Cursed by Love

by Jacie Floyd

  “You won’t find it there.”

  “You don’t think so?” Her fingers closed on the silver object that earned a frown. He was right this time. Nothing lucky about a crumpled foil gum wrapper.

  “Nope. Like I tell my relatives who are always on the lookout for get-rich-quick schemes, luck is perseverance meeting opportunity.”

  “Where’s the magic in that?” She remembered the day she’d found her first lucky penny. She’d won the school spelling bee that afternoon, defying all expectations to the contrary. Was the victory due to good luck that her stiffest competition left school with a nasty case of food poisoning, or was it due to all the practice drills Molly had endured? Either or both.

  “We make our own magic through preparation and hard work,” he said with a wink.

  “Now that’s an empowering thought.”

  And looking at the certainty on that face in the shadows, she almost believed him.

  After scanning the hall, Gabe unlocked the outer door to Contract Communications. His sister sat behind the front desk and flashed him a look of relief. After hours, she usually worked in his office. But then, she’d been known to randomly roll from room to room on the lookout for the best aura. Or Feng Shui, or some crap like that.

  But damn, kooky ideas or not, there wasn’t much she couldn’t handle. If he read her so-happy-to-see-him expression right, things were worse with Quigley than Granddad had led him to believe.

  “Are you alone?” Sierra asked, craning her neck to look past him. “Did you just get here?”

  “You saw me come in. I’m all alone.” He spread his arms and turned in a circle to prove he wasn’t concealing anyone or anything. “I came as soon as Granddad called.”

  “Yeah, but I thought I heard you—or someone—out in the hall a few minutes ago. Maybe more than one set of footsteps.

  “Nope, just got here. Just me.” He pocketed his keys and headed for his office, confident she’d follow. She rolled her wheelchair silently behind him as he wondered about the possibility of someone else roaming the outer corridor at this time of night. The thought of an intruder breaking in when Sierra and Chloe were here alone at night gave him the chills. “I didn’t notice anything unusual. No strange cars in the parking lot.”

  Sierra shrugged. “Probably nothing then.”

  “You sure?” He settled in his chair.

  “Can’t prove otherwise.” She glided to a stop in front of his desk.

  Leaning his elbows on his desktop, he leaned forward. “So, what’s up?”

  “A glitch. Nothing more. I’m sure I’ll have it fixed soon. Granddad shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  “He said the Quigley job crashed.” Gabe’s stomach had been tied in knots ever since he got the word. He flipped on his computer and waited for the project files to come up. “That’s more than a glitch. If old man Quigley bails on us, that’s a catastrophe. I’ve been holding his hand for two weeks now to keep him from bolting. What the hell happened?”

  “Hey!” His highly-sensitive sister tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulder, causing her chandelier earrings to jingle. “Don’t take that tone with me, bucko. I’m doing the best I can.”

  Her defensiveness deflected the frustration he’d unfairly shot in her direction. Leaning back to regroup, he lobbed her an apologetic smile. “Which is usually pretty damn good, so quit dodging and tell me the truth.”

  “Let me work on the system a little longer,” she suggested. “After I troubleshoot the commands that Dominic installed, I’ll know more.”

  “The commands that Dominic installed?” Gabe sat up straighter and began tapping through the series of screens, searching for the corrupt file. “Why was that seventeen-year old kid installing the new system? He’s brilliant, I’ll give him that, and he’s going to know more than the rest of us put together one day, but that day’s not here yet. Uncle Harold was supposed to run the trials, or I never would’ve left.” Her silence spoke volumes. “So I’ll bite. Where’s Harold?”

  “He went out for a while.” She adjusted one of the half-dozen clanking necklaces that glittered against her purple tunic. With a half-smile, she reached over and picked up an object from the basket of stress-relief toys on the corner of his desk. No surprise his sister had grabbed one of her favorites, a squishy gel-filled tube shaped like a fat polish sausage.

  He stifled a groan. “I don’t need this right now.” He stopped keyboarding and held up his right hand to ward off more bad news. “Don’t tell me he slipped off to the casino again.”

  “All right.” While her tone remained even, he noticed the sausage jumped from one hand to the other faster than Ping-Pong balls in a championship match. Even Gabe, not one to read a lot of symbolism into other people’s actions, recognized the significance of the phallic-shape Sierra twisted and tortured on a daily basis. More than a few of the men in her life had screwed her over, providing her with a higher ratio of misery than any woman deserved.

  With a sense of dread, he lifted an eyebrow. “But he did?”

  She squeezed too hard, and the hotdog shot across the room. With her hands empty, his sister examined the lavender polish on her long fingernails, rather than meet his eyes. “Maybe.”

  “Damn!” He shook his head over the all-too-familiar scenario. Many of their financial woes stemmed from Uncle Harold siphoning off their profits, before Gabe shut off his access to anything but piddling amounts. “And I guess he took the fifty dollars from petty cash, too.”

  He rapped his clenched fist sharply against the dark mahogany desk. One of his treasures, a vintage Barry Larkin Cincinnati Reds bobblehead doll, nodded up and down.

  Because she watched him with a worried gaze, he gripped the arms of his chair for a moment, breathing deeply. Counting to ten and then twenty, he reined in his anger and frustration. He returned his attention to his computer screen and keyboard. Technical problems were easy. Given enough time he could always solve them. Personal and family problems were another story.

  “You’re not going to be too hard on him, are you?” Sierra chewed the inside of her cheek. “You know he can’t help it.”

  “I’m sick of that excuse. If I’m pushed to, I’ll buy the notion that his gambling addiction is an illness, but he could sure get his butt to his Gambling Anonymous sessions more often. He has to start showing more responsibility around here. When he lets the company down, he lets us all down.”

  “Re-spon-si-bil-i-ty.” Sierra repeated the word after him, measuring out each syllable and pursing her purple-painted lips. “That’s an interesting concept. Except for you, the responsibility gene is missing in the DNA of the other Shaw men. Maybe from all men, period.”

  “Probably not all men.” Gabe put up a token defense for his gender, even though he couldn’t be sure they deserved it. He didn’t stop clicking through commands when he glanced her way. “Maybe not even all Shaws. You’re forgetting about Granddad.”

  She pulled a disbelieving face. “Don’t let him fool you. He grew into dependability pretty late, and he still has some crazy-ass moments. Until Dad ran off and left us on Granddad’s doorstep, the old man led a pretty colorful life.”

  “Yeah, but he put all that behind him when he had to. And I say, it’s time Uncle Harold steps up to the plate, too. We can’t carry him forever.”

  “He’s not that bad. You let Harold’s resemblance to Dad sway your opinion. Remember, he stuck around and raised Terry, even when that wasn’t easy. And he does a lot to help out with Dominic, because Aunt Carlotta’s a total fruitcake.”

  Gabe shook his head, visualizing yet one more of his eccentric relatives. “She’s a Shaw, isn’t she?”

  “Touché.” She grinned and shrugged. “Things aren’t so bad that we can’t carry him a little while longer, are they?” The gaze of her eerie amethyst eyes settled on his face. They seemed to poke around in all the dark, unsettled corners of his brain.

  “Nah, we’re fine.” Gabe negated their problems and kept his ton
e light while mentally juggling the last of their resources. He relied on her too much as it was and she carried heavy burdens of her own. “But we need the Quigley money. We need to fix this program before tomorrow, and we don’t need any more screw ups from Uncle Harold.”

  Wheeling around the side of his desk, she placed her hand on his arm. “I’ve got some money saved if you need it.” She said it so casually he knew his attempt at reassurance hadn’t fooled her.

  He felt a twinge, an almost imperceptible pain in his chest that hit him sometimes when she caught him unaware. Her strength, courage, and loyalty snuck up on him and tore up his heart.

  Gabe patted her hand, but waved the offer aside. “That’s your money, Sierra. I know you’ve been saving to get a place for you and Chloe.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t really need our own place, unless you want to get rid of us. Chloe likes living with you and Granddad, and it gives me two live-in babysitters.”

  “You have no privacy, no space of your own, and you could have the same two babysitters on a moment’s notice no matter where you lived. You know we’re both crazy about Chloe.”

  “She is a charmer.” Sierra jingled her bracelets. “But privacy and space are overrated. I’m here or at my day job most of the time anyway.”

  He smiled to keep from grimacing. “That’s another thing I’ve been meaning to mention—you work too hard.” It gnawed at him that she had to keep her day job with an accounting firm because Contract Communications couldn’t provide the health insurance she and Chloe needed. He felt like such a loser for not being able to do more for them.

  Sierra scoffed. “And you don’t? You’re here twenty-four/seven. And we used most of your money to keep this place going this long. I don’t know why you won’t use mine. I’m part of this business too, you know.”

  He did know. She was the heart and soul of the place. If it wasn’t for her and Chloe, and Granddad, he’d cut the others loose and let them sink or swim. But the four of them had been through too much for him to let that happen. “We’d be sunk without you. Sometimes I think you really are the only sane one in the whole family.”

  “Sane, but crippled.” Keeping her tone light, she slapped the inert legs beneath her floaty skirt. No stranger would have detected the bitterness in her tone, but Gabe picked up on it. “We all have our idiosyncrasies and limitations, Superman. What about you? Anything besides kryptonite?”

  The conversation had been floating in emotional waters for longer than he could take, and Gabe turned back to his computer screen. He should probably check his email. “Well sure, I’m totally nuts, obviously, or I’d still be working at P&G pulling down six figures and having to look for ways to spend my money.”

  “Instead, you’re struggling to make ends meet and take care of this merry band of misfits that no one else wants to hire.” She shook her head and smiled at him, a smile that was as sad as it was fond. “You’ve taken on too much.”

  “Tell that to Granddad.” Great, he had mail. He shoved aside his problems to check out an incredible opportunity to increase the size of his penis. Not that he needed help in that area. No matter how high his spam blockers were set, creative spammers always managed to find a way in.

  “He knows. He just has endless faith in your superhuman powers. As do we all.”

  “None of you should place that much confidence in me.” He rolled his shoulders, feeling damned tired of it all. “Some days I’m just a heartbeat away from reverting to Shaw form and decamping to Tahiti’s cloudless beaches at the crack of dawn.”

  “That’ll never happen.” Sierra’s smile was a little too knowing for his comfort. “You’d miss Chloe too much.”

  “True, I’d have to take her with me. Where is she?”

  “Granddad took her home. They were going to watch a Discovery Channel special.”

  “Good. I texted him earlier about a dinosaur show I thought she’d want to see.”

  “That’s another reason you couldn’t go live on an island thousands of miles away from us. Who would you have to organize and boss around? You’d end up colonizing your own little kingdom.”

  “I’m not bossy.”

  “Right, you can’t help it that you always know best and insist on sharing your wisdom, rather forcefully at times.” She laughed openly at him. “Besides, where would you get the money for such a trip, oh, wise one?”

  “Apparently, a Nigerian prince wants to give me three million dollars. All I have to do is provide him with my personal banking information and our worries will be over.” He deleted the offer and braced himself to say, “If that money doesn’t materialize, I’ll sell the Harley. It’s the only thing I have left of any value.”

  Her expression lost its serenity. “Not the Harley, Gabe! You love that bike and riding with the Good Riders.”

  He shrugged off the observation. “Max knows someone who may want to buy it.” The words sounded as bleak as he felt.

  “But it practically pays for itself. Half the business you bring in is through your Good Rider contacts.”

  “The contacts will still be there, and the situation isn’t that desperate yet. I might not have to sell it.” He didn’t want her to worry. And he still had another plan or two up his sleeve. “Do you think Granddad’s stamp or baseball card collections are worth anything?”

  “A few thousand, maybe. Is that the best idea you’ve got?”

  He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Didn’t Granddad tell you? We’re sitting on a fortune.”

  Chapter Seven

  “You mean the Sleeping Lotus and the tidy sum we could turn it into?” Sierra mimicked his raised-brow expression. “But I heard there’s a snag, in the form of a woman who doesn’t want the money. Is that who you were with tonight? Did you make any headway in changing her mind?”

  He remembered Molly’s lips, ready to be kissed, then her look of alarm when he answered the phone. He was going to have to stop taking Granddad’s calls when he was around her. Or he’d have to set her straight about the old man. Gabe was trying to get him to text more, call less. Granddad insisted he didn’t have the patience to type out something he could say five times as fast. But maybe if he realized how those phone calls hurt Gabe’s chances with Molly, he’d reconsider. “Two steps forward, one step back.”

  “What is she?” Sierra quirked her head to the side. “Independently wealthy?”

  He pictured the Webbers solid upper-middle class house in Blue Ash. Nice. Homey. Better than anything he’d lived in growing up. Not lavish or pretentious. The result of hard work and determination from two people with good values and similar goals. “She’s probably never gone to bed hungry.”

  Sierra mulled that over as dark, unspoken memories from their childhood, from after their mom had disappeared, stalked into the room and hunkered down on the desk between them. Sierra shook off the memories. “Tell me about her?”

  The memory of Molly’s body pressed against his rushed into his brain with dizzying detail. Tempting, but inappropriate for sharing with his sister. “Nice. Pretty.” Description had never been his strong suit, but the Dreamsicle scent of her suddenly filled his head.

  “And she smells good,” Sierra added, looking smug.

  “Yeah, she does.” Gabe studied his sister, knowing how news spread like wildfire in their family. “I guess Granddad told you that.”

  “Nope. Just a good guess. And ...”

  Making a good guess didn’t confirm psychic abilities, but it was uncanny how often her “good guesses” were right. “What else are you guessing about?”

  “Nothing. Just a feeling I’ve got. Like she might be—” she crooked her fingers in airy quotation marks “—The One.”

  Gabe snorted and turned back to the computer, banishing his desires to the private recesses of his brain. If he thought too much about Molly and her appeal at the moment, Sierra was sure to detect it. He could never get much past her.

  Not that he really believed she was clairvoyant, but she was d
amned intuitive, even if he didn’t like to admit it. “She might be The One to keep me from getting my hands on a quarter of a million dollars.”

  Sierra’s eyes took on that knowing look that said she’d read his thoughts right through his thick skull. “Or, I think she might be just what you need. The One to take your mind off Alyssa.”

  “Don’t go all psycho-weirdo matchmaker on me now.” Gabe pushed his chair away from his desk and stood up, ten minutes past too tired for a conversation about his former fiancée. “My mind’s not on Alyssa.”

  “Really? You’re not pining over her anymore?”

  “I don’t pine. Pining is for wusses.” Gabe crossed to the mini-fridge and pulled out two bottled waters. He handed one to Sierra. “I’ve never pined over anyone in my life.”

  Sierra twisted off the cap and drank, accepting his comments for the length of a swallow. “Still, it was hard on you when she left.”

  “Not that hard.” In his last glimpse of Alyssa, she’d been all cool good looks and flashing eyes as she returned his engagement ring. If the woman couldn’t understand that Chloe with a broken arm was more important to him than a business dinner with the senior partner of her law firm, then Alyssa hadn’t known him very well.

  And in the end, it hadn’t mattered. If he had gone to the dinner with her that night, she would’ve broken up with him a few months later, when he jumped off the corporate ladder. His current position wouldn’t have been anywhere near upwardly mobile enough for her. “I’ve got plenty to do to keep myself busy.”

  “But when did you last go out on a date?”

  “When did you?” he bounced back without thinking.

  He cringed, flatlining his lips against the flip comment. A moment of pain invaded her eyes. They both knew the exact day and time of her last date--it had ended in the car crash. By the time she came out of the surgery that saved her life but left her in a wheelchair, her worthless boyfriend had disappeared like a bad dream—gone, but not forgotten.