Page 26 of Better Luck Next Time

It took Adalia a second to answer. Her gaze was locked on the card, tears filling her eyes. She was so shocked she didn’t even think about disguising her reaction. “Uh…a career change, actually. And moving.”

Lola gave her a look and said, “It’ll be easier for us to figure out the specific meaning if you tell me why you walked in today.”

She shook her head. “General is fine. Keep going.”

Lola told her that someone from her past would reappear soon, causing her heartache, but someone else would be there to support her. The person she least expected.

But all Adalia could see was that death card.

“Like I said, it rarely means death,” Lola assured her with a worried voice. “It means a very significant change, and since it’s inverted, that usually—”

“That’s okay,” Adalia said, grabbing her wallet out of her purse. “How much do I owe you?”

“I really hate to see you upset like this,” Lola said. “I can help you work this out if you’ll give me some background.”

“No, that’s okay,” Adalia said, shaking her head, and pulled out two twenty-dollar bills and held the bills out to her. “Does forty cover it?”

Lola put her hand over Adalia’s and searched her eyes. “No. This one is complimentary. I’ll charge you next time.”

There wouldn’t be a next time.

Adalia got up and rushed out into the waiting room, closing the door behind her. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She nearly ignored it, but she pulled it out anyway, feeling faint when she saw Alan’s name on her screen above a text.

Addy. Baby. I miss you. We need to talk. Please call me.

He’d left her alone for a couple of days. She’d dared to hope that maybe he’d forgotten about her. That he’d lost her number. But here he was again. Hadn’t Lola said something about a person from her past reappearing? If she was right, Alan wasn’t going to back down like she and Georgie had hoped. He was going to keep turning up like a bad penny.

Time to block his number.

But he’d just find a different way, wouldn’t he?

A sob bubbled up, but she swallowed it back down. She needed to go home. She needed…she needed to address the possible meaning of that death card. Was she supposed to give up her art?

Glancing down at the text on her screen, she reached for the door to the sidewalk and plowed into a firm body.

Strong hands grabbed her upper arms, holding her upright. “Adalia, are you okay?”

She recognized the voice before she even looked up into his worry-filled blue-green eyes. She’d run straight into the devil himself.

Finn.

Chapter Ten

Finn sincerely hadn’t intended to tell River everything. He’d started off by admitting that Adalia had been painting in Dottie’s studio, and the rest had unfurled from there. Somewhere in the telling, he’d realized just how much the situation had been weighing on him. The need todosomething, to help her through whatever was haunting her, had been a constant companion. He’d carried it around with him all day long, gone to sleep with it. Telling River had felt like an unburdening in more ways than one.

Finn and River had met with Jack Durand for a breakfast meeting this morning to discuss the show—Jack being the new events coordinator for Buchanan Brewery—and although he and River hadn’t explained the wholeAdalia’s been destroying her own paintingsthing to him, they’d let him in on an idea they’d tossed around the night before. And the three of them had spent the morning working on it. After they discussed the show, of course. The plan was to hold the as-of-yet unnamed event toward the beginning of November, just when people started considering holiday gifts. That gave them a little under two months to gather everything together, but he figured they could pull it off. He didn’t have a whole lot else going on at the moment.

It remained to be seen what Adalia would do when she found out he’d spilled her secret. He had to admit the odds were pretty good she’d pour a bucket of red paint on him. Or go all in and use pig’s blood. Maybe she’d just refuse to see him again.

The last thing he had expected was for her to run into him—literally—as he was walking into the psychic’s…could it really be called an office?

Her eyes flew wide. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m so sorry,” he said, because obviously she knew. “I met with River last night to talk about the show. I mentioned how much I love your art, and he asked me what I’d seen because you haven’t been doing art…” He paused, not really sure what else to say, and ended with the obvious. “I’m not very good at keeping secrets. I didn’t know itwasa secret. From them, I mean.” Which wasn’t quite true, so he amended. “I figured they at least knew you’d been coming there. Not necessarily what you were doing to the paintings. With the knife.”

She shook her head in disgust. “You really don’t have a filter, do you?”

“Not most of the time, no. Trust me when I tell you I wish that I did.”

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