I bit back my initial reaction to this information and attempted to be reasonable. “I appreciate that. I really do. But I have the parts it needs at home. I can fix it. What do I owe you for your time?”
He slid the vacuum across the counter. “How about your name?”
I smiled and felt a weird stuttering bubbling up inside me. “Ellen.”
“Well, Ellen. If you can’t get it to work, bring it back to me, and I’ll see what I can do, alright?”
“Sure. Thanks.” I grabbed the vacuum and dropped it into the protective cover of my messenger bag.
“Maybe I’ll see you around at the station?” He pulled a stool out and took a seat.
“Yes. Of course.” I patted my bag. “Thank you for taking care of this.”
He shrugged. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get it working for you.” He stretched both arms over his head, and his muscles bulged.
I backed up against the door and pushed it open. “You’re very nice to meet me! Come again!”
I exited with a flourish and made it half a block before I realized what I’d said on my way out.
Chapter 7
I power-walked all the way back to the hotel, one hand stuffed in my messenger bag with a tight grip on my Magic-Vac. The lobby was nearly empty. Stuart was the only person there.
For a moment, I paused and watched him pull items from under the desk, dust them, then put them back. He straightened a pile of brochures, making sure the edges were squared with each other, then wiped off the counter with paper towels and a cleaning spray.
It was hypnotic and soothing. Everything around me seemed to be in disarray, but here this good-looking guy was putting his own corner of the world right.
I was so relaxed, I forgot I was visible.
Stuart put his cleaning supplies away, stood up straight and smiled at me. “Good morning, Miss Valentine. You went out early. Can I help with anything?”
I took a step back, surprised that he’d addressed me. The name Valentine made me cringe. My last name was Hackett, but every Cupid who was sent out on an overnight assignment was booked as Valentine. Someone at the office must have thought they were hilarious. Probably that psycho gorgon at the front desk. She always looked grumpy, but I had a feeling when no one was looking she was up to something.
I smiled. “I could use some fresh disposable cups in my room when housekeeping has a moment. I used the last one this morning when I made tea.”
“Of course. I’ll be happy to take care of that for you. Are you enjoying your visit to Dallas?” His expression was bright and hopeful, as if it meant a lot to him that I liked this city.
“Mostly I’ve been working. But Dallas seems very nice.” I glanced at the elevator, wondering how to move the conversation on so I could go upstairs and check on my Magic-Vac.
He frowned. “It doesn’t sound like you’ve had much fun.”
“Well, no. It’s been a stressful trip.” Why did I tell him that? “Work has me hopping.”
Stuart wrote something on a business card and waved me over to the counter. “Here.” He handed over the card. “I’m not really supposed to do this, but I’d very much like to take you out to dinner while you’re here.”
He held his hand up when I opened my mouth to object. “I know you’re busy with work. So, here’s my number. If your schedule allows it, please give me a call. I’m free any evening after four.” Stuart gave me a shy smile, ducked under the counter, and pulled out the cleaning supplies again.
Not sure what else to do, I waved the card at him. “Thank you, Stuart. And…uh, I’m Ellen, not Miss Valentine.” I returned his smile and headed for the elevator. The gods were merciful, and the doors opened right away. Standing in the lobby waiting after that exchange would have been too awkward.
When the elevator opened, I nearly ran to my door—which was stupid, of course. It wasn’t as if Stuart had followed me.
Honestly, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been on a date. Had it been the guy from the DMV with the hairpiece? That had been a disaster. No. The last one was last October. Jeremy, his name was. Jeremy the dental hygienist. He’d been allergic to peanuts, which I’d had no way of knowing or I certainly wouldn’t have kissed his cheek after having eaten turtle pie. Thank goodness he had his emergency epinephrine with him.
I wasn’t good at dating. The prospect of going out with anyone made me uneasy.
I let myself in, bolted the door, and let out a relieved sigh.
“What’s up, sugar puff? You look like you were chased in here by wolves.”
I spun to face the room and found Vanessa lying on my bed, hands behind her head and ankles crossed.
“How in Hades did you get into my room?” My heart felt like it was beating double time.
“Housekeeping let me in. She was super nice.” She sat up and pulled something out of the pocket of her jeans. “And she gave me her mother’s beef stroganoff recipe, too.” She folded the recipe and returned it to her pocket. “Annie’s a really nice lady.”
I clenched my jaw. “I’m sure she is.” Deciding to ignore my uninvited guest, I placed my bag on the table and reached inside for my Magic-Vac.
“Hey, you got it back.” She beamed. “That means you talked to Mr. Hotty McHotterson. Like, in a real-life, visibly human conversation. What did you tell him?”
I shrugged and flipped the vacuum over to check the attached bag. “Not much. Just that he’d found my property by mistake and I’d like it back.”
“Uh huh. Seems like you’re leaving something out.” She wandered over to watch what I was doing with the vacuum and spotted something I’d meant to hide. “What’s this?” She snatched up the business card Stuart had given me. She blinked and stared at me. “You got digits. Stuart’s digits. Look at you go!” She returned to the bed and plopped onto it, still clutching Stuart’s number.
I flipped the switch on the vacuum, and nothing happened. I smacked it with the palm of my hand. “Come on. What did he do to you?”
Vanessa ignored my vacuum problems. “When are you going out with Stuart?”
“Don’t be dumb. I’m not going anywhere with him. I have work to do.” I smacked myself on the forehead and pulled out the cord to charge the Magic-Vac. Once I had it plugged in, I hit the button and it gave a weak whirring before quitting again. Good. That meant it was out of juice. Nothing a few hours of being plugged in couldn’t fix.
“So, let me get this straight. You go around matching people up, deciding who should be together, but you’re not putting yourself out there? How can you possibly know what love looks like if you don’t experience it for yourself?”
I frowned and straightened the cord on the charger. “Love looks like happiness. And people are happy when they’re around someone who understands them and likes the things they like.”
“Seriously. That’s your method? You match up people who are alike?”
“Sure.” I sat in the chair next to the table. “That’s part of it. Most of it, really.”
“Oh, honey.” She shook her head. “No wonder your divorce rate is so high. What about chemistry? What about passion?”
I shrugged. “What about it? Those things come when people with the same life goals connect. Respect and admiration come first.”
She stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. “How did you ever get this job?”
I pursed my lips. She’d read my file. She had to know I was a third-generation Cupid. “I’ve been doing it for nine years. My tenth anniversary is in November.” I was torn in two. Part of me wanted to rip her in half for lecturing me on a job I’d been number one at for a very long time. The other part of me wanted to burst into tears because I no longer believed I knew what I was doing. My entire identity was wrapped up in my status as an award-winning Cupid.
If I didn’t have that, then who was I?
“Okay, sugar beet. I’m going to show you. You’ll have to trust me. I know change and the unknown scare you, but I can see now why they s
ent me to follow you around. You need some Chaos to shake up your world and set it right.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but my throat caught on any words I might have tossed at her. My fight was gone. This crazy woman was going to be the death of me.
To my surprise, Vanessa grabbed my phone off the table before I could object. She took it back to her seat on the bed, then punched in the number on Stuart’s business card.
“Stuart! Hi! It’s Vanessa, Ellen’s sister. She asked me to give you a call while she’s on the laptop in a meeting. Her schedule opened up and she’d love to have dinner tonight.” She paused, listening. “That would be great. Excellent. I’ll tell her. Thanks, Stuart.”
She hung up and grinned at me and I stared back, slack jawed.
“What have you done?”
“Teaching you about love, Cupid.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down. “You can’t do any cleanup work while that thing charges anyway, so you’ve got some down time. I’ve seen all your cardigans and sensible skirts. Grab your purse. We’re going shopping.”
Chapter 8
Vanessa thoughtfully kept our excursion to a few shops within the three-by-three block area affected by magic rather than take me away from where I should be working. Maybe she understood that I was uneasy with leaving the area in case something happened and I wasn’t there to fix it. The love bomb mess was, after all, my responsibility to fix.
Even so, going to multiple stores was more than I was comfortable with in the first place. On the rare occasion that I had to buy clothes, I either went to a department store so I could get everything I needed in one place, or I shopped on the Internet, which was far quicker and more efficient than going out in the hopes of stumbling upon something appropriate.
She didn’t even seem to have a plan. How could a person shop without knowing ahead of time what they wanted? She had no list. And buying shoes in a store two blocks from where a person would buy a dress was so inefficient.
I didn’t care for it one bit. But she insisted on dragging me from store to store.
“Think of it as if the entire neighborhood is a department store,” she said, pushing me into a boutique with headless mannequins in the window. “All we’re doing is browsing in a different department.”
I hated how she shopped, too. She brought random items into the dressing room, dropped what I’d already tried on into one of two piles, then took off looking for new pieces.
Sometimes, she crammed into the small space with me and tried on an outfit or two before adding it to the piles, putting her own clothes back on, and taking off to look again.
The disarray in the room made me queasy.
Some of the things she brought me weren’t bad—a long black skirt with a pink tank top. A pair of jeans and a red blouse.
I held up the blouse. “Do they have this in pink? This red is a little harsh.”
She dropped the blouse and made a face. “Actually, I don’t like how the shirt looks on you. Not enough skin.”
We mixed and matched a number of pieces, but in the end, Vanessa declared that I needed to simplify and learn to dress more casually. We purchased a couple pairs of jeans, the pink tank, a black tank, a few soft tees in a variety of colors, a pretty white blouse with long, fluttering sleeves, a pair of open-toed sandals, and a pair of sneakers. She was appalled that I didn’t have any of these items at home, let alone with me on the trip.
“You’ll thank me someday. You’ll see.” At the last minute, she added a little black dress and a pair of strappy heels. “You know. Just in case. You’ll need them eventually, even if you don’t need them on this trip. Everyone does.”
The total made me gasp, but I knew it wouldn’t hurt. I hardly ever spent anything on myself. I had no hobbies, and I didn’t go out much. The thought was sobering. Vanessa was absolutely right about me.
While I waited for Vanessa to pay for her items—she spent even more than I did—I glanced around the store. The love magic wasn’t thick since we were inside and the store was on the edge of the affected area. But my instincts told me something was up. I may have had my confidence undermined and be filled with self-doubt, but I’d been doing the job long enough to feel when something wasn’t right.
I wandered toward the back until I heard the sound of two people whispering. The whispers were punctuated by giggles, then it went quiet. I separated a rack of denim jackets and peered down inside the display. Two people huddled together in the dark, gazing into each other’s eyes and drinking from a cup with two straws.
They appeared to be roughly the same age, around high school, or maybe recently graduated. He wore a football jersey, and he was pure muscle. She had hot pink hair, multiple facial piercings, and had a butterfly tattooed on the back of her hand.
I sighed. Several feathers poked out of their skin.
I knelt down next to them. “Hi guys. You’ve got a little something on you. Let me take care of it, and you can carry on with what you’re doing.” I highly doubted they’d want to carry on once I relieved them of the magic that put them there.
They both gave me a blank look through their glazed eyes, then without a word, started a thumb war with each other. With them both hunkered over their joined fists, it was easy for me to pluck the tiny feathers from their hair and exposed skin. When it was done, I used the hand not clutching feathers to run down each of their arms to remove the residual magic.
First the boy, then the girl startled and stared down at their joined hands with looks of horror on their faces. I backed out of the rack of denim and stood out of the way for them.
The boy emerged first, looking a little pale. He held his hand out and helped the girl crawl out. “What the hell were we doing in there?”
She shook her head and checked her phone. “Baby, we’ve got to get out of here. We’re late. You’re mom’s going to kill us.”
He put his arm around her and kissed her temple. “She loves you. It’ll be okay.” He glanced at her phone. “I didn’t know it was so late. Yeah. We better get out of here.”
On their way out, the girl dropped the drink they’d been sharing into the trash. “You’re in training, baby. You can’t drink that.”
As the door closed behind them, I made my way to the front of the store in a daze. What had just happened? How could they already be a couple?
“You look like you’ve seen a giraffe wearing a turtleneck sweater.” Vanessa stood by the door with her bags loaded on her arms. “You okay?”
I gathered my own bags where I’d left them by the register. “I’m fine. Doubting all my beliefs, my abilities, and my sanity. But I’m fine.”
“Good!” She grinned and held the door open for me with her butt. “That’s how you know the medicine is working.”
Chapter 9
Vanessa wanted to do something called a spa day next, but I refused.
“I understand that you’re trying to help me in some warped way, but I have a job to do. Observe if you need to, but do it from a distance for awhile.” I felt like maybe that was a harsh thing to say, especially in light of how hard she was trying to help me. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I softened my voice and tried to give her a pleading look. “I have to get this done. The Magic-Vac should be charged by now. Even if I can’t tell a good match from a bad one anymore, I can still clean up after the love bomb. I have to.”
She sighed. “Oh, alright. I’d prefer to let the magic fly and see what happens, but I guess you have a job to do as much as I do.” She waved her fingers at me. “Go ahead. I’ll leave you be for a bit. But I’ll meet you back at your room to help you get ready for your date.”
I had to stop myself from groaning at the reminder. Still, I had to eat anyway. And Stuart seemed very tidy and organized. He’d probably make a very good dining companion.
“Fine.” I let myself into my room to unload my bags. “Try to stay out of trouble.”
“Psh. Please. Trouble comes and goes as it wants. I only watch for it.”
I closed the door behind me, relieved to be alone. But, to my surprise, I actually liked Vanessa. She had a contagious energy that had grown on me when I wasn’t looking.
Although she did have a way of shoving me out of my comfort zone straight into oncoming traffic.
I spent a half hour hanging my new clothes in the tiny hotel closet. Normally, I’d wash and iron them before wearing, but that wasn’t an option here. At least not washing them. I would certainly be ironing whatever I was going out in tonight.
Once everything was put away, the new shoes were lined up on the closet floor with all my flats, and the bags were folded and put near the trashcan for housekeeping to clear away, I checked the charge on the Magic-Vac. The tiny light by the button was a solid green, and when I turned the machine on, the whirring was steady.
It was ready to go. But was I?
Shopping had been okay. Normal people shopped. And I’d been off duty. Now I had to go out on the street waving a hand-vac nobody could hear but—thanks to Vanessa taking away my wings—people could clearly see it. And me.
I glanced down at my pink cardigan. What if I used it to cover up the vacuum? Frowning, I unbuttoned the sweater, took it off, then draped it over my forearm. With the vacuum in my hand and the fabric hanging over it, it was difficult to see what I was doing. Since the feathers were drawn to the Magic-Vac when it was on, I didn’t have to move it. I only had to walk around town that way—stopping occasionally to swap out the bags.
That part might be awkward, but I’d figure it out when the time came.
One problem remained. The camisoles I wore under my sweaters were pretty, but they were underwear. I could not go out in my underwear. Absolutely not.
I glanced at the closet full of newly purchased items. I supposed I could put one of the T-shirts on. But wouldn’t that look stupid with my knee-length pencil skirt? The jeans felt heavy on their hanger as I held them out to examine them. I’d have to put on the sneakers if I did the tee and the jeans.
In public.
Dallas Fire & Rescue: Emergency Cupid (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Mt. Olympus Employment Agency: Cupid Book 1) Page 4