Page 37 of Just My Luck

Her phone had pinged just then with a message from the Royal Leilani. A guest had turned in a schoolbook with the name Eddie Morrissey written inside. Her supervisor had put two and two together.

She was fired.

Fucking wonderful. This time, she did cry.

Where was the limitless well of optimism that had carried her through all the challenges that went with being a con man’s daughter? Right now everything felt impossible. The weight of taking care of two kids, of making a living in this town, all of it felt like too much.

Then she gathered herself together. All that mattered now was finding Mia. She’d figure out the rest later.

She thought about that tank of a Mercedes and how it had charged through the water flowing down the street like Chitty Chatty Bang Bang, so unbothered. Lincoln owed her. He’d lied to her, he’d deceived her, he’d even put her in danger, if you considered Buzz Lightyear and a blond woman in a cream pantsuit dangerous.

So she’d set aside her anger and called Lincoln.

An impressively short time later, that same Mercedes pulled up behind the Kumquat. Holding her rain jacket over her head, she dashed into the passenger seat.

“What beach?” Lincoln asked, skipping the niceties. She appreciated that. She hadn’t called him to resume their friendship—or whatever it was. All she wanted was a ride.

“Her favorite is Banyans.” She gave him the directions and they drove in silence while he navigated the hazards of streets turned into waterfalls and gusts of wind blowing fallen coconut fronds past the car.

“Is Eddie okay?” he finally asked.

“Yes. He didn’t even know Mia was gone, he was so caught up with that Switch.”

More silence. Geez, this was awkward. Well, what else could you expect when you lie to someone about who you really are? She stared out the rain-streaked passenger window. There were very few other cars on the road. Most people were being smart and staying inside.

The tense silence between her and Lincoln made her twitch. She didn’t like keeping her emotions inside like this. She was more of a “let it out so we can move on” woman. But she couldn’t see how there could be any moving on from this.

“Has Mia ever done this before?”

“Well, she’s a Morrissey, so doing impulsive things is part of her DNA,” she snapped, feeling so irritated that her skin itched. She didn’t know if she was madder at Mia or at Lincoln.

“Impulsive…or reckless?”

Oh, now he’d done it. No matter how pissed she was at anyone in her family, never would she allow someone else to criticize them. That was her job. “You have a lot of nerve calling anyone else reckless. Isn’t it reckless to pretend to be a whole other person? No, it’s not just reckless. It’s dishonest. It’s cruel.”

“Cruel?” Astonished, he looked over at her, then quickly back to the intersection he was navigating. The lights were all blinking red now, and the few cars were trying to figure out who should go first.

“Yes, cruel. You kissed me. What if I’d fallen in love with you? You were playing with my emotions.”

When he looked at her again, she added quickly, “Of course I didn’t. I’m just saying, you had no consideration for that possibility. What were you up to, anyway? Slumming it as a gardener so you can see how the other half lives? Sorry, I mean the other ninety-nine percent? When did it switch from being half to being one percent, by the way?”

“I wasn’t doing that, no matter what the math is.” His deep voice held a note of amusement, which made her even more furious.

“It’s all a joke to you, isn’t it? That’s billionaires for you. Regular people are just playthings, NPCs, we don’t really matter.” She’d just learned that term, non-player characters, and it had explained a lot about how some people viewed the world and their fellow human beings. “I’ve seen it so many times at the resort. The upper echelon don’t even notice the staff. We’re just background players, we don’t count for anything.”

When he spoke again, she heard something surprising in his voice. Hurt. “I never saw you like that. Not once. Not even a little. Ever.”

Despite her anger, she believed him. And maybe, beneath her fury, was some hurt of her own. No one wanted to be lied to. Also, she felt a little stupid. Shouldn’t she have realized that this man wasn’t who he said he was? He was a terrible gardener! And all her theories seemed completely ridiculous. Lincoln Kerr, an ex-con? Lincoln Kerr, an alien?

She wanted to laugh, so badly, because that was how she usually dealt with things. But she didn’t want him to think she’d forgiven him. She hadn’t.

“I’m sorry I deceived you,” he said. “Extremely sorry. Do you think you can forgive me?”

“Are you going to tell me why you did it?” He didn’t answer for long enough that she threw up her hands. “Then no. I don’t forgive you.”

His hands clenched on the steering wheel, his knuckles flashing white.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to have this conversation while they were driving through floodwaters.