Like her other arm. But she didn’t say that, not wanting to sound sappy.
She moved from behind the new pine counter to straighten a book in danger of falling from a shelf. “It’s tough,” she said, running a finger over the spines. “We talk every night, but it’s not the same.”
“I don’t understand why he can’t just flash back over here.”
“It saps too much energy.” Charlie delivered the lie without flinching. That was the story WFY had put out, and Jax had told her the truth in confidence. She turned to face her friend with a small smile. “It’s fine. I’m busy.” She ran her hands up her arms. “I just miss him.”
“Of course you do.” Kate crossed her arms over her chest. Ever since she’d dumped Ian, she’d taken to wearing casual sweaters and jeans to work. She’d stopped seeing the Tweedle twins, and the one time Ian had shown up at their apartment, Kate had refused to see him.
It all seemed like she was breaking away from her former life, which Charlie wasn’t sure was a good thing. But every time she asked if Kate was okay, her friend always assured her she was fine.
They were a pair these days, both in denial.
A few customers piled in out of the rain and shook themselves, chattering and laughing, filling the store with noise.
Kate inclined her head. “Let me.”
“Go get ’em, tiger.”
Charlie put away her calculator and slipped the spreadsheet back into its plastic folder. She closed her eyes for a second. She’d never wanted to be the girl who couldn’t function without a man. She’d always rolled her eyes and complained, but to her horror, this past week without Jax she’d found herself eating pint after pint of Ben & Jerry’s and, at a real low point, she’d climbed into his bed and pressed her face against his pillow just so she could smell him. She’d felt like a stalker.
It wasn’t like her. And she was worried that if Jax changed his mind while he was over there, her pillow sniffing would be the best of it.
She still couldn’t believe he’d asked her to move in with him. They’d known each other four weeks—who moved that quickly apart from Road Runner?
He said he loved her, but she saw no harm in waiting for him to get back. WFY had called it fresh perspective. If that perspective changed, at least she would still have her place to go back to. She knew he wouldn’t cheat—at least she didn’t think he would. Jax didn’t strike her as a cheater. He was more forthright than that. He’d let her know where she stood even if it cut to the bone.
And still worry nibbled at her that he was over there clubbing with three hot Europeans just dying to have a foursome. Old habits died hard after all.
Charlie pinched her nose and went to replace the folder in the back room. She was making herself crazy. He phoned her every night, told her he loved her, even managed to get her to say things that would make her blush to say them to his face. As she climbed onto the table to reach the rest of the files, heat rose in her cheeks at the thought of last night’s phone call.
“Charlie?”
“Yeah?” She whirled and almost fell from her precarious position. The shelf that held sales summaries was high on the wall and in lieu of using a ladder, Charlie had always just climbed onto the table. An idea that was clearly dangerous when thinking about phone sex. She peeked at her friend.
Kate stood in the doorway that connected the back room to the shop floor, an eyebrow raised. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Charlie fanned her face and cleared her throat. “You wanted something?”
Kate eyed her strangely. “You sure you’re okay? You look red.”
“I’m fine, Kate. What’s up?” Charlie climbed down and brushed past Kate, walking to the counter. Jax’s voice whispered in her ear, and goose bumps trailed shivery fingers over her arms.
“I just wondered if you wanted to grab dinner after the store’s closed. I’ve hardly seen you this week.”
Charlie glanced at her watch and realized it was almost five on the dot. “I wish I could, but I’ve got to water Jax’s plants. Maybe another time?”
“You’ve been watering his plants every night this week—won’t you kill them off?”
“They’re hybrids,” she lied, hating herself for it. “They need more water than most.”
“Oh. Okay.” Kate smiled, rocking back on her sneakers. The heels had gone, too. “Guess you’re looking forward to your Jax call, huh?” Her smile widened as she clapped her hands. “I still can’t believe it. I mean, I can, because you’re beautiful and smart and he’d be crazy not to like you, but just think. If you hadn’t won a wish, you might never have met.” Kate sighed. “It’s like a fairy tale.”
“And you’re my fairy godmother.” Charlie grinned. “You even got me ready for the ball.”
Kate laughed. “I guess I did.”
Charlie waited until they’d closed and the metal shutter clanked against the floor to wave at the man in the car across the street. “Make sure Luka sees you home safe.”
“Please, nothing ever happens in our neighborhood.” Kate gnawed her lip as Charlie hid a frown. “He’s been there all afternoon—do you think he’s cold?”
Charlie slid an arm around Kate’s shoulders. “Maybe he wants a cup of coffee.” She waggled her eyebrows.
Kate blushed. “Charlie. I didn’t mean like that.”
Charlie laughed and waved at the Genie who wasn’t even pretending that he wasn’t watching her. “Just get him to see you home.”
* * *
It was about eight o’clock that night in front of Jax’s crackling fireplace that Charlie finally found something.
She’d been going through the stupid files with a magnifying glass for a week trying to take her mind off Jax and hadn’t found a sniff of scandal—other than the ones she’d known about anyway. The car crash guy, the woman who’d wished for a jewelry store and had it robbed within a year. Two out of thousands—millions. More coincidence than anything. Hardly enough to point to and say, Ha! Wishes have consequences and I can prove it.
Disheartened, she’d wondered whether she really was just reaching for something to blame her mom’s transformation on. Jax’s words kept echoing in her head, reminding her that her mom had always wanted a rich man, she had always wanted to be kept. And a wish for beauty was an indication of a nature as shallow as a puddle. It made something in her chest tighten to think that her mom might have been solely responsible for such a sucky childhood.
No. She couldn’t let it go. There had to be more than two out of millions. Otherwise, what did that say about her mom? What did that say about Charlie?
It was time-consuming work, cross-referencing each wish with Google, hoping to find something. But after seven nights, all she really had was a paper cut and a sinking feeling that she’d be the one admitting to Jax how wrong she was.
So it was with some surprise when she’d turned the page, expecting to see the winners for June 1976, and instead read July.
A frown crossed her forehead as she flicked back. May. She turned it over. July. She flicked through the rest of the 1976 file for California, checking each sheet individually to make sure she hadn’t missed it.
The records Jax had smuggled out ranged only the span of a few years, from 1975 to 1980. All he could grab before the Librarian had come sniffing around, he’d said. Each state was assigned its own folder, and the files therein listed the month and year at the top of the page, and then listed the winners and the report the Genie had handed in. Charlie had chosen the California file at random and hadn’t had much hope of finding anything between the boob jobs and the classic cars.
She sat back, idly smoothing her finger over the May page. Why would a page be missing from the folder? From what she’d seen, WFY were incredibly thorough in their records, too thorough to let a missing page slip out.
Her back settled against the couch in thought. Excitement tickled her. Unless they had something on that page they didn’t want anyone to see.
&nbs
p; Charlie pulled her laptop toward her from where it had been idling on the coffee table. Jax had laughed when he’d first seen it and had insisted she could use his tablet, but she liked the feel of the keys beneath her fingers rather than touch screen nonsense.
She got rid of her screensaver and brought up Google. With a few keystrokes, searches for California, WFY, and June 1976 were on her screen. Scrolling down, she bit her lip as her eyes flashed over examples of charities, book launches, parties. Not every hit was for June, which slowed her down considerably.
She finally hit gold on one website dedicated to WFY’s former West Coast spokesman, Jared. The one Jax said had resigned from his post. It was basically a biography, unauthorized, and a worshipful one at that. Charlie skimmed all the clutter, finally settling on the list of dates and winners the obsessed person had compiled. In June 1976, there had been three winners from California.
Charlie’s eyebrows rose. She grabbed a receipt from the takeout she’d ordered and scribbled the women’s names on the back of it. Clicking back to Google, she typed in the first woman’s name.
Meredith Holstatt had died in 1990 at the age of seventy-six on a cruise liner. From a heart attack. Hardly the conspiracy cracker she’d hoped for. Strike her off.
Janet Kimball had married last year at the age of fifty-six. There was a photo of her kissing a white-haired man in front of a gorgeous stone church. Underneath she was quoted as saying: “I never knew I could be as happy as I am right now. Thank you, WFY, for granting my wish to find my true love. It might have taken a while, but it was worth the wait. Thank you so much.” Charlie pursed her lips. Strike her off, too.
Her last hope was Natalie Peckinsee.
A timer pinged, interrupting her thoughts. Charlie pushed to her feet as Google searched the world for entries with that name, walking over to Jax’s kitchen to fetch the cupcakes she’d baked from the oven. Vanilla rushed at her as she opened the door, along with steam that made her eyes water. She slipped on oven mitts and drew them out, placing each one individually on a cooling rack. Her hand hesitated as she remembered the night she’d given one, fully frosted, to Jax, who’d decided to try Parisian dining with cupcakes, too. Her bowl of frosting had been demolished before she’d iced even two cakes.
Her lips curved as she drew off the oven mitts and filled the kettle with water. She set it on the stove.
Charlie ran a hand over her neck and stretched it side to side as she waited for the old-fashioned teakettle to whistle. The windows were black with fairy lights as the city moved into late evening. It was strange being here without Jax, and yet she took comfort from it. He was in the overcompensating TV that hung on the wall—about a gazillion inches wide with high specs that he’d tried to explain to her, but she’d zoned out before he’d made it a sentence.
He was in the fully outfitted, cook’s paradise kitchen, when he couldn’t even make toast. In the decadent bedroom with its duck-down quilt and stacks of pillows and the bookcase where he’d stowed the classics he’d read with his mom. She’d taken to reading a bit of one each night. Yet another example of how sappy she was becoming.
A shrill whistle indicated the kettle was ready, and she fetched a scarlet cup from where it hung on a stand. Dropping in the tea bag she’d brought with her—Jax would never have such girly drinks around—Charlie then poured on the water. She carried it back over to her seat, leaving the tea bag in to steep.
Settling back into place, she clicked through the hits.
Over an hour later, she finally found a reference to a Natalie Pevinsey in Massachusetts. It was a small article from a local newspaper about a local artist’s show. Glassworks. A photo was pasted in, showing a tall and skinny black-haired woman in front of a gorgeous swoop of red-and-blue glass. Charlie didn’t know what on earth it was meant to be, but it was beautiful. She stared at the woman for a minute. Her head was half-turned away, her smile almost forced when it should be beaming. There was a little background on the woman, about how she’d only lived in the community for ten years and had been quoted as saying she had “itchy feet.” She’d lived in Massachusetts, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, and—bingo—Los Angeles, more specifically, California. The name was different, but similar enough—especially when combined with the photo.
Her thoughts skipped on. This was the only woman she could find with that name and a connection to California, but there was no mention of a wish. Of course, she might have had to change her name . . .
Don’t get ahead of yourself. Charlie tapped her lips with clasped hands. She could always call and ask.
What are you going to ask? Hi, I was just wondering if WFY ever granted you a wish where disastrous consequences made you drop off the map? Thereby showing both that wishes are corrupt and Genies uncaring.
Charlie scoffed. The phone would be slammed down on her so quick it’d make a three-minute mile seem like a jog.
Her eyes drifted to the woman’s photo again. Massachusetts wasn’t too far away, only a few hours. She could drive there, drop in. It was much harder saying no to someone’s face. And Charlie would be able to read her, too, see if there was anything real to be investigated.
God, listen to her. She laughed.
She felt like Nancy Drew and missed her Ned Nickerson, even if Jax wasn’t sold on rotten wishes yet. And that was what this was about, after all. Proving to him that she was right to feel that the wish had ruined her mom.
And still Jax’s words ran around on the eternal hamster wheel lodged in her head.
It wasn’t the wish that changed her, Charlie. It was the lifestyle. You can’t blame the wish for the consequences.
She thrust his voice away and stared at the information on the screen. This could be proof of a really awful wish. Her hands curled in, desperate to believe.
The phone rang, startling her out of the image of threads unraveling.
Tingles chased down her spine as she reached over and saw the ID. She pressed the green button. “House of sex, please hold.”
Dance music blasted at her as well as a smoky laugh that curled her toes and reduced her insides to marshmallow. “Damn, wrong number. Well, while I’m on here, fancy getting freaky?”
“Perv,” she said with a smile. “Where are you—in a club?”
“Yeah.” The sound fell away as though he’d flashed to a quieter room. Pounding music still beat in the background, but his voice was much clearer as he said, “I’m taking Liv out for some education.”
“Liv?” Charlie heard the jealous edge to her voice and cursed inwardly.
“Gorgeous.” His tone reprimanded her.
Charlie ran her tongue around her teeth and cleared her throat. “How’s she doing?”
Over the course of the last week, along with talking dirty, Jax had been giving her daily updates on England’s new face. Charlie succumbed to the green-eyed devil and hoped she had cellulite and a lazy eye.
“Okay. She had her first interview today. It went okay.”
“Good. That’s good.”
His voice lowered to an intimate stroke. “I had a dream about you last night.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“You were naked.”
“God, you’re such a man.”
“What?”
“If I dream about you, you’re bathed in candlelight and wearing silk pajama bottoms that I get to peel off you with my teeth. But no, in your dreams I just give it right up.”
“Peel off with your teeth?” Intrigue crossed continents.
Charlie adjusted the phone. “Sometimes I bite.”
“You’re killing me.”
She smiled.
“How’s the store?”
“Good. We’re officially in the black.”
“That’s great, gorgeous. We’ll have to celebrate when I get back. I’ll wear candlelight and silk pants for you.”
“Promises, promises.”
His laugh rolled through her like sensual smoke. “Damn, I miss you.”
“Of course you do.”
“And . . . ?”
She hedged. “On the odd occasion when I have nothing else to do and nothing to eat or drink, when nothing good is on the TV, I might, maybe, kind of, sort of miss you.”
“You sentimental fool.”
“It’s a curse,” she sighed.
He laughed again. The phone crackled and then he said, “About those files . . .”
Charlie opened her mouth to speak when he cut her off. “I’ve been thinking—maybe you shouldn’t go through them without me.”
A deep line marred Charlie’s forehead. “Why?”
“I just think I should be with you.”
“Don’t trust me?” A blow that zapped down to her toes.
“That isn’t what this is about, Charlie,” he reprimanded. “You know I love you—that’s more than I’ve ever told another woman.”
She closed her eyes and pressed the phone tighter to her ear. “Jax, if you’re asking me to stop looking, I can’t. My mom—”
“Charlie . . .” His sigh bordered on annoyance.
It offended her. “You don’t know what it was like. I have to keep looking.”
“I’m not saying you can’t, but—”
“Good,” she inserted, annoyed. Breathless for no good reason. “You don’t own me.”
“Jesus. Did I say I did?”
No. He hadn’t. She was being unfair; she knew it, but sensitive didn’t begin to cover how she felt about this topic.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not you. It’s the whole thing.”
“Charlie . . .” His voice held steel. The way he repeated her name made her hackles rise. “I love you so I’m going to tell it to you straight. Your mom changed because the wish let her have the chance to be who she really was. It wasn’t the wish’s fault or a Genie’s or even WFY’s. We don’t make people shallow. Life brings it out when you’re rich enough and don’t have to pretend.”
It hit like a sucker punch. She gripped the phone. Deny it. “You didn’t know her.”
“I don’t have to—I’ve seen it before. You want to know the real reason I don’t want you looking through the files?”
Her Wish--A Playboy Genie Romance Page 25
