Get Lucky by Lorie O'Clare

about them to anyone. Especially not a stranger. She’d known Marc a week, had incredible sex with him, and unfortunately that still qualified him as a stranger. She didn’t even know what he did for a living.
    At least this was her last tour of the weekend. Heading into the lodge, she hung around with some of the guests and enjoyed small talk or tried to appear like she did. Part of her couldn’t wait to get home to a hot bath. The other part of her dreaded returning home, where she knew she would mull over all the pictures sent to her. She had one more activity, dinner at Meryl’s family’s house, then her obligations would be done. Finally breaking away from the guests and letting them continue to chatter among themselves, London couldn’t help glancing around to see if Marc might be nearby. When he wasn’t, she grabbed her coat and headed out.
    As the week dragged on, London hoped she would think less about the pictures. Instead they seemed to distract her from almost everything she did. Every night when she got off work and drove home, she half-expected to find another package and blew out a sigh of relief when one wasn’t there.
    This had to stop, she told herself after changing into her pajamas and warming up some soup for her supper. If she wasn’t obsessing on the pictures, it was Marc. She slipped the newest silk rose he’d given her in with the others and watered the flowers he’d brought her the previous weekend. Then finishing up her soup, she made quick work of cleaning her kitchen and padded into her bedroom.
    Maybe if she could figure out where the pictures came from or who was taking them, she’d quit stressing over them. A different tactic was needed. This whole time she had tried putting the pictures out of her head. It might give her more peace of mind if she gave them her full attention and tried understanding them.
    London crawled onto her bed, memories of having sex with Marc flooding her thoughts for a minute. Doing her best to shove him out of her mind, she put the two packages in front of her on the bed and studied them.
    “No return address. Same amount of postage,” she mused, focusing on the stamps in the corner of each package. “Both large manila envelopes.”
    She flipped the packages over, noting whoever had mailed them had used clear tape instead of licking the glue to secure them. Nothing odd or unusual about how they were mailed to her, though. Other than the one showing up at her doorstep Friday night instead of with the rest of the mail. Had the first package shown up the same way?
    “Crap,” London hissed, suddenly wondering if the second package had been delivered while Marc had been there.
    It wasn’t that she didn’t want anyone knowing he was there. There really wasn’t anyone to worry about. Other than Meryl, who really was more of a friendly co-worker than a good friend, there wasn’t anyone in London’s life. She wasn’t opposed to having a best friend. There had been times when she’d craved such a person being in her life. Right now would be one of those times. Having someone to talk this over with, brainstorm and try to figure out the meaning behind it all, would be nice.
    Her fingers were damp when she dumped the contents of each package out on her bed. The second group of pictures seemed to be more in focus than the first set.
    “Why are you doing this?” she wondered, spreading the pictures out on her bed and staring at each one of them.
    There were three eight-by-tens in the second package she’d received Friday night. All pictures were in color, one of her mother, one of her father, and the third a picture of the two of them together.
    London figured it had been over four years since she’d last seen her mom and dad. She’d been in Chicago, working in a restaurant, and they’d arrived in town for a weekend. Life must have been good for them at the time, because they’d stayed at a nice hotel, taken her out to eat, and not asked for any money.