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I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my feelings. All I felt was love—love for the man willing to give his life for me. I knew it was crazy since I hardly knew him, yet when we touched, I knew him in ways I couldn’t explain. In a way that told me we were supposed to be together. Please let me find him. No direction came, and I found myself aimlessly driving around, looking for his car and trying to will my heart to tell me how to save him. I spent hours doing this.
By the time noon rolled around, I had given up hope. He was probably dead, and once again, it was my fault. And I still felt cursed—cursed to be alone.
Defeated, I used the navigation system to find my way back to my mother’s place. I had no choice now but to leave and honor Eric’s last request. No matter how much I was ticked off by it, he had forced my hand. After what he had done, how could I choose any other way? It killed me to leave my friends thinking something awful had happened to me, which it had. I’d seen things I would never be able to get out of my mind. I should have died. And what about my bakery? I had employees that depended on me and customers expecting wedding cakes.
Maybe I could go back to Riverhaven. I could tell the police about Eric’s mom and get a guard dog. Tara would hate it, but she wasn’t going to save me from a knife-wielding lunatic. I would tell the authorities it was Eric’s family who had abducted me and their son. That they had killed Eric. That could work. After settling my affairs in Riverhaven, I would say I needed to move on after all the trauma. Then I would go to Europe and assume a new life. Surely Eric would understand me wanting to do right by the people who depended on me. I would give Josie and Mateo the bakery. Mateo had the baking skills, and Josie, well, Josie loved to eat cake. I would stipulate that they hire a business manager.
With puffy eyes and no tears left to cry, I turned down the road leading to my mother’s beach house. I couldn’t believe Eric was dead. Not only because it seemed surreal but because I still felt connected to him, like the connection I felt with my book that no longer existed. If that didn’t say it all. I should just admit I was insane and move on. There was no moving on from this. I would carry the scars with me for the rest of my life.
I reluctantly pulled into my mother’s drive and clicked the garage door opener. I had failed once again. I had caused another person’s death. The thought was unbearable to me. And though I no longer had any tears to shed, my body was racked with dry sobs. While my chest heaved, I started to pull into the garage when my brain registered the stolen silver SUV parked there. Eric was here? He wouldn’t sacrifice himself here, would he? My mother would kill him if he damaged any of her things—you know, if she were alive. And I would kill him for killing himself. Then my rational, fearful side kicked in. What if his family had found him and then me? Honestly, I didn’t care. Maybe it was time to end this once and for all.
After pulling into the garage I hurried out of car and ran into the house, my heart ready to beat out of my chest. I barely made it past the mudroom when I ran into a hard body, a body holding my very content cat.
Without thinking, I slugged Eric in the gut. “Don’t you ever do that to me again!”
“Aah,” he groaned while grabbing his middle and setting down Tara. “I would say I was happy to see you, but you should be halfway to Lisbon by now.”
I wrapped my arms around him and breathed a hundred sighs of relief.
He pulled me to him as tight as he could and kissed my head.
“You came back,” I choked out.
“You didn’t leave.” He sounded half-exasperated, half-relieved.
“I tried to find you.”
“Of course you did.”
“Why did you come back?”
He leaned away and brushed my hair back, looking dazed. “I have something to show you.” He took my hand and led me toward the couch in the living room. There on the coffee table sat his book, as whole and as beautiful as ever.
“Did the sacrifice not work?” I shuddered to think of him drinking the poison to which there wasn’t a known antidote. Though if he’d survived, that was fantastic news. It meant the curse wasn’t all we thought it was.
