Page 25 of Cursed to Love (Cursed to Love #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

B lake opened his eyes slowly and blinked to clear his vision. The edge of his arm and a sea of beige, from the sheet of wood pinning his arm to his forehead, greeted him.

Forcing himself to tamp down his panic, he assessed his situation as best he could. Besides the pounding in his skull threatening to blind him, he couldn’t sense any other injuries.

A couple of thoughts slammed into him. His muscles had locked like they did before each episode, but it was too soon for one because it hadn’t even been two hours since the last one. Secondly, since the curse had taken control of his body, why hadn’t he been transported into a scene?

Enduring another episode wasn’t on his list of favorite activities, but at least when it finished, he would regain control of his body. Unlike his current frozen state.

Seconds ticked by, then minutes.

Swallowing down the bile threatening to crawl up his throat, he waited for the moving pictures that always appeared first.

When nothing happened, he concentrated on his hand at his side, trying to move his fingers.

Nothing. The curse still had control of his muscles.

As more minutes passed, he had nothing to concentrate on but the pain.

Blake swallowed down more bile. The pounding in his head had become relentless, battering him from the inside with every beat of his heart. Looking on the bright side, the pressure in his head was so all-encompassing he couldn’t feel his other injuries. He let out a small snort at the thought, then groaned from the pain.

Time lost all meaning as he continued to swallow, forcing back bile. As bad as the shredded, raw feeling of his esophagus was from all the swallowing, he figured it was better than choking on his own vomit since he couldn’t turn his head. If he wasn’t pinned down like a bug, he would have patted himself on the back for being Mr. Positive.

He heard a sound. Holding his breath, he strained to see if he would hear it again.

Someone was crying.

“Help!” he attempted to yell but choked on the word. Swallowing to clear his throat, he tried again.

“Help!” His voice had been louder that time. Lough enough to be heard through his wood barrier? He could only hope so.

A breeze fluttered against his cheek as images flashed in his mind.

He welcomed the scene, knowing he’d be free when it finished.

The scent of flowers hit him first. Then the timbre of organ music reached him just as his vision focused on the scene in front of him.

Blake stood in the vestibule of a church in Blue Mountain, Colorado, in 1975.

Four women stood in front of him in long, seafoam green dresses, wearing broad-rimmed floppy hats. Each of them held a small bouquet and stood in a line, one behind the other.

The bride, wearing a high-necked white gown and the same floppy hat as the others, but in white, brought up the rear of the line. She held a small bouquet in one hand while her other clung to the arm of an older man—likely her father.

The woman in the front of the line nodded to an older woman in a pantsuit off to the side as two young boys opened a set of large double doors. With a big smile on her face, the first woman in seafoam green began a slow walk up the aisle.

When the woman next in line began her trek up the aisle, the man turned to the bride. “Are you ready, Carolyn?”

She beamed up at him. “Yes. I can’t wait to be Mrs. Keith Merrill.”

Ms. Pantsuit gestured to the bride and her father to come forward. They paused for a moment until the music changed, then walked toward the altar.

Blake followed them, stepping to the side when the bride’s father handed her off to her groom.

The groom’s smile looked forced as he faced his bride, sweat dotting his forehead. He and his bride turned to face the minister.

“Welcome, loved ones,” the minister said, addressing the crowd. “We are gathered here today to join Keith Andrew Merrill and Carolyn Jane Engles in holy matrimony.”

The groom held up his hand. “Wait.”

Carolyn’s eyes widened as Keith turned to face her.

“I’m sorry, Carolyn, but I can’t do this. I don’t love you.”

“What? You’re telling me that now?” she hissed just louder than a whisper.

“I’m sorry,” Keith said again. He turned his back on her and walked away down the aisle. The groomsmen followed.

“How dare you?” Carolyn screamed. She lifted the bottom of her dress and raced after Keith. She was halfway down the aisle when her hat flew off, but she didn’t stop to retrieve it.

Before Carolyn disappeared through the large doorway, the air shifted.

Blake didn’t get a chance to look at his new surroundings before Carolyn walked right through him. He shivered at the encounter and moved off to the side.

“How could he do that to me?” Carolyn shouted, the ribbons in her hair moving with her long tresses as she paced back and forth. “He embarrassed me in front of everyone we know! I hate him. I can’t believe he did that to me. How could he?”

As Carolyn continued to rant. Her four bridesmaids, all dressed similarly in wide-legged jeans, sat on two couches with patterned paper covering the walls behind them. They looked uncomfortable as Carolyn continued her tirade and paced. One of the women sat forward and looked at the others before standing.

“Carolyn,” the woman said softly as she took a step forward and stopped.

She reminded Blake of a person approaching an animal without knowing how they would react.

“It’s been six months. Keith has moved on. Uh. Maybe you should start dating again. Find someone new.”

Carolyn spun toward the woman. “Move on?” she screeched. “Do you not remember how Keith embarrassed me? Everyone saw him walk away from me. He made me a laughingstock.”

The other women stood and joined the first. “Carolyn,” one of them said. “That’s on Keith, not you. Amy is right; you should start dating again.”

“How can I?” Carolyn yelled. “He embarrassed ? —”

Before Carolyn finished her sentence, the air swirled around Blake and the scene changed, but he still stood in the same living room. The wallpaper had been removed and replaced with tan paint that matched the slipcovers on the couches.

He did a slow 360, realizing it was the house on Arrow Street. In the dim light with the demolition underway, he hadn’t gotten a good look when he had walked in. Then he’d been distracted as Carolyn paced back and forth in the last scene.

In his own time, he was trapped in the same house Carolyn was in.

This time, she sat on one of the couches, her hair now parted down the middle and tied in two braids.

Two of her former bridesmaids sat on the opposite couch, one of them rubbing her hand over her swollen belly. A third bridesmaid took small steps in the middle of the room, bouncing a baby on her hip. “Carolyn, how was your date last night?”

“He walked out of the restaurant and left me with the bill.”

The women on the couch frowned, and Blake caught a strange look pass between them. The woman with the baby perched on the edge of the couch beside Carolyn, bouncing the baby on her knees. “That’s weird. Uh… What were you talking about before he left?”

Carolyn hesitated, then waved her hand in a dismissive manner. “The usual getting-to-know-you stuff.”

“Did you mention Keith?”

“Not at first.”

The woman cradled the baby against her chest and shot to her feet. “For goodness’ sake, Carolyn. It’s been two years. You’ve got to get over Keith.”

“How can I? I was going to be his wife, and he humiliated me.”

The air shifted to a new scene, but Blake, still stuck in the house, stood in Carolyn’s living room. He watched her as the scenes shifted again and again.

Instead of seeing a snapshot of her life through the years, he endured listening to her bemoan her fate year upon year. Her bridesmaids dropped off one by one over the next decade until new friends came and went. Her clothing and hairstyles changed with the times, and every five or ten years, the furniture and accessories in the room were updated.

By the time the scene switched to 2007, Carolyn’s whining grated on him like an itchy tag in a shirt that needed to be ripped out. He felt like he was losing his mind. Thirty-two times he’d been transported into her living room to listen to her complain about dates who didn’t understand, badmouth Keith, yell at her friends, and lament her lot in life.

“Get over it, already!” Blake yelled at her, throwing his hands in the air. He didn’t care that she couldn’t see or hear him; his patience had shriveled up and died.

Unaware of Blake, Carolyn held the phone to her ear and continued to rant to the poor soul on the other end about her latest failed date.

He walked over to the large front window, doing his best to block out Carolyn’s whining, and looked out at the street. The weather looked the same as it had in his own time. Someone bundled up in a coat and scarf against the wind hurried by on the street as leaves blew around them.

The air shifted again, and for the first time in thirty-three episodes Blake found himself in a different room. Carolyn lay in a double bed, her eyes closed and skin pale. Her breathing alternated between deep breaths followed by shallower ones with pauses in between.

A woman reading a book sat beside the bed.

Blake knew he had only transported one year ahead in time to 2008. He didn’t know what had happened in the past year, but the sound of Carolyn’s breathing told him she had an incurable illness.

The name of Carolyn’s type of breathing escaped him, but he remembered hearing the pattern once before when his grandfather died. He’d learned it was a common end-of-life breathing pattern.

Carolyn was only fifty-eight years old and dying. And unless she had changed in the last year, she was dying bitter and loveless.

The woman in the chair looked up when the pause between Carolyn’s last breaths extended for much longer. Holding her book in one hand, she reached over and patted Carolyn’s shoulder softly. “You’re not alone; I’m here. It’s okay for you to let go,” she said quietly.

Blake stood at the end of Carolyn’s bed as the pauses between her breaths continued to grow in length. With each new scene he’d been forced to endure as Carolyn refused to let go of her past, he’d become more and more frustrated, even though she had died years ago.

Keith had done the right thing by walking away, even though his timing had sucked. He had freed Carolyn to find happiness, because without him loving her, they would have ended up miserable in their marriage.

Blake remembered what Jake and Paige had said about needing to choose love. He scoffed. Carolyn definitely hadn’t chosen love. Instead of seeing that Keith had done them both a favor, she’d worn her embarrassment like a blanket around her, choosing to wallow in that one misfortune and be wretched and resentful for her entire life.

Blake wasn’t an idiot; he didn’t need to be hit over the head to see the parallels between himself and Carolyn, and all the other people whose heartbreak he’d witnessed. Instead of looking for love, he’d chosen to guard his heart to avoid having it broken again.

In his own defense, he wasn’t bitter like Carolyn had been, or wasting away like some of the others had. Neither did he want to take his own life like Colm had. And he wasn’t settling for less than love like the sailor.

Or was he? Was he so guarded that he wasn’t choosing to love Paige? He loved the friendship they had. The benefits were great too. But he wasn’t opening himself up to love either. He wasn’t choosing to love again.

His mom, like their ancestor Thomas, had loved with all her heart. Their loves had been taken from them far too early, but he’d bet his mom had no regrets. Thomas probably didn’t either. They’d also been far older when their beloveds died. If they’d been younger, they may have chosen to love again, although there was no way of knowing.

Would opening himself up to love—making himself vulnerable—make that much of a difference?

Fuck. He was such an idiot. He’d been waiting for Paige to decide to leave him, almost positive that she would. Love wasn’t going to give him a guarantee that she wouldn’t, whether by her own choice or not.

Love was a risk, but not choosing it could mean ending up like Carolyn or Martha, or Colm, or all the others.

Maybe he had needed to be hit on the head, and the plywood he was currently trapped under was that proverbial knock on his noggin, even if it had been more literal. Could the curse be trapping him in this episode until he realized that he had to choose to love Paige?

Since the curse started, he’d wondered if the episodes were telling him he had waited too long to choose love, or if there was still time and he needed to hurry up. He still didn’t know the answer, but he was going to take a chance and choose the latter.

Carolyn let out a long breath, like her body was expelling all its air. Blake looked up at the same time as the woman in the chair. He waited to see if Carolyn would take another breath, but deep down, he knew she wouldn’t.

The woman patted Carolyn’s shoulder. “Rest in peace, dear,” she whispered before pulling her phone out of her pocket.

When the air shifted this time, Blake was ready for it.

The pain hit him all at once, although he suspected it had never left. The curse had made him unable to feel it while he was trapped in an episode.

His original plan, before the curse showed him Carolyn, was to push the board partway off and then use his right arm under it to help lift it off. That wouldn’t be possible now because his arm was numb from bearing the weight of the wood for so long.

Pushing the wood all the way off was going to tear the shit out of his already bruised and scraped skin, but not wanting to die in the house like Carolyn had, he didn’t see another option.

Breathing out against the pain, he strained to lift his left arm that lay limp at his side, positioning his palm flat against the edge of the board. He took one more deep breath, then with tremendous effort, he shoved the wood as hard as he could.

Almost simultaneously, he felt the flesh on his arm shred and the plywood tip down. He rolled onto his bad shoulder to get out of the way.

The plywood clamored to the ground behind him. Adrenaline and pain coursed through him as he struggled to his knees, then his feet. Nausea assaulted him, causing him to sway, his shoulder hitting the wall. “Fuuuuuuuuck.”

Blake closed his eyes and focused on slowing his breathing. When the nausea receded, he opened his eyes and pulled away from the wall and stood still. Once he knew he wasn’t going to fall over, he checked his watch, straining in the darkness to see the time.

“Seven-thirty. Shit.” He’d lost almost five hours.

Knowing Paige must be frantic, he reached behind, his muscles protesting, as he pulled his phone from his pocket.

“Shit.” The battery was dead. He just couldn’t get a break today.

He looked at the floor to make sure he wasn’t going to step on anything and took a careful step. His muscles protested again, but they worked.

Keeping his gaze on the floor for potential hazards he had taken two more steps when he heard crying. He knew that sound. “Carolyn?” he called into the dark house.

“You can hear me?” Carolyn asked.

When her voice sounded closer, Blake took another couple of tentative steps until he stood in the center of what used to be Carolyn’s living room.

She hovered near the front door, not standing, but not really floating either. Her hair was parted in the middle and tied in two braids like she’d worn it in the late 1970s. He’d always imagined that ghosts would be see-through, but Carolyn appeared more opaque than translucent.

If he wasn’t in a rush to get to Paige—not to mention tired and in pain—he probably would have marveled at seeing a ghost. Instead, he had to hold back his irritation.

“Yes. And I can see you.”

She came closer. “How do you know my name?”

Blake didn’t know how to answer her. If he told her he’d seen flashes of her life because he was cursed she might think he was lying. On the other hand, if he said he was the one who now owned her house, she might do something to his crew. He wasn’t sure she could do something, but he didn’t want to chance her hurting anyone, so he went with the curse option.

“I saw your life because I’m cursed. My mind gets transported back in time to see people.”

She frowned. “You saw my entire life?”

Blake hesitated, then decided to tell her. Maybe it would give her some peace. “No. Parts of your life after Keith.”

“Keith?” she asked, her tone wistful. In the next second her expression changed, and he saw the bitter woman she’d been in all the scenes he’d witnessed. “Did you see what he did to me? Did you see how he embarrassed me?”

That was a loaded question. “I think Keith didn’t want to trap you in a loveless marriage. He was trying to set you free to find a new love.”

“How could I?” she screamed. Carolyn lifted her hands, palms facing Blake, and shoved them toward him.

A tornado-sized blast of air hit him. It threw him backward, his head hitting the hardwood floor. Carolyn hovered over him, her features pinched in anger.

True fear slithered down Blake’s back as he looked up at Carolyn. He couldn’t move, but his muscles weren’t stiff and locked like they were during a trance. Instead, an invisible weight pinned him to the floor.

“Carolyn, please, let me go.”

“No.”

Blake tracked her image as it moved back and forth across the room as she paced. He’d seen her bitterness and anger over the years, but he couldn’t understand how trapping him would help her.

“Carolyn, please,” he pleaded again. “I’m so sorry Keith hurt you, but keeping me here won’t change that.”

In an instant, she was above him, hovering less than a foot from his face. Sweat popped out on his upper lip, but he was unable to wipe it away.

“I know that ,” she spat in a tone that implied he was stupid. “For decades I tried to get people to understand how Keith embarrassed me and made me feel worthless. No one understood.”

Blake let out a slow breath of relief when Carolyn moved away to take up pacing once more. As she paced again, she continued her rant about Keith. If it wasn’t so sad, he’d be amazed that she’d managed to rant about the same thing for over thirty years.

Since the moment Keith turned his back on Carolyn at the altar, every word Blake had heard from her during the years he’d witnessed had been about her embarrassment. Blake tried to remember if she had ever said she loved Keith, but he couldn’t think of a single time through all the years that she had. There were times he did his best to tune her out, but he didn’t think she’d ever said she’d loved him. Not even when her dad asked her if she was ready before he walked her down the aisle. When she’d smiled up at her dad, she’d told him she couldn’t wait to be Mrs. Keith Merrill. She hadn’t said she couldn’t wait to marry the love of her life.

Paige was the love of Blake’s life. He’d denied it for a long time, but not anymore. When he found a way out of Carolyn’s clutches, he’d tell Paige he loved her. Even knowing there was a risk that she didn’t feel the same wouldn’t stop him from telling her.

“Carolyn,” he said, interrupting her tirade. “I do understand how Keith embarrassed you. If he had loved you, how would you have felt if someone kept you from him?”

“But he didn’t love me.”

Blake wanted to roll his eyes. “I know, but if he had, and someone tried to keep you from him, you’d be angry, right?”

The front doorknob rattled.

Carolyn spun toward it.

Paige opened the door and stepped inside. “It’s so dark, can?—”

“Noooooooo!” Blake yelled as Carolyn knocked Paige backward into the room, the front door slamming shut behind her.