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“What if I’m stuck with Melinda’s karma for the rest of my life?” Brooke’s stomach knotted with nerves and misery.
“Wait a minute, Brooke, what about who you are in this life?” Arabella asked, scooting closer. “You’re kind and giving to everyone. Doesn’t that count for something? There has to be balance in the universe.”
“Every part of me hopes you’re right.” Brooke’s eyes stung with fresh tears. “I got closer and more emotionally invested in Nico than any other man in my life. Our souls are connected.” They knew each other’s deepest secrets and fears.
A loud clap of thunder made her jump, followed by a torrent of rain that pounded against the roof and shook the windows. Rivulets rushed down the side of the house like a waterfall. She hated storms.
“Everyone’s headed downstairs to the basement to play board games over candlelight and eat cold leftovers in case the power goes out. You should join us,” Arabella murmured in sympathy.
The howling of the wind whipping against the glass reminded Brooke of a wounded animal. Turning to the window, she stared at the dark, swirling clouds. “Don’t you think it’s a strange twist of fate that a nasty storm was brewing the night Melinda and Lucas tried to run away together?”
“Or some kind of divine providence.”
Brooke’s head snapped around. “Did you say providence?”
“Yeah, why?”
“The Providencewas the name of the ship that was supposed to take Melinda and Lucas some place far away so they could get married.” The second Brooke uttered the words, tingles shot up and down her arms. Familiarity clicked in her brain. A sense ofdéjà vuwashed over her like a crashing wave. Jolting out of bed, she went to her desk, and grabbed her Ephemeris. She flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for—tonight’s position of the planets. “Venus will be transiting the Sun. The last time it made the journey was in September 1832, almost two hundred years ago, right after Melinda and Lucas perished and the curse was placed on my bloodline.”
“Holy crap, there’s no such thing as a cosmic coincidence.” Arabella got up and met her at the desk.
“Maybe this isn’t about using witchcraft or magick to break the curse, but more about clearing my karma. I have to go to the tree and ask for forgiveness for the sins of Melinda’s past…my past, in order to clear it once and for all. What do you think?”
“I think you may be onto something.” Arabella tapped her hand on the desk. “When I was twelve, I kept a diary and wrote a bunch of trash about these girls who were being mean to me. My mother read the diary and gave me a lecture on the power of my words. She insisted that I needed to clear my karma so that what I wrote didn’t come back to me times three. I asked the goddess for forgiveness and burned the diary as a symbolic offering.”
A flutter of excitement lifted her spirits. “What if I do the same with Melinda’s and Lucas’s love letters? I could burn them as a symbolic offering.”
“Sounds like poetic justice to me.”
“This means I have to go to the tree tonight.” Brooke went to her closet and reached for her backpack off the hook.
“What? You can’t go there tonight. Are you out of your effing mind? That’s the worst place you can go during a storm.” Arabella pointed to the window, where streaks of lightning lit up the sky. “You need to stay inside and hunker down.”
“I’ve got to do this, Arabella, or I’ll never be free. Neither will my children or their children if I stay in a relationship long enough to have any. If I don’t do this, it will haunt me forever.” Crossing the room to her nightstand, Brooke gathered up the letters from the top drawer and slipped them into her backpack.
“You could die out there. I get the Leo in you is courageous, but this is nuts. It’s too dangerous.” Arabella’s voice rose. “You can’t go out there alone.”
“The way I see it, there’s only one way to make things right. It’s a chance I’m willing to take. Besides, Melinda will be looking out for me.” She’d spent too many years thinking everything happened for a reason, but not anymore. Tonight, she’d turn the hand of fate. “I’m done looking over my shoulder, waiting for the other heel to drop. I have to fight for Nico…for us. The stakes have never been higher.”
Arabella turned to another gust rattling the window. “At least wait until the storm blows over.”
Taking several long, deep breaths, the implication sank in. “I can’t. Nico and I have until midnight, or our love will be lost forever.”
CHAPTER15
NICO
Last night, after Nico left Brooke’s place, he went home and drank himself stupid, like some lovesick fool. Not one of his prouder moments. He woke up in a shitty mood with a vicious hangover.
He now stood in the hall of his uncle’s house, where he’d spent the better part of an hour boxing up the coat closet. When his fingers closed over the brown fedora on the top shelf, he froze. His uncle had worn that hat everywhere. And then reality struck like a bolt of lightning. He’d never hear his laughter or see his smiling face ever again. Minutes ticked by. Not sure how long he stood there gripping the brim of the hat like a lifeline, instead of putting it in the box with the coats, he set the hat off to the side with a few other mementos that reminded him of the old man. Beating back the past, he sealed up the rest of the boxes, and tried like hell not to get swept up by grief. Getting the contents of the house ready for auction kept him from thinking about his breakup with Brooke, and right now he needed a distraction. He’d already rehashed the whole thing in his mind at least a dozen times and still came up short.
Alex came through the kitchen door holding a tape dispenser, shaking his head. “Talk about a pack rat. I just packed up everything in the cabinets and the drawers. The auctioneer’s only interested in the furniture and the antiques, so we need to box up the rest of this stuff and get it out of here. The guy’s going to have a field day with this place.”
Glancing in the direction of the living room, Nico rubbed his chin. “I’ve been looking through some of his genealogy books and family trees. This stuff goes back generations. The extent of Uncle George’s collection is insane.” Knick-knacks, memorabilia, and stacks of old newspapers covered almost every available surface. “I’d say we have our work cut out for us.”
A few hours later, they’d stacked up a wall of boxes in the family room. All that was left to go through were things of sentimental value and a cedar chest full of photo albums pulled from the attic.
Leaning back against the couch cushion, Nico flipped through the pages of black and white family photos, hoping to kill some time until the storm passed. “Some of these photos are hundreds of years old. I feel like I’m in a time warp.” A wave of nostalgia settled over him. “I have no idea who half of these people are.” He carefully pulled the photo out of the plastic and flipped it over so he could read the names on the back. “Whose Aunt Maria and Uncle Kostas?”
