Cursed by Love (6 page)

“Do you think it’s possible that the
Sleeping Lotus came to us during the Cold War when my grandfather worked for
the government? It’s possible, isn’t it? If my grandfather was in Russia, God
knows where else he might have been. And don’t you think Mom would love to read
these letters, whether the Lotus came from him or not?”

The kitten yawned in agreement.

“I think so too.”

Abandoning the sort-first, delve-later
plan, she pulled the top letter from the stack, unfolded it, and leaned back
against the sofa. The correspondence had obviously gone through censors with
pertinent information blacked out.

My darling
Lorena
, her grandfather had
begun.
After a hellish journey, I’ve finally arrived in—

Tap.

Fingering the charms on her bracelet
like a rosary, she cocked her head. She strained to hear the faint noise
outside the window.

What was that?

Not Houdini, curled up in her lap. Well,
not so curled up anymore. He’d assumed stalking position, hunched back and
flattened ears, his hunter’s gaze fixed on the window.

Probably just kids playing pranks. Or
moths, beating their wings against the glass.

Tap.

Clearly, possession of the Sleeping
Lotus petals was making her jumpy. Tomorrow, she’d take the jade and put it in
her safety deposit box. Then, she would quit worrying.

Nothing for it but to check out what
kind of boogeyman was lurking outside. No reason to be stupid though. First,
she’d arm herself with her baseball bat from the hall closet. Just as she set
Houdini aside, her cell phone blew up.

She jerked in surprise. The stack of
letters cascaded around her. Houdini darted down the hall. Darn! Why didn’t she
ever remember to get the stupid thing out of her purse and keep it close by? Should
she check on the noise, or sprint for the phone?

On the off chance Freddy Kruger prowled
around outside, she’d be a jump ahead on a cry for help if she had her cell.
She pulled the phone out of her purse, noting the number as the same one on the
card Gabe had given her earlier, but too late. The ringtone stopped. She
redialed and waited for him to pick up.

“Gabe. It’s Molly. From the show today.”

“Molly.” The warmth of his voice in a
reasonable decibel level came across the line. Sweet, but potent, like a shot
of hot chocolate laced with brandy. “I just tried to call you. My grandfather
had some information about the Sleeping Lotus, and I did some Internet
research. Is this a good time to report in?”

She eased over to the back door and set
the security alarm. Her over-protective dad had insisted on installing the
latest technology when she moved in. But she normally felt so safe, she didn’t
bother activating it. “It’s fine. I was sorting through a dusty box of
Nonna’s
things, but I could use a break from all the
sneezing.”

“Run across anything interesting?”

“Tons of interesting things from the
past century.” She dug through her storage closet to arm herself with a
baseball bat. “The price of bread. The latest dance crazes. The hottest gossip.
Letters from the past. Whether any of it’s relevant to the Sleeping Lotus is a
different story. Have you had better luck?” Feeling more secure with Gabe’s
voice in her ear and her Louisville Slugger in her hands, she made the rounds
of the house, checking locks and peering out windows.

“It’s complicated.” He breathed out a
weary sigh. “Want to get together and compare findings?”

“What? Tonight?” She threw a quick
glance at the
Tweety
Bird clock on the kitchen wall.
Surprised at how much she’d
like
to get together, at how much she wanted
company just now—with ghosts from the past visiting inside the house, and who
knew what tiptoeing around outside—she shook off her uneasiness and embraced
her inner Ninja.

Whoever, whatever had been out there was
probably long gone. Neighborhood kids playing, squirrels gone mad, who knew
what innocuous thing had spooked her? “Sorry, it’s late and I have to be at
school early in the morning.”

“School?”

“Third grade teacher.”

“Thought so,” he murmured.

“Hey.” The comment sounded like a shot
at her less-than sophisticated appearance. She dropped into a chair at the
kitchen table. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Based on?” She cringed, remembering the
school clothes she’d had on earlier. She attempted to make her work clothes
interesting, but sexy, sophisticated, or form-fitting, they weren’t.
Comfortable and sexless was the ticket for playground duty and story-time. But
not so perfect for making a good first impression on a complicated techno-geek
with a mouth perfect for kissing.

“The checkered tote bag with smiling
apples pretty much ruled out stripper. And hard-hitting business executives
might not worry about kids seeing something inappropriate on television.
‘Course, there’s still a lot of ground between CEO and exotic dancer.”

“Very observant, but what do you do for
a living? No, wait, let me guess. The way you were glued to your over-the-top
smart phone and laptop, I’d say something with computers.” She also remembered
the impeccable neatness of his appearance—sharply-creased pants, pressed shirt,
neatly trimmed hair, no hint of beard scruff—and knew he had to be anal about
details. “Programmer, maybe?”

“You got that off my card.”

“Could have, but didn’t.” She pulled it
from the tote she’d left on the counter. “Contract Communications,
Incorporated. Gabriel Shaw, President. What does something called Contract
Communications do?”

“We’re a contract agency for businesses
that prefer to outsource their programming needs.”

“Fascinating.” Molly’s eyes glazed over
as she lied. She owned a laptop, of course. She used it competently. Used
computers in her classroom all the time. But after she powered them up and
downloaded her software, she didn’t care about how the technical magic occurred
behind the screen. Computers seemed cold and detached, and much to her mother’s
lifelong dismay, Molly didn’t give a flip for the kind of restrictive logic
that ruled them. “And you’re the president? Impressive.”

“Family company. The title makes the
position sound better than it is. Believe me, the role is by default only.”

“How many people work for you?”

Gabe gave a little snort. “That’s open
to debate. The number of people on the payroll and the number who actually work
don’t always balance, but that’s another story. I’ll tell you anything you want
to know about it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Right, I was thinking maybe we can meet
tomorrow about six and grab a bite to eat.”

His persistence appealed to her. The
memory of his rock solid chest pressed against hers loomed before her eyes. His
lips nibbling hers, and his hands cupping her rear appealed even more.

She fanned her face and reminded herself
about the yelling. Her more practical self advised her inner hedonist to keep
her distance from a man who failed to use his inside voice for phone
conversations. No matter how beckoning his voice sounded at the moment. “After
dinner might be better. Seven, maybe.”

“Great. Where?”

Not here
, despite how tempted she was to offer
the suggestion. Somewhere in neutral territory. “The downtown library?” One of
her favorite places. Big, roomy, but cozy at the same time. “We could research
the provenance and the curse while we’re there.”

“We don’t need the library for research,
but if you want to meet there, that’s fine.”

“The second floor reading room?” Molly
suggested. “You know the one?”

“I’ll find it.”

Still feeling a little jumpy, Molly
dawdled. She considered telling him about her possible phantom night visitor,
but decided against it. No way would she give the impression she was some
wimpy, hand-wringing female, afraid of the dark. “Is there anything you can
tell me tonight?”

“Umm... About what?”

“Provenance?”

“Right, provenance.” A self-conscious
little chuckle from him preceded a moment of hesitation. “I could, but if
you’re going to keep secrets, I’ll keep mine too. For now.”

A half-hour early for his meeting with
Molly, Gabe camped at an isolated table in the reading room’s corner. He powered
up his laptop intending to enter the coding for the next level of the computer
game he was developing.

But first, out of habit and an
overdeveloped sense of responsibility, he opened the Contract Communications
financial folder and crunched some numbers. The same thing he’d been doing off
and on all day, with the same dismal results. No matter how creative his input,
the sums remained spectacularly insufficient.

The possible twenty thousand he could
raise with Granddad’s half of the Sleeping Lotus would keep his company—
er
,
their
company—afloat for another few weeks. They
needed another six weeks, at least, before they’d get paid for the current
Quigley project that kept half his staff busy. If they got lucky, maybe another
big, or even not-so-big, contract would come in before then.

Right. And maybe pigs would fly.

Disgusted with their prospects, he
dumped out of the spreadsheet to check his e-mail.

Holy moly! One interesting possibility
jumped out at him.

He scanned an inquiry about a small
systems project that would be perfect for his cousin Terry. With cautious
optimism, Gabe shot off a response, suggesting an appointment for the next day.

Now, if he could find something to keep
Uncle Harold and Cousin Lenny busy for the next month, they’d be all set. But
the chances of that were slim to frigging none.

Not for the first time, he brushed aside
regrets about quitting his dependable, salaried, bill-paying job last year as
one of Procter and Gamble’s top programmers. Even then, he’d known starting his
own business so he could employ his brilliant, lovable, and unreliable
assortment of relatives hadn’t been his brightest idea.

But what else could he do? Each of them
possessed their own mad skills, with mad being the operative word. They were
too eccentric, neurotic, or independent to land or hold down traditional
nine-to-five jobs in Corporate America.

Most of the time, their system worked
fine. He beat the bushes and accepted assignments with the conservative local
companies that would look askance at someone like his grandfather or his cousin
Terry. Then the relatives went to work—behind the scenes and with his
supervision, of course—and completed the jobs. Usually on schedule and
successfully. But not always.

He kneaded the tense muscles in the back
of his neck and shuddered over the close call they’d had on the Pronto Printing
account last month. By pulling an all-nighter before the project deadline, he’d
managed to retrieve lost data from some cyberspace graveyard and save their
collective butts.

Everything always worked out eventually,
his grandfather liked to say. Gabe knew it would this time, too. He’d damn well
make sure of it, even if that meant spending every waking hour seducing Molly
Webber into selling the Sleeping Lotus.

After all, he’d handled worse
assignments.

He looked around the nearly empty
reading room in search of the delightful Miss Molly. Still no sign of her.

With another ten minutes to kill, he
turned his attention to the subject of the Sleeping Lotus, launching a ‘net search
for twelfth-century Huang Dynasty Chinese erotica. There were about a thousand
more matches than he would’ve imagined before yesterday. That number had to be
narrowed if he hoped to make any progress.

Now what had been the name of that
artist?

He pulled up the notes he’d made on his
phone and checked. Li-Wang. Yep, that drilled the field down.

Based on the first image that popped up,
he’d swear he’d stumbled onto a porn site. Sighing, he clicked through other
Sleeping Lotus examples and positions, glancing occasionally over his shoulder.

He paused in stunned appreciation of a
woman standing on her head with her petals draped over her kneeling partner’s
stem. Interesting. He admired the athletic ability. But with his recent dry
spell in the sex department, it seemed like a good time to switch over to
researching the Sleeping Lotus’s history, instead of fantasy shopping.

The sound of flip-flops flapping across
the tile floor forced his gaze away from the contortionist lovers. A faint
orangish
scent wafted above the library odors of paper,
glue, and dust. His deprived libido went from sexual alert straight into carnal
overdrive.

“Oh, my!” Molly’s library-whisper cooed
behind him. “Maybe I shouldn’t interrupt.”

He flipped the laptop’s screen down. He
hadn’t blushed since age ten when his uncle had explained the facts of life
with
Playboy
pictorials
,
but the prickly heat of embarrassment
marched up his neck now. He tugged on his collar. “You know what I’m doing.”

“Yes, it’s pretty obvious.” She didn’t
bother to hide her smirk.

He turned to face her and had to work to
keep his mouth from dropping open. The prim school teacher he’d met yesterday
had vanished in favor of a temptress dressed to set off her figure to best
advantage. Not in a slutty, sultry, over-the-top way, but more in a healthy,
open, totally desirable way that drew his attention and left him eager to
touch.

The bottom of a stretchy pink knit
T-shirt exposed an inch of smooth skin above the waistband of hip-hugging
Capris that allowed her pierced bellybutton to play peekaboo with the rest of
the world. The form-fitting outfit confirmed the perfection of the body he’d
groped at the taping.

A small attention-grabbing applique of
an American flag decorated the front of her shirt, but it wasn’t patriotism
that urged him to stand up and salute.

An attempt must have been made to
control her chin-length blond hair, but some irrepressible curls defied the
effort. Her lush mouth matched the shade of her shirt and a delectable sprinkle
of freckles dotted her cheeks.

While his gaze ate her up, her wide blue
eyes twinkled at him and drew him under her spell. She nodded toward the laptop
and back to his face. “I thought you were researching the Sleeping Lotus. But
if you were indulging in a kinkier interest, I can give you some alone time.”

He wanted to indulge in some kinky
interests with her, but that would have to wait. “I’ll save the kinky stuff for
later.”

“Promises, promises.” Dropping a couple
of thick, dusty volumes onto the table, she sank into the chair beside his.
“What did you find out?”

Mostly, he’d found out that ancient
Asians had been a lot
bendier
than he thought
possible. He wondered about Molly’s proficiency at headstands. “To be honest, I
hadn’t gotten beyond the visuals.”

“I meant from your grandfather. About
provenance. Last night.”

“Right. Granddad.” He groped to pull his
thoughts back on track. The erotic imagery and Molly’s presence had sucked all
rational thought from his brain. Leaning back and crossing his arms, he focused
on the rapt expression on her face, not on the face itself. On the words coming
out of her mouth, not on the mouth. On the pleasure of her company, not on the
body seated beside him. “Granddad’s father, Jonas Shaw, inherited the Sleeping
Lotus from his father,
Jebediah
.”

“
Jebediah
Shaw?” She wrinkled her adorable nose. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

“If you know American history from the
early nineteen hundreds, you might have heard of
Jebediah
.
He was a financier with grandiose ideas. They say he made and lost three
fortunes before he was thirty-five. But rich or poor, he hobnobbed with all the
important players of the day.”

Moly snapped her fingers. “A flamboyant
speculator along the lines of Diamond Jim Brady, right?”

“That’s what they say.” And it explained
a lot about the subsequent line of
Shaws
—spectacular
losses, minus
Jebediah’s
spectacular successes, but
big dreamers everyone. Except for Gabe. Soul-sucking reality was challenging
enough for him.

She ticked through the generations on
her fingers. “Your grandfather, his father named Jonas, and his grandfather
Jebediah
. Does your grandfather remember
Jebediah
?”

“No, when Jonas was still a boy, a
Model-T backfired and spooked a horse that trampled
Jebediah
.
That was way before Granddad’s time. Some people thought
Jebediah’s
death was intentional—murdered over a deal gone bad, but that was never proved.
Family legend says he received the Lotus as an engagement gift.”

“An engagement gift!” Her eyes lit up
with excitement. “Really? From whom?”

“Good question, but Granddad doesn’t
know the answer.”

“And your great-great-grandmother didn’t
survive to tell anyone the tale?”

“Nope, she died having Jonas. The gift
apparently would have been for his second marriage to some opera singer, but
the wedding never took place.”

“Opera singer?” Molly’s already wide
eyes grew wider. She leaned toward him with new urgency. “What was her name?”

“Bella Simone, according to Granddad.”

“That’s it! That’s the link!” Molly
exclaimed. “We did it!”

“What did we do?” He put his hand on her
arm as if to keep her grounded, but really, he just wanted an excuse to touch
her.

“Bella Simone was my
great-great-grandmother.” A confident head toss sent her hair fluttering around
her glowing face. Her eyes glittered with excitement. She threw her arms around
him for a quick hug, rubbed against him, then jerked away. “One of my family’s
two claims to fame.”

Whistling his surprise, Gabe’s head spun
with desire while barely hanging onto the thread of the conversation. “What
happened to her?”

“She died.” Molly paused, building the
suspense. “On the Titanic.”

He ignored the dramatic delivery and
mentally did the math. “That would have been two years after
Jebediah
bit the dust.”

“Sensitively put.” Molly’s face pulled
into a pained expression. “But yes. She’d been singing to packed houses in
London, and her manager-slash-husband at the time wanted to take her home in
style. Plus, they were eager to get back to the States, because they’d left
their infant daughter with Bella’s sister, Rose.”

Molly straightened her shoulders. Gabe’s
gaze was drawn to the undulating flag on the front of her shirt. With her
charms jingling on her bracelet, she tapped her index finger against her lips.
“So,
Jebediah
and Bella didn’t marry after they
received the Sleeping Lotus as a betrothal gift, and both of them died
tragically. Coincidence? I think not.”

Gabe glared in Molly’s direction. “Don’t
start about the curse. Life was uncertain in those days.” The way she looked
today, he’d follow her almost anywhere. But not down that road, not in the
direction of pure hogwash. “Bad things happened to people all the time, even to
nice people. And by all reports,
Jebediah
wasn’t all
that nice.”

The shrug of her shoulders sent the flag
waving once again. “All right, I won’t go there until I know more. But while
we’re here, I may as well do some research. If you want to keep on with—” she
gestured to the laptop screen, “whatever you were doing, I can look through
these reference books for information about the curse—
er
,
I mean, the carving.”

He reached out to raise the screen, but
thought better of it as a couple of teens in baggy shorts with huge sports’
logo shirts and expensive trainers shuffled nearby. While he waited for the
boys to move on, he tapped the ten-pound tome on the top of Molly’s stack of
reading material. “Where did you get those?”

“I called this afternoon and asked the
librarian to dig up some material for me.”

“Good thinking.” He watched as two
giggling teenage girls wiggled into the room, homing in on the boys. “But
unnecessary. I can locate anything we need on the Internet in five minutes or
less.”

She leaned back and gave him an
indecipherable look. “I’m old-school, I guess. Using the Internet is definitely
the way to go if I’m desperate at two o’clock in the morning to find out the
gestation period of gerbils or the weight of Jupiter. But otherwise, it’s too
surreal, too unconnected. I prefer to have an actual book in my hands, or I
don’t feel like I’m learning.” She ducked her head. “For me a brick-and-mortar
library is a place of knowledge where anyone can come to be enlightened. For
free.”

Gabe had lived and breathed
computer-anything since he’d played his first game of Mario Brothers when he
was six. After rescuing the princess, he’d taken the system apart to figure out
how it worked. Now, rubbing his chin, he searched for a response that would
rescue her from the dark ages and into the enlightened world of technology.

“Books have their place, but they’re
restricted by the author’s thoughts and knowledge. The scope of the information
you can find through the Internet is unlimited.”