Page 24 of Cursed to Love (Cursed to Love #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

P aige had wanted to leave the office early to get home to Blake but had been waylaid by a last-minute request. Now, driving home with Emmie, it was just after five o’clock, and she felt a sense of relief that she would see Blake soon.

All day she’d worried about him. A hundred times she reached for her phone to call or text him, putting it down each time. After being accused of being a nag for years by her ex, she fretted each time she reached out to Blake with something serious. Letting go of past habits would take time, but since she still wasn’t quite sure where she stood with Blake, she was erring on the side of caution.

She’d convinced herself that one call during the day wouldn’t be too much, so she called him during lunch. Blake sounded happy to hear from her, relieving some of her tension. Until he told her about the two episodes he’d had that morning.

Hearing the despair and exhaustion in his voice was like the trip through the supermarket all over again. A much-needed wake-up call. Only this time she was choosing the opposite path.

Hanging up after talking to Blake, her epiphany had come in realizing that she wasn’t wrong in wanting to please her husband, but it couldn’t be one-sided. It wasn’t solely her responsibility to please him. She realized that we have to give to ourselves first, and once we’re happy, we can do things that please our partner, as long as they do the same.

No relationship could be exactly equal one hundred percent of the time because there would be situations where one person would give more than the other. Like Blake did with opening his house to her and Emmie.

For almost two months she’d been so concerned about keeping her independence and not relying on Blake that she hadn’t bothered to see what was right in front of her face: The proverbial peanut butter staring at her.

She was relying on him already for more than just a place to live—for companionship and someone to listen and be there. He helped out with Emmie as well, but more than picking her up from daycare or doing the laundry, he’d been the father figure that Emmie needed. Blake’s family had been there for her and Emmie as well.

Choosing to receive help didn’t take her independence away. It gave her options, which was what having independence meant. She could choose what she wanted to accept and what she didn’t. God . She’d been such an idiot.

On Friday night, she’d been about to tell Blake she loved him even though she still had doubts, but he had stopped her. Even while needing her love to break the curse, Blake’s main concern was her. He didn’t want to pressure her into anything. Instead of only looking out for himself, he was looking out for her too—wasn’t that love?

Blake didn’t need to say the words to show he loved her. He had shown her in a hundred different ways… with friendship, with Emmie, with his body. With his selflessness of putting her first.

That morning, he had wanted her pleasure to come before his own. What she hadn’t realized until their phone call was that he wasn’t trying to please her in spite of his own happiness. He could give her pleasure and also have his own. For years she’d given to Craig until her own happiness no longer mattered. Blake was showing her that they could both choose happiness.

Again, she’d been so stupid. Why was it so easy to see something happening to someone else but not yourself? She’d agreed with Jake that Martha, the sailor, and so many of the others in Blake’s episodes chose not to love again. They could have opened themselves up to a new love, but instead, they let their past hurts stop them from finding happiness.

That’s exactly what she was doing. She was so worried about losing control over her life that she wasn’t choosing to love. Loving the right person meant they chose your happiness as much as they did their own. Craig hadn’t done that. The only person Craig cared about was Craig. Their love—if it had even truly been that—hadn’t been what either of them needed. Just like Martha and the sailor. They may have each loved someone, but it wasn’t reciprocated the way they needed.

Blake’s mom had said that in her letter. Not only did Blake need to find love, it had to be reciprocated. Because loving without having it returned wasn’t enough.

Now it was her turn to step up.

She pulled into the driveway behind Blake’s truck, excited to see him.

“Hey, sweetie, we’re home.” She smiled at Emmie in the rearview mirror as she turned off her SUV.

“Is Blake home?”

“Yes. Start unbuckling and I’ll come around.” She grabbed her bag and went around the vehicle to get Emmie out.

Hand in hand, they walked up to the front door while Emmie chatted about the game she wanted to play after dinner.

Paige reached for the front door, surprised to find it locked. She dug in her bag for the keys she’d just thrown in it and unlocked the door, pushing it open for Emmie to enter first.

“Blake, we’re home!” Emmie shouted.

Paige dropped her keys on the side table and hung her bag on a hook by the door. “Let’s get your coat and boots off. Then you can go see Blake.”

“Okay.” Emmie shrugged out of her coat and kicked off her boots, leaving them in the middle of the floor.

Paige cleared her throat, eyeing her daughter.

“Oops. Sorry, Mommy,” Emmie said with a sheepish look. She hung her coat on one of the low hooks Blake had put by the door and placed her boots neatly on the rack before running off to find Blake.

Paige looked down at Emmie’s coat on the low hook, realizing it was another sign of love. One day, not long after they’d moved in, they’d come home to find Blake in a crouch, putting away his toolbox. He showed Emmie the brightly decorated wooden row of hooks at just the right height for her. Emmie had launched herself into Blake, knocking him on his butt, his arms around her as they laughed.

Paige had thanked him, appreciating that Emmie had a place to hang her coat. Seeing them now, she realized that Blake had done more than give Emmie coat hooks; he’d given her independence. She no longer needed to rely on an adult to put her coat away.

As Paige took off her own coat and hung it on a hook, she wondered how many other things Blake had done to give both her and her daughter independence. She would have to pay better attention.

She turned away from the hooks, then swung back. Blake’s coat wasn’t hanging where he usually put it.

“Mommy,” Emmie said, coming down the stairs, frowning. “I can’t find Blake.”

“He’s probably working out downstairs. Let me go check.”

Emmie waited in the kitchen while Paige checked the basement. When she couldn’t find him, a sense of dread settled inside her. All she could think about was the story Blake had told her about Colm ending his life. She knew that Blake wouldn’t do that, but it didn’t stop her thoughts.

“Where’s Blake?” Emmie asked when Paige reached the kitchen and locked the basement door behind her.

“I don’t know. Maybe he walked to the supermarket. I’ll call him.”

Paige grabbed her phone from her bag. It rang five times before it went to voicemail. “Hi, Blake. Uh… just wondering where you are. Can you please call to let me know you’re alright?”

After she hung up, she kept her phone in her hand so she’d hear it if Blake called. “I’m going to go upstairs and change out of my work clothes,” she told Emmie. “You want to play with your dolls in the living room?”

Emmie held out her hand. “No. I want to go with you.”

Paige smiled, hoping to reassure Emmie, because she expected her daughter was picking up on her worry. Taking Emmie’s hand, they went upstairs.

Hoping Blake would return at any moment, Paige hadn’t gotten dinner ready, but at six o’clock Paige knew she couldn’t wait any longer to feed Emmie. She made her a grilled cheese sandwich and heated up a can of minestrone soup. Needing to occupy herself, she gave Emmie an early bath.

As far as distractions went, it hadn’t been enough. Every few minutes she pulled her phone out of the pocket of her yoga pants to make sure she hadn’t missed a text and that her battery hadn’t died.

By seven-thirty, Paige was ready to jump out of her skin. Emmie was settled in front of the TV watching a movie, but Paige couldn’t sit still. For the last ten minutes she’d been pacing in the foyer with her phone clutched in her hand.

Unlocking her phone, she looked at her contacts. Jake had exchanged phone numbers with her on Sunday when she and Emmie had gotten back from shopping. Blake’s brothers had too. They had tried to play it off as nothing, but none of them could hide their worry about Blake. He’d stayed silent during the number exchanges but had confessed later he was glad she had them.

She pressed Jake’s. It only rang twice before he answered.

“Paige? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find Blake. Emmie and I got home just after five, but he wasn’t here. Only his truck. I left him a voicemail, but he hasn’t called me back.” She could feel her hysteria rising.

“Have you tried his brothers?”

“No. I’ve just been waiting hoping he would come home, but now I’m beyond worried.”

“Let me call around and see if anyone has heard from him.”

Paige could hear the worry in Jake’s voice and that amped hers up even higher. “Okay.”

“We’ll find him, Paige. I’ll call you back as soon as I know something.”

Jake hung up without saying goodbye. She just needed to know that Blake was alright.

When someone knocked on the door ten minutes later, she sprinted to it, flinging it open without looking to see who it was.

“Did you find him?” she asked Jake and Cade as they walked in.

“Sort of. We know where he was last,” Jake said. He glanced into the living room.

Emmie was standing up, her movie forgotten behind her. Paige rushed to her and picked her up. She’d done a lousy job of keeping her worry from Emmie.

Cade approached them. “Emmie, would you like to come to my house and help me read Malcolm a bedtime story?”

Emmie glanced between her and Cade, probably sensing Cade’s and Jake’s worry as well.

Paige forced a smile. “That’s a great idea. You go help Cade read Malcolm a story and Jake and I will go get Blake.”

Cade took Emmie and helped her put her boots and coat on as Paige shrugged into her own coat and grabbed her purse.

A few minutes later, Cade had left with Emmie and Paige was in Jake’s truck as he drove down the street. “Where is he? Is he alright? What happened?” she spewed the questions, then bit her lip to stop her question vomiting so Jake could answer.

“One of our managers needed help at a house project and called Denise because I was in a meeting. Wayne, the manager, said that while he was waiting for Blake to show up, his wife called to say they’d had a mix-up and he had to take something to one of his kids. Wayne called Blake to let him know he would be about another twenty minutes, but Blake told him not to bother. Blake said he’d look at the plans Wayne had questions about and they’d talk tomorrow morning.”

“What time was that?”

“Two forty-five,” Jake said, giving her a quick glance before looking back at the road.

“Five hours ago,” she said more to herself than Jake. Not even a blip when considering a lifetime, but enough time for something to have happened.

Jake slowed down and pulled over to the curb in front of a house with a dumpster in the driveway.

As they walked up to the front porch, Jake unlocked his phone. “I’m just looking up the code for the door.”

Paige reached the door first and turned the knob. “It’s not locked,” she told Jake over her shoulder.

Not waiting for Jake, she opened the door and stepped inside. “It’s so dark, can—” She turned back to Jake to ask him to use the flashlight on his phone as a gust of wind knocked her backward onto her butt. The door slammed shut, enclosing her in complete darkness.