And his sudden smiles could outshine the sun.
Lucky scowled at himself and tried not to look at Scout Quinton—also known as “the Great Gestalt”—anymore.
But Helen was right. Hewasgetting better.
“Oh, he’s doing the levitating table next,” Lucky said, and while he tried to infuse his voice with sarcasm, he was actually more anticipatory. This was Scout’s best trick.
From across the quad, they could hear Scout’s voice, supported enough not to be whipped out to the harbor by the ever-present wind.
“Notice, my friends,” he said, that grin at the ready. “No strings above, no strings below!”
Marcus came out at this point, a good-natured smile on his weathered face. He was wearing a sports coat—black with planets and stars sewn into it in silver—over a pair of worn jeans. With a showy heave, he lifted his leg up and over the table, and then feigned a pulled muscle from the strain. The crowd laughed accommodatingly, and Marcus popped up spryly and grinned at them all before giving Scout, or “the Great Gestalt,” a grand bow and gesturing for him to continue.
“Does anyone from the audience wish to check?” Scout asked, waving his hand over the table and then under it and around. He searched the audience for his shill—usually his sister, Kayleigh, who had brown eyes instead of blue but otherwise was a softer, more feminine version of Scout with a sort of coltish charm and natural sarcasm. Scout frowned when she didn’t immediately raise her hand and catch his eye, and Lucky let out a frustrated breath for him. She had gotten a job at one of the resorts, and while Helen let her use a bicycle to get to and from work, the Morgensterns, who ran Morgan Star Recreational Resort and Spa,were known for keeping their employees late and not giving a rat’s ass if they had other jobs or not. Some of that had changed in recent months—the youngest heir was making a go at not being a total bastard—but those efforts had apparently not trickled down in time to help Scout today.
Scout bit his lip at all of the eager volunteers, and for a moment, Lucky felt pity. When he’d arrived on the island in September, he’d beenterribleat this, and now that his showmanship and dexterity with the magic equipment were starting to improve, he was being thwarted by an evil capitalist agenda.
Suddenly, almost desperately, those cobalt-blue eyes that Lucky found so mesmerizing were fixed on Lucky himself.
“You, sir!” Scout called across the square. “Would you care to come be my assistant here?”
Lucky’s eyes widened. He and Scout had barely spoken three words to each other in the past month. Not that Scout hadn’t tried.
When Helen had introduced them, telling Lucky that Scout was Marcus’s new magician and his sister was the new shill, Scout had smiled at him and extended his hand happily.
“Nice to meet you—”
“You’ll be gone in a week,” Lucky had muttered, turning away and stomping toward his room.
He’d been so unsettled—both by Marcus having an apprentice and Helen’s almost immediate affection for the two siblings—that his first thought was that he’d be back on the road in no time.
Who wanted a short, sturdy, untalented barista when there was Scout Quinton in the world?
He’d been so angry. He’d just been relaxing into Helen’s tidy little setup, just beginning to believe that he might have found a home. And here comes this handsome, glib stranger with his pretty face and his guileless cobalt eyes to take his place.
In a temper, he’d broken a promise to himself that he’d managed to keep since he’d shown up at Helen’s door.
He’d flipped a coin.
“Heads he stays, tail he goes,” he muttered, thinking it would be a quick turnaround to tails.
His heart sank when the coin—an old Liberty silver dollar—landed heads up.
Well, shit. He’d started this train wreck; he might as well finish it.
“HeadsIstay, tailsIgo.” He’d flipped the heavy coin with his thumb, his busy brain already packing the few possessions he’d allowed himself to accrue when he caught it in his palm and smacked it against the back of his hand.
And almost sat down on the adobe floor of his little room when it came up heads.
They’d both stay?
For a moment Lucky doubted, but flipping the coin hadn’t been wrong yet. In fact it had been right so often it had almost ruined his life. He’d stared at the coin on the back of his hand in dismay, only tucking it back in his pocket when Helen had descended the stairs from the store to give him hell for being rude.
“What were you thinking?” she chided. “He’s a perfectly nice young man and—”
“And if you don’t want me around anymore just say so,” he snapped, and to his surprise, her expression softened.
“There’s room for you both, Lucky. Scout and Kayleigh are staying in the apartment below the magic store. You remember both our stores have one. Marcus will keep his cabin in the woods like now. Scout’s going to help with the magic shop, and Kayleigh’s already got a job working at Morgan Worm’s.” Marcus and Helen had a years-old contempt for the Morgensterns who owned the resort. As of yet, Lucky hadn’t been able to figure out why.
