Just My Luck Read Online Free

place?”
    “Yeh. Come with me.”
    She cast an automatic smile around the group, then followed the solid, thick figure leading the way. He stepped through the lounge doorway into a passage, and she worried for a moment that he’d misinterpreted her question. But he was walking into a big, modern kitchen now, where he stopped at the breakfast bar and turned to her.
    “Sit down,” he told her. “Glass of water?”
    “Please,” she said, her breath still feeling too shallow.  She hopped up onto a stool and hooked her high heels over a rung, pressed her hands between her knees for warmth.
    He nodded, turned to a cupboard, seeming to know his way around perfectly. Pulled out a couple glasses and filled them from a bottle in the fridge, handed one to her.
    “Cheers,” he said, a smile lightening the effect of the much-broken nose, the misshapen ears and close-cropped, wavy black hair over a neck that was so thick, it was almost a continuation of the head above. Then he looked at her more closely.
    “Breathe,” he told her, taking the glass back from her and setting it on the bar again. “Deep breaths.”
    Tears came to her eyes as she obeyed.
    “You need a paper bag?” he asked. “Hyperventilating?”
    She shook her head wordlessly.
    “Cup your hands over your mouth,” he directed, demonstrating for her. “Deep breaths, in and out.” He kept his intent gaze on her, his scrutiny oddly comforting, as she followed his instructions.
    “Thanks,” she said shakily when she was feeling more herself again. She reached for the glass of water, took a drink. “How did you know?”
    “Anxiety attack, eh,” he answered. “I know the look of it.”
    “Did you know somebody who had them?” she asked, wanting to hear him talk some more, the rumble of his voice soothing the remaining jitters.
    “Yeh. Me.”
    “You?”
    “I guess you know by now that anxiety doesn’t discriminate,” he said, taking a seat on the stool one over from hers. Not getting too close. Not crowding her. “Or that how you look on the outside isn’t always how you’re feeling on the inside.”
    “You’re right,” she said, still shivering a little with nerves. “I should know that. I’m sorry.”
    He got up again, opened a door leading to a back porch, came back with a flannel shirt that he draped over her shoulders without touching her, before going back to sit on his stool. “There. Warm up a bit.”
    She pulled the heavy thing around her gratefully. “Thanks. I’ll be all right in a minute. I thought this was going to be fine. I thought it might be fun. A chance to get back out into the world a little.” She felt herself choking up again, blinked the tears back. “But I don’t really want to be back out there after all, I guess,” she said, hating how forlorn she sounded.
    “Bad breakup?”
    “Divorce,” she sighed. “It’s been final about four months. That’s why I’m here. A change.”
    “The New World,” he agreed. “The new New World.”
    “That’s right. New job, new name . . . Well, the old name back. New me.”
    “I don’t know the new name,” he said. “But I’d like to. I’m Liam Mahaka.”
    “Ma . . . Sorry. I didn’t quite get it.”
    “Mahaka,” he repeated, putting the accent strongly on the first syllable, the second one almost disappearing.
    “Kristen Montgomery,” she said. “And I’d better let you get back to your party, and get back myself before Hannah gets worried and comes looking for me.”
    “Hannah,” he said slowly, speculation dawning in the brown eyes.
    “My sister.”
    “Then you have nothing whatever to worry about out there,” he told her with a rueful grin. “I’m going to take a guess here that those boys don’t know yet that you’re Hannah’s sister. Do I take it you’re not interested? That you didn’t come here tonight looking for . . . love?”
    “Not love, not an imitation either,” she sighed. “I was thinking, maybe meet some people. Start making