’d been with his mistress.

He asked Rob if anything was missing from the Evidence Room and Rob began to stutter before saying no. Since that was his poker tell, Donald knew the man was lying.

“What kind of trouble are you in, buddy?” Rob wasn’t just a cheater, he was a gambler, and he often owed more than he had on hand.

Five minutes later, Donald had his answer. He also had, thanks to Rob, the evidence Richard Stern needed to take down his mayoral opponent.

AFTER JULIETTE’S INTERVIEW, Hank Corwin was granted his turn. Kayla sat across from him at the Wave and waited as they did a sound check on Derek’s father.

Derek couldn’t help but laugh. Hank’s tune about discussing the curse in public had certainly changed. Not his views on the curse, those he expressed in detail, reminding the world—and Derek—how tragedy had befallen every Corwin man who fell in love.