Lucky Flash: A Lucky O'Toole Novella (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series) by Deborah Coonts Read Free Book Online Page A

20-year-old whiskey, could probably pry the secrets out of Forrest, our former NFL defensive end turned security dude, if he had to, but he didn’t.  
    “Oh, yeah, you live here.”   I reached for the back of the couch, steadying myself as I shucked a shoe, then repeated the process for the other.   I would’ve sighed in ecstasy, but Teddie would’ve found encouragement in that.   “Correction, you don’t live here; you live upstairs.”
    “With a back staircase to you kitchen.”
    “One I’m seriously considering boarding over.”
    “But you haven’t.”
    He had a point, one I didn’t want to think about right now.   “What if Jean-Charles had been with me?”
    “He’s asleep in your room.”
    “What?” My mind froze, but the rest of me overheated.   If I could ever get my body parts in synch, life would be so much simpler.   Then the cold shower of rational thought filtered through the hormones on high alert.   “I just talked to him.   The kitchen is swamped.   He won’t be done for hours.”
    Teddie shrugged.   “Wanted to see your reaction.   Do you love him?”
    Always the pragmatist, and having been so recently burned, I’d been asking myself the same thing.   “When I see him, my heart soars.   At odd moments during the day, I think about him, trying to picture where he might be.   At other times, I am overcome with a joy so deep it infuses every part of me.   When he is not with me, like now, I crave his touch.   I want to be the me I see when he looks at me.”
    Teddie recoiled as if I’d slapped him, which I guess I had.   I didn’t feel particularly good about that.   Actually, he’d asked, I’d answered.   What I didn’t like was how I felt delivering the blows.   I could be cruel.   I could enjoy inflicting the hurt, not something to be proud of.
    Teddie regained his equilibrium.   “None of that changes that I feel exactly that way about you.”
    Disappointed in myself, disappointed in him, I felt defeated and sad.   “There was a time I returned that love.”
    “We could get back there.”
    “No, I fell in love with the man I thought you were.   You proved me wrong.   You are not that man.”
    Another blow.   Was I being honest or vengeful?   “We need to stop talking about this.   I’m not liking myself much right now.”
    “I’m not liking myself much either.”   Teddie’s eyes held a sadness I felt.   “We all make mistakes.”
    “Yes, but once trust is broken…”   I let the thought hang there.   The Harvard boy could fill in the blanks.
    I stepped close to him and touched his face.   For a moment I let myself remember, then I scooped up my shoes and sailed by him.   Comfy clothes were in order.   “Don’t be here when I get back.”
    My bedroom, my sanctuary, welcomed me.   I stood in the large room, still shaken by the encounter with Teddie.   Why did he have such an effect on me still?   When would the hurt go away?   I disrobed, finding my sweats on my bed where I had left them.   I half-hoped Teddie would ignore me and stay, and I despised myself for feeling that way.
    Sweats donned, socks on swollen feet, I went in search of comfort—first Wild Turkey, then food, if I had any.   Teddie leaned on the counter in the kitchen, a tin of cookies open in front of him.   He popped one in his mouth and gave me a tentative grin.   He hurt, too.
    His comfort with his vulnerability made him irresistible…well, except for the whole love me then leave me episode.   A broken heart had a definite chilling effect on the libido.   Thank God he hadn’t chosen this moment to park himself behind the baby grand and sing my song, Lucky For Me. That’d tear my heart in two.   And I didn’t think half a heart would be sufficient for either Teddie or Jean-Charles.
    Jean-Charles…  
    “I thought I told you to leave.”   I peered into the fridge, pretending to be absorbed.   What I really wanted was for us to go back to how we