Page 22 of Cursed to Love (Cursed to Love #1)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sunday, November 17
“I ’ve got it,” Jake said when the doorbell rang.
Blake was about to stand when Cade waved him down. “I’ll get the plates and napkins. Ford, grab some more drinks.”
Jake and his brothers had come over to watch a hockey game, but they had it on in the background. Less than five minutes after Paige left the house to take Emmie shopping, Jake showed up with Chewie. Then one by one Cade, Dane, and Ford stopped by.
Blake got the feeling Paige didn’t want him to be left alone. He knew that seeing him go into a trance on Friday night and not being able to reach him had freaked her out. Yesterday hadn’t been any better. When he’d been working out, another had hit him, but luckily he’d been in the basement on his own. It was that hit during dinner with Emmie that bothered them the most.
Paige said she’d picked up Emmie and made an excuse about making dessert. When she’d told him that she kept Emmie busy in the kitchen for twenty-five minutes making a batch of cookies and constantly looking out the passthrough to check on him, he wanted to smile. At the look of worry on her face, he pulled her into his arms instead.
Later that night, he told her he didn’t want to be alone with Emmie anymore. They couldn’t risk it. Sooner or later, he would have to be on his own at times, it would be unavoidable, but he couldn’t put Emmie at risk.
“Dig in,” Jake said, setting the pizza boxes on the coffee table as Cade and Ford walked back into the living room.
He knew Dane had stayed in the living room to keep an eye on him. Blake looked over at him. “I’m okay.”
Dane didn’t say anything, just nodded and reached for a piece of pizza. The rest of them did the same.
“How often are you having the episodes now?” Cade asked after finishing a slice.
Blake put his plate on the table and sat back. “Daily.”
Cade frowned. “Once a day?”
“No. Twice, sometimes three times.” He told them what happened at dinner the night before.
“Please let Paige know that if she needs help with Emmie to call me or Jessica,” Cade said.
“Thanks.” He swallowed the feeling of helplessness that had become a common companion in the past week and met the gaze of each of his brothers, including Jake. “I’ve decided I’m going to work from home for a while. And I’m not going to drive.”
“Shit,” Ford muttered. “If you need to go somewhere, one of us will drive you.”
“I know.” He did his best to give Ford a smile, just as he felt the telltale stiffening start. “Curse,” he said, managing to force the word out, before falling back against the couch.
Blake heard them call his name, but it was too late. His eyelids had already fallen closed, and images swam in his mind. The scene in front of him quickly came into focus.
A man sat hunched over a small wooden table, his only light coming from the flames in the fireplace a few feet away. A draft seeped from under the door and around the small window; the smell of the burning wood was familiar and comforting in this strange place.
The room and the man’s presence, even the contrasting cool air and heat from the fireplace, felt real. Like all the other episodes, he knew the time and place.
It was 1617, and the man was one of the sons of Eamon, the original ancestor cursed by the spirit.
The man dipped his quill in the ink and wrote a few more words before repeating the process. Blake couldn’t see the words on the paper, but he could feel their depth. The man loved someone with his whole heart. A soul-wrenching kind of love.
After a few minutes, the man stood and walked the short distance to the fireplace. He added another log before picking up his letter by the edges and holding it up to read by the light of the fire.
“My dearest Margaret,” he read, his tone filled with love.
“I pray these words find you well, though I wish I could speak them in person as I hold you in my arms. I yearn for the sight of your beauty as a parched man yearns for a drop of rain. You are ever in my thoughts.
“This distance between us grieves me, yet remembering that fateful day in the garden when we first met warms my soul. I fell in love with you that day, and every day henceforth you have owned my heart.
“Soon, my father’s lands and holdings will pass onto me, and I will be worthy of your station. Then we will be free to love to our hearts’ desire, as you are the one soul mine was made for. Until that time, I will live for the stolen moments we have, as brief as they are.
“I know, Margaret, my love, that one day we will walk hand in hand, and you will be mine as I am yours.
“Yours always and forever, Colm.”
Blake felt a shift in the air, and he stood on a dirt road. Trees lined the road, their leaves bright and new. The warmth of the summer sun beat down on his face, melting away the draft from the small room.
Colm leaned against a barn off to the side of the road. He pulled away from the structure and walked forward a few steps before he began to run.
Blake looked beyond him to see a woman running toward Colm. When they reached one another, Colm picked her up and swung her around, their laughter like joyous music in the quiet.
Once more, Colm’s love for Margaret enveloped Blake like a swelling of comfort in his chest. Their love was so strong, he could feel it.
As the corners of Blake’s lips tipped up into a smile at seeing them, the air moved again.
The sun’s rays disappeared, as if a cloud blocked its strength. Blake now stood beside the barn, the grass beneath his feet brown, signaling the end of summer.
A woman’s cry caught his attention. He looked up to see Colm and Margaret only a few feet away. The shadows from the barn cast them in partial darkness.
Margaret took a step back from Colm and wiped her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief.
“Please, my love,” Colm pleaded. “This mustn’t be.”
Margaret sniffed, her eyes welling with unshed tears. “It must. It is my duty. He is a wealthy landowner, and I cannot go against my father’s wishes. We will be married soon.”
Colm dropped to one knee and took Margaret’s hand in both of his. “I love you. Do you not love me?”
“I do,” she said quietly. “But duty is more important than love.”
Blake felt a sudden ache in his chest and knew it was the feeling of Colm’s heart shattering.
He watched Colm get to his feet as the air swirled around them and became colder.
This time when the scene changed, Blake stood at the front of the barn, facing the road. Only a few leaves clung to the trees here and there, most of them covering the dead grass, waiting to become one with the earth.
Dark gray clouds covered the sky, threatening rain and blocking the sun, casting an ominous pallor over the landscape. The wind whipped up, tossing leaves in the air and chilling Blake to the bone. He wore only the T-shirt he’d had on in his house. Giving his arms a brisk rub to combat the cold, he glanced around looking for Colm.
Both the road and field were devoid of people, but Blake felt another ache in his chest, like the one he’d felt from Colm earlier. Only this time the ache felt deeper. Dread filled him. He turned toward the barn and realized time had passed. The wood was more weathered, and spaces had appeared between some of the boards.
Not seeing Colm, Blake pulled open one of the barn doors and stepped into the dim light. Before his eyes could adjust, the ache in his chest magnified, throwing him off guard. He stumbled, his shoulder hitting the doorframe of the barn, and he caught himself from falling to the ground.
He rubbed his other hand against his chest, trying to relieve the pressure, but to no avail. It wasn’t sharp like an injury, but it was familiar. He’d felt it recently whenever he thought of his mom. The anguish and fatigue that lingered, mixing with feelings of anger and sadness—grief.
Straightening, he stood and looked around the barn. Beams of light shone between the wooden slats, giving enough light for him to see.
Bales of hay and hand-held farm equipment covered in dust, were strewn around the barn, indicating it hadn’t been used for some time. Blake felt his chest constrict again as feelings of sadness and isolation surrounded him. The emotions weighed him down, like they were his own.
He looked up and his breath hitched.
Colm hung from a single rope tied to the rafters. A wooden crate lay on its side below him.
Knowing that Colm had died over four hundred years ago didn’t lessen the torment Blake felt from his death.
Tearing his eyes from his ancestor, Blake felt a compulsion to look around again. When he spotted a piece of paper laying on some hay, he knew he was meant to read it.
Each step he took toward the paper felt like he was walking closer to his own death, but he couldn’t stop his forward movement.
He picked up the paper and looked down at the writing as a deep sorrow took hold of him.
My Dearest Margaret,
For six years now I have watched and loved you from afar, the joy of my life. I have seen you with your children—your laughter ringing out like sunshine on a stormy day. It is my greatest wish that you stay happy.
My love for you is eternal and it has kept me afloat during many a dark day. You are the soul made for me, and I vowed that I would not rest until you are mine. Alas, with great sadness, I must say it will not happen on this earth.
Two cycles of the moon after I became ten plus twenty years, the same curse that destroyed the souls of my oldest brother and sister descended upon me. I have fought against it with all my might, and I have lost.
One day we will be together again.
Yours always and forever,
Colm
Blake lowered his hand to put the paper back—a profound sorrow in his heart—as the air shifted and the hold on his body released.
He dragged his hands down his face, as if that would remove the image of Colm’s lifeless body hanging from the rafters from his mind.
“Thank Christ, you’re back,” Cade said.
“I’m okay.” But that was a lie because he wasn’t sure he’d ever be okay again.
“You were out of it for thirty minutes this time,” Jake said, almost like an accusation. “They’re lasting longer each time.”
Blake often brushed off Jake’s concerns, but he couldn’t this time. He was worried too, but he didn’t say anything. There weren’t any words that could make this better, and he couldn’t reassure his friend because Blake couldn’t predict what was going to happen next. None of them could. Not even if he and Paige did fall in love.
He did his best to shake off the thought. Without waiting for them to ask, because Blake knew they would, he described what he’d witnessed.
Blake had gotten the feeling that not everyone in the episodes was related to him. Some were just tragic stories the curse chose to show him.
Out of all the heartache and sorrow the curse had shown him, this one had been the worst. He wasn’t sure if was because Colm had taken his own life or because Blake knew Colm was his ancestor and the curse had driven him to commit suicide. As he described the events, a deep sense of helplessness settled inside him.
When he finished his story, Jake narrowed his eyes, his stare piercing as he looked at Blake. “You have to stop hiding. Is that what you want? To be so lonely and miserable that you take your own life?”
“What the hell, man?” Dane asked, glaring at Jake. “How can you even ask him that?”
Blake held up his hand to calm his brother. “It’s okay, Dane.”
He turned back to his best friend. If he hadn’t been so shaken coming out of the trance, he wouldn’t have told Jake what Colm did. Jake’s past had made him overly protective of everyone he cared about, and that was on a normal day. Seeing Blake endure the episodes and not knowing how to fix them was a kind of torture for his friend that few would understand. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He knew that Jake knew he was apologizing for describing what Colm had done.
Jake gave him an almost imperceptible nod. Raising his voice to a normal level he told Jake, “I haven’t said the words yet, but I’m not hiding. I can’t force Paige to love me.”
Ford elbowed Cade on the couch beside him. “I’m lost. You get that?”
“Yeah. Jake thinks Blake should fight harder for Paige and open himself up to love so he doesn’t end up like Colm,” Cade said, either ignoring Blake’s quiet apology to Jake or not having heard it. Likely the former. Cade wasn’t that much younger than Blake and Jake, so he’d been around to know what Jake’s family had gone through.
Cade raised his brows at Blake. “Am I correct?”
“Yes.” Blake didn’t know what else to say. No one could force Paige to love him, but he was pretty sure he was on his way to loving her. If he confessed his love now, she might think he was saying it because of the curse. The problem was, he still worried about her leaving. She’d done it once, so there was nothing to stop her from doing it again. And that was under normal circumstances. Having to deal with him and his trances made their lives anything but normal. The only thing he could do was give her time. If only he knew how much of it he had left.