Lucky Streak (Lucky 2)

“Hey, you’re the best at digging there is. I’m sure I’ll collect.”

“Anytime,” Amber promised, disconnecting the call.

Deep in thought, she pinched the bridge of her nose. King Bobby knew her first name and her former occupation. And after Howard had told everyone she was from L.A., Amber knew Bobby could eventually track her down. But it would take a lot of time, money, patience and a reason for him to waste them all.

Pride was a darn good reason and King Bobby was loaded with it. What did he suspect? And who was he after? If he even sensed that she’d been in on Marshall’s scam…She shivered at the thought.

She pulled out her marriage license and smoothed out the wrinkles on the paper. “Michael Corwin born in Stewart, Massachusetts, residing in Boston,” she read to herself. She bit the inside of her cheek, conjuring up her sexy savior.

Just the thought of him set her body tingling.

Her first priority, as always, was her father and keeping him safe. She needed to settle him into another nursing home immediately.

When she’d chosen his current home, she’d also strongly considered another residence that was as clean, safe…and affordable. She’d move him there. And she’d make sure that the only visitors allowed would be herself and her friend Paul.

Paul had lived in the house next door to her grandparents when she’d lived with them as a teen and they’d been best friends ever since, keeping in touch over the years. He was like the brother she’d never had and he’d be more than willing to take care of her father for her. Most important, she could trust him to keep her whereabouts a secret.

With the cash resources she had saved and allocated for her father’s immediate care, Paul would be able to handle getting her dad settled while she got herself out of town.

Once she was safely on a plane to Boston, she’d have plenty of time to figure out how to handle Mike.

SHE’D BE BACK. It was only a matter of time, Marshall thought. Not because Amber loved the life the way he did, but because they were a team. She’d been raised at her father’s knee and she’d learned all the tricks of the trade, but she had something extra. She’d been blessed with a memory as gorgeous as the rest of her.

And she was his. Oh, sure, she’d married that cop and at first that pissed Marshall off. But he realized she needed a wake-up call. She’d done the same thing once before, gone to live her life in L.A., but she’d come back.

To him.

As soon as she needed someone to lean on, she returned to Marshall. She’d be back again when that stupid, straight-as-an-arrow cop broke her heart. And he’d be waiting with open arms.

CHAPTER FOUR

COURT HAD BEEN a breeze thanks to a green public defender straight out of law school. The guy didn’t know what he was doing, which meant Mike got out in time for lunch. He headed directly to the café near the station to meet his cousin Derek, who’d called early this morning, needing to talk.

Mike had a gut feeling his father, Edward, was causing trouble again, in one of his unpredictable irrational attempts to protect the family from the curse. It didn’t seem to matter that the curse had originated centuries ago and those who had perpetuated its belief were no longer wreaking havoc in his hometown.

The Perkins family had settled on the coast and made their money in real estate and shipping. Just recently, Mary Perkins, the descendant of the original so-called witch who had placed the curse on the Corwin family during the era of the Salem witch trials, was in jail for blackmail, conspiracy and a whole host of other crimes. Meanwhile, her granddaughter and namesake was in a mental institution until she was deemed fit to stand trial for arson. She’d burned down the Wave, a nightclub that had been an institution in the town of Perkins. Both women had used the Corwin curse to hold on to power in the town. With them out of commission, the younger Corwin generation, Mike, twenty-seven, Jason, twenty-six and Derek, thirty-two, hoped the old stories would die out. Unfortunately, their fathers wouldn’t let it. The older generation still believed in the curse.

Mike’s father most of all. Or at least, he was the one who’d taken fear of it to the most extreme.

After Mike’s experience in Vegas with Amber—meeting and marrying, half convincing himself he could have something special with this woman, a stranger, because of some connection he’d felt, only to lose both her and his winnings—he could almost begin to see why his father believed in such nonsense.

Almost.

He arrived at the café to find Derek already there. The cousins were similar in looks, with dark hair, but Derek kept his short while Mike avoided the barber’s chair.

“Hey, cousin, how’s life treating you?” Mike asked, sliding into the plastic-cushioned booth across from Derek.

“Pretty damn good considering.” Derek grinned, the same smile he’d been sporting since marrying his high-school sweetheart, Gabrielle Donovan.

“Considering the curse?” Mike asked knowingly.

Unlike Mike, who just didn’t deal with the curse, Derek had openly avoided it, breaking up with Gabrielle before college to avoid the fate of the rest of the Corwin men. Later, he’d gotten another woman pregnant, married her hoping to have a family and a child without invoking the curse because there’d been no love involved. The marriage had failed anyway. And Gabrielle, a successful author, had returned to prove to Mike’s stubborn cousin there was no such thing as a curse—just coincidence and bad choices. She was still proving it, every day of their almost year-long marriage. Though Derek was wary, he was too much in love to live without her.

Derek leaned forward on the table. “Considering your father is making us insane.”

“Can I take your orders?” a waitress asked, interrupting at just the right—or wrong—moment.

Derek shut his menu and ordered a hamburger and fries.