Deeply, Desperately (28 page)

Only the Christmas tree was lit as we stepped into my house. Grendel and Thoreau welcomed us home, purring and yapping.

"I have your Christmas present," Sean said.

I pressed in close to him. "Was that kiss in the yard a preview? Because that's a present I could really love."

His eyes glowed. "No."

"How disappointing."

"I have a feeling that won't last." He flipped on the light, spun me around.

"Oh! Oh!" I waved at my eyes so I wouldn't cry. I'd shed enough tears lately. "It's ... How did you know?"

"I was on the phone with you, remember?"

I could barely move as I stared at my new dining room table. A small burl-elm and fruitwood dining table, magnificently crafted, early nineteenth century. With an inlay of acorn and oak leaf circling the edge.

"It took some doing. First I had to call Preston, find out what antiques shop you'd gone to. Then this feisty old lady haggles with me for an hour. I finally buy it and then the shop doesn't have delivery! I had to drag Sam down there today to pick it up. Do you like it?"

I looked deep into his eyes. "I love it. But you shouldn't have spent so much on me!"

"All's fair in love and war," he said simply.

"Love?" I asked.

"Love."

I jumped into his arms. He caught me and spun me around, kissing me so deeply and thoroughly I never wanted him to let me go.

Grendel rreowed. Thoreau barked and bounced around Sean's feet, tripping him. "Whoa!"

Sean put a hand out to break our fall onto the couch. Somehow, he ended up on the floor. Laughing, I held out a hand to help him up.

The visions came slowly. Of me in a white dress,
of him in a dark tux. Unexpectedly, tears filled my eyes.

"I've got a present for you too," I said. Shaky, I dropped in front of the tree, reached for Sean's book.

He saw my tears. "Is everything okay?"

I shoved away thoughts of curses ruining this moment. I thought about my family, my friends, of him and me. "More than okay. It's everything I could ever wish for."

Read on for an excerpt from Heather Webber's next book

A Lucy Valentine Novel

Coming in February 2011 from St. Martin's Paperbacks

Suzannah Ruggieri blew into Valentine, Inc., like a Category Five hurricane. The antique mahogany door slammed into its stopper, rattling the beveled glass panes. Her eyes were wild, her hair disheveled, her round high cheekbones flaming. Winded, she huffed, "Hurry! The Lone Ranger's back!"

Spinning, she rushed out the way she came, her heavy footsteps thudding on the cherrywood stairs leading down to Beacon Street.

Preston Bailey, roving reporter, didn't need to be told twice. She jumped up from the russet-colored loveseat in the reception area, sending notes flying in all directions. She barely paused at the door to see if I was following. "Lucy, come on!"

I jumped up and hesitated. I had been manning Suz's desk while she was at lunch. If I left, no one would be here to answer the phones. I had a responsibility to the company--after all, my name was on the door. Valentine, Inc., the country's most successful matchmaking firm, had been in the family for generations. And though I wasn't a true matchmaker like my father, I managed to have a great success rate with clients in my division of the company, Lost Loves. My father and I used our psychic gifts in very different ways.

"Lucy!" Preston bellowed up the stairs. The sound echoed up to the third floor and back down to me. "The. Lone. Ranger. Move your ass!"

Ah, hell. I grabbed my coat and followed Preston down the steps and out the thick metal door into a typical gunmetal gray February afternoon of a Boston winter.

We dodged through stopped traffic and sprinted toward the mob gathered at Boston Common. A piece of paper fluttered across the crunchy, dormant grass, and I stomped on it.

"You got one!" Preston cried.

I picked up the twenty-dollar bill. Others floated by, people chasing after them, pushing and shoving.

"Do you see him?" Preston stood on tiptoes, but even in heeled boots she was vertically challenged.

Standing a good five inches taller, I scanned the throbbing crowd for any sign of a masked man. "No."

"He has to be here somewhere!" She threaded her way through the masses, throwing bony elbows and
hips to get people to move aside. There was no stopping a reporter on the hunt of a huge story.

The Lone Ranger had struck again.

It was the fourth time in as many weeks. No one knew where he came from or who he was. By all accounts, he simply appeared in a mask and cowboy hat and started throwing money.

Last week, the unofficial tally hit two thousand dollars. By the look of the loot still skittering across the ground, this week's total was going to be even higher. Preston, a reporter for the
South Shore Beacon
, a daily paper that mostly covered areas south of the city, had taken to trolling the Common during the day, even though she was
supposed
to be writing feature stories on my Lost Loves clients. She was dying to find the man the media had labeled The Lone Ranger and crack the reasoning behind such outlandish behavior.

A WHDH news crew arrived on the scene, and a reporter tottered across the grass to interview people clutching fistfuls of money.

As I tucked the twenty into my pocket and leaned against a tree, waiting for the crowd to thin, I glanced to my left and found a homeless man watching me intently from a nearby bench. Caught, he looked down and started fussing with a plastic garbage bag filled with his worldly goods. He held a Thermos of what I hoped was coffee.

Sudden guilt flooded me. I didn't need the money, yet here I was eager to catch a few flying twenties. I tried to justify that I'd been caught up in the moment, but that excuse didn't pass muster as I'd caught three
twenties last week and had used them to buy myself a cute scarf from a shop in Harvard Square.

Feeling slightly sick with shame, I pulled the twenty from my pocket, walked over, and handed it to him.

He looked up at me with a wary, faded blue gaze before reaching out with gloved fingers for the cash. A holey knit cap covered his head and an oversized black Michelin Man-type coat sheltered him from icy gusts. Dirt smudges darkened pale, yellow-tinted skin. White stubble covered his chin.

"Mind if I sit?" I asked.

He nodded to the bench.

This, I thought, was the real story. This man and all the other homeless who called the Common home, even in the midst of a brutal winter.

"You didn't want in on the action?" I asked, nodding to the crowd. I spotted Preston weaving in and out, still searching. Suz was headed my way.

"Legs don't work so well anymore," he shouted, his voice becoming louder with each word. "Can't fight off those young'uns like I used to, and it's not so bad being poor."

I jumped a bit before I adjusted to the volume. I only had vague memories of my Grandpa Henry, who died when I was five, but I remembered he used to shout, too. He'd needed a hearing aid and had been stubborn about getting one. Vanity at its finest.

"Did you see the guy who was throwing the money?" I asked loudly, doubting this man's lack of a hearing aid had anything to do with how it would look.

He took a draw from his Thermos. "Masked. Hat. No horse. Tossing money this way and that."

That about summed it up. Then I smiled when I realized he was speaking (well, shouting) in rhyme.

Suz counted twenties, her eyes glowing, as she walked toward us. It just went to show that anyone could get caught up in a situation. Valentine, Inc., paid her well. Not only because she was a valued employee, but because she was practically family. And being so, we had entrusted her with all the family secrets. A good salary ensured she'd keep them.

"One hundred forty! Woo-ha! I'll be treating myself to some nice wine while eating a nice big steak at The Hilltop tonight."

I jerked my head toward the guy next to me, silently asking her to make a donation.

Suz frowned as she followed the motion.

I widened my eyes and continued twitching.

She huffed, peeled off two twenties, and handed them to him. "Oh, fine." She gave him the rest of the cash. "You need it more than I do."

He quickly tucked the money inside his glove and stood up.

"Ladies, I'll be on my way," he shouted, tipping an imaginary cap. "Have yourselves a wonderful day." He winked, turned, and hobbled off.

"For the love of Dr. Seuss, Lucy. You know he's probably just going to drink the money away," Suz said in an are-you-crazy kind of whisper.

"So were you."

She flipped her dark hair. "Touche."

I stood and searched for Preston's spiky platinum
hair in the thinning crowd. "Besides, you don't know that he'll spend the money on alcohol. Maybe he's hungry. Maybe
he
wants a nice steak."

Soulful eyes narrowed. "You don't know he
won't
drink it away."

"You don't know he
will
."

"You can't be that naive, Lucy."

I'd lost a lot of my naivete over the last six months when I'd started freelancing as a consultant for the Massachusetts State Police, using my psychic ability to find lost objects to help locate missing persons. Often the cases didn't come with happily ever afters.

"I just want to believe that in every person there's a little decency. Is that wrong?" My breath formed little white clouds as I spoke. It was twenty freezing degrees, and I questioned why I'd left the warmth of the office.

Oh, right. Greed.

Now I felt really queasy.

Her eyes softened. "It's dangerous to only see the good in people. You, of all people, should know that."

I tossed a look over my shoulder. The homeless man had only made it ten feet or so, shuffling along at a snail's pace. It was because I'd seen firsthand the evils of the world that I searched for the good. I had to.

"We should head back," I said.

"What about Preston?"

"I'll leave a trail of bread crumbs."

The cold was starting to seep under my skin as we climbed the steps to the second-floor office. The door to Valentine, Inc., was ajar. I cautiously peeked inside and found my grandmother, Dovie, sitting in Suz's desk chair, flipping through client files. She harbored
dreams of matchmaking, but she'd married into the family. Therefore, she didn't possess the ability to read auras, genetic only to bloodline Valentines--a gift, legend declared, bestowed on my family by Cupid himself.

"What are you doing here?" I asked Dovie. My father would have another heart attack if he found her rifling through his files. Was she trying to make matches or looking for love herself? Her last relationship, with a man I'd set her up with, had only lasted three fun-filled weekends. Dovie, like all Valentines, was as commitment-phobic as George Clooney. That being said, she might change her mind if
he
came walking through the door.

My mother came in from the back hallway, carrying two mugs of coffee. She handed one to Dovie and air-kissed my cheek, then Suz's. Mum was fairly glowing. Her hazel eyes danced, the gold specks glittering, and a smile flirted playfully at the corners of her lips.

"What's up with you?" I asked. She looked truly lovely in a purple cowl-necked sweater, dark jeans, and ballet slippers. Her pixie-style hair had just been cut and colored a golden blond. She looked younger. Happier.

"Me?" Mum waved a hand in dismissal as she sat on the loveseat. "Nothing. Nothing at all."

"Something," Suz said, shooing Dovie from her desk chair. "You look great."

Mum shrugged coyly. "Been on a little diet, that's all."

"Diet?" Mum didn't diet. Ever.

"I'm getting older," Mum said. "I need to be more
careful about my weight. I'm taking a Zumba class, too." Her eyes brightened. "You should come with me, LucyD!"

"A zoo what?" I asked.

Dovie laughed and launched into a cha-cha, her long legs lithe and graceful. When she was younger, she danced burlesque at a club in Manhattan--it was where she'd met my grandfather. After they married, and secretly divorced, she continued her dance training and eventually became a choreographer. These days she mostly used her talents for local musical theater and social events, but it didn't take much for her to randomly break into dance. "Zumba. It's an exercise program featuring dancing."

"Fun!" Suz squealed. "When and where? Count me in!"

Diet
and
exercise? I stared at Mum. Who was this woman? Certainly not
my
mother. "What's going on? I mean, what's
really
going on? You're not sick, are you?" She didn't look sick, but it would take something as monumentally life-changing as a chronic illness to get her to break a lifetime of (bad) habits.

"Do I need a reason to better myself?" Her nose twitched.

Aha! She'd stumbled on the word
better
. She wasn't as keen on all this diet and exercise as she let on. The nose twitch was a dead giveaway she was hiding something.

Dovie was still cha-cha-ing. "Oh go on, Judie. Tell her. It's past time."

Mum shot her an evil look. Good thing the two of them were the best of friends, a relationship Dad
absolutely hated. His mother. His somewhat-ex wife (technically they were still married). It was a nightmare for him when they ganged up.

"What? What-what?" I pleaded.

Dovie dragged Suz into her dance. The two held hands as Dovie counted aloud, "One two three, cha cha cha." She thrust a hip and sing-songed in the same cadence, "Judie has a boyfriend, cha cha cha."

I gasped. "You do? Who?"

"Just someone," Mum said.

"Spill!" I urged. Though my parents were happily separated, it had been years since Mum had had anyone serious in her life. Her little on and off flings with my father hardly counted.

"Where's Sean today?" Mum asked.

She was referring to Sean Donahue, the super sexy PI who worked upstairs and partnered with me in Lost Loves. We were partnered in other ways, too. Just thinking about him made me go all warm and gooey inside.