“Please don’t go,” Georgie pleaded. “Let me help you.”
“You want to help me?” Adalia asked in the coldest voice she could muster. “Then leave me the hell alone.”
She left Georgie crying in her office, and she had to admit that she felt like a world-class bitch for that, but she knew what Adalia was like in self-preservation mode. They said a wolf would bite off its own foot if it were in a trap. Adalia was more the type to bite off someone else’s. She was leaving for Georgie’s benefit, not her own. If she hadn’t left, Defensive Adalia would have eviscerated her.
Only she didn’t know where to go, once she left. Her clunky car hadn’t started that morning, so she’d gone in with Jack. Of course, their house couldn’t be more than two miles away, which made it walkable, but she didn’t want to go there. Not yet. Instead, she shoved the laptop in her purse and just started walking. She found herself downtown, aimlessly walking in circles around the city blocks, letting the anger bleed out of her. There was an itch at the base of her head, a craving to go to Dottie’s garage, but she didn’t have a car, and she knew that what she created would only be destroyed. Then Georgie would have even more ammunition to call her crazy.
She didn’t call you crazy.
No, but Adalia had seen the fear and worry in her eyes. Maybe she didn’t say the words, but she’s thinking them all the same.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been walking, but it was long enough that her anger had burned off, leaving irritation and disappointment. Only she couldn’t figure out who she was disappointed in—Georgie? Finn? Herself?
Maybe Adalia should leave Asheville and go somewhere no one knew her. She could start over again, but doing what? She wasn’t exactly qualified for much. She dug out her phone and checked the job site app—no requests for an interview.
Perhaps if you actually applied for a job, you’d get an interview request.
She wanted to kick her inner voice in the shins.
But the question of whether she should move on wouldn’t leave her mind, so when a storefront across the street caught her eye—Psychic Readings by Lola—she stopped.
Didn’t Dottie have a friend named Lola?
She remembered the name, and it was such a Dottie thing to have a psychic friend. Was this the universe telling her that the answers to her questions could be hers if she simply walked across the street? Possibly she was just nuts, but she found herself jaywalking. A car came to a halt as she walked in its path, and she held up a finger of warning after the driver laid on the horn.
“Not today, Merv!” she shouted in warning, for some reason using Finn’s name from the ‘Who are you?’ game.
The older man snapped out of his momentary shock and shouted out the window, “It’s Herv, not Merv!”
Whatever. Finn would probably get a kick out of that. Plus the Fiona thing.
If she were speaking to him.
Adalia stopped in front of the door and read the hand-painted sign: Appointments encouraged, but walk-ins welcome. If you were meant to see me, I’ll have scheduled an appointment for you.
She snorted. “I bet.”
She’d never been to a psychic or had her palm read or sat down for a tarot reading. Some of her friends were into that kind of thing, but Adalia had always told them that she was in charge of her own future, not some woo-woo person with a deck of cards. It tickled Adalia to pretend Dottie’s waves of intuition were something more supernatural, but this was a bunch of hocus-pocus nonsense.
God, what was she even doing here? She was confused, for sure, feeling like she was standing at the center of a crossroads with a target on her back. Part of her wanted to put down roots in Asheville, but the rest of her was ready to run anywhere that would protect her from the humiliation of facing her sister, River, and most of all Finn.
But did she want to resort to this? She had better ways to spend her money. Like her next student loan payment.
Yet she found herself unable to walk away. Neither could she get herself to enter. It was a harmless thing, she rationalized, and Dottie would be pleased she’d come to see her friend, yada-yada. What could it hurt?
Then again, what if she didn’t like what Lola told her? Therein lay the crux. That itch at the base of her neck pushing her to enter—it was the same feeling that kept sending her back to Dottie’s garage. But what if this visit to Lola could put a stop to that?
Did she actually want it to go away? If Adalia didn’t have art, then who was she?
Maybe it was time to find out.
Before she could change her mind, she opened the door and walked into a small waiting room filled with thrift-store chairs and a loveseat. A door on the back wall opened, and a young woman with brown, chin-length hair and bangs appeared. Adalia had expected someone much older. Lola looked like she couldn’t be more than a year or two older than her.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
Adalia stopped in her tracks, trying to disguise her surprise. “I don’t have an appointment.”
“I know, but I knew you were coming.”
Narrowing her eyes, Adalia thumbed to the door behind her. “Because you mystically book appointments for those who need them?”
A smile lifted the corners of the woman’s mouth. “That, and I have a security camera pointed at the front door. I’ve been watching you try to decide if you were going to come in or not.”
Adalia’s cheeks flushed. “Let’s just say I’m a skeptic. I only decided to come in to see if you’re Dottie’s friend Lola. She’s mentioned you.”
The woman’s face lit up. “Oh! I love Dottie! Any friend of hers is a friend of mine.” She took a step back from the doorway and motioned for Adalia to enter. “Come in. Have a seat on the sofa.”
Adalia walked into the back room, surprised that it looked more like the stereotypical therapist’s office than a psychic’s parlor. There were plants and soft lighting in addition to a plush sofa. A couple of stuffed chairs sat opposite the sofa with a worn coffee table with water rings between the pieces.
Had Dottie used some kind of reverse psychology to get Adalia to see a therapist?
Now she could add paranoia to her list of psychological issues.
“Shut the door behind you,” the woman said softly as she sat in the floral armchair. “I’m Lola, by the way.”
Adalia shut the door as requested and took a seat in the center of the sofa.
“And you are?” Lola prodded.
“Shouldn’t you know that already? Didn’t you psychically pencil in my appointment? What name did you use?”
Lola laughed, obviously not offended. “It doesn’t work like that, but if you feel better with anonymity, I’m fine with that.”
“Yeah,” she said with a firm nod. “Let’s go with that.” She glanced around. “Where’s your crystal ball?”
Lola shook her head slightly. “I don’t have one. They’re more useful for talking with the dead, and if that’s what you’re after, you’d be better off visiting Deidre and her daughter down at the New Age crystal shop a few blocks over.” She paused. “You know, Asheville is surrounded by crystal, which is a great conductor of energy.”
“Huh, is that why Dottie collects so much of it?”
Lola smiled fondly. “Yes, not that she needs it to read people’s energy. Dottie has her own form of intuition.”
Wasn’t that the truth. “So what form does your intuition take?” she asked. “Palm reading?”
“Tarot cards are usually better for truth-seekers looking for more direct answers. I’ll tell you what I see, and we can talk it out to interpret what it means.” She pulled open a drawer in the table between the chairs and pulled out a worn deck of cards. Closing her eyes, she began to shuffle them. “I’m sensing a lot of negative energy rolling off you.”
“What was your first clue?” Adalia asked. “My attitude or my sharp tongue?”
Lola’s mouth lifted into a patient smile as she continued to shuffle. She opened her
eyes and held out the deck. “Lay your palm on the cards.”
Adalia was a hair’s breadth away from getting up and walking out, but something told her to shut up and play along. Still, she couldn’t help but smirk as she placed her palm on top of the deck.
Lola placed a hand on top of hers for a couple of seconds before pulling the deck away and shuffling some more. “Are there any specific questions you want answered?”
“Let’s just see what the universe shows you,” Adalia said, already regretting this. How much was it going to cost her, anyway? Why hadn’t she asked for Lola’s rates?
The “psychic” stopped shuffling and began to set out the cards, faceup. “Oh,” she said as she placed a card with a skull and crossbones. “That’s usually not the first one.”
Adalia just nodded, her eyes on the skeleton, and watched as the rest of the cards were lined up in a neat row.
“Wow,” Lola said when she finished. “There’s a lot of upheaval in your life right now.”
Adalia pointed to the skeleton card and joked, “So when I leave here, should I head on over to the funeral home to prearrange my burial?”
“It is a death card, but it likely doesn’t mean what you think it does. It usually represents the death of an old life.” She glanced up at Adalia’s face. “Are you thinking about making a big change? Leaving a relationship? Moving to a new city?”
It took Adalia a second to answer. Her gaze was locked on the card, tears filling her eyes. She was so shocked she didn’t even think about disguising her reaction. “Uh…a career change, actually. And moving.”
Lola gave her a look and said, “It’ll be easier for us to figure out the specific meaning if you tell me why you walked in today.”
She shook her head. “General is fine. Keep going.”
Lola told her that someone from her past would reappear soon, causing her heartache, but someone else would be there to support her. The person she least expected.
But all Adalia could see was that death card.
“Like I said, it rarely means death,” Lola assured her with a worried voice. “It means a very significant change, and since it’s inverted, that usually—”
“That’s okay,” Adalia said, grabbing her wallet out of her purse. “How much do I owe you?”
“I really hate to see you upset like this,” Lola said. “I can help you work this out if you’ll give me some background.”
“No, that’s okay,” Adalia said, shaking her head, and pulled out two twenty-dollar bills and held the bills out to her. “Does forty cover it?”
Lola put her hand over Adalia’s and searched her eyes. “No. This one is complimentary. I’ll charge you next time.”
There wouldn’t be a next time.
Adalia got up and rushed out into the waiting room, closing the door behind her. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She nearly ignored it, but she pulled it out anyway, feeling faint when she saw Alan’s name on her screen above a text.
Addy. Baby. I miss you. We need to talk. Please call me.
He’d left her alone for a couple of days. She’d dared to hope that maybe he’d forgotten about her. That he’d lost her number. But here he was again. Hadn’t Lola said something about a person from her past reappearing? If she was right, Alan wasn’t going to back down like she and Georgie had hoped. He was going to keep turning up like a bad penny.
Time to block his number.
But he’d just find a different way, wouldn’t he?
A sob bubbled up, but she swallowed it back down. She needed to go home. She needed…she needed to address the possible meaning of that death card. Was she supposed to give up her art?
Glancing down at the text on her screen, she reached for the door to the sidewalk and plowed into a firm body.
Strong hands grabbed her upper arms, holding her upright. “Adalia, are you okay?”
She recognized the voice before she even looked up into his worry-filled blue-green eyes. She’d run straight into the devil himself.
Finn.
Chapter Ten
Finn sincerely hadn’t intended to tell River everything. He’d started off by admitting that Adalia had been painting in Dottie’s studio, and the rest had unfurled from there. Somewhere in the telling, he’d realized just how much the situation had been weighing on him. The need to do something, to help her through whatever was haunting her, had been a constant companion. He’d carried it around with him all day long, gone to sleep with it. Telling River had felt like an unburdening in more ways than one.
Finn and River had met with Jack Durand for a breakfast meeting this morning to discuss the show—Jack being the new events coordinator for Buchanan Brewery—and although he and River hadn’t explained the whole Adalia’s been destroying her own paintings thing to him, they’d let him in on an idea they’d tossed around the night before. And the three of them had spent the morning working on it. After they discussed the show, of course. The plan was to hold the as-of-yet unnamed event toward the beginning of November, just when people started considering holiday gifts. That gave them a little under two months to gather everything together, but he figured they could pull it off. He didn’t have a whole lot else going on at the moment.
It remained to be seen what Adalia would do when she found out he’d spilled her secret. He had to admit the odds were pretty good she’d pour a bucket of red paint on him. Or go all in and use pig’s blood. Maybe she’d just refuse to see him again.
The last thing he had expected was for her to run into him—literally—as he was walking into the psychic’s…could it really be called an office?
Her eyes flew wide. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, because obviously she knew. “I met with River last night to talk about the show. I mentioned how much I love your art, and he asked me what I’d seen because you haven’t been doing art…” He paused, not really sure what else to say, and ended with the obvious. “I’m not very good at keeping secrets. I didn’t know it was a secret. From them, I mean.” Which wasn’t quite true, so he amended. “I figured they at least knew you’d been coming there. Not necessarily what you were doing to the paintings. With the knife.”
She shook her head in disgust. “You really don’t have a filter, do you?”
“Not most of the time, no. Trust me when I tell you I wish that I did.”
A pretty woman with short dark hair had opened the door to the back, he registered, although he wasn’t sure when it had happened. She was looking at them with interest.
“Finn?” she asked.
“Hey,” Adalia said, as if affronted. “How come you guessed his name?”
The woman—Lola, surely—glanced at her. “Because he did have an appointment. One your friend Dottie made.”
Seeing Adalia here, he’d assumed Dottie had arranged this intentionally. Like maybe she’d decided a psychic’s office was the best place for him and Adalia to hash things out and discuss the show. He wouldn’t have put it past her. But Lola’s reaction suggested otherwise. Was this another chance meeting…at a psychic’s?
He believed in fate—to an extent—and it felt like it was throwing them together. But even if that was true, what was he supposed to do with the opportunity he’d been given? How could he get Adalia to trust him after all the dumb mistakes he’d made?
“Well, at least I’m somewhat encouraged that you’re not stalking me,” she said, pushing away.
She was about to leave when he found himself saying, “I think you should stay.”
“What?” she asked. She sounded like she thought he was a fruitcake, but at least she’d stopped walking.
“I didn’t mean to, but I witnessed something very personal to you,” he said. “I know one of your secrets. It only seems fair that you should know some of mine.”
She shot a dubious look at Lola, but he thought he saw something else in it. Anger, and maybe a little fear. Suddenly, Finn found himself wondering how Adalia’s readi
ng had gone. What had the psychic told her?
Whatever it was, it had sent her running out of the building.
“No offense, but that only works if I buy that Lola here is a psychic. I’m not sold. Besides, you don’t just know my secret, you shared it with my sister’s boyfriend, and thus my sister. You’d need to give me free rein over who I tell.”
“Scout’s honor,” he said, making the sign.
“You would be a Scout,” she said.
“Not to interrupt,” Lola said, “but I can give you an accurate reading if you’ll provide me with some background. Details like what brought you here, other than Dottie, and what problems you’re dealing with right now.” The glance she gave Adalia indicated she had been less cooperative.
“Whatever you need,” he said, looking at Adalia as he said it. “I’m an open book.”
He was prepared for Adalia to say no. The look she’d given him at the door…
But something shifted in her eyes, like maybe she’d decided she didn’t want to go wherever it was she’d been heading with such purpose before she rammed into him. She walked back into the adjoining room, glancing over her shoulder at him. “Oh, this is going to be good.”
Finn followed, feeling a prickle of misgiving for the first time.
What if Lola told him that he was fooling himself? That the whole art thing was a distraction from the fact that his life had crumbled around him? That he was destined to be lonely for the rest of his existence because he couldn’t make a good decision if his life depended on it? That he was already a has-been at thirty-two.
He wasn’t so sure he wanted Adalia to witness that, but then again, she hadn’t wanted him to see her pour her emotions out onto that canvas before she tore it to pieces. Fair was fair.
Lola gave him a glance.
“Are you okay with this?” he asked. “I guess it’s not…traditional to have someone else sit in on a reading.”
“Oh, I’ve seen all kinds,” she said, and he believed it. She was a friend of Dottie’s, after all.
Better Luck Next Time Page 8