Page 19 of Cursed to Love (Cursed to Love #1)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“O ur family is cursed. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. I should have, but I didn’t know how. The curse has been handed down?—”

When his words fully registered, Paige felt her previous rage reignite. “That’s your excuse?” She raised her voice, unable to tamp down her anger. “You’re telling me your bullshit behavior is because of a curse?”

She pushed off the couch, but Blake grasped her wrist gently.

“Don’t,” she said, jerking out of his hold.

“Paige, please. You said you would listen. Will you let me explain?”

“You expect me to believe your family is cursed?”

“I understand your skepticism. I didn’t believe it at first either.” He patted the cushion beside him. “Please, sit down. I know it sounds crazy, but I can explain.”

Having been fed so many bullshit lines by Craig over the years, she hesitated. It was only the suffering and sincerity she’d heard in Blake’s tone that convinced her to listen. She sat back in the corner of the couch, her socked feet pulled up on the cushion, so her toes wouldn’t touch his leg, and nodded for him to continue.

“I told you that my mom decorated my spare room as a children’s room because she wanted grandchildren. That wasn’t the whole truth. My mom did decorate the room and I know she wanted grandchildren. I came home from work one day and it was completely redone, even the chalkboard paint on the closet doors was already dry. I didn’t know how to explain why she really did it.”

Dragging his hands down his face, he let out a big sigh. “That was three weeks before she died. I didn’t talk to her for a full week after she did it because I was so angry.”

“Did she tell you why?”

“She said that I needed to have a room ready just in case I met someone who already had a child.”

Paige gasped. “Did she think you’d just invite a woman with a kid over to live with you?” She snorted. “Oh, wow. You did. Was your mom psychic?”

Blake chuckled. “Not that I know of…”

He paused and his expression sobered. “Right after my twenty-ninth birthday, my mom started hounding me to find love and settle down. And when I say hound , I mean All. The. Time. It didn’t matter how often I told her I didn’t have plans to ever settle down, she wouldn’t let up. She called me a couple of times a week asking if I had any upcoming dates. In between the calls she would text asking the same thing, and then send me emails with articles.”

“Articles about dating?”

“Yeah. You know the kind… “Ten Turn-offs You Must Avoid,” “Seven Dating Rules to Follow,” “First Date Dos and Don’ts”… that type of thing. She even tried to set me up on blind dates. Even though I wasn’t interested, I went on a couple hoping that would appease her, but she just got worse.”

“She wanted you to get married that badly? Why?”

“That’s where the curse comes in. The thing is, she never told us about the curse, never mentioned it once in my entire life, just started with the crazy behavior when I turned twenty-nine.”

He blew out a breath, his frustration almost palatable in the air.

“She left us a letter with her will. Cade knew about it because he was her executor, but he figured it was just a goodbye letter. The night of her funeral, Cade read it to us, and that’s when we learned about the curse. Mom said that a relative of hers was cursed hundreds of years ago by a spirit because he didn’t have enough love and empathy for others. The spirit said that if anyone in the ancestor’s lineage did not fall in love and have that love reciprocated by their thirtieth birthday, the curse would take effect.”

Alex had always seemed like a reasonable person, but maybe she’d developed early-onset dementia or something. Paige hadn’t seen any signs of it on the few occasions they’d met for coffee, but then, Paige wasn’t a doctor. Maybe there had been signs and she just hadn’t seen them. Or maybe Alex didn’t exhibit them all the time.

“Your mom must have believed the curse since she was pushing you so hard. Decorating your spare room—as much as Emmie loves it—was kind of crazy. But… you don’t actually believe you’re cursed, do you?”

As much as Paige wanted an answer for why Blake ignored her, she didn’t believe in curses. And even if she did, it didn’t explain his behavior.

Blake pulled his phone out of his back pocket. He unlocked it and pulled something up before handing it to her. “Here’s my mom’s letter. Why don’t you read that while I get us something to drink? Wine?”

She took the phone from him and stared at Alex’s handwriting on the screen. She’d only seen it a few times on cards, but it was distinctive due to all the curls. “Sure,” she said as she started to read.

Blake came back just as she finished reading. She put his phone on the table and accepted a glass of wine from him. “Thanks.” She took a sip, letting it soothe her throat, dry from so many emotions.

“Your mom really believed… that the guy Eamon was cursed by a spirit, and now you’ll be cursed for all eternity.” She shook her head. “That’s crazy.”

She realized then that Blake hadn’t answered her earlier question. Shock slid through her as she looked at him. “You believe it too, don’t you?”

“I didn’t at first. My birthday came and went, and nothing happened then.”

“Your birthday is September first, right?”

His lips turned up into a small smile. “You remembered.”

She shrugged. “I’m good with dates.” It was the truth, but when it came to Blake she remembered so much more than just dates. She remembered the first time she saw him, the first time they kissed, and every time they made love. She also remembered how he’d shut down when she broke up with him and didn’t fight for her.

He looked as if he was waiting for her to say something more. When she didn’t, he continued. “Anyway… nothing happened until almost two weeks after my birthday. On the Friday two weeks later, September thirteenth, the curse hit me.”

Paige scoffed. “Friday the thirteenth? Really? How cliché.”

“Seriously. I was thinking about my mom, so I walked into my spare room. The curse pulled me in when I sat in the rocking chair. It took over my body. I couldn’t move. Looking at me, you would think I was in a trance.”

Going into a trance sounded almost crazier than a curse. The expression “stranger than fiction” popped into her mind. It was a saying for a reason, but could Blake’s curse be one of those reasons? She remembered how scared she’d been seeing him standing in the middle of the empty salon, wondering if he was having a seizure, not knowing what to do.

“When I showed you the strip mall… that was the curse?”

As soon as she asked the question, she realized she’d phrased it as if she believed everything Blake was saying—that the curse was real. But there were no such things as curses because that would mean magic was real. And everyone knew that magic was only fantasy.

“That was the second time,” Blake said. “I’d almost convinced myself the first time had been a dream, even though I was awake. When it struck while I was with you it freaked me out so much I didn’t know what to say. That’s why I rushed out. Again, I’m sorry for not telling you then. I was just too freaked out at the time. Then, later, I didn’t know what to say.”

She wanted to say she accepted his apology, but it seemed too farfetched. “I’ve never heard of someone being cursed before.” Maybe if she said it enough times, Blake would tell her this was all a joke. But then what would he come up with next to explain his strange behavior?

Blake put his wine glass on the table and picked up his phone. “When Cade and I went through our mom’s things we found old journals and letters. Some of them were photocopies, and some were the old and brittle originals.”

He handed over his phone again. “Cade scanned that. It was written by a woman named Martha to George, her best friend.”

“Did she ever send the letter?”

“No, she wrote them later, after she told him in person that she loved him.”

“She said that in one of the letters?”

Blake shook his head. “No. I know that because I was there when she said it. I heard her confess her love to him in San Francisco in 1924.”

Paige almost dropped the phone. Fumbling with it, her wine glass started to tip.

* * *

Blake rescued Paige’s wine and put it on the table.

“You were there?” she asked, her eyes wide.

He nodded, and she stared at him like she was searching his face for any signs he was joking. He wished he was. The whole concept of curses and traveling back in time seemed ludicrous even to him, and yet he was cursed because it had made him travel back in time nine times now.

As Paige read Martha’s letter, Blake could picture Martha as clearly as if he’d really known her. In less than fifteen minutes, as he’d watched Martha suffer into her old age, she’d become real to him, as had all the other people he’d seen in the episodes.

No matter how much he thought about it, he still hadn’t been able to wrap his head around how the curse was supposed to make him want to fall in love when all he saw was misery.

Or perhaps it wasn’t.

Lately, as each new episode sucked him in to watch yet another heartbreak, he wondered if the curse was punishment for not opening himself up to accept love. The more he thought about it, the more he believed the curse was telling him it was too late for him. But then what? Would he live his life watching people suffer, sucked into misery after misery? He’d already suffered his own broken heart. That was misery enough. If it was trying to tell him something else, he was clueless as to what that could be.

Paige looked up, her palm across her heart. “She watched him marry someone else,” she whispered. “It’s heartbreaking. She loved him so much.”

“I know.” He remembered how Martha had looked when she’d finally worked up the courage to confess her love to George. “I first saw her when she told George she was in love with him.”

Blake told Paige about hearing Martha’s declaration of love, then watching her at George’s wedding and through the years. As Paige listened, her eyes became glassy with unshed tears. “I don’t think she ever stopped loving him,” he said when he finished.

“It’s sad.”

He raised his brow in question. “That she never stopped loving him?”

“No… Yes, that too. But I meant that she was alone. She didn’t have anyone to share her life with.”

“She had friends.” Just like Blake had his, including Paige, for however long it lasted. “That’s all Martha needed, I guess,” he said, although he didn’t know if it was true.

Blake told Paige about seeing Liam and Moira in 1778 and how Moira was forced to choose security over love.

“Did you see them this morning?”

“No, I saw them when you were showing me the strip mall.”

“No wonder you rushed out. It would have been a horrible thing to watch.”

“It was, but I think I was more freaked out about going into a trance. That was the second time, and I didn’t know what to do.”

She brought her wine glass to her lips, then lowered it, letting out a short laugh. “It’s empty.”

“You want some more?”

“No, I’m good.” She put her glass on the table. “Ah, do you want to tell me more?”

Good question. He hated remembering the sorrow, but eventually he would tell her all of them so she would understand what he’d seen. Unless there were eventually too many remember. And wasn’t that an unpleasant thought?

“I’ll tell you about all of them if you’d like, but not today, if that’s okay? There are more… Including this morning, I’ve been taken into the past nine times.”

“Later is fine. Is every one about people with broken hearts?”

“Yes, in some way.”

“How do you stand it?”

“I don’t have a choice.” What he didn’t tell her was the deep sorrow he felt for all the lost love. It didn’t matter that what he saw took place so long ago; the stories were still heart-wrenching.

“Each time the curse hits you, are you frozen like you were this morning and in the strip mall?”

He scrubbed his hands over his face again before meeting her eyes. “Yes. Since the last two episodes were further apart than the previous ones, I’m hoping that will keep happening. But… if it doesn’t, I’m not sure what I’ll do. If a curse comes upon me while I’m driving…” He shuddered.

“Blake, I—” The door opened, interrupting her.

“Mommy! Blake!” Emmie ran up to Blake and pounced on him, pushing him back into the cushions as he wrapped his arms around her. She patted his cheek. “Did you say you’re sorry?”

He smirked. “I did.”

Emmie turned in his arms to look at her. “Mommy, did you forgive him?”

She smiled at her daughter. “Yes, I did.”

Blake expected that she might have, but it would be a while before the idea of the curses truly sunk in.

“Paige,” Cade said from the foyer.

She stood and walked over to him. Blake followed and helped Emmie take off her boots and coat.

“You believe it too?” she asked Cade quietly while Blake distracted Emmie.

“I do. And I thought you should know, but don’t put any pressure on yourself.”

Blake looked up, seeing Paige frown before her eyes widened. “Oh. Being in love and have it reciprocated,” she whispered, repeating what Blake had told her.

“As horrible as this is for Blake, you can’t force anything or…”

“Or what?” she asked.

“If the episodes become worse and something happens to him, you can’t blame yourself. We’ll all be there for him.”

Paige’s fingers flew to her parted lips at Cade’s words, and as much as Blake wished his brother had kept his trap shut, Paige had to be ready for anything. There had already been so much for her to digest. Now she had to consider what could happen if he didn’t fall in love and have it returned.

Cade said his goodbyes, but Paige didn’t move. He could only guess at the thoughts running through her mind. It wasn’t until Emmie tugged on her pant leg that Paige turned to her daughter.

“Mommy? Are you still mad at Blake?”

Paige crouched down in front of Emmie. “No. Blake said he was sorry, and I forgave him. I was just lost in my thoughts.” She smiled, but he could tell it was forced.

“Okay.” Emmie looked at her for a moment, and then, as if happy with the answer, turned toward Blake. “Can we play tag?”

Blake groaned and dramatically flopped onto the couch, throwing his arm across his eyes. “Oh, no,” he said on another mock groan. “You’ve worn me out. How about we play a board game instead?”

“Chutes and Ladders!” Emmie shouted and ran to the sideboard in the dining room where her games were stored. When Paige and Emmie moved into Blake’s, Emmie only had two games, but during the last week, he feigned surprise when several new games appeared as if by magic.

Paige had worried Blake was spoiling Emmie, but he confessed that it wasn’t about Emmie at all. He’d told her that if he had to play the memory matching game or Go Fish one more time, he would go crazy.

She’d laughed and made him promise to lay off buying any more for a little while.

An hour and a half later, Emmie was in bed asleep. They’d played one game and given her a snack while he and Paige ate some sandwiches he’d thrown together. Then Paige gave Emmie a quick bath, and he read Emmie two stories. She was out before he finished the second one.

Paige had chosen to sit in the rocking chair to listen to him to read to Emmie. By the look on her face the first time he took over story time, he may have surprised her with his superior acting skills. He liked that he could surprise her; it kept their relationship fresh. He realized how he’d referred to them, but a friendship was a relationship.

“Mommy loves you,” Paige whispered as she kissed her sleeping daughter before following Blake out of the room.

They stood in the hallway by the bedroom door.

Blake turned toward the stairs and hesitated. He turned back, wanting to say something, but unsure of the right words.

“I do forgive you,” she said softly and walked right into his space. Wrapping her hands around the back of his neck, she pulled him down for a kiss. It wasn’t the passionate one of the night before. More of a getting-to-know-you-again kiss.

“Thank you.” He rested his forehead on hers. “Tonight, I’d just like to hold you.”

“I’d like that too.”

He let Paige lead as she took his hand and pulled him into the bedroom.

Blake sat on the bed. “Would you like me to leave the door slightly ajar, so we can hear Emmie, since we won’t be doing any hanky panky tonight?”

She chuckled like it was a tension reliever after the day they’d had. “No hanky panky, huh? Maybe tomorrow?”

“Maybe.” He reached out and pulled her between his legs, hoping the right words would come to him now. “I’m not saying that to be coy. I want to earn your trust back, Paige. I’m sorry for not telling you about the curse earlier. I… I just didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want you thinking I was trying to gaslight you like Craig did.”

“If you had told me earlier and I didn’t see you in a trance like you were today, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. Even with what happened in the strip mall.”

Blake was true to his word, and after a quick kiss, they got into bed. He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her into his side. She laid her head on his chest and lightly caressed his bare skin with her fingers.

When her breathing evened out with sleep, he thought about her reaction to what Cade had told her. And how dead set against love he’d been for so long. If he couldn’t open his heart to love, would the curse eventually consume him? It was a chance he was going to have to take, because he couldn’t force himself to love her, any more than he could force Paige to love him. What they had would have to be enough.