“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
“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
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
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.
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?
