Gettin' Lucky (Love and Laughter) Read Online Free PDF

Why, the lying, conniving, sleazy little—”
    “Daddy! Phone!”
    Lucky’s gaze darted to the open doorway behind him.
    Daddy . This mega babe was a dad?
    “Daaadeee!” The shrill voice stretched each syllable.
    “I’ll be right there.” A frown creased his features. “I would really like to ask you a few more questions, Miss...I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”
    “Lucky. Lucky Myers.”
    “Lucky?”
    “It’s a nickname. Lucretia...Lucky.”
    Another shrill “Daddy!” from inside and he said, “Please. Come in a few minutes while I take this call, then we’ll talk.”
    He led her inside the house, into a large room. “You can wait here in the library.”
    Old movie posters were plastered on the dark-paneled walls. There was Giant, East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, Key Largo and at least a dozen others. They covered every spare inch not lined with book shelves. An antique movie projector sat on top of the book shelf nearest her.
    “Wow,” she breathed. “Does that work?”
    “Supposedly.”
    “You don’t know?”
    “I’ve only been back a few months, and watching old movies hasn’t been on the top of my list.”
    “Where were you before?”
    “Houston.”
    “Home?”
    “No” he said a little too sharply and she glanced up to see a strange light in his ocean eyes. “This is home.”
    She smiled. “It feels like a home. Warm, cozy, though it’s bigger than the entire first floor of my apartment building.”
    “And where is that?”
    “Houston, too. But it’s not much of a home. Not yet, anyway. But then six months isn’t really enough time to get settled. I’m originally from Chicago, born and bred.” She blinked at the sudden burning in her eyes and sought a distraction. Her gaze went to a glass cabinet sitting in one corner. Inside sat a cowboy hat and a pair of boots.
    “A shrine to the great James Dean,” he said as if reading her thoughts. “Rumor has it he wore those in the movie Giant.”
    “You’re kidding?”
    He shook his head. “My dad swears it.” When her gaze went to the movie projector and the rows of old movie reels, he added, “Those are the real thing, too.”
    “This is great.” She trailed her hand over the projector.
    “You like old movies?”
    “Old, new. I like them all.”
    “A woman after my dad’s heart.”
    A woman after your heart, she thought, then quickly discarded the notion. A lifetime and she hadn’t managed to win anyone’s heart. What could she possibly accomplish in the thirty or so minutes before she’d be on her way back to Houston? She was the invisible, flat-chested woman and he was Playgirl’ s stud of the month. They were on opposite sides of the universe. There was no connection. Nothing.
    He smiled, her heart shifted and she averted her gaze lest she salivate right then and there.
    “So what about you?” she asked. “You like old movies?”
    He shook his head. “I’m not much of a movie buff. In fact, I’ve been after Dad to do away with some of this stuff, but he’s so stubborn.”
    “But it’s great—”
    “Daddy! Grandmother’s on the phone!”
    “Five minutes,” he promised Lucky as he headed out of the room. The way her hormones were chanting, she knew they’d be the five longest minutes of her life.

3
    “I T’S ABOUT TIME, Daddy.” Bernadette Willemina Grant stood in Tyler’s study, one hand planted on her hip, the telephone receiver clutched in her other. His twelve-year-old daughter wore a nearly threadbare T-shirt, faded jeans and large black rubber boots that crept halfway up her thighs. Helen would have his hide for sure.
    He sat down at his desk and tried not to smile. “What happened to the dress Mabel put out for you this morning?”
    “Daddy,” she groaned, giving him a what-horse-just-walloped-you-in-the-head? look. “Jed’s waiting for me. I’m helping him clean out Liz’s stall.”
    “So you’re all done with your schoolwork and piano