Carly Phillips - Lucky Break

“Lauren, is that you?” Jason called out to her.

“Yes. I’m here with Sharon.”

“You’re never going to believe what I found.”

Lauren glanced at Sharon.

“Any clue?” her friend asked.

Lauren shook her head. “Not one. Let’s go find out.”

Lauren hadn’t been in the bedroom since last night and she wasn’t thrilled about going in there now.

Turned out she didn’t have to. Jason met her in the hall, the cat under one arm and what looked like a black velvet pouch in his other.

“What’s going on?” Sharon asked.

“That’s what I’d like to know!” Lauren said.

“Let’s go somewhere where it doesn’t smell so bad.” Jason handed Trouble to her and they followed him back down the hall.

“I couldn’t find the cat,” Jason said as soon as they were in the kitchen. “Last time I saw him he was stalking mice, but he was nowhere to be found. Of course he was in the last place I checked.”

“The bedroom.” Lauren placed Trouble on the kitchen floor.

“Actually your grandmother’s office. But he escaped on me again and I just recaptured him in the bedroom. Anyway, the mice had apparently been nesting in the office fireplace.”

“Thank God we didn’t light a fire in there!”

“You’re telling me.” Jason laughed. “Look what the mice had stashed in there.” He held up the jewelry pouch. “Trouble here found it when he was sniffing after the rodents.”

Lauren shuddered. She might have spent one night alone with the mice but she hadn’t grown to like them.

Jason opened the threadbare pouch and poured a handful of diamonds onto the kitchen table.

“Are they real?” Sharon asked, leaning closer for a better look.

“They’d have to be appraised to know for sure,” Jason said.

Lauren couldn’t tear her gaze from the diamonds. “Tell me where you found them again?” she asked.

“Inside the fireplace,” Jason said. “What’s wrong?”

“In the hearth! Of the house!” Lauren cried, pieces of an old family puzzle suddenly coming together.

“I’m confused,” Sharon said.

“Hang on and you won’t be.” Lauren’s heart pumped in excitement. “I found an old diary in my grandmother’s night table. We think that’s what my sister was looking for when she came back here.” She glanced at Jason. “Remember the diary mentioned an offering. And then it said something about the heart of the house. Maybe it really read the hearth of the house! Don’t you see? Those diamonds are the offering my ancestors used to place the curse!”

LOUD BANGING woke Jason. He tumbled out of bed, his head pounding as if a freight train was rolling through it. Why did he have a hangover the likes of which he never wanted to experience again?

Another loud, banging knock sounded at his door. “I’m coming!”

He swung his door open wide to find his entire family standing outside. With a groan, the reasons for his hangover came flooding back.

Two days ago, he’d found the diamonds. Then Lauren had made the connection between the jewels and the Corwin Curse and she’d immediately called Clara to come over. Clara, with her otherworldly wisdom, had revealed that the offering-in this case the diamonds-was the key to breaking the curse. It was up to Lauren Perkins to figure out how.

Lauren had figured it out immediately. She’d turned the jewels over to the Corwin family, giving the offering to the cursed family and thereby breaking the curse forever, at least according to Clara.

All good news until in the midst of the chaos, Lauren had snuck out, leaving his family to celebrate and Jason with a note. I hope you find what you’re searching for. Love, Lauren. To add insult to injury, she’d asked Sharon to look after her cat while she was in Paris. Not Jason.

Which brought him back to his current hangover.

And his family who’d followed him inside his house.

“Tell me why I can’t get any peace in my own home?” Jason asked.

“It’s not your home, it’s mine. You just live here,” Hank said, stepping forward.

“Nice, Uncle Hank.” Jason glanced around, waiting for his father or another relative to step up and support him.

The way they’d done for Lauren.

But his entire family stood by and let Hank abuse him.

Jason groaned. “Okay, why are you all here?”

Thomas straightened his tie and grinned. “To tell you those diamonds were worth a fortune. Split among the three families, we’re not broke anymore!”

“We weren’t broke before,” Jason reminded him. And Lauren needed the money a lot more than he did.

“Neither were we,” Derek said, glancing lovingly at his wife, whose books sold well.

“The point is, we have a nest egg now,” Thomas said. “Jason, you’ll get your share, too.”

Jason would make sure his share went to Lauren.

“Even Edward said he would accept the money,” his father added.

“Because his medication and therapy are working.” Gabrielle turned to Jason. “Maybe we could put you on the same regimen and you’ll come to your senses, too.” Her pregnant belly protruding from beneath her jacket, she poked Jason in the shoulder.

“Hey, what was that for?” he asked.

“After all our hard work getting you two together, you let Lauren just pick up and leave!” Amber said, obviously upset.

The two women were like a tag team. “I’d call it meddling, not work,” Jason muttered.

“He does have a point,” Mike said.

Amber hit her husband in the arm.

“Let’s not forget, if it wasn’t for the mice we brought over, you wouldn’t have found the diamonds, so I’d quit complaining about our so-called meddling.” Gabrielle eyed Jason with frustration.

“Leave it to the women to twist things,” Derek said, stepping out of his own wife’s reach.

Jason rubbed his burning eyes. “They happen to have a point about the mice and the diamonds.” Even Jason knew when it was smart to concede defeat. “As for Lauren, it’s more complicated than it seems.” And he didn’t intend to discuss this with his entire family. “Can everyone go home and let me deal with my own life?”

Gabrielle frowned. “Fine. Amber and I will go with Hank and Thomas back to their house. I’ll let your cousins knock some sense into you.”

Amber ushered the older men out the door and Gabrielle followed.

Mike waited until they were alone before turning to Jason. “You look like shit. We both know it’s because Lauren’s gone, so cut to the chase. What will it take to get her back?”

Jason decided to suck it up and admit the truth. Who better than his cousins to understand? “She asked me to go with her and I said no.”

Derek shook his head. “Have you learned nothing from all the years I lost with Gabrielle? So tell me why the hell you’re sitting here hungover instead of being with the woman you love?”

Wasn’t it obvious? “What the hell kind of life do I have to offer her?”

“If this is about the bogus drug test-”

Jason scowled at Mike. “Hell no. It’s about life. I’ve lived my whole life going after the gold, then one day it’s gone. I’m home running a contracting business that’s boring as shit and I don’t recognize the guy I see in the mirror each day.”

“So do something about it!”

“I have. Before I got stinking drunk, I called a couple of snowboard companies-Venue, Flow and Sapient to start-and offered my services for testing. I’d kill to get back on the mountain again.” And though testing wasn’t the same as sponsorship, Jason would start somewhere and work toward proving himself. If he could get a company to ignore his jaded past.

“Are you waiting for me to applaud?” Mike asked, his tone laced with sarcasm. He paced the den before turning back to stare at Jason. “Do things your way and you’ll have a career and no one to share it with. Is that what you want for yourself?”

No. “Hell, no.”

Jason’s head suddenly cleared. Not just from the hangover but from the idiocy that he’d been hanging on to.

Mike and Derek were right. What good would it do him to carve out a new set of goals without Lauren to share them with? Hadn’t he gone that route once before, when he’d been too young and stupid to understand what he was giving up?

Did he really want to tackle that slope again?

No.

Jason needed a shower. Then he had to look up flights to New York. Or Paris. Or wherever he could find Lauren right now.

Without a word, he turned and headed for the stairs.

“I think he caught on,” Jason heard Mike say.

Derek laughed. “It’s about damned time.”

Jason wasn’t as amused as his cousins. Because, unlike them, he understood Lauren’s insecurities, where they stemmed from and why she couldn’t let them go. By rejecting her, he’d hit on each and every one. It didn’t matter that he’d basically told her she was too good for him. She’d never see it as a compliment. He’d refused to accept her for who and what she was. In Lauren’s book, he’d committed a huge sin.

He only hoped it wasn’t an unforgivable one.

LAUREN MOVED UP her trip to Paris. She’d been back in New York for a few days, but after so much time away, it felt like she’d been gone for a year. After living in the large house with Jason, she found being alone in her tiny apartment claustrophobic and lonely. She truly hoped a change of continent would help her find herself again.

Because she wasn’t the same person who’d left Manhattan for Massachusetts. Back then she’d wanted only to finish the job and get on with her life. Yet now the life she’d been so eager to return to seemed less fulfilling than she’d remembered and she resented Jason for doing that to her. She wanted to rediscover the driven professional consumed with her goals and getting to the top of her field.

It had been too long since she’d sketched or even thought about what she wanted to create after the show in Paris. She’d put her designs on hold to help her family, and for what?

Whoa. Lauren gave herself a mental shake. She’d promised herself she would not second-guess the choices she’d made. She’d done right by her family and she could live with her decisions. Nothing else mattered.

Time to turn the page and move forward. She’d packed her sketch pads, certain France would provide fresh new inspiration for her designs. She’d clear her head, meet people and expand her horizons. And hopefully she’d also get over having her heart broken by Jason Corwin.

She pressed her palms against her temples. Okay, so it was going to be more difficult to stop thinking about her time with Jason than she’d hoped. But she’d promised herself she wouldn’t dwell there, if only because she couldn’t change the past. Especially since in this case, she should have known better than to hand Jason her heart.

She glanced at her watch. She had about half an hour before she had to leave her apartment and catch a taxi to the airport. She pulled a soda from her refrigerator and settled onto a couch to watch TV. Unable to find anything on regular television, she turned to the cable news channels in time to catch a sports recap. From football, the newscaster moved on to the upcoming winter Olympics in February 2010, Lauren’s least favorite subject, and one that wouldn’t aid her quest not to think about Jason Corwin.

She had picked up the remote to change the channel when she caught sight of the name below the photo on the screen. Rusty Small, Jason’s nemesis. The snowboarder who, along with a woman named Kristina, had set Jason up to test positive for banned substances.

Instead of channel surfing, Lauren raised the volume.

“Rusty Small became the United States’s hope for snowboarding gold after leading contender Jason Corwin tested positive for drugs and was banned from competition. Small’s status and even his ability to compete in Vancouver are now in doubt following his own positive drug test.”

“What in the world?” Lauren leaned forward in her seat.

“The IOC is still investigating. However, there is one common element between Small and Corwin testing positive. Both men were involved with the same woman at the time their tests proved positive. Kristina Marino is currently missing and authorities are searching for her. More information as it becomes available.”

Lauren checked her watch again, then shut off the television. She had to leave for the airport, but the story stayed with her. It was unlikely Rusty Small’s problems would lead to Jason being cleared, but it did show Karma hard at work.

Impulse had her reaching for her cell to call Jason, but hard-earned lessons made her put the phone away. Focus forward, she reminded herself.

“Paris awaits,” she said aloud.

Too bad Paris was the city of love, and she’d be visiting alone.