Free Just My Luck by Rosalind James Page A

the ambitious fella, our mate Nate.”
    “But I’ve never heard anything but good things about Drew,” he hastened to assure Kristen. “I expect you could tell me, though. You must know him well.”
    “Pretty well,” Kristen said. “As well as you could expect, considering that they’ve been here all these years, and I’ve been in the States. But you’re right, he’s a great guy.”
    “Pity you aren’t able to be closer to your sister, now that you are here,” he sympathized. “Must be hard, being so far from home, and not even in the same city with what family you do have. D’you get to see much of her? They ever come down here to visit you?” He reached out to refill Kristen’s glass, but paused as she hastily put a palm over the top.
    “Once,” Kristen answered. She smiled briefly at Ally, then stood. “And now I really am going to my room. I’ve got some homework to do. Have a nice time.”
     
    “You were a little standoffish with Devon tonight,” Ally said when she was back in the flat again a couple hours later, after a romantic dinner complete with candlelight and wine, some good-night kissing that had been pretty nice too, had started a lovely little fire inside that was still glowing. “Don’t you like him? It’s not the first time I’ve seen your touch-me-not thing, but I was surprised that you used it on him. Did you think he was coming on to you, maybe?”
    “No, of course not,” Kristen said. “And maybe I’m overly cautious these days. I probably just don’t trust that handsome, smooth type anymore.”
    “You’re going for the ugly, awkward ones now?” Ally asked with a smile.
    Kristen flushed. “Looks aren’t everything,” she said, a rare edge to her tone.
    “Sorry,” Ally said hastily. “Of course they aren’t.”
    “What I care about most these days,” Kristen said, “is sincerity. I like people who are open, where I can tell they mean what they say, even if I don’t always like what they say. People like you,” she added with a smile. “And Devon . . . he seems perfectly nice. Perfectly friendly and interested. There’s nothing exactly wrong with him. He sure never says anything that isn’t flattering, does he? That’s it, I guess. And if I can’t tell, I tend to assume the worst, I suppose. But don’t go by me, because I’m probably over-sensitive to that. Listen to your own instincts, what they’re telling you.”
    What Ally’s instincts were telling her was that she could really use a flirtation—or more—with an attractive, interested man. And that she couldn’t wait to see him again.
    She’d assumed she’d hear from him within a day or two. Once again, he’d said, “I’ll call you,” but nothing more specific than that. She found herself on edge, as excited as a teenager hoping for an invitation to the prom. Checking her mobile too often at work, keeping it near her at home. Well, no wonder. The last experience she’d had with this kind of dating practically had beenthe prom.
    Devon was a whole lot better-looking than any boy she’d known in high school, though, and her body was letting her know fairly insistently that she hadn’t had sex for months. Some fun times, maybe even a real relationship with a handsome Kiwi, she’d already decided, would be the perfect addition to her year abroad.
    She told herself the first day that it was too soon for him to call. That he wouldn’t want to seem that eager. And when that day had passed, she told herself that, well, it was still only Thursday. But when Friday came and he still hadn’t called, she looped back through their evening together, wondering if she’d misread his signals. Especially when he’d flattered her by asking her opinion of the PR he was doing for the Heat.
    “We’re just not getting the traction we should,” he’d sighed. “The games are televised on Sky Sport, right enough, but we aren’t getting the viewership numbers from women or men that we’d projected. The