Lucky Charm

by Carly Phillips

  He’d broken up with her after the prom. Post graduation, her parents had moved away, and she’d gone with them. At least he hadn’t had that summer to watch her, longing for something he could no longer have. But while they’d been together, his life had been spectacular. At eighteen she’d been the most beautiful, sensual woman on the planet. He could only imagine what the intervening years had done to her already lush body and china-doll-like face. With her mother’s French genes, she hadn’t been afraid of passion or sex, and they’d indulged in both often, until Derek realized it was no longer just physical attraction that kept him coming back for more.

  She’d been smart, too, the only daughter of parents who were both professors. She had a sharp wit and had been insightful, understanding Derek’s love of high-stakes finances even before he had the money to indulge his passion. She probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d gone to Columbia undergrad and directly on to Wall Street as a trader until he was hired by an investment-banking company and made himself rich from lucky, huge deals.

  He’d made himself poor the same way, investing too much in a company that went south instead of north. These days Derek was a financial planner, getting his thrills by building other people’s incomes more slowly and sensibly, not toying with his own.

  He shook off the memories and headed to where his daughter was trying to play fetch with Fred. The dog was lying on his fat stomach without moving, staring at the stick she’d tossed.

  “Ready?” Derek asked her.

  Holly wiped her dusty hands on her jeans shorts. “I’m ready.”

  “Good.” He ruffled her long hair. “Let’s drop Fred off at the house before we go.”

  Holly nodded and pulled the reluctant dog’s leash. Fred trotted along at her side.

  “Daddy? What’s wrong?”

  “Why would you think anything’s wrong?” Derek asked.

  His daughter met his gaze, squinting as the glare of the sun hit her eyes. “Because you look sad.”

  “Hey, how could I be sad when I’m spending time with my favorite girl?” he asked, determined not to let anything dampen the time he had with his daughter.

  She giggled. “I’ll go give Fred to Grandpa.” She walked to the house, leaving Derek alone with his thoughts. The most tempting woman in his past had shown up to wreak havoc with his future.

  Maybe she wasn’t here to stay.

  Yeah, right. And maybe the Corwin Curse wasn’t responsible for the breakup of every male’s marriage down the family line.

  GABRIELLE DONOVAN DROVE her black Lexus convertible down Main Street. She took in the stores and the colorful awnings and decided other than a few newer, more modern shops, nothing major had changed. She wondered if Derek Corwin had.

  From her long-time friend, Sharon Merchant, Gabrielle knew that Derek had returned to their old hometown about six months ago. Gabrielle, herself, had moved from Florida to Boston about one month earlier, following her parents, who’d relocated from Florida six months before. She was used to being near her close-knit family. And as a writer, Gabrielle could work anywhere, so relocating wasn’t a hardship.

  Was it a coincidence that Derek had returned around the same time?

  Gabrielle shook her head. There were no coincidences. She might not believe in curses, but she definitely believed in Fate and true love. Derek Corwin had been hers.

  From the day they’d met in the cafeteria in sixth grade, there had been something between them. Over the years, a solid friendship had turned into a crush. A middle-school dance had led to a kiss and suddenly they were inseparable, hanging out after school, doing homework together and sharing secrets.

  Derek and Gabby, Gabby and Derek. He’d been her other half from eighth grade through senior year. She knew about the curse. Everyone in town knew.

  Derek feared the power of the curse, and though Gabrielle had never believed in such things, given his family history, she’d respected the threat it held over the Corwin men. Derek had never used the “L” word, not even the day after the prom when he’d ended things and broken her heart. She knew he’d loved her too much to take their relationship further, thereby setting the curse in motion, so he’d said goodbye. He hadn’t even given her a choice in the matter.

  But she had a choice now. And she chose to believe that she and Derek were in such close proximity after all this time for a reason. For Gabrielle, the reason came down to second chances. She needed to know if the flame between them still burned.

  The memories she had of him were strong. She’d idealized him and their relationship to the point where no other man could live up to the standard he’d set. No man since had understood her or given enough of himself. No man had been Derek.

  So after years of moving from relationship to relationship, always being the one to break up, always looking for more than whatever the man of the moment had to offer, Gabrielle saw this as her chance to revisit the past—and find out, once and for all, whether her future could include Derek. If it didn’t, at least she’d know. Then she could move on.

  It helped that her best friend was also the librarian of the Perkins-Stewart Public Library. By asking Gabrielle to speak, Sharon had given her a reason to come to town. Gabrielle was ready for her talk at the library, but she didn’t expect to see Derek there tonight. She considered herself a pretty good judge of character, and given what she knew of Derek, he’d avoid her lecture on curses at all costs.

  That was fine with her. Gabrielle preferred to set her own agenda where Derek was concerned.

  Her first stop this morning was the Rhodes Inn, which consisted of a trio of rooms in an old boarding house. Though Boston was only an hour away, Gabrielle wanted to visit for a few days so she’d taken a room at the inn run by Adele Rhodes, Gabrielle’s fifth-grade teacher, a nice woman who’d indulged Gabrielle’s love of school and writing. When Gabrielle had called to rent a room, Mrs. Rhodes had been thrilled to hear from her now-famous student.

  Gabrielle checked in and shared a warm reunion with her former teacher. She unpacked her suitcase and personal items, climbed back into her convertible and drove to Sharon’s house on the outskirts of town.

  Sharon and her fiancé, Richard Stern, had bought their own home in Perkins. But until they married after the election in the fall, Sharon still lived with her parents. Richard was running for mayor of Perkins against the previously uncontested Mary Perkins. He couldn’t afford the scandal living in sin would cause. Once upon a time, Sharon would have had no problem flouting convention, but a painful episode in her past had changed that. These days, Sharon was happy but more subdued.

  Gabrielle parked out front and rang the doorbell of the old Cape-style home. Sharon opened the door and greeted Gabrielle with a huge hug.

  “I’m so glad you’re back,” Sharon said, releasing her.

  Although they’d kept in touch by phone and e-mail and Sharon had visited Gabrielle in Florida, this reunion was different. Gabrielle hadn’t been back in town for almost fourteen years. She’d avoided this place—and the memories of Derek—for way too long. But now that she was living within driving distance, she was finished staying away.

  Gabrielle smiled. “I’m happy to be back, too. You look great,” she said, taking in her friend’s long blond hair and flowered sundress.

  “Back at you!” Sharon gestured to Gabrielle’s hair, cut in the latest style. “I’m dying for a good haircut, but I can’t bring myself to trust anyone locally!”

  “I found this great stylist in Boston. If you’re serious, we can go next week and you can get it done.”

  Sharon nodded, her eyes filled with excitement. “I would love it. Maybe I’ll even cut it above my shoulders, like yours.”

  “You’d look gorgeous with shorter hair.” Their conversation reminded Gabrielle of an adventure they’d shared in high school, when they’d both dyed their hair with hydrogen peroxide, hoping to become shining blondes. Instead, they’d wound up living with green hair until their mothers agreed t
o pay for a professional fix.

  “Let’s shop Boylston Street and Copley while we’re there,” Sharon said, making a disgusted face as she pulled on the fabric of her dress. “I need some new clothes.”

  Gabrielle laughed. Some things never changed. They both loved shopping. She and Sharon were just like sisters—sisters who never fought and just enjoyed each other’s company.

  Sharon led her inside and they sat in the living room decorated by photographs of Sharon and her brother and eclectic other odds and ends favored by Sharon’s mother.

  “I’m so grateful you came to give that lecture for Richard. He’s convinced that in order to beat Mary Perkins, he has to get rid of the townspeople’s fear.” Her friend was a huge supporter of Gabrielle’s work and kept the library stocked with her books.

  “My pleasure.” Gabrielle reached out and squeezed her friend’s hand. “I’m so excited to be living close by you again.”

  Sharon leaned forward. “Same here. But right now, I want to know about your newest project. What do you have planned for your next book?”

  Gabrielle drew a deep breath. “I’m going to write about the Corwin Curse.” And hopefully dispel it for good.

  “Wow.”

  “Exactly. I’m going to do some research, as well as interview the Corwins and the Perkins. I’m determined to shed some light on this thing, once and for all,” Gabrielle said, definitively.

  For years, she had dispelled other paranormal rumors like ghost sightings or UFO reports, writing about everything but curses to try to heal her pain over losing Derek. But avoidance hadn’t helped. The Corwin Curse had taken the man she loved away from her because Derek was a believer. If not for that curse, Gabrielle would probably have married Derek and been the mother of his children. She’d still be a writer because it was in her blood, but her personal life would have played out so differently. It was time for her to deal with that, Gabrielle thought. She planned to face her past, define her future and confront old ghosts.

  “How do you think they’ll react?” Sharon asked.

  Gabrielle shrugged. “I can’t worry about it. I need to do this for myself.” From the day Derek had broken up with her, her life had been defined by that curse.

  After moving to Florida after graduation, she’d gone to college there. She’d majored in psychology and minored in human behavioral science. Over time, she’d let her writing become a means of working out her feelings. She hadn’t been able to fight Derek’s beliefs when he’d broken up with her, nor had she understood how he could allow an old curse to destroy the future they could have shared.

  Gabrielle needed to understand how human beings with free will could have their behavior swayed by things that didn’t exist. She had to somehow comprehend how the man she loved and who she thought had loved her had dumped her because he believed he was cursed.

  “I just can’t get over the fact that Richard’s future hinges on an old, ridiculous myth,” Sharon said.

  Gabrielle gave her friend a wry smile. “Why not? Mine did.”

  Sharon slapped her hand over her mouth, deliberately dramatic. “I’m sorry! What an awful thing for me to bring up. I just wasn’t thinking!”

  “It’s fine. I was kidding. The problem is, when people believe in this kind of stuff, their beliefs are based on things that are just so hard to refute. For one thing, history has repeated itself over and over, making it appear as if the original curse on the Corwins has validity.” That was why Gabrielle needed to research it in detail.

  Sharon scrunched her nose, her disgust with the subject clear. “You mean, because all the Corwin men have been unlucky in love, people believe that a witch caused it to happen?”

  “It’s not just that they’re unlucky in love. It’s also because Mary Perkins’s family, who’ve run the town for years, have used those failures to cement their position. By reminding everyone of the Corwin Curse, the Perkins are able to manipulate those around them, holding on to their power by playing on people’s fears.”

  Sharon nodded. “She’s as much as insinuated that, since she’s the namesake of the original Mary Perkins, she has the power to brew up another curse. Just when Richard thinks he’s making headway in reaching people, she’ll bring up the past and remind people of her power.”

  “In what way?” Gabrielle asked, wondering how one woman could have so much sway.

  “Well, a large development group came to town to buy property that they wanted to turn into an ocean-front resort. Mary doesn’t want to chance anyone coming in and usurping her position, so she coerced the owners to sell their otherwise profitable land to her at a cheap price rather than to the developers.”

  Gabrielle rose and smoothed the wrinkles in her linen skirt. “How? And why in the world would anyone take a lesser price?”

  Sharon got up, too. “Mary claimed the town owned the land through eminent domain. She threatened to take the individual landowners to court, informing them she’d win and they’d probably get much less than what she was graciously offering now. She also mentioned she was a direct descendant of the Mary Perkins, and not so subtly reminded those homeowners that she could bankrupt them with a few choice curse words. Darned if they didn’t sell cheap. And of course, after the fact, nobody would admit they’d been threatened, either.” Sharon shrugged.

  Pausing by the window, Gabrielle glanced out at her convertible parked on the quiet street. “Well, I can see why Richard has his hands full.” Gabrielle didn’t want to tell her friend that a few lectures might not be enough. Old beliefs were powerful. Too often, not even persuasive reasoning or common sense could overcome them.

  “So…we’ve talked about the curse long enough. When are we going to discuss the five-hundred-pound elephant in the room?” Sharon asked.

  Gabrielle raised an eyebrow, pretty sure she knew what her friend was referring to but wanting to hear it before she jumped to the wrong conclusion. “Care to elaborate?”

  “The man himself? Derek Corwin? I know that seeing him again won’t be easy.”

  Gabrielle smirked. “Five hundred pounds? Guess I won’t have to worry about that old attraction rearing its head again after all.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I thought so.” She shrugged and remained quiet.

  Sharon exhaled loudly, breaking the silence. “Okay fine, I get the message. We won’t talk about Derek today. So here’s the plan. I need to stop by the library and pick up my cell phone first, since I left it there last night. Afterward, I thought we’d go shopping. There’s a new mall you’ll love. What do you think?”

  Gabrielle nodded. “Sounds good.”

  Anything that changed the subject, Gabrielle thought.

  She’d become an expert at that. Whenever Sharon tried to impart gossip about Derek, Gabrielle deliberately asked about something else. But that hadn’t stopped Sharon from letting some pertinent facts slip over the years, from Derek’s early marriage to his more recent divorce. Hearing about him only reopened old wounds, but Gabrielle had recently been forced to accept that those wounds had never really healed.

  She may have tried to move on with her life, but even all these years later, she hadn’t been successful. It was time she confronted the past. She had no choice. Derek had left her incapable of moving on.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DEREK AND HOLLY MADE A STOP at the library to return a few books and take out some new ones before hitting the mall. Derek dropped her off at the library while he went to get gas and pick up lightbulbs at the hardware store.

  Half an hour later, they were on their way. Holly’s mother had called her on her cell phone, and the two spoke for the duration of the ride to the mall. Marlene was loving her trip and had to buy an extra suitcase for all the goodies she’d bought for Holly. After twenty minutes of listening to Holly regale him with stories her mother had told her, getting to the mall almost seemed like a relief.

  Which was ironic considering shopping was his least-favorite activity. Normally he prefer
red to get in and out of stores as quickly as possible. But today, he enjoyed his time with his daughter, hitting shops he’d never been in before, from Limited Too to Abercrombie, and now Bloomingdale’s. His daughter, he realized, had her mother’s genes. She gravitated from store to store, “oohing” and “aahing” over each item, but unlike her mother, she didn’t ask for everything she saw. Although she let him replace the Abercrombie flip-flops Fred had chewed up, she didn’t request anything else.

  That puzzled him.

  They ended up in Bloomingdale’s. The escalator down to the girls’ department let them off in bedding, where a huge sign proclaimed Summer White Sale. He suddenly remembered what he was missing at home. “I need some new towels. Mind if we take a detour?”

  She shook her head. “Nope.”

  They weaved through the displays of sheets and duvets toward the towels, when he realized Holly had stopped in front of a bed made up with a bold pink-purple-and-white pattern.

  “What did you find?” he asked.

  “Check these out!” Her blue eyes lit up as she pointed to the bed display and matching throw pillows. “My best friend, Robin, has something like this at home. It’s so cool, don’t you think?”

  “I sure do. For a girl.” He ruffled the top of her head.

  As he spoke, Derek realized that from the day Holly had come to stay with him, she’d used old linen from his father’s house without complaint. It had never dawned on Derek that she might like something new, or to make the room she was living in her own.

  “Would you like these for your room here?” he asked.

  She turned toward him, her eyes huge. “Really? I can have them?”

  He nodded, wanting her to be happy. This bedding seemed to do the trick.

  “You’re sure? I mean, we don’t know how long I’m going to be here. And Mom will never let me use them at home since they don’t match my room.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s probably a lot of money.” She trailed off, obviously disappointed in the conclusion she’d reached.