“Of course.”

It wasn’t a scream that flew from my lips, nor a string of highly applicable curses designed for such an occasion. Nope. As I woke to a tree shattering my bedroom window the only two words I could think were “of course.”

What else would the unluckiest women in the world expect? My youth was spent in a constant barrage of casts to set bones broken by a clump of misplaced dirt everyone else bypassed. Sadly, my luck didn’t improve with age. If anything could go wrong, it would, often leaving me with hospital and/or insurance bills, and a burn of embarrassment hotter than the sun.

I squinted against the mass of branches clawing at my bedroom’s wallpaper as if the forest came to claim me. Glass shards clung to the frame like broken teeth, the rest of the pane scattered over the dingy carpet. By the rising light of dawn, they looked like geometric water puddles…which could also cut my feet to ribbons. I was already the type of girl who’d find a small piece of glass in her salad. Walking across this new minefield without a cut would prove impossible.

Rising to sit up, my laggy brain struggled to think who to call first: insurance, clean up crew, emergency room to put on standby? I was partially out from under my rosy-oak duvet when a voice called from the window. “Sorry in there! Is everyone okay?”

This man’s voice was followed by a shock of red hair prodding around the branches. Even with the twigs scraping against his creamy cheeks, the hair remained high, gel twisting at the front. As he turned from the tree, emerald eyes landed upon me. They glimmered like a field of clover after a spring rain, hinting at a smile that didn’t crest across his tight lips. The jaw was broad and swooped back, gifting him an academic air. His nose was long but with a tiny bulb at the tip, an almost impish trait to offset the serious features.

All that cursing that didn’t happen before tried to escape in one blow. My eyes darted about the glistening lips, the sparkling green eyes, and the fiery hair like a game of tennis. Sweet god was he handsome. And staring at me through my bedroom window!

My eyes whipped down to find I was dressed…in a Hello Kitty shirt three sizes too big for me. Grabbing the duvet, I slapped it over my chest and tried to pretend I was wearing a silk nightie underneath instead. “Who…?” I gulped, watching the strange man stare around my room. “What happened?”

“Forgiveness, please.” His voice hummed with an accent that twirled on his lips. British? “I’m afraid I’m the fiend who caused this rotted tree to puncture through your window.”

Scottish? My puzzling snapped away as I realized he was staring expectantly at me. No doubt he was waiting for a rant as anyone who didn’t live my life would unleash. “I…see,” I mumbled. There was a sexy some-British-Isle man with his head shoved clean through my broken bedroom window. What did a person say or do in such a situation?

Oh god!

I flung the duvet off my Hello Kitty-ed body and plunged my feet into the maybe glass. The green eyes of the stranger flared wide as I risked blood loss and limb, but my panic damn near forgot about him.

“Tir!” I shouted, a hand to my mouth. “Come on. Here Tiry Tir Tir!” Gulping, I risked glancing towards the floor below the window, fearing to see either silent fur or blood, but it was clean save the glass.

“What’s the matter, Lass?”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The hamper! Spinning in place, I bent over to dig into the cracked laundry basket in my closet. Which just exposed the fact I was wearing greying white panties to the hot man that broke my house. A burn churned up my cheeks even as I dug through the clean laundry I never got around to putting away. Bras and blouses flew through the air until my fingers skirted against warm fur. Yellow eyes snarled at me for daring to interrupt his slumber, but I gasped in joy and tucked the angry cat to my chest.

“Tiramy, thank god you’re okay. I…” In proper feline fashion, my cat wasn’t pleased with my concern over his wellbeing, nor was he happy with my sudden onset of affection. Wiggling, twelve-pounds of fur and bone dug out of my grip and leapt onto the dresser. Black hair clung to my chest, adding to my alluring outfit.

“Ya have a kitty cat?” the stranger asked, staring in judgment at my spinster-in-training lifestyle.

“Yes, yes I do. And you smashed apart my bedroom window.” I tipped back into the anger I knew I’d feel in an hour once he was gone. Then I’d come up with the perfect response to ‘So sorry I knocked a tree into your house.’ For now, all I had was glaring and crossing my arms over my chest to hide away the friendly look of Hello Kitty.

To my surprise, the striking stranger grimaced and rubbed a palm over his head. His hand was massive, the heel sitting on his forehead while the fingers damn near reached his ear. A hand like that could probably palm my whole ass…which was not what I should be thinking about. Tipping my head down so he wouldn’t see the flush, I spat out, “Who are you?”

“Some call me Conall,” he said. When his voice rang through the swooping vowels of his name, it struck me. He was Irish. “Would it be forward if I asked your name?”

“Jessica,” I spat, trying to not give into the odd mannerisms of a rugged Irishman who spoke as if he fell out of the 18th century. And broke my window. Remember, window. “Jessica Malley.”

A smile dawned upon his lips, the full amplitude of his gleaming grin nearly sending me babbling. “Jessica,” he repeated my name in his emerald brogue, certainly causing some knee-knocking, “I am immensely apologetic for this accident. I promise I will do all I can to fix it.”

Well, that was something. I feared he’d poke his head in, make sure there were no dead bodies, then do a runner. “Let’s start with insurance…” I began, when my eyes tripped away from the emerald isle eyes to the ancient clock hanging off the wall.

7:15.

No! It couldn’t be 7:15 already!

Scrabbling, I yanked up my phone which should have woken me up at 6:45. A dead screen taunted me, the battery having once again fully drained while I slept. Shit! Returning to the pile of clothing I attacked for my cat, I hunted for the blouse I was going to leave out last night. Which I forgot to do, like always.

“Lass? Is there another animal in distress? A wee pup, perhaps?” Conall asked from the window.

Which was still broken. But there was no time for that. “I’m late for work, gonna be late for work. The meeting I was supposed to lead and…dear God.” I worked like a whirlwind, picking up every damn thing I’d need for the day and dumping it into my purse. The clothes I perched on my arm, all coated in black fur, as I turned to the man with his head shoved through my window.

“I have to get out of here. You…you need to fix that mess you caused, and I need to get to work.” I itched to run to the bathroom and then my car, but the strikingly handsome man refused to leave the hole he punched into my life.

A light blush rose, highlighting the spray of freckles over both his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. Leaning forward, he extended a business card from his hand. As I pulled it away, an unearthly warmth radiated from the piece of card stock. “My credentials as it were,” he said and, touching the tip of his finger to his forelock, finished with, “Good luck, Lass.”

I snorted, watching the man ignore the jagged glass and easily slide out of my bedroom. “Luck hates me.” Another flicker of my eyes to the clock reminded me I needed to be on the road ASAP, but I turned over the card to read no address or phone number. All it said was:

Conall Finnegan

Cobbler

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned at the no doubt fake one he’d hand out at pubs. Still, I stashed it in my purse just in case. Taking one last look at the half-green landscape, the cold breeze whipping through the massive hole in my window, I counted the odds I’d ever see him again.

I wouldn’t head to Vegas on them, that’s for sure.