by Cat Schield
“In there.” He pointed down the hallway and headed for the front door.
To her dismay, as soon as she met her gaze in the mirror, Lia found herself blinking back a rush of unexpected tears. She braced her hands on the sink and rode the wave of emotions until her breath steadied and she could smile without grimacing.
Although he’d been clear that lying to his family bothered him, Lia recognized that sneaking around added spice to their encounters. And she couldn’t imagine Paul being susceptible to such a thing—doubtless he’d never allowed himself to be in a situation like theirs before. And he wasn’t the only one.
During her years on the road, she’d had many men look at her lifestyle and view her as a short-term thing. Unlike her mother, who took frequent lovers, Lia needed some sort of a connection and rarely found it. What she’d just had with Paul was worth more than all her experiences combined and it left her wondering—if she’d found this before, would she have stayed put?
Lia loved her life on the road. Traveling around the country satisfied her restless nature and offered her the opportunity to experience places that people often missed because they either flew to their destinations or only visited tourist locations.
Her time stranded in Charleston had given Lia an opportunity to think about what she wanted for the future. Was she going to roam aimlessly for the rest of her life or should she put down roots somewhere? And what was her criteria for staying? She’d found much to like in Charleston, but did it feel like home? Was she drawn to the place or the people or both? Lia’s inability to answer told her to move on.
She cracked the door to hear the conversation just in time to recall that she’d committed to spending the afternoon with the twins.
“She’s going to tell our fortunes,” Poppy was saying to Paul, referring to Lia’s promise to bring out her tarot deck and read for them. “You have to come and have your cards read, too.”
“It’s all foolishness,” Paul said, sounding exasperated.
“Come on,” Dallas insisted. “I’m trying out some new recipes for Zoe and Ryan’s wedding and there will be cocktails. It’ll be fun.”
“Please,” Poppy wheedled. “You never hang out with us anymore.”
“Fine. I’ll be there.”
“Awesome,” Dallas said. “Half an hour.”
“And leave your skepticism at the door,” Poppy said. “The universe might have an important message for you.”
Once Paul had ushered out his cousins and shut the door, Lia returned to the great room, a brave smile plastered on her face to hide her disappointment at the change in plans.
“She’s right,” Lia said, striding toward him. From his closed expression and rigid posture, she guessed the intimacy they’d shared five minutes earlier had been shattered by the twins’ visit. “You should come with an open mind. The cards have a way of getting to the truth.”
Paul stood with his hand on the doorknob and gazed down his nose at her. “Fortune-telling is all just educated guesses and made-up stuff.”
“It can be,” Lia agreed, thinking their differences couldn’t be any clearer. “But sometimes if you open your heart, the answers will shine like the midday sun.”
“Except I don’t ask those sorts of questions.”
Questions that might encourage him to lead with his heart and not his head. Lia knew nothing she could say would convince him otherwise so she pushed down her disappointment and vowed to only ask of him what she knew he could give.
Six
From Paul’s perch on a barstool at the breakfast bar in the caretaker house kitchen, he could observe the shenanigans playing out at the dining room table without appearing to be engaged. He was working his way through the second of the three cocktails Dallas had prepared for them to taste. She’d dubbed this one Love Potion, and with two shots of vodka and one of bourbon mixed with both cranberry and cherry juice, it packed a punch.
Despite being identical twins, with their mother’s blond hair and blue eyes, Dallas and Poppy had vastly distinct styles and temperaments. The oldest by ten minutes, Dallas had the Watts family head for business and more than her fair share of ambition. Since graduating college, she’d worked for some of the best restaurants in Charleston with the goal of opening her own place and currently worked as a private chef and caterer.
By contrast, Poppy was a stylist at a high-end salon in downtown Charleston and an active beauty blogger. She was free-spirited and headstrong, with striking pink hair and boundless energy, and whenever her family questioned her about doing something more serious than cutting hair, her quick answer was always a flippant one.
“Hey, Paul,” Poppy called, breaking into his musings. “It’s your turn.”
He blinked several times to reorient his thoughts and noticed that he was the center of attention. “I’m not interested.” He hoped his resolute tone would dissuade them from pestering him further, but their eager gazes remained fixed on him.
“Oh come on, we’ve both done it.” Dallas shot Lia a look. “What are you afraid of?”
“Besides,” Poppy chimed in. “It’s not fair that you’ve heard all our dark secrets without spilling a few of your own.”
“I don’t...” Paul trailed off. He’d been about to deny having any dark secrets, but then realized since Lia had arrived, he had more each day. “You know this isn’t my cup of tea.”
“Ladies, leave him alone,” Lia said, no disappointment or censure in her unruffled manner. She gathered up the cards from Poppy’s reading and returned them to the stack.
“Obviously he’s afraid to face the truth,” Dallas said, displaying relentless determination.
For the last hour, while Lia had made credible-sounding predictions for the twins, Paul had grown increasingly skeptical of her glib performance. While her expertise had appeared genuine enough to thoroughly engage his cousins, in Paul’s opinion the concept of being able to predict the future based on the turn of a card was nothing but nonsense. Still, as much as he’d wanted to scoff several times over the past hour, he’d held his tongue because Dallas and Poppy were thoroughly enjoying the experience. Or at least they were making a show of doing so. Some of Lia’s prognostications had rattled both girls, although they’d laughed and sipped their drinks to cover it up.
“There’s no truth I’m afraid to face,” Paul declared, his gaze clashing with both his cousins’ even as Lia kept her focus on the tarot deck. He was mesmerized by her small hands as she shuffled the deck to clear the energy. Why didn’t she chime in? Surely, she was dying to feed him a load of rubbish to get a rise out of him. “I just see all of this as a huge waste of time.”
“Since when is having fun a waste of time?” Poppy asked.
“When it comes to Paul,” Dallas piped up, “since always.”
“Come on, Paul.” Poppy got up from where she was sitting across from Lia and gestured for him to replace her. “What does it hurt to have Lia read for you?”
Seeing the two women weren’t going to let him escape without taking a turn in the hot seat as Lia had mockingly called it, Paul finished the Love Potion cocktail and made his way to the chair Poppy had vacated. Lia’s hazel eyes gleamed as she pushed the cards across the table toward him. From the first two rounds, he knew she wanted him to shuffle the cards. She explained that this would let the cards absorb his energy.
“While you shuffle, think about something you want to ask the cards about.” Lia had issued this instruction with both the earlier readings.
“Really,” he insisted. “There’s nothing.”
Lia nodded. “Then just let your mind drift.”
Paul handled the cards indifferently, demonstrating that he viewed the whole activity as a grand waste of time, yet while he shuffled the deck, mixing them thoroughly the way he’d watched his cousins do, he found himself besieged by memories of those delicious minutes with
Lia in his carriage house. The taste of her. The way she’d given herself over to him. His name on her lips as she’d come.
His body tightened at the vivid images and he shifted uncomfortably on the chair before setting the cards on the silk cloth she’d spread on the dining table. “You know I don’t buy into any of this stuff,” he muttered with barely restrained impatience.
“You don’t believe and that’s okay.” Lia had been staring at the cards in his hands, but now she lifted her gaze to meet his. The impact made his heart stumble. “But you never know. You might hear something interesting.”
A tiny ember of curiosity flared as he wondered what she might tell him. He suspected it would give him insight into her motives. No doubt she’d try to guide him into some sort of behavior the way she had his cousins, telling Dallas that she’d soon be confronted with a difficult decision involving two men in her life and Poppy that she would undergo a transformative period that would shake up her status quo and possibly harm those around her.
Both of these vague but somewhat ominous predictions had puzzled the twins, but they’d eagerly embraced the readings as if they were a road map to their futures.
“Go ahead and cut the cards,” Lia instructed. “Make three piles just like your cousins did.”
Paul did as she told him and made three similarly sized piles. The ritual of handling the tarot cards had given the process a solemnity that made a strong impression on his cousins.
“Now pick one pile,” Lia said.
His immediate instinct was to point to the one in the center, but as his finger was moving to indicate that stack, his gaze veered away.
“This one,” he said, indicating the one to the right, unable to explain why he’d changed course.
With a reverent nod, Lia gathered up the deck, placing the stack he had chosen on the top. Then she began to lay the cards out in a particular order facedown the way she had with his cousins. She’d called it a Celtic Cross and remarked that the layout was one of the most traditional.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yes.” He growled the word from between clenched teeth as he noticed a trace of excitement mingling with anxiety bubbling in his gut. Refusing to fall for Lia’s theatrics, he ruthlessly tamped down the emotions.
As if drawn to the drama unfolding at the dining room table, his cousins raced over and took the empty seats on either side of him. Eyes bright with curious intensity, they leaned forward, their full plates and refilled crystal tumblers forgotten.
“We’ll start with these two in the center,” Lia intoned, indicating the crossed cards.
She pulled the bottom one out first and flipped it over, revealing an old man with a long gray beard and bowed back. He carried a lantern and leaned on a walking stick. The character reminded Paul of Gandalf the Grey from The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
“This is the Hermit reversed,” Lia said. “It indicates what’s currently influencing you. It’s crossed by...” A dramatic pause followed as she turned over the next card. “The Fool. It is the first card of the Major Arcana and indicates the beginnings of a journey. The Fool can represent following your instincts despite what might seem the more sensible practice.” Lia touched the Hermit card. “As you can see the Hermit is upside down. This indicates that your time of isolation is over. You are ready to rejoin your community.”
Paul glanced from Lia to Poppy to Dallas and back to Lia as he absorbed her words. All three women were completely engrossed and he had to resist the urge to snort derisively. Let them have their fun. Nothing Lia said so far pertained to him. He didn’t isolate himself. He worked long hours to make sure his clients’ data was safe. As for starting a journey...he had no plans to travel anywhere.
Lia flipped over the card below the first two. “This position is the basis of the situation.”
“That doesn’t look like a very happy scene,” Dallas said.
Paul peered at the image on the card and frowned. Two people slogging through the snow, their backs hunched, looking very much as if they were lost and having a very difficult time. Above them was a glowing church window with five circles.
“Many interpret the Five of Pentacles as a dire financial situation,” Lia said. “But I often read it as someone who either can’t see a helping hand being extended to them or is unable to accept the aid being offered.”
As expected, none of this made any sense. Paul forced down his impatience. He wasn’t in a situation where he had need of anyone’s assistance. With the exception of Lia’s appearance in their lives, everything in Paul’s orbit ran as smooth as clockwork.
“What’s in Paul’s past?” Poppy asked, pointing to the card in the nine o’clock position.
Lia turned it over. “The Three of Wands, indicating someone who has achieved much and is now satisfied with all they’ve done.” She lifted her gaze from the cards and regarded Paul. “I think that sums up your past perfectly. You’ve spent a lot of time working hard on your business and now you get to look forward to what’s next. The position above is possible outcome.” She flipped the card over.
“Whoa,” Dallas murmured. “That’s grim.”
The card showed a woman standing blindfolded and bound in front of a semicircle of swords. The bleakness of the image made him suddenly glad that it wasn’t a definite outcome. Even as that thought crossed his mind, he rejected it. This was nothing more than a foolish pastime. None of this meant anything.
“This is a potential outcome,” Lia pointed out.
Poppy worried her lower lip. “It doesn’t seem like Paul is destined for a happy ending.”
“The key to this card is the blindfold,” Lia said. “It symbolizes confusion and isolation. But notice that while her arms are bound, her legs are free. She could walk away from this dangerous situation at any point. Instead, she’s choosing to stay where she is.” Lia moved on. “This next position is near future. It shows some situation that you will soon have to face, but not with the same certainty as the outcome. However, it can influence how things turn out.”
As she finished speaking, she flipped the card over and Paul’s heart stopped dead at the sight of the two naked people on the card with the sun shining down and an angel hovering around them.
Poppy squealed with delight. “The Lovers.”
“Well, well, well,” Dallas said. “Paul, what aren’t you telling us?”
To his dismay, he felt a rush of heat beneath his skin. It couldn’t be possible. Lia must have managed some trick with the deck. There was no other explanation for why this card had shown up in this position after what had almost happened between them.
After what he wanted to happen between them.
“Looks like I’m going to get lucky,” he remarked, retreating into humor to cover his discomfort.
“Good for you,” Poppy said, making it sound like he’d been neglecting his sex life.
Dallas nodded her agreement. “Maybe you’ll meet someone at Ryan’s wedding who you’ll click with.”
Paul was standing up for his best friend at a small, private wedding in a few days. The speed with which Ryan had fallen for Zoe continued to bemuse Paul, but he had no hesitations about the two being perfect for each other.
“Unlikely,” Paul said, “since I know everyone who’ll be there.” Yet, even as he spoke Paul couldn’t stop himself from glancing Lia’s way. In truth, he’d already met someone who intrigued him.
“The Lovers card doesn’t always mean the obvious,” Lia said, injecting a calm note in the conversation. “In some instances it can be a choice between two things he loves.”
“Do you have two things you love, Paul?” Dallas asked.
“The only thing he loves is working,” Poppy put in.
He gave each of them a sour look before settling a heavy-lidded gaze on Lia. Since starting the reading, she’d mostly been actively avoiding looking h
is way, preferring to concentrate on the cards before her, but as soon as the Lovers card had appeared, a trace of color bloomed in her cheeks as if she, too, was thinking about what had happened between them.
“The card at the bottom of the staff indicates self,” Lia said, resuming the reading. “The attitude you are contributing to the situation.” She flipped the card over exposing a king sitting on a throne with a sword. “Yes,” she murmured, “this makes sense. The King represents authority, power and judgment. He likes to rule the world with his keen mind and forceful personality.”
“That sounds exactly like you,” Dallas said.
“Totally,” her sister echoed.
“This next card is your environment.” Lia flipped the card over. The Two of Cups.
“I had that one, as well,” Dallas said. “You said it stood for romance. Look, it’s right next to the Lovers.” She pointed to the proximity of the two cards. “It seems like Paul may be headed straight for love.”
“What?” Paul muttered, unable to contain his displeasure. “Are you an expert now?”
While Dallas grinned at him in cheeky confidence, Lia shook her head.
“Or it could just mean that he’s torn between two things that are really important to him,” she said. “Perhaps he needs to balance his time better between family and his love for chasing criminals.”
Her interpretation sounded so reasonable, yet all this talk about romance, love and sex was making him itchy.
“What about the last two cards?” he demanded, impatient to have the whole reading done.
“This position is your hopes and fears.” Lia pointed to the second-to-the-last position, and then shifted her finger to indicate the one above it. “And this is your final outcome.”
“So what do they say?” Poppy asked, her blue eyes dancing with anticipation.
Lia turned the first card over. From Paul’s vantage point, the image appeared to be a man dancing on top of a log, but he realized that he was looking at the card upside down and that the man was actually hanging by his feet.