Getting Lucky Read Online Free PDF Page A

equilibrium, trying to look at the situation without all the emotion that had her blood churning. It took her a while, but her pulse finally began to settle down.
    Then the pounding on her door commenced. Lily jerked and to her disgust made a sound like a startled screech owl. Popping off the bed, she faced the closed door with her hands fisted on her hips, all her high-minded promises forgotten as her heart once again pounded double time. “Go away!”
    “Open up, Lily. I want to talk to you.”
    “Oh, well, then,” she muttered. “Let me just trot right over and let you in. Your wishes make all the difference in the world.”
    “I heard that.” He had the effrontery to sound amused. But his good humor apparently didn’t last. He thumped the portal. “Open the damn door.”
    She crossed the room in several angry strides, ripped the door open, and stared up in annoyance at his tanned face. “Are you incapable of completing one lousy sentence without cursing?”
    He blinked, then to her surprise gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry,” he rumbled in that deep voice. “I’ve been a soldier so long I sometimes forget that conversations are more refined in the civilian world. I’ll try to do better.” Then he seemed to recall he was conversing with the enemy. He stepped into the room, forcing her to take a step back before she caught herself and stood her ground. “But that’s not why I’m here,” he said. “Tell me how you met my sister.”
    He was back to being his imperious, give-me-the-facts-and-give-’em-to-me- now self, and Lily’s knee-jerk reaction was to invite him to kiss her rosy red cheeks. Recalling she’d already done that, however, sent blood hot enough to blister rushing through her veins—particularly when she thought of his response. A better idea would be to get a handle on this anger once and for all. So she took a deep breath, eased it out, and told him the truth. “We met at a yoga class.”
    “Where?”
    “At Headlands, over on Harbor Drive in Dana Point.”
    “And who joined the class first?” He snapped out his questions for all the world as if he were a drill instructor and she his raw recruit. “You, or Glynnis?”
    “Glynnis,” she said through her teeth.
    He looked down at her as if she’d just confirmed his lowest suspicion. “Uh- huh .”
    “What do you mean, uh-huh ?” As if it took a wizard to see where this was going. Her back went ramrod straight. “I lived about a mile away at the time, between San Juan Capistrano and Dana Point. Glynnis is the one who travelled out of her way to attend that particular class. Does your paranoia know no bounds ?”
    “Well, let me see,” he said, looking down at her. “A thirtysomething woman with no visible means of support just happens to join the same yoga class as my very wealthy twenty-four-year-old sister—and the next thing we know, she’s moved right in with her.” He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah, sounds paranoid to me, all right. The two of you having so much in common, and all.”
    “I’ve told you I’m paying rent! Your ‘very wealthy sister’ is flat broke half the time, and this has been a way for both of us to benefit until I find a new place! Besides, you’ve known me one day! What makes you just assume I don’t support myself?”
    “You’re right, that remains to be seen. But today’s a workday, lollipop, and as far as I can see, you’ve gotten yourself all dolled up to lounge around the house.” His cool, gray gaze did a fast slide over her before coming back to meet her own. “But, hey, if you’re subsidizing Glynnis’s trust fund, there’s an easy enough way to prove it, isn’t there? Show me a canceled check.”
    Oh, swell. Lily’s heart sank. “The bank doesn’t return my canceled checks. I can request photocopies, but it might take a day or two.”
    “I just bet it will.”
    Itching for the first time in her life to strike a person, she closed the distance separating them.