Page 50 of Charming the Cowboy
“I told you. She’s–”
“She’stold me. A hundred times. Curse. Guess what, I don’t care.”
“Big talk, but you know, things tend to go badly with this family.”
“Isn’t that just life, Marcus? It’s hard, we lose people we love. You know, if you walk around telling yourself that you’re cursed, maybe that tends to sabotage relationships.”
“My dad didn’t die because my momthoughtshe was cursed.”
“No. But sometimes bad shit just happens.”
Marcus reached into the candy bowl and stole another handful of candy. “Obviously, my sister disagrees.”
“Yeah. She does.”
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
“Depends. Are you going to… challenge me to a duel or anything?”
“Me? Shit no. First of all, I don’t have any grounds to talk to anybody about their sexual activities. Which is not directed at you, but Eliana. I do whatever I want, so she can do whatever she wants. But also, you’ve always loved my sister.”
He looked at Marcus. “What?”
“Some have said I have a deep knowing, Cooper.”
His friend’s uncanny golden eyes suddenly seemed a little different than they usually did. “Huh. Well, Eliana doesn’t think you do.”
Marcus winked. “Eliana doesn’t know everything about me. And in any case, what are you going to do about all this?”
“There’s nothing I can do. Eliana is convinced that this is going to basically take us both to hell. So…”
He paused. Because he had told her that he was going to break the curse. And by God, he was. Because he suddenly realized that it had to start with his own curses. Yeah, what hadhappened to his dad was a terrible accident. Same with Eliana’s dad. It was a terrible accident.
“I want to go talk to her.” He shoved the bowl into Marcus’s lap. “Watch for trick-or-treaters.”
“Wow. Okay.”
“Be nice to me. If everything goes well, I’m going to be your brother-in-law.”
“I shouldn’t have come home.” But he ignored him, as he closed the front door behind him and walked into the house. Eliana’s mom and grandmother were perched on the stairs, staring. “She’s up in her room,” her mom said.
“Well, I’m going to go up there.”
“She’s got to pull the ladder down. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“You could take the fire escape.”
Well. He was about to test the curse big time.
“All right. I’ll do that.”
Eliana was sitting on the bed, looking down at a handful of crystals, when a knock at the window just about sent her sailing. She looked up and saw Cooper. On the precarious, terrible fire escape, looking at her window in the dark, his face practically pressed to the glass.
“Holy shit,” she said.
She hurriedly opened the window. “What are you doing?”
