Page 21 of Just My Luck

“Part of one?”

“I mean, I finished about half the course. Enough to know this can wait until after work.”

“We both hit the ground pretty hard. I really think you should⁠—”

“I can’t leave work,” she said sharply. “I’ll lose my job, and while normally I would just go with the flow and find another one, right now I don’t have time for all that. I’m off in three hours, I’ll take him then.”

Jim shook his head, then winced. “I’ll take him.”

“You?” She stared at him with a frown. “When is your shift over?”

He struggled to sit up, brushing leaf debris out of his eyes. “It’s probably already over. Raoul’s been itching to fire me, and now he has a reason.”

“No.” She shook her head firmly. “I won’t let you get fired because of us. I’ll explain…” But she couldn’t explain without sharing how many rules she herself had broken. “I’ll come up with something. You were a hero. You saved this…this random child’s life.”

Crap. That wouldn’t fly. She would have to fess up if she wanted to spare Jim from getting fired.

“No.” Jim gingerly rubbed a kink out of the back of his neck. “It’s all right. Let them fire me. I don’t mind.”

“But you just started.” She’d be sad to see him go, to be honest. There was something very intriguing about Jim the gardener, something that didn’t quite fit. If he left, she’d never figure it out.

“It feels like a lot longer.” He maneuvered himself onto his hands and knees, then got himself up to a standing position, with a small assist from her. “Okay. So far so good. I think I’m fine, just a little winded. Good enough to drive.”

Eddie scooted his butt across the grass and wrapped his arms around Jim’s leg. Zara’s eyebrows lifted; he must have really bonded with Jim during this whole tree branch debacle.

“How’s your leg?” Jim asked him, putting a gentle hand on Eddie’ head.

“It’s kind of going thump-thump, thump-thump. Hurt-hurt, hurt-hurt.”

Zara looked more closely at the gash and saw that blood was still trickling past the scab that had started to form. He might need stitches if he didn’t want a scar. Her overall goal was to not scar her poor brother and sister while she had responsibility for them. Either emotionally or physically.

“Do you have a car?” she asked Jim.

“No.”

“You can take mine. I’ll catch a Lyft after work. Are you sure you don’t mind doing this?”

“I insist on it.”

Well, if he insisted. “Sit tight. I’ll be right back with my car.”

Employees were relegated to a tiny parking lot at the far edge of the property. Many of the workers didn’t have cars, but instead took the Hele-On Bus to work. A fair number came all the way across the island from Hilo. She counted herself grateful that she didn’t have to take a two-hour early morning bus ride to work.

In her bright orange 1972 VW beetle, she sped back to the hale. Cars were only allowed on the property for loading and unloading, in order to preserve the sense of serenity and peace that the resort claimed to offer. She fielded a fair number of curious glances as various cover stories flitted through her mind.

A guest needed to borrow a car. A guest wanted to buy her car. A guest had a fetish for vintage Beetles. Whatever guests wanted, they got.

It wasn’t until Jim was inserting his long legs under the dash that it occurred to her that she was trusting him with a lot here. “If anything happens to either Eddie or the Kumquat, you’re a dead man,” she told him.

“The Kumquat?”

“My car. You’re a good driver, right?”

“According to Lewis Hamilton, yes.”

At her blank expression, he explained, “Famous race car driver.”

Wait…what? But she didn’t get a chance to follow up on that odd remark. She spread a beach towel on the back seat and settled Eddie on it. Should she go with them? It felt very strange to be handing off her brother to a gardener. But she trusted Jim—to an extent.