Jinxed!

by Jacquie D’Alessandro

  Chloe laughed again, but Madame Karma didn’t even produce a smile. The woman could have no idea how amusing that was. Chloe liked to see things in their place, all nicely totaled and balanced. It was what made accounting such a perfect profession-the numbers always obeyed.

  Love, on the other hand, wasn’t nice and neat, and it certainly didn’t balance worth a damn. She knew that firsthand. She would never willingly seek out love. “I’m sorry. It just all sounds utterly ridiculous to me.”

  “Fine.” Madame Karma leaned forward over the table. “But that is your fate-whether you think it’s ridiculous or not.”

  “I didn’t mean to insult you-”

  “Oh, you didn’t. But I’d watch your back if I were you.” Madame’s eyes were dark and serious, made all the more intimidating by the way the wind continued to whip her hair around her head, with more sequins flying off to parts unknown. “Because, Chloe Cooper, your karma is heading south for the winter.”

  “What? You don’t seriously believe-”

  “Yes, I do,” Madame Karma said with a grim smile. “It’s what happens when people laugh at their fortune. Their karma takes a vacation to the Bahamas. Your love life? Consider it cursed.”

  “Oka-a-a-ay.” Chloe didn’t believe in cursed love lives any more than she did in karma taking vacations. If she wanted a lover, she could get one, thank you very much.

  Probably.

  Maybe.

  Okay, who knew for sure? But that was beside the point. So she’d been a little busy, and maybe she’d ignored certain aspects of her world. Like her love life. But since graduating college six years ago, she’d been working her tail off, building up her bookkeeping business, spending long days and nights with numbers as her closest company, because security and stability were extremely important to her.

  She would not apologize for that.

  So she didn’t have a valentine this year. She refused to associate that with her so-called cursed love life. She’d simply forgotten to put a man on her to-do list.

  Had she had a valentine last year?

  Sad to say, she couldn’t even remember. Jeez, that couldn’t be a good sign, and for a second, for a blink really, she almost wished she believed in all this destiny talk, because bumping into the love of her life right now might be nice.

  Madame Karma stood to her barely five foot height, signaling that their little meeting was over. That’s when Chloe saw the small discreet jar with a sign indicating the fee for a “reading.”

  She just threatened me with bad karma and now I have the privilege of paying her for it, she thought.

  “Since you don’t believe in what I do,” Madame Karma said, “what I said can’t possibly be a threat.”

  Chloe blinked. She’d swear the woman had just read her mind-if she believed in that hooey. “Fine,” she said and slapped her pockets for the bills she’d put in there-her cookie money, damn it-then stuffed them in the jar. Not messing around, she pushed away from the table, her gaze shifting to Constant Cravings.

  She really needed some sugar. Near the coffee shop was the huge fountain marking the center of the courtyard. It shot streams of water into the air, spritzing the myriad colorful flowers lining the walkways. The wrought-iron benches were filled with people, some nibbling on food, some going after their valentine.

  She stalked directly to the coffee shop. The owner and Chloe were friends, and as soon as she entered, Lacey smiled and greeted her. Knowing she could buy on account if she had to-which she now did have to, thanks to Madame Karma-Chloe ordered several scrumptious-looking cookies.

  There. That would help dispel the odd quivering in her belly, which she knew damn well was hunger and not, definitely not, a niggling sense of discomfort.

  As soon as she stepped outside with her bag, Chloe dug into the first cookie, moaning out loud when the peanut butter-chocolate treat melted in her mouth. The wind still whipped around, which she had to admit was slightly comforting, because for a few minutes, she’d almost believed Madame Karma had somehow been creating the wind.

  The air felt sticky. Close. A storm was definitely brewing. She swiped a hand over her damp forehead and began to work on her second cookie.

  There was a good turnout; many of the party goers were from the various businesses in the Fairfield complex. People milled about the flower-lined walkways, checking out the craft stalls or enjoying the art galleries and other novelty shops. Many carried shopping bags bearing the Fairfield logo, evidence that this party wasn’t just for fun, it encouraged business.

  Chloe counted many of these businesses as her customers, which pleased her. Life was good, she reminded herself. With or without a valentine-

  Her gaze snagged on the entrance.

  A man was walking into the open courtyard from the street, his sunglasses dangling in his fingers, his stride easy and loose. A man, just like any of a hundred before him, though none of the other men milling around had stopped her heart. None of them had sent her reeling, the years falling away on the light wind.

  It couldn’t be.

  But it was. A blast from her past in the form of one tall, dark and way too gorgeous man. He was broader now, but still leanly muscled like the basketball player he’d once been. His hair was longer than she remembered, still dark as sin, curling around his collar.

  Ian McCall, her first kiss, her first real boyfriend.

  Her first everything…

  2

  THE CROWD SEEMED TO SWELL and grow, and for a second, Chloe lost sight of him.

  No!

  Weaving through the crowds, she gripped both her bag of cookies and her sanity in a tight fist.

  Where was he? Had the decorative lights played tricks on her? Had she simply dreamed him up?

  It was entirely possible, given the hours she’d been keeping, which were pretty much 24/7. Nothing she could do about that. Mid-February was right about the time people tended to begin their pretax panic. She’d been deluged, without much time for sleeping.

  That was it, she decided. She was simply sleep-deprived, nothing more. Today especially, as it was nearing seven o’clock and she’d begun work at seven that morning.

  Twelve hours. No wonder she was seeing things. Anyone would be.

  Suddenly the throng of people parted and she let out a low breath because there he was-in the center of the courtyard now, near the band, beneath the myriad white lights strung around a makeshift dance floor.

  He had his back to her, shoulders straight, long legs taking him closer to the people dancing. He wore a simple black polo shirt untucked over faded black jeans that looked like beloved old friends, well worn and fitted to his undeniably hot body.

  A body that she could, with some authority, say that, once upon a time at least, had looked just as good without any clothes at all.

  True love is going to walk into your life.

  It almost weakened her knees, how accurate Madame Karma had been. If she’d used past tense, that is.

  Because once upon a time, when Chloe had been young and giddy and very, very naive, Ian McCall, with his dreamy green eyes and naughty smile, had been the love of her life.

  Had been.

  As in past tense.

  As in a very long time ago. Ten years. Now she was no longer young and giddy, and she was certainly no longer very, very naive.

  So why did just the sight of him grab her by the throat, by each and every erogenous zone…by the heart?

  Stuffing another cookie in her mouth-clearly she needed the sugar fortification even more now-she began to make her way toward him. A group of women, their hands full of bags, all laughing and talking and making as much noise as a gaggle of hens, got in her way.

  “Damn it.” She pushed her way through. “Excuse me-Excuse me,” she said with growing impatience as she craned her neck every which way…Unbelievable.

  She’d lost him again.

  What was he doing here, anyway? They’d gone to high school together in Burbank Hills, and they’d
been best friends, which had turned into something more. He’d been an absentminded but sweet and sexy basketball star, and she’d been his English tutor. He’d taught her hoops and she’d taught him Shakespeare. He’d shown her how to loosen up and she’d kept him on task, whether that task had been an English paper or kissing her senseless…

  But then he’d gone off to NYU for the art history program, and she’d gone to Cal State Northridge for the accounting program, and they’d lost touch.

  Well, except for that next year when he’d come home for the holidays and she’d run into him at her mother’s New Year’s Eve party…

  Oh, yeah, that had been a night for the memories. Back then, it’d been six months since they’d been together, and it’d felt like six years. They’d caught their first glimpse of each other-

  Ohmigod , she thought, as he reappeared, still near the dance floor. On that New Year’s Eve all those years ago she’d caught her first glimpse of him, after their separation, over her mother’s makeshift dance floor.

  Just like now…

  Destiny?

  Or just crazy coincidence?

  A picture of Madame Karma appeared in her head, the older woman waggling an I-told-you-so finger.

  No. No, this wasn’t fate, it was just a wild chance meeting-

  There. He was still there. She caught a flash of his head, above most of the others, and the sunglasses he now had on top of it. Slowly, as if feeling the pull from her own shocked gaze, he turned to face her.

  And from across the twenty-five yards of grass filled with people, with the band playing, and with the laughter and the deepening night sky lit up by the bright, cheerful lights, their eyes met. It seemed like a silly cliché, but Chloe would have bet her last dollar that time actually stopped.

  Or maybe that was just her heart-which, in any case, immediately kicked back into gear with a heavy, fast beat that felt as if it came from her throat.

  And he was the cause. She knew it.

  And then just that fast, the crowd and the night closed in and swallowed him whole.

  Gone.

  She didn’t know how or why, but Ian was here. She dumped her bag in a trash bin-quite a sacrifice-and cut across the dance floor, the fastest way to get to where she’d last seen him.

  She strode across the grass and walkway, plowing into a block wall of dancers playfully executing a half-drunken version of the Macarena. She got caught up in them for a moment, with one particularly eager idiot from the framing shop not letting her pass until she’d stopped and gone through a whole verse.

  With a forced smile, she rushed through the motions, thinking she had not consumed enough alcohol for this. Finally she got around them and waved goodbye, walking backward two steps before she again plowed into someone.

  A someone with a rock-hard chest. “Sorry,” she said, turning, looking up-

  Her mouth fell open, because that hadn’t been just any rock-hard chest. “Ohmigod,” she said in an unintentionally breathless voice as his hands came up to steady her.

  With his big, strong hands on her arms, and those warm, warm eyes locked on hers, it was like being catapulted back in time, so that she couldn’t help sounding like Marilyn Monroe there for a second.

  She’d never been one to use her femininity purposely. In fact, she’d been a tomboy all her life, which her own athletic frame had made natural, and had only recently become more comfortable in dresses and makeup and all things associated with being female.

  Secretly she was glad, because it meant she was wearing her flowing, flowery skirt, pretty and flattering. She just wished she didn’t sound as if she needed him to give her an orgasm. “My God, Ian. It’s amazing to see you. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m sorry.” He spoke in the same low, slightly husky voice that had always turned her on so much. But something stopped her cold, and that was the fact that he also sounded like he was addressing a perfect stranger.

  “Ian, it’s me. Chloe. Chloe Cooper.”

  “Chloe.” He frowned, his expression serious, and also now carefully, completely blank. “I don’t-I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”

  No way. But all the warmth had left his gaze, and now she couldn’t even be sure…had she imagined the initial recognition in his eyes? The air in her lungs deflated, along with any ego or pride she might have had, which, granted had, been slim to begin with.

  He didn’t recognize her.

  Embarrassed, she laughed a little. “High school. Junior and senior year…” She trailed off when he shook his head. Oh, God, he really didn’t remember her. “I’m sorry. I-Never mind.” Heart beating uncomfortably fast, she moved around him. Wow. She had no idea what had just happened, but it had been truly awkward. Definitely past time to get back up to her office, where she could put both this and Madame Karma’s silly predictions and subsequent curse right out of her head.

  Damn, she wished she’d kept that bag of cookies, she thought as she walked away.

  What else could she do?

  But then…then something made her glance back. Maybe it’d been his scent, some mixture of soap and deodorant and all man, a scent that was so damn familiar she wanted to pinch herself and wake up.

  Maybe it’d been the undeniable certainty that she wasn’t wrong.

  Or maybe…maybe it was something much, much simpler. Such as the scar beneath his ear.

  She remembered that Ian had a scar like that, too, from when he’d taken a flying header out of his dad’s truck the day he’d turned sixteen and had wrapped the vehicle around a telephone pole while attempting to find a good song on the radio and drive at the same time.

  A scar that she’d once pressed her mouth to and kissed. He’d loved it when she’d done that, and in return, she’d loved the sound of his harshly indrawn breath from just feeling her lips on him.

  Why didn’t he remember her? There had to be an explanation, she decided, and turned back. “Ian-”

  He hadn’t moved, but seemed to stand frozen to the spot, looking at her. “I’m not Ian.”

  His identical twin then. Only Ian hadn’t had a brother. In fact, after his dad had died in their senior year, he’d had nobody. She pointed to his scar. “You got that in your car accident, remember?”

  “No.” Lifting a hand, he covered the scar. “You’re mistaken. You’re confusing me with someone else.”

  “So you’re not Ian McCall.”

  “You’re confusing me with someone else, that’s all.” He looked around him, at the party, the people, the pleasant chaos. “And I’m sorry, but I really need to get back to my…date.”

  Okay, he wasn’t who she’d thought, and he also wasn’t available. She got it. But being this close made her body ache, which was a ridiculous phenomenon all in itself that she would worry about later. For now, she just couldn’t stop staring, just couldn’t get over the fact that she was wrong, that this man wasn’t Ian.

  As she stood there somewhat in shock, the music changed, quickened, and there was a surge toward the dance floor. A group of people shifted behind the Ian-imposter, nudging him into her so that their bodies brushed.

  Hers reacted immediately, as in nipples hardening, thighs tingling, the whole deal. And the bottom line was that her body recognized this man’s body.

  Again she was bumped, and she nudged up close. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, putting her hands up to his chest to brace herself because it was getting extremely crowded around them.

  And because she couldn’t help herself.

  His hands went to her waist to steady them both, and in what undoubtedly was more of her overactive, sugar-induced imagination, he gently squeezed her hips, regret flashing in his eyes.

  Regret, and…something. But it was gone so fast she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t made that up as well.

  True love is going to walk into your life.

  The words wouldn’t leave her brain. She’d laughed them off, but deep down she felt uneasy about the slight, very slight, p
ossibility that she really did believe.

  A fact she’d deny to her dying day, because even if this man was Ian, her once-upon-a-time teenage love, he couldn’t possibly be the love of her life now, all these years later.

  That, she definitely did not believe. “I just can’t get over it,” she murmured. “You look so much like-”

  “They say we all have a twin out there.”

  “Yeah.” The music slowed again, and the lights dimmed. All around them people drifted into pairs as the slow dance began.

  The two of them stood there, awkwardly staring at each other, not moving except for the constant bumping of the crowd.

  “I should-” he started.

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  He nodded. “Because I need to find…”

  His date. Right.

  And she should go upstairs.

  Any moment now.

  But neither of them moved. She, for one, didn’t want to, and she’d like to think he didn’t, either.

  And then somehow they’d shifted even closer, her body flush against his again, as they sort of somehow fell into the rhythm of the music.

  “I really need to go…” he started.

  But he didn’t go. His face was almost fierce with intent as he looked at her, same as when he’d been in the middle of a basketball game, or about to kiss her…And unable to resist, she melted into him. She couldn’t help herself, he felt that good, that unbearably familiar.

  Did he feel it?

  She closed her eyes to let her body absorb the pleasure. It was as if time really had stopped, as if everything had stopped except this, and, helpless to the odd pull, she opened her eyes again and tipped her head up to say something, anything.

  But she was interrupted by a startling flash of lightning, followed by an almost immediate crack of thunder that had her jerking nearly right out of her skin.

  In reaction, he spread his fingers on her back and slid his hand up and down in a gesture that felt incredibly protective. Comforting.

  And yet somehow so sexual she nearly purred.

  And then the storm, which had been slowly moving in, finally arriving in all its glory. Around them, everyone gave a collective gasp and scattered off the dance floor, just as it began to rain.