Absolutely, Positively (3 page)

“You know I don’t. We have a meeting in a couple of minutes. Don’t get snippy with me because you have commitment issues.”

“I don’t have commitment issues!” I had fallen for Sean Donahue the moment I laid eyes on him—love at first sight. Wham, bam—I was a goner. As far as I was concerned, there would never be anyone else. But like everyone in a relationship, we had our issues.

Mum snorted. “Denial.”

I groaned. “It’s not commitment; it’s Cupid’s Cur—” I cut myself off, realizing I’d almost said too much. Preston didn’t know about the family curse. Or the auras, either, though she was suspicious, thanks to overhearing a conversation between my brother and me at Christmastime.

My brother.

I drew in a breath. I still wasn’t used to saying “my brother,” even in the quiet of my own thoughts. Oliver “Cutter” McCutchan’s true parentage had been kept secret for over twenty-five years, and the revelation had come as quite a shock to everyone. Mostly Cutter. His adjustment to suddenly having a whole new, somewhat dysfunctional, branch of his family tree hadn’t been all that smooth, but he was trying.

We were slowly building a relationship. We spoke at least once a week, swapped e-mails, and met for drinks on occasion.

I clamped my lips closed before I revealed anything else. The decision to keep the family’s psychic ability secret had been made centuries ago, around the time witches were being burned at the stake in Salem. No one in the family wanted the notoriety or the possibility of being labeled a fake or having their lives put under a microscope. The tradition of silence had been passed down from Valentine to Valentine just like the gift itself. No one dared break the secrecy, except in the rarest of situations. It was a legacy destined to continue. And a legacy Preston was dying to uncover.

“You and Sean belong together, Lucy,” Mum said softly. “Living together is the next step.”

“Better to sample the milk before you buy it,” Dovie said. “Make sure it’s not sour. And doesn’t leave its socks on the floor every day.”

This conversation was not happening. I was dreaming. The whole day had been one big
Dallas
episode. Where was my father when I needed him? He’d hate the idea of Sean moving in with me. Raphael, too. My father’s valet and all-around right-hand man had been like a second father to me. He might be more upset than my dad.

“I thought the saying was ‘why buy the milk’—”

Dovie cut me off. “Work with me, LucyD.”

I was shaking my head when the buzzer chimed. “It’s too soon,” I repeated as Suz said, “Valentine, Inc.,” into the intercom. Was I the only one with any sense?

“Meaghan Archibald here to see Lucy Valentine.”

I jumped up, grateful for the reprieve as Suz buzzed Meaghan upstairs. Preston pulled on her boot.

“Can you send her back to my office, please?” I asked Suz, heading that way. Preston gimped ahead of me and turned into the little kitchenette off the hall. I gave my mother and grandmother kisses. “You two behave yourselves.”

“We always do,” Mum said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ears.

“Hardly.”

“Shoo with you,” Dovie said. As I headed down the hall, I heard her say, “Shall we throw a shacking-up party for her?”

“You’re not funny!” I yelled.

“Are, too!” echoed back to me.

In my office, I set down my tote bag, pulled a pad of paper from my desk drawer. Preston limped in, carrying a coffee urn and mugs on a silver tray. She pushed back her spiky blond bangs and looked at me out of the corner of her eye.

“What?” I asked.

“You were about to say something earlier before and cut yourself off.”

“Was I?”

“You’re not a good liar.”

Ha—I had her fooled. I was a great liar. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She sank into a chair. “It sounded like you were about to say ‘Cupid’s Curse.’ ”

“Cupid’s Curse?” I forced a laugh. “Sounds like a bad attraction at a haunted house.”

“You may as well just tell me. You know I’ll figure it out.”

That’s what I was afraid of.

3

Meaghan Archibald’s pale green eyes twinkled with happiness. She looked like a siren from a vintage Herbal Essence bottle. Stunning curls spiraled through her long black hair. There was a hint of color in her cheeks, a swipe or two of mascara at most. A natural beauty. We’d already run through the particulars. She was twenty-three, a graphic designer living in an apartment near Fenway. Never married, no kids. “How old were you the first time you fell in love, Ms. Valentine?”

She’d caught me off-guard. It was the sort of thing I, as a matchmaker specializing in reuniting lost loves, might ask my client, not the other way around.

Yet the question Meaghan asked was easy. A first love was almost always imprinted in the mind—and the heart—forever.

“I was five. Gabriel Harris. Angelic eyes, downturned lips, unruly hair, ninety-six of Crayola’s finest when the rest of us only had forty-eight, and he always picked me first for Red Rover. He was the love of my life from the first day of kindergarten well into second grade. That was when during the school’s Thanksgiving play I caught him trying to stick his gobbler up my best friend Em’s Pilgrim’s dress. I was inconsolable and cried for days on end. Soon after, I found out he’d been loaning his crayons to lots of girls in the class, not just me.” I smiled. “He has triplet girls now. Karma, that’s what that is.”

The noise of a delivery truck in the alley below my second-floor window rumbled through the historic brick walls. Stretching out my long legs, I worked out a nagging ache in my left calf. I smoothed a crease in my gray pin-striped trousers and tried not to think about Mac Gladstone, though, to be honest, it was hard to push him from my thoughts. I was intrigued by his disappearance. I wondered what kind of information I could weasel from Detective Lieutenant Aiden Holliday, my contact with the state police.

Preston had her digital recorder running on the table. “I was eight. Matthew Dennehy. He chased me endlessly around the playground. I had a wild crush on him until the day he finally caught me—and demanded my lunch money.” Her Kewpie lips pursed. “Last I heard he was a minister. Is that karma? Or predestination?”

I couldn’t help but smile. Okay, sometimes Preston was tolerable. Actually, these days, she was more tolerable than not. Not that I’d ever tell her.

“Do you really believe in it?” Meaghan asked me. “Karma? Kismet?”

“Absolutely.”

“I was fifteen,” she said. “My first love. His name was Tristan Rourke. I want you to find him, Ms. Valentine.”

“It’s Lucy, please. How long has it been since you’ve seen Tristan?” As I jotted the name down on a legal pad, I surreptitiously slid my gaze across my watch. I was hoping Sean would make it back in time to sit in on this meeting. He must have found a place he liked. I could easily imagine him making an offer on the spot. He was impulsive like that.

As it was, he and Thoreau, his Yorkie, had been living with Sean’s brother, Sam, and his family for a few months. It wasn’t until last week when Sam very unsubtly hinted that Sean and a suddenly leaky Thoreau might have worn out their welcome.

Sean had nowhere else to go but out on his own, no other family I knew of. He didn’t like to talk about his past much at all. Something I was more than willing to overlook before now, as I had kept a lot of my past secret from him at first, too. But eventually, I’d told him everything—Cupid, curses, and auras, oh my—and I was still wondering when he’d open up.

My palms dampened at the thought of Sean finding a place. Because as much as I tried to convince myself otherwise, I’d love to have him live with me. Leaky dog and all.

But underneath all the want, the desire, lurked the fear. That if we moved in together the more time we’d spend together, the faster we’d end. And I didn’t want it to end. Ever.

I tipped an ear to the door, hoping to hear activity in the outer office. Mum and Dovie were chatting, but so far there was no sign of Sean’s return.

My dad, Oscar, the oft-proclaimed King of Love, was at a lunch meeting, which might mean he was really in a meeting or could mean he was rendezvousing with his latest girlfriend, Sabrina McCutchan—Cutter’s mother.

Valentine’s Day had come and gone last week, and Dad’s schedule had cleared considerably. He was taking more and more time off, which he claimed was good for his damaged heart, but I suspected it had more to do with his libido. I envied other children who didn’t think of, or see, their parents in such a way. To say I’d been raised unconventionally would be an understatement.

“Let’s see. It’s been about eight years,” Meaghan finally said.

“High school sweethearts?”

“Kind of. We lived in the same house for a while. Foster children.”

I saw Preston’s eyes brighten. She loved a good twist to a story, and a hook like that was gold for a human-interest piece.

Leaning back in my chair, I pulled my notepad onto my lap. Meaghan twisted her hands, and the edges of her cuffs slid up her forearm. Unmistakable scars crossed both wrists.

She caught me looking. “I was young and wanted desperately to die. The doctors wanted desperately to save me. They won.”

I rested the tip of my pen on the notepad. The ink bled into a widening circle. “You obviously came around to their way of thinking.”

The sparkle was back in her eyes. “Thank goodness. Tristan was a big motivator, though ultimately the strength came from within.”

The line sounded like something out of a therapist’s mouth, but I couldn’t deny Meaghan seemed happy. She fairly oozed joy.

“Did Tristan help you through recovery?” Preston asked. “Stay by your bedside and all that?”

Meaghan’s lips tipped into a small smile. “Actually, no. He wasn’t allowed to see me. I was placed in a psych hospital, pumped full of meds, and overwhelmed with feel-good lectures that only turned me from suicidal to homicidal.” She laughed.

I hoped she
was
joking. In my other job with the state police I saw more than my share of murder.

Shimmying forward on her chair, Preston said, “Then how did Tristan motivate you?”

“Against my will some of the messages in the hospital starting seeping in. I slowly began to realize that yeah, I’d been dealt a crappy hand in life, but I still had the power to turn it around. Tristan was one thing kept me going. I wanted, I needed, to thank him for everything he’d done for me, for seeing value in me when I couldn’t see it myself.”

Preston opened her mouth to press, but I cut her off with a look. Meaghan would get there in her own time. “You two met as foster children?”

“We were both placed in the same house in Jamaica Plain. He had already lived there a year before I arrived. My drug-addicted mother had tried to trade me to a dealer in exchange for a fix. The dealer was an undercover cop. I was put into the system immediately.”

Whoa.

“Are you okay with all this going into the article?” Preston asked, showing unexpected sensitivity.

Meaghan nodded. “Absolutely. I was actually glad to hear about the articles you’re writing. If I can reach one person, change their life with my story, then sharing all the heartbreak will be worth it. The more people I can help the better. I had a happy ending, really. One of the doctors at the hospital ended up fostering me and eventually he and his wife adopted me. Archibald is their name. I used to be Meaghan Chaney. I had an instant family who loved me, was able to get my GED and go to college. It doesn’t get much better. Except…” She trailed off.

“Tristan?” Preston supplied.

Meaghan dropped her gaze bashfully.

For once I was glad to have Preston here. I hadn’t been at all happy about her writing articles about my clients, a deal concocted by her and my father, but I had to admit the pieces had been good. Really good. And Meaghan was right—if this could help one person, then all the aggravation of having Preston around constantly might be justified.

My thoughts shifted to my own upbringing. Sure, it hadn’t been idyllic, but it had been safe—and I had been loved above all else. How many times had I taken that for granted?

“When I first arrived at the foster house, I’d been scared and lonely. The foster mom, Mary Ellen Spero, was nice enough. We actually still keep in touch. But it was clear Mr. Spero wasn’t interested in us kids at all. Saw us as a nuisance. Tristan took me under his wing. He was two years older than me, so he was kind of like a big brother.” She smiled again. It made her glow. “At first.”

“Ah,” I said.

“I hear a ‘but,’ ” Preston said, eyes wide. “A big one. Like a Romeo and Juliet kind of ‘but.’ I mean, after all, you did try to kill yourself.”

So much for that sensitivity.

“Fair enough,” Meaghan said, apparently not taking offense. “Tristan asked me to go to his senior prom, but I didn’t have money for the dress. And let’s just say our foster father wasn’t in the system to care and nurture—he wasn’t about to give me any of his. So I was really surprised when Tristan came home one day with a dress I had admired.”

“Awww,” Preston said.

A thin, dark eyebrow arched. “The police showed up not long after.”

“Uh-oh,” I murmured.

“He’d shoplifted the dress. They took him away. I was devastated.” She motioned to her scarred wrists. “I haven’t seen him since. I really want to find him. I want to thank him. I want to—” A blush settled in her cheeks. “I want the happy ending. The fairy-tale ending.”

There was moisture in Preston’s eyes. She was such a romantic at heart. And though Meaghan’s story tugged at my heartstrings, I had to caution her as well. Softly I said, “There is a chance we won’t be able to find him.”

“I know, but I feel like I have to try. It’s the least I can do.”

If Tristan Rourke owned property, it would be fairly easy to find him through an appraiser’s office. PI 101—I was slowly learning the ins and outs of investigating. But if not, it would be trickier. “I don’t suppose you remember his birthday?” I asked, trying to recall everything Sean had taught me about gathering information for the case.

“October fourteenth.”

“Do you know where he was born? Or anything about his natural family? Is Rourke his family name?”