Lucky (15 page)

This too was a valley, with the same sky and stars, but it felt like another world. No pall of coal dust hovered in the air. No trees marred the view of the horizon or of the sky above them. This city was alive and thriving from the money that built it, while Cradle Creek was a town dying on coal.

Behind them, the screech of brakes being applied and the scent of burning rubber made everyone turn to look, expecting to witness an accident.

Lucky saw the car careening through the parked vehicles in the driveway, scattering people on foot in all directions.

“Good grief,” Lucky muttered to herself and looked for Nick to make certain that he was safely out of harm’s way. It was because she sought him out first that she did not
see the man’s face or the gun he aimed out the window toward her.

The sound of squealing tires was startling. And the first thing that shot through Nick’s mind was the bomb that had been in his car, and Detective Will Arnold’s warning about Charlie Sams. Instinctively, Nick spun and started to run. There was no earthly reason for him to assume anyone was in danger other than the driver who seemed to be out of control, yet the moment he’d heard the screech of brakes, a sense of doom hit him full force. His first instinct had been to get to Lucky.

He was halfway across the lane, only yards from the bumper of the speeding car, when he saw the gun aimed at her.

“No!” he shouted, “Lucky! Look out!”

He pointed. The car was now barely cruising by, obviously giving the shooter time for a clear shot. Fear lent momentum to his leap as his feet left the ground, clearing the curb and taking her down with him in a running tackle.

His warning was as frightening as the terror she saw on his face. From the corner of her eye, she saw the car slowing down and then the gun. The impact of Nick’s body as he took her down with him upon the grass came before she had time to brace herself for the blow.

Shots rang out in rapid succession. Grass and dirt splattered in her face as she fell backward, screaming. Then the ground came up with shattering force, knocking the breath from her body, and momentarily blinding her to anything but the feel of Nick lying across her. So heavy. Too still.

Struggling with the melting blackness of unconsciousness, she pushed halfheartedly at Nick’s shoulders and tried to move. But he didn’t budge, and it was only then that she realized his shout of warning was the last word she’d heard him speak.

She had a vague impression of the taillights of a car as it sped from the site. Of hearing people’s screams and shouts of fear. Of sirens wailing far off in the distance. But the reality of what had happened was not with her. All she knew was that Nick hadn’t moved.

She held him, certain that any moment he’d raise his head and smile down at her with that go-to-hell grin and make it all right. But he didn’t, and she couldn’t roll him off of her body. People’s faces began to appear above them in a blinding blur.

And when Lucky lifted her arms from around his neck and stared up at the palms of her hands, she started to scream. Over and over. In long, hair-raising shrieks of despair. Nick’s blood was all over her…and all over him.

T
he room was dark, with no other light but the beeping monitors that were connected to Nick. Lucky sat at his bedside, her eyes wide and glazed with horror, living through a replay of the last few hours that kept running over and over within her mind. She stared without wavering at his face, ignoring the tubes and needles poking into his lifeless body, because to acknowledge they were there was to admit the tenuous hold Nick had on life.

And while she watched the face of the man who’d saved her life, she wondered why it had mattered so much to withhold from him the little she had to give.

“Please, Nick…be well. I promise you it will be different.”

But the only one who heard was the nurse hovering on the other side of his bed, quietly checking his condition and making notes on his chart, while Lucky covered his
fingers with the palm of her hand, needing the contact of his flesh to assure herself that he still lived.

Lucky kept telling herself that this wasn’t real. That what had happened a few hours ago was nothing more than a bad dream from which she would wake just as soon as the alarm went off.

But when an alarm did sound, it wasn’t a call to awaken. What was happening within Nick’s room was all too real. She jerked in reflex to the noise, then jumped to her feet as the line on the monitor registering Nick’s pulse went flat.

“Oh, God! Oh, no!” she said, as the nurse dropped her charts and frantically started searching for his pulse.

Before Lucky could think to move, a bevy of people in uniform came into the room pushing carts and machines. University Medical Center was on the job.

“You’ll have to wait outside,” someone said, and all but pushed Lucky from the room. Seconds later, doctors rushed past her. She watched as the door swung shut behind them, leaving her alone outside in the hall.

“No, Nick, No! Fight, damn you, fight!” Then her voice gave out and her legs went weak. She leaned her head against the wall and covered her face, her last plea little more than a whisper. “Please don’t die! If you do, you’ll never know that you were winning the game between us.”

Her cry echoed down the hall. Manny heard it as he got out of the elevator. Fear spiked the adrenaline racing through his body as he ran toward the sound of her voice. When he touched her shoulder, she spun around, and he saw that all the life had gone out of her eyes. Seconds later she collapsed in his arms.

As fate would have it, Paul Chenault’s first glimpse of the woman who’d stolen Nick’s heart was in the arms of another man. Although he knew of her existence, their first meeting was not as he’d hoped or planned. Her beauty was as striking as Nick had alluded to, but he wasn’t prepared for the sight of his son’s blood on her dress, or the way she was clutching Manny.

His first thought was that he was too late. Cubby pushed the wheelchair as swiftly as good sense allowed, but it was not fast enough for Paul. As they came to a stop, it took everything he had just to ask.

“Manny! Tell me! Is Nick…?”

Lucky lifted her head from Manny’s shoulder and shuddered. The voice was so like Nick’s that for a moment, she couldn’t speak. And then she saw the silver-gray hair, and the man whose mobility had gone from feet to wheels, and knew that he must be Nick’s father, Paul Chenault.

She had put off Nick’s requests to meet his father because it seemed an affirmation of something between them that had yet to be acknowledged. And now that the meeting was here, everything she’d considered of importance faded in comparison to the fact that Nick might be dying. Shame overwhelmed her as she was forced to face the fact that this man’s son was in danger because he’d taken a bullet meant for her.

Lucky turned away, hiding her face on Manny’s chest, for the moment unable to face him.

“No…no, Mr. Chenault. We don’t know anything. He just…they only went in a moment ago,” Manny said.

Paul went weak with relief. Then frustration set in.
“Damn these legs. Damn these wheels.” Paul hit his knees with doubled-up fists, but did himself no harm. He couldn’t feel the blows he was raining upon his legs. “I should have been there. It should have been me.”

Without thinking, Lucky went from Manny’s arms to Paul’s wheelchair at her knees. She grabbed the old man’s hands and held his wrists, trying to focus his attention on something other than the fear that enveloped them all. She knew from hearing Nick talk that they lived to keep stress out of Paul Chenault’s life. That any unexpected shock could finish him off.

“Mr. Chenault, you’ve got to stop. Please…you must listen. It’s not your fault.” Her voice broke. “They were aiming at me…not at him. I don’t know why, but it was me they were trying to kill.”

She choked on her words as she spoke. Despair came swiftly, and as it did, she lowered her head and buried her face against his knees. “It was me…it was me. They hurt him because of me.”

Paul’s hands uncurled. Slowly the anger drained out of him as her grief sank in. Her shoulders, too small for the weight of her guilt, shook from the depth of her sobs, while the men looked on helplessly.

Paul laid his hand upon her hair. At his touch, Lucky lifted her head, her cheeks damp with tears as Paul willed himself not to look at the blood on her dress. Gently, as he used to comfort Nick’s pain long ago, he smoothed her hair from her eyes and wiped at her tears with his handkerchief. His words were a balm to Lucky’s aching heart.

“It wasn’t because of you, young lady. Whoever is behind this is trying to destroy me and all I hold dear. They
know that I have little left to live for other than my son. That’s the only way I can be hurt. And I’m afraid that if hurting him means destroying you…they’ll do that too.” His hands cupped her cheeks as his gaze pinned her to the spot. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you’ve become involved in something this ugly…but I swear on my son’s life that until he’s well, you’ll be under my protection, just as you were under Nick’s. If he loves you enough to die for you, then I can do no less.”

Lucky shuddered. It was the first time that she’d considered the implications of the attack other than the fact that Nick was near death because he’d taken a bullet meant for her. This wouldn’t necessarily be the last time someone tried to take her life.

“Oh, my God,” she groaned as Manny helped her to her feet. “Why? Why is this happening?”

Paul’s words were filled with pain, and his age was never more evident than it was at this moment. “If I knew the answer to that, I could have stopped this before it got started,” he whispered, and closed his eyes, unwilling to face the fear that held them hostage. Together, they waited, each in their own way making promises to a higher power in exchange for Nick Chenault’s life.

Lucky’s wait was as agonizing as it had been before, when the doctors went in, but no longer as lonely. She took the chair Manny offered, then clasped her hands in her lap as she leaned her head against the wall.

It had been years since she’d prayed. Years since Queenie had stopped taking them to the church just up the hill and two streets over from the cemetery where Johnny lay. Years since she’d thought to ask anyone other than her sis
ters for help. But this was different. Everything she cared about was on the line, and the results were out of her hands.

Either Nick lived, or he died. The doctors could only do so much. If praying would give them the edge that they needed, she was prepared to give her all.

Uncertain where or how to begin, she just closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind of everything but the thought of Nick’s recovery. As she sat, assailed by the antiseptic smells and frightening sounds of clanking metal and frantic voices inside Nick’s room, peace came. Slowly but surely, her fears settled. And as it did, the tears running down her cheeks receded, leaving her eyes a vivid, shimmering green in a face too pale for belief.

“Lucky…
querida?
”

She turned toward Manny’s voice. His concern for her, as well as for Nick, was obvious.

“I’m fine,” she said softly. “And Nick will be too. I don’t know how to explain it…but I know that I’m right.”

And when, minutes later, the doctor exited with news that backed up her claim, the men too sighed with relief. Lucky sat, silent and shaking, for she knew then that she loved Nick Chenault.

“Come,” Manny said, eyeing her bloodstained clothes and weary face. “Let me take you home.”

“No,” she said. “I leave when Nick leaves, and not before. If you really want to help, send someone to tell my landlady, Lucille LaMont, what has happened. Tell her I need my things. She’ll know what to do.”

Paul was ashen. Only now, after the doctor’s news, had the color started to return to his cheeks.

“I’ll send one of my staff,” Paul said. “They’ll bring what you need now to the hospital, and the rest will be sent to our home.”

Lucky opened her mouth to argue.

“Don’t even start with me,” Paul said, showing more of his former self than he had in months. “If anything else happened to you before Nick is well enough to cope, he’d have my hide…and everyone else’s around him. It’s settled.”

She shrugged. Part of her didn’t care. She only wanted Nick to be well. But another part of her started to panic. What if they never found the man who’d instigated all of this? What if she became a virtual prisoner in the Chenault home just to stay alive?

The men left, leaving her alone in the hall with a head full of worries that had nowhere to go.

Half a continent away, Dieter Marx flung his phone across the room and then roared with rage. Glass shattered as the telephone hit a bookcase, and books tumbled to the floor. Soon the rapid sounds of footsteps converging upon his study could be heard all over the house.

The servants were in terror. Whatever had happened could not have been good.
El Gato
was not a happy man.

“Why can’t they get it right?” Dieter shouted. “I’m sending fools to do one simple thing. How can one man keep surviving beyond such odds? What the hell kind of luck does he have that keeps him alive?”

“Señor…por favor…”

“Váyense!”
Dieter grabbed a vase from his desk and flung it after the servant who fled from the room in re
treat. “Get out…Goddammit, just get out,” he repeated, once again reverting to English as his voice and his rage were nearly all used up.

He stomped to the windows, and stared through the panes to the lush panorama before him. But he neither saw nor appreciated the beauty of all that was his. Leaves on banana trees swayed high up in the breeze, while a vivid palette of colors bloomed in the flowers that grew in mass profusion, climbing up walls, falling down trellises. Anywhere and everywhere Dieter looked, beauty was there for him to see.

But beauty was not the thing that he sought to obtain. He had beauty. It did not make him happy. He had money, more money than the entire village of people would see in a hundred lifetimes, and he was not complete. He had women at his beck and call who were young enough to be his daughters and granddaughters, and even they could not prolong his happiness enough to satisfy his blackened soul.

Dieter fought, breathed, and survived for revenge. He’d waited years for the right moment when it could be exacted. Planning, plotting, but always putting it off, waiting for the moment of ripeness, for the time when harvest of the ills he had planned would be at its peak.

But when he’d learned that Paul Chenault had nearly died from a stroke and was incapacitated to the point of immobility, he realized that he’d waited too long. What would be the point of revenge if the one it was intended for was not alive to suffer? It was that question that he’d asked himself that had shown him the path he must take.

With bitter joy, he’d set his plans in motion by in
stalling Charlie Sams into the Chenault organization. But one after the other, Dieter’s well-laid plans kept coming to unsatisfactory ends. He’d paid fortunes to men who kept screwing up.

“There is only one road left, my friend,” Dieter muttered to himself, as he turned away from the window and strode across the room toward the stairs. “If you want a job done right…do it yourself.”

Hours later, after night had claimed the day, Dieter lay naked upon his bed, absently watching the moonlight sweep its path across Amaleeya’s body, while he made mental plans for his trip back into the States. She was his latest in a string of women who were in his pay for one reason and one reason only.

He had little concern that his sex lay flaccid upon his body. Nor did it concern him unduly that in spite of the enticement of her smooth brown skin and the sweetness hidden by the dark curls between her legs, his manhood had not responded. She was highly skilled and well paid in the art of giving pleasure.

Her body was young, but her soul was old. Forced into prostitution at the age of eleven, now, at twenty-two, Amaleeya was a full-blown beauty and skilled beyond the norm in ways to arouse an old man’s libido.

Her tongue tasted and her body teased as her fingers traced the paths of unused nerves upon the man’s sleeping sex. She smiled, and she coaxed with every skill that she’d learned, and when the absent glaze slipped from his face, and his eyes widened, his pupils becoming dilated and fixed upon the stroke of her hands along his slowly burgeoning manhood, she knew a moment’s sigh of relief.
She would not suffer. There would be money in her pocket and no bruises upon her back tonight. At the moment, it was enough for which to be thankful.

As his breathing quickened, Dieter forgot about the bitter years of hatred that had consumed him. He forgot about the crippled man who lived a half a world away, and who waited in fear for the next blow to fall. All he could see, and all he could feel, was the spiraling wave of heat that boiled, flowing toward the center of his being and then erupting out and into her hands. His satisfied groan that accompanied the release was music to Amaleeya’s ears.

But Amaleeya was not the only one who breathed a sigh of relief this night. Dieter Marx had performed like a man. It was proof enough for him that he could do what must be done.