by Geeta Kakade
CUPID’S HOLIDAY TRILOGY
By
Geeta Kakade
ISBN: 978-1-77145-166-6
PUBLISHED BY:
Books We Love Ltd.
Chestermere, AB
Canada
http://bookswelove.com
Copyright 2013 by Geeta Kakade
Cover Art Copyright 2013 by Michelle Lee
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
BOOK ONE
CUPID vs. O’KEEFE
PROLOGUE
2011
"Poppycock!”
The Recording Angel frowned. "I beg your pardon?”
"I said, Poppycock!" repeated the grumpy voice. "I don’t believe it’s been a hundred and fifty five years since I died. Or that I’ve been in some sort of holding tank all this while. You have no right to keep me here. I’ll have you know I’m Phillip Cupid of Cupid Lodge, Silver Lake City."
"Were," corrected the Recording Angel. "Now you’re a soul that can’t enter Heaven till you complete your sentence. And if you say Poppycock one more time I’ll have to double it."
"What’s the bloody sentence?” Phillip asked.
"Watch your language,” was the firm reminder. “You have six months to go back and repair the great wrong you did in your lifetime.”
“What wrong?”
“The Angel sighed and looked at the Book of Records. “You came between your son and his family."
"I never harmed a hair of me boy’s head. I loved my son."
"By interfering in his marriage, you forced him into a lonely existence. Marriage vows are sacred."
"I wanted what was best for him. I didn’t want him tied to a native. What would people think of us?”
“So you broke the marriage up because you cared more about what people thought of you than what your son felt for his wife?”
"I didn’t want his life ruined. We had a reputation to uphold as the first settlers at Silver Lake. I named the lake and I gave the first trader money to set up a post in what Agnes and I named Silver Lake City."
"Your son loved his wife."
"Love!" Phillip made it sound like a dirty word. “It was a good thing she went back to her people and Jacob eventually remarried and had other children.”
The Angel sighed. Some folk learned things the hard way. The importance of love was one thing Phillip Cupid would have to acknowledge.
Phillip didn’t like the silence. It was time to change the subject. "I worked hard, and I gave to the Church. I upheld all God’s laws. Agnes and I even adopted an orphan later."
"Your good deeds are the reason you’re being given a second chance."
"I don’t know how to fix things."
"Your wife, Agnes, will help you with your task. She has been waiting here for you, and she has asked for special permission to go back with you."
"Hmph!" said Phillip.
At least Agnes hadn’t forgotten her place. A man needed a woman to see to his comforts.
The Angel smiled for the first time since Phillip had come before him. "You will have no control over Agnes. The two of you may remain together, or not, as you both choose. I will require a report every week."
Phillip wasn’t worried about Agnes. She’d always been as meek as a mouse. "Where are we to go?”
"Back to Cupid Lodge."
"I don’t know what I’m supposed to do when I get there."
"Follow Agnes’ lead."
How would a fool woman know what to do without a man to guide her? A wind wrapped Phillip and he felt himself floating down, gentle as a summer breeze from the lake he’d built his house by.
He wasn’t really dead. This was just a bad dream. It must have been the ham he’d eaten for dinner. He always had bad dreams after ham. There were no such things as Recording Angels who handed out sentences.
It was all poppycock.
CHAPTER ONE
"Agnes, where are you?" Phillip called, flitting into the attic in search of his wife.
"I’ll be right there," Agnes replied. "I’m checking the family tree."
Phillip groaned. "Why?”
“I’m looking for someone we can help and I want to make sure Cupid Lodge won’t stand empty." came the cheerful reply.
"As spirits, we are not supposed to care about material things," Phillip intoned solemnly.
"How can I rest in peace when the house we built with our own hands is in danger?” Agnes demanded. “Do you remember the day we left the wagon train at South Lake Tahoe and set off on our own? You said judging by the number of wagons there Tahoe would be very crowded and you wanted a quieter place to live. We travelled for three days before we reached this lake by twilight. We made a campfire, ate and fell asleep exhausted. You woke me at midnight. The full moon was high in the sky and as we looked at the lake it shone like polished silver. Though it was much smaller than Lake Tahoe and some other lakes we had passed, you said it was perfect."
Phillip remembered the night and the lovemaking that had followed their decision. In the morning they had driven around the lake till they were exhausted but they had found the perfect place to homestead. The cove made their place even more private. The hills behind their property would provide shelter and perfect ski slopes for the adventurous, the lake itself would provide fish and the woods on their property, meat. It was the beginning of summer and before winter set in he had brought in enough stone from Tahoe to build one large room which gave them ample space for a bedroom, a kitchen that opened to a larger room with a fireplace. There was room for them to sit in and read during the long winters or for Agnes to work on her crafts while he whittled. Whatever children the future held could play in front of the fire or do their schoolwork around the big table he made with trees he felled on the property. Other people had started coming into the area and ten families had staked out properties around the lake before winter set in.
Agnes knew memories held Phillip silent too. That first year here had been hard but they were young and strong. They’d met every challenge and overcome it together. Neighbors had helped each other and the few Washoe Indians in the area had been friendly.
"There is no reason for the house to be empty,” she said. “We have so many of our own flesh and blood who would benefit by coming here. It would be just as easy to bring people together here as anywhere else."
"On the list I was given it said we can’t use our powers to create perfect endings," Phillip warned. "You’ve been told that time and again."
"I know that," Agnes retorted, unlike her usual self. "All I will do is get people together. The rest is up to them."
"We’ve been dead a long time. Everything’s changed. I don’t understand the noise and the clothes they are wearing and even what they are saying sometimes. Why are there so many people here anyway?”
‘Silver Lake has become a very popular place."
“Let’s leave. I like quiet places.”
"No,” said Agnes in a firm tone she had never used to him before. “I can still do some good here. You know the rules. You have to get three couples together. I’m going to be busy for a while here. You go ahead and go wherever you want."
Phillip sighed, "I have to keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t bend the rules to get what you want. Besides it’s my sentence not yours so leave it to me. We might have to find another place to live. "
"He’ll never admit the house means as much to him as it do
es to me," Agnes muttered under her breath turning her back on him and floating away to a corner to focus.
"Have you found someone?" Phillip asked a little later, when he heard her stir.
"Yes." said Agnes. "It’s a great, great, great great granddaughter. Concentrate, and you’ll see her."
Silence prevailed as telepathic thoughts showed them a picture instantly.
BEVERLY HILLS, September 2011
Let me belong somewhere.
It was a strange twenty fourth birthday wish but it came from the very depths of Christy’s soul.
She didn’t belong in the Beverly Hills mansion run by an army of servants, filled with people whose social circle gave her a nosebleed. Christy didn’t want any of it. This was Mother’s life and from her early teens Christy had known she wanted something different. She’d tried to find it at the hospital where she’d worked but it had closed down and she’d felt adrift again.
Till she’d turned eighteen, there’d always been friends, gifts, parties. Designer clothes, designer cakes, well-orchestrated catered parties.
Blow out the candles and make a wish darling.
Mother had always been there to direct everything and make sure the occasion was perfect.
Christy had let her till she’d finished high school. Other than running away from home she had no choice. She’d avoided the groups that had drug parties, that talked non-stop about who their parents were and how much they had and the ones who took everything from their parents very sure they had to have nothing but the best. She read to make up for the fact most of the people she went to school with ignored her. She had one friend John who wanted nothing other than to get a medical degree and go abroad and work in disaster areas and they both stuck to each other as birds of a feather do. They didn’t care they were considered an ‘item’; just that they were left alone.
At eighteen she’d gladly gone away to college. Ignoring her mother’s pleas that the college she’d picked was the one where she would find the most well to do husband from the top echelons of society, Christy dropped out after her first semester and found a vocational college in Pasadena to go to. To Mother’s horror she’d lived with an English couple as an au pair in exchange for board, lodging and a small salary. Graduating with an LVN degree she’d started working, anxious to become independent as quickly as possible.
“She’s just sowing her oats,” Christy had heard mother tell a friend at Christmas the year she had graduated and started working.
Much to Mother’s increasing anger, Christy had found a job and got an apartment with a friend at a small hospital in the suburbs of Los Angeles, far away from Mother.
“This is ridiculous Christy. You don’t need to work. What’s the matter with you? Do you want to see Dr. Hayden? Most girls would give their eye teeth to live in Beverly Hills.”
But Christy did need to work if only to prove to herself she could. Christy liked her job, the patient contact she had, the one on one caring.
On weekends she and Lee the friend who shared the apartment with her, explored the area, finding inexpensive places to shop, trying new places to eat that weren’t all ritzy, watching old movies for a dollar and budgeting their money carefully. Christy loved her life and felt that for the first time she was experiencing life firsthand not just sailing through it on a twenty four karat skateboard picked out by Mother. When the small hospital she’d worked at had closed down for lack of funds Christy had been at a loss to know what to do. A new job might entail moving out of her apartment. She’d promised herself to take two weeks off and make a decision after her birthday. She would move out of the area to find work if she had to.
Mother had insisted on Christy coming home for her birthday this year.
Out of work and with no excuses at the ready Christy had weakly agreed and driven herself the seventy five miles to Beverly Hills.
As soon as she’d arrived Christy had known agreeing to Mother’s demand was a mistake. All she’d heard over dinner was how Mother had planned a small party for her the next evening and one of the men who was coming was one of LA’s most eligible bachelors. Christy had told her mother she had no interest in meeting the man, attending the small dinner party or listening to her go on about how important a good marriage was. Talking to Mother was like talking to a brick wall.
“Go to bed. You’re tired,” Mother had said finally. “In the morning I want you to look in my closet when you wake up. I have a surprise there for you.”
A surprise? Probably a dress from one of the designers in Rodeo Drive meant to stun Howie Steigler, Jr.
After a bad night, Christie opened her eyes to see her old bedroom filled with light.
A glance at the clock showed it was ten. She jumped out of bed and went to her Mother’s bedroom.
The sooner she got started on the day the sooner it would be over. For next year she was going to write down a list of reasons why she couldn’t be here and practice saying them aloud every single day.
There was no sign of her parent for which Christy was grateful. They were to meet at the Ritz for lunch at one. At least she’d have the morning to herself.
There were two dresses in a designer sheath with her name on it. Christy undid the zip and took out the first dress. It was really pretty, a light lavender with a single flower outlined in cream pearls on the shoulder. Behind it was a black one for this evening.
Slipping out of her pajamas Christy got into the lavender dress and twirled in front of the mirror.
“How d’you do?” she said pretending to hold the tips of her fingers in a bent position.
Suddenly she smiled, her mood lifting. If Mother had invited anyone else she deemed eligible to the luncheon Christy was going to surprise her by acting the part of an empty headed debutante.
On the shelf above the dresses were rows of Mother’s hat boxes. On impulse Christy reached for a green hat box. Maybe a hat would look good with the dress when she met Mother for lunch. Maybe her act would convince Mother to leave her alone in future.
The shoebox at the back of the shelf fell down from the shelf as she stood on tiptoe to get the green one and luckily did not land on her foot. The top came off. Christy was surprised to see a bunch of letters in there. Picking them up she turned the bundle over and got a shock. They were addressed to Miss Christy Cupid. The postmark was Silver Lake City, California.
Her heart started racing and her mouth went dry. She hadn’t been Christy Cupid since she was six. Picking up the large business envelope on the floor, Christy turned it over. Again it was addressed to Miss Christabel Cupid. The sender’s name transfixed her gaze. What did the law offices of Brigham and Brigham, Silver Lake City want with her?
Sinking on to Mother’s bed she tore the envelope open and read the letter. She read it five times before the words registered in her shocked brain.
Her father had died a month ago and as his sole heiress she would inherit his house and its contents. The address of the property followed. If she contacted them they would be happy to arrange a meeting at her earliest convenience.
Christy’s gaze went to the top of the letter. It was dated five months ago.
Jake Cupid had died six months ago not a year after he’d left them as Mother had told her?
She turned the packet of letters over in her hand. She knew now they were from her father.
Why hadn’t Mother let her see these letters?
She wasn’t going to open them now. Jake Cupid had still deserted his daughter without a word. As anger over what Mother had done increased, the truth became clear.
Mother always had to get her own way. Always.
Shock was a body suit fashioned out of ice. It wasn’t only impulse that had prodded her decision. It was necessity. The letter raised so many questions. She had to find answers to those questions.
Suddenly Christy knew exactly what she was going to do on her birthday.
She left a note for Mother and picked up the bundle of letters. There was no point c
alling her now when she was too choked with anger to talk.
After calling the lawyer who had his cell phone listed on the letterhead too, she packed. Hauling two suitcases out of the closet in the dressing area, she started throwing the clothes in. Mother kept her closet stocked assuming any day now Christy would return here for good. She would need warm clothes. A quick look at the weather channel on her iPad showed the Silver Lake region was much cooler than Los Angeles. On impulse she threw in the winter ski clothes she hadn’t used in years too.
Her anger gave her the strength to carry the heavy suitcases downstairs and out to her care. Telling the housekeeper she was leaving, Christy got into the car before she could ask her anything. The one good thing was the woman was new and didn’t say a word to Christy as she left.
The chauffeur had cleaned and changed the oil in her car and Christy drove off in the Ford Focus hoping she would never come back again.
"You are at your destination," announced the navigation device in her car.
Christy stared out the windshield of the car. Her jaw dropped. Even in the dark, she could make out the size of the house. She’d imagined her inheritance as something small...certainly not a lake front mansion.
She pinched herself just to be sure she was awake. The house was in pitch darkness.
As with all the houses in the area, the front of the house faced the lake and the back the road. She stared at the outline of the garages and a couple of other doors.
From the mailbox she picked up the key to the front door.
Getting out she took her carryon bag with her leaving the rest of the luggage till the morning.
Christy knocked on the back door nearest the garage but there was no response.
The darkness closed in on her. Her palms were damp on the handle of her heavy carry-on bag. In the distance the croaking of frogs provided an eerie welcome chorus. The scent of roses drifted to her on a breeze that ruffled her hair and slithered down her spine.
