Cursed by Love (26 page)

“Sorry to interrupt.” She smiled at him,
looking not a bit sorry. “But Granddad sent me to get you.”

“And you couldn’t see that I’m busy?”

She nodded. “Sure, I can see that, but
since your office doesn’t have a door, and Chloe’s running around loose…” She
backed her chair out of his office. As she turned away, she said, “I thought a
dose of reality might be appropriate.”

He pushed his fingers through his hair
and expelled a deep breath. “You’re right. Tell Granddad I’ll be right with
him.”

“Sure thing, bro, but I’ll be back in
about one minute if you don’t show up.” Sierra gave him a long look of
understanding and glided away.

Gabe lifted Molly’s chin from where
she’d buried it in his shoulder. “That did get a little out of hand, but you
have that effect on me.”

“Me, too,” Molly admitted, shrugging.
“You.”

“It sounds like there’s some business
the family needs to take care of, but I’d like to see you later tonight if
you’re free.” To pick up where they’d left off in a more private setting, but
he’d settle for anything away from this three-ring circus. “Do you want to go
to that movie we keep talking about?”

“Or we could stay in and watch one on
Netflix.” Twinkling eyes accompanied her mischievous smile. “Why don’t you come
over for dinner? About eight?”

“Perfect.” Dinner would be great, if
that’s all she was offering. But he hoped for dinner and a whole lot more.
“There’s nothing I’d like better.”

Ellen Webber bent forward, weeding the
flowerbed in front of the porch. The ground was nice and soft from the rain
they’d had earlier. And the simple task gave her something to do. Molly had
been after her to keep busy and not sit around the house moping.

Her flowers were suffering from a sad
lack of attention. She noticed that the jonquils and tulips especially were
getting leggy. She took out her shears to cut them back, sorry to lose all that
bright, happy color. Next week, she’d put something in their place for the rest
of the spring.

 The slam of a car door brought her
head up. She turned toward the driveway where the shiny Jaguar Donald had given
himself on his fifty-fourth birthday sat in flashy testimony to his midlife
dissatisfaction.

Like a car would make him younger.

As if he needed to be.

He’d aged like fine wine, like Pierce
Brosnan
, getting better each year. Still drop-dead
gorgeous. She couldn’t keep her eyes off him after thirty years of marriage.
She had to work to keep up with him in the looks department.

He made his way to the house, strolling
along confidently as he always did. He had on khakis and a pale yellow golf
shirt, setting off the tan he’d picked up on the links in the last few days.

Anyone who didn’t know him as well as
she did would fail to notice the challenge in his eye.
Oh, Lord, what now?
Her heart sank. That look probably meant he needed to ask her for something he
didn’t think she’d want to give him. Like the patio furniture, or the big
screen television from the family room. Or a divorce.

Honestly, she didn’t know how much more
she could take. Or give. “Hello.” She worked hard to keep her tone neutral and
not worry about her grubby appearance. She looked more like a field hand than
the lady of the house.

“Hello, yourself.” He studied her for a
moment, then nodded toward her weeding. “Looks like hard work. Want to take a
break?”

“No.” If he was here to tell her to get
an attorney, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him by offering drinks in the
family room. Maybe if she kept busy, she could stave off the bad news a little
while longer. “I’m not quite done here.”

“I’ll help then.” The cartilage in his
knees popped as he dropped down on his haunches and pulled at a clump of
crabgrass.

“Don’t be silly.” She scooted along the
walk a few inches, to avoid... What? His solid capable hands? His scent?
Brushing up against him? Touching him? To avoid all of the above and whatever
plan he had up his sleeve. “You’ll get your pants dirty and there are stickers
that will eat up your hands. I’ll get the extra pair of gloves for you.”

“Stay there.” He touched her elbow briefly,
but she jerked it away immediately. “I can manage without them.”

She cut him a look from the corner of
her eyes as he tore into the task of weeding. His hair fell over his forehead
in the front. It had grown long on his collar, too. Longer than he’d worn it in
a while.

Inside her gardening gloves, her fingers
itched to reach out and touch it. But she didn’t need to. She knew the texture
so well. Not just from years of trimming it when they were first married, but
from messaging his temples when he had a headache... Running her fingers
through it when they made love. Determinedly, he attacked the next weed, but
she stopped him as he started to yank up a
vinca
vine.

“Don’t. That’s one of the good guys.”

“Sorry.” He rested his elbows on his knees.
“I guess I’m not much good at this.”

She shrugged. “All it takes to be good
at gardening is an interest in it.”

“And patience,” he added. “Two of your
strong suits. You were always good at envisioning your efforts three or four
months down the road, or even three or four years.”

“I like watching things take root and
grow.”

“I know.” She felt him watching her work
for several long moments, while she pondered her next step, and his next move.

She tried to stay focused, digging out
the occasional stubborn root with her trowel, ignoring the impulse to wipe the
perspiration off her forehead, or check a mirror for smudges. The tension built
around them as they worked in silence, her heart in her throat. “Why are you
here?”

It took him several seconds to answer.
“I had breakfast with Molly today.”

That, at least, was neutral ground. “I
hope you two didn’t get into it. She’s seemed unsettled since her house was
broken into. How did she seem to you?”

“Same old Molly. The cock-eyed optimist.
Always looking at things from a different perspective than everyone else.” He
abandoned the weeds to turn toward her. “She’s determined to get us back
together, you know.”

Ellen’s hands stilled. She shook her
head, but let a little grin curve her lips. “I guess she told you about ‘The
Curse’.”

He chuckled and nodded. “It’s crazy,
isn’t it?”

“Not any crazier than any of her other
superstitions.” Ellen dug down deep to root out a dandelion. “Of course, this
one does come with a little more credibility than some of the others. Legend.
Provenance, whatever you want to call it.”

“That it does. I told her I’d think
about what she said and I have been, but she called me a couple of hours ago
and asked me to loan her the money to buy Gabe’s half of the piece.”

Ellen mulled that over. “She cares about
him more than she admits, and she’s worried about his situation.”

“And she’s worried about us, too.” He
hesitated. “She thinks uniting the Sleeping Lotus will...” He dropped his
voice, as if afraid to say his next words too loud, “... get the two of us back
together.”

The two of us back together.
Ellen mentally stumbled over the
thought, one she’d been avoiding for so long. There it was right in front of
her. He’d said it so quietly she had to strain to hear him, but she’d
definitely heard him give voice to her dearest dream. “I told her it was silly
to blame our problems on two inanimate pieces of jade.”

“Sure, right.” He nodded, then stopped.
“But have you thought about it? The timing fits.”

“Uh huh.” She kept her head down, not
wanting him to see the longing on her face. “I haven’t been thinking about
anything else for days.” But knowing this was too important to shy away from,
she had to look into his eyes. “And I’ve been wondering whose idea it was for
you to leave.”

“Molly asked me the same thing.” His
confusion seemed to match hers. “It just kind of happened, didn’t it? After
your mom died, we started arguing a lot, bickering really, which wasn’t like
us. And one day I mentioned I was feeling a little boxed in, or bored, or
something. The next day, instead of talking about it and working things out,
you’d packed my bags. You, the one who had never made a snap decision in her
life.”

He spoke the truth. She rarely bought
new shoes without a three-day waiting period, and she’d discarded their
marriage in the blink of an eye. “I remember thinking that I didn’t want you to
stay if I had to talk you into it. I thought I deserved better than that. And
you so clearly wanted to go.” She chewed her bottom lip, remembering the
heartache. “Didn’t you?”

He raised his hand and shrugged, as if
at a loss to explain his feelings. “I thought I did, but now I’m not sure.”

While they were clearing the air, she
wanted to clear every bit of it, with no nagging issues hanging out there to
sabotage them in the future. “What about Rhonda?”

He closed his eyes and rubbed a temple,
his classic pondering gesture. “What about her?”

What
had
she thought about
Rhonda? She’d never really believed he’d been unfaithful, simply that he was
heading that way. Making him leave had almost been a preemptive strike on her
part.
Hurt him before he hurts me
. Force him to prove his loyalty by
refusing to leave. “I thought she’d caught your eye.”

“I told you there wasn’t anything going
on there.” His earnestness seemed so authentic that she was almost embarrassed
to have doubted him. “Did you think I would lie?”

“Well, sure.”

“I never lied to you.” He looked
affronted, and she laughed. “About anything.”

“Nothing personal, but what man would tell
the truth about wanting to sleep with another woman? Lying comes with the
territory. Once I believed you wanted to be unfaithful, deceit didn’t seem out
of the question. And you
were
attracted to her. I could see it. I
thought if you hadn’t slept with her, it was only a matter of time.

“And yet it’s been months and it hasn’t
happened.”

Her head and her heart twirled together
in a happy pirouette. “Why not?”

He scooted closer, put his finger under
her chin and tilted her face up to look at him. “I compared her to you and lost
whatever spark of interest I might have had for her.”

Oh, the relief.
But still. Some doubt. “Really?”

“Really.” He looked deep into her eyes
and she felt their connection for the first time in a long time. The one she’d
thought they’d lost. “What about you? Are there other men in your life?”

The sun beat down on her. A robin
chirped in the linden pear tree they’d planted the year they’d bought the
house. A car roared by too fast on the street. But in her heart, it was just
like the first time they’d met. Ellen looked into her husband’s eyes and felt
like she was drowning in her love for him. Only he could reach out and save her
from the enormity of her feelings.

“You’ve always been the only one for
me.” He brushed the dirt off his fingers before stroking them through her hair.
Then keeping his eyes focused on hers, he leaned over to kiss her.

She lifted her hand to caress his cheek,
but laughed when it was her rough work glove that met his skin. He pulled it
from her hand, then helped her stand.

“Let’s go inside.” He dropped another
kiss on her mouth. “I have some groveling to do.”

“We’ll grovel together. And make up for
lost time.”

As they hurried into the house together,
Ellen smiled to herself. Gabe had left the stem of the Sleeping Lotus with her
earlier. Admiring its beauty, she’d twisted the pieces together and set the
statuary on the dresser in her bedroom.

For now, the curse was broken.

Time to test the validity about
endurance.

Gabe scanned the cozy dining room mostly
restored to its
prebreak
-in state. Everything about
the house suited Molly’s bright, sunny nature. Colorful and compact. Whimsical
and intriguing. Very much like Molly.

Houdini curled up in his lap and purred
as he stroked the black fur. Molly placed a pan of lasagna in the center of the
table and took the seat across from him.

“Did you figure out everything that
happened today?” he asked her, hoping she hadn’t heard about his talk with her
mother.

“Most of it. Your Uncle Harold was both
the culprit and the rescuer, right?” She looked at him accusingly. “You should
have told me what was going on this morning at breakfast. I knew you were
upset.”

He dug into his salad and nodded. “Yeah,
I should have, but I have a bad habit of trying to handle things alone. And I
thought I’d lost everything. I didn’t want to admit to you that I had failed.
Or to disclose family failings. I was scrambling to find a way to fix
everything, before anyone found out the truth.”

“I know. You’re the ‘fixer’ in your family,
just like I am in mine.” The thought didn’t seem to please her.

“Sierra said you showed up at the office
looking for me this afternoon, but she didn’t know if you needed anything
special.”

“I wanted to borrow your half of the
Sleeping Lotus.” She sighed. “I thought it might be a good idea to put the
pieces together, even temporarily, to see if that would reunite my parents.”
The candlelight flickered between them for a few seconds. “I’d talked to my dad
about loaning me the money to buy your half.

Gabe choked on his wine and set his
glass on the table. Good God, that would be the end of his financial troubles,
but he couldn’t let her make such a sacrifice. “Molly.”

“If putting the pieces together got the
two of them back together, it would be worth buying the stupid thing from you.
If it didn’t, we may as well go ahead and sell it. It’s already caused so much
trouble, I don’t even want it anymore.”

He didn’t know what to say.

“Dad agreed to buy it from you, but he
also said the investment seemed unnecessary.”

“Because he doesn’t believe in the
curse?”

“He seems open to the possibility now.
But he didn’t think it mattered who owned both pieces, just that they be joined
together. If I want to own both pieces, for the sake of family history, he said
he’d arrange it. But if we sell both of them together, it would serve the same
purpose.”

“Maybe.” Gabe watched a panorama of
emotions march across her face. He could see she wasn’t completely comfortable
with the idea of selling the Sleeping Lotus yet. He didn’t want to say too much
and jinx the whole thing.

“Before I met your family, I thought you
were just a workaholic determined to make a lot of money, no matter what. But
now I know you’re doing this for a greater purpose. And even though your family
has some, uh, idiosyncrasies, whose family doesn’t?”

“You mean other people have weird
families, too?”

“Dad says everyone’s family is weird.
Most families look normal on the surface, but outsiders don’t know what goes on
beneath the surface.”

Gabe laughed. “He’s probably right.”

“So what would you rather do?”

“Kiss you.” He pulled her from her chair
onto his lap. As his lips assaulted hers, she tasted like wine, so delicious he
could have devoured her on the spot.

He traced his fingers across her face,
memorizing her by touch. The smooth texture of her cheek. The small tilt of her
nose. The silky lashes fluttering against his fingertips. The pulse beating
rapidly at the base of her neck.

With her usual impatience, she leaned in
and kissed him, sealing her mouth against his, teasing him with her tongue, and
drugging him into a sensual haze where every sensation heightened his awareness
of her. Immediately, he was lost in the warmth of her mouth, a contradiction of
sweetness, softness and heady eroticism. She shifted on his lap. His cock went
rigid beneath her.

He’d craved her since the day they’d
met. But he hadn’t believed having her was possible.

Besides being too great a distraction
from his work and his responsibilities, she was everything that was beyond his
reach. Smart, gorgeous, generous, and enthusiastic. Just seeing her smile made
him happy. Her kiss turned him inside out. The way she accepted his family, her
positive attitude, her sense of wonder, her belief in all good things made him
burn to have her in his life. Permanently. Fiercely.

He wanted it all. He wanted to have all
of her. He wanted it so much he could taste it.

He unfastened the buttons of her blouse,
kissing each exposed inch. Finally, he shoved the material aside, baring her to
his gaze. A delicate lace bra enhanced her breasts, full and ripe, just the way
he remembered, eager for his touch. He circled them with his fingertips,
teasing the nipples into taut beads. Bending forward, he traced his tongue into
the sweet valley between them. He took a lace-covered nipple between his teeth
and tugged.

Groaning with desire, Molly moved her
hand down between them. The stroke of her hand on his erection nearly sent him
over the edge. She was everything he wanted in his life, for now and forever.
Was he what she wanted, too?

He returned to her mouth, hot and
insistent. Molly rubbed against him.

She broke away and led him to her big,
overstuffed couch, almost too pristine to be used for the things he had in
mind. “I want space to spread out everywhere, to see you and touch you all
over. Any objections?”

“Your couch, your choice.” He’d do her
on the roof if that was what she wanted. “As long as I get to be inside you
really, really soon.” He bent and licked her stomach and she stopped talking.
Instinctive, elemental. He stopped thinking.

Touching her, kissing her, tasting her
was as natural as rain, as magnificent as fire. When he slipped inside her hot,
wet heat, feeling her around him, thrusting hard and deep, their joining
escalated into a chorus of Yes!-Yes!-Yes! First her, then him, then her again.
He was pretty sure that was the sequence.

But it didn’t really matter. They were
in agreement all around, free-floating to a safe landing in one another’s arms.

He lowered his eyelids to a definite
doze when he felt her fingers tap against his shoulder. “Hmmm?” he asked,
groggily.

“Tag,” she said. “You’re definitely it.”

God, he hoped so.

Molly jerked awake, bathed in sunlight,
happy, content, and ready to go again with Gabe’s oh so, marvelous, sinful
hands doing magical things to her body. She snuggled in closer, turning toward
his warmth.

“Good morning, beautiful.”

She swiveled her head to check the time.
Oh, no, time to get up. She needed to get to school even if this was the
happiest she’d ever been. And the most exhausted.

“Not good.” She grimaced. “It’s Monday.
I have to go to work.”

Pulling herself away, she jumped up and
raced for the shower. After throwing him a teasing glance over her shoulder,
she wasn’t the least bit surprised when he joined her, doing wicked things with
soapy fingers that slicked over her and left her at his mercy. After repaying
him with her mouth on his most sensitive parts, he lifted her against the tiled
wall and wrapped her legs around him. He pushed inside her, driving into her until
the ripples of her release pulled him over the edge with her.

Out of the shower, she realized she was
hopelessly late. She called in a personal day. Gabe stayed for breakfast, but
eventually, reluctantly, left, sighting the pressures of work. He made delicious
promises for the evening to come. As the Harley pulled out of the driveway, she
remembered they hadn’t reached a decision about the Sleeping Lotus.

Too bubbly from the night’s activities
to sit still, she called her mom to bring her up to speed on the recent turn of
events. But the Elmwood administrative assistant said that Ellen had called in
a personal day, too. 

Worried that her mom might be ill, or
even worse, had a showdown with her dad, Molly called her mom’s number.

“Hello,” a deep voice answered—her
father’s deep voice to be exact.

Confused, Molly looked at the phone in
her hand. Had she pressed the wrong contact?

“Dad? I thought I called Mom.” An
awkward moment crackled between them. Molly heard a piano in the background. It
sounded like her mom playing and singing a Carole King song, one of Mom’s
favorites. Molly cleared her throat. “Marsha said Mom had called in a personal
day. I was worried.”

“Are you calling from school? Is there a
problem?”

He couldn’t see her, but her cheeks
reddened all the same. “No, I called in some personal time, too. But come to
think of it, why aren’t
you
at work at ten-o’clock on a Monday morning?”

“Probably the first time all three of
the Webbers missed school on the same day, but I called in too.” He sounded disgustingly
healthy and happy. Chipper, in fact. “I’m at your mother’s house this morning,
I mean, my house—
our
house, dammit.”

Molly nearly dropped the phone. “You’re
at home with Mom? And you both ditched school?”

“Don’t make it sound like we’re sixteen
and playing hooky. We had some personal time coming, and we’re putting it to
good use.”

“Did you go over there for breakfast?”

“No, I stayed for breakfast, if you must
know. Satisfied, now?”

“Oh, I am, Dad, more than satisfied if
this means what I think.”

“It means we’re going to work on our
differences.”

Molly let out a whoop. “That’s great.
You two belong together.”

“I couldn’t agree more. We just lost our
way for a little while.”

“About that, Dad—“

“You mean, about the Sleeping Lotus?”

Molly bit her lip. “Yes.”

“I’ll let your mom tell you.”

Ellen hummed about the earth moving
under her feet as she approached the phone. “Hello, dear. Isn’t this a
beautiful morning?”

“Yes, Mom, it is.” Not just because of her
Mom and Dad, although that, in and of itself was wonderful, but Molly had her
own reasons to be happy.

“I’m not saying we believe in the power
of the Sleeping Lotus, but we think we’d just as soon not have that curse
hanging over our heads any longer.”

“How are you going to prevent it?”

“Well, Dad told me you’d asked for the
money to buy it, and Gabe came and asked me if I wanted to sell my half with
his—”

“He did what?” She battled a feeling of
betrayal.
Why would he do such a thing?
Oh, yeah, to go behind her back
and sell the Sleeping Lotus without her agreement. A chill swept down her
spine. And what if he’d slept with her for the same reason? It was possible.
Because he wanted the money the damn Sleeping Lotus could bring him, not
because he loved and wanted Molly.

She should have realized it was all
about the money to him, even if he did want the money for a good cause. She
clearly didn’t mean as much to him as the money did. She didn’t mean as much to
him as his family did. Oh, all right, it wasn’t as cut and dried as that.
Still, some of her earlier glow faded.

“Well, your dad and I decided that we
don’t want any part of it. We’d like to see it out of our house, just in case
there is any truth to this curse business.”

“Of course there’s truth in it. How much
more proof do you people need?”

“The evidence seems overwhelming, so
we’ve decided to give it to you.”

“You want to hand over an object to me
that’s cursed and of great value? Thanks a lot.” Molly fingered through the
good luck charms on her bracelet. She’d polished up the new penny and attached
it to the bracelet earlier. It outshined all the rest.

“You’re missing the obvious, dear.
You’ll have half, Gabe will have half. Do whatever you want to with it. But
honestly, if two healthy, young people who are at least halfway in love already
don’t know what to do with two halves of an erotic ancient fertility symbol,
than some counseling may be in order.”