Chapter Three

Chelle

It had only been an hour since her uncle had dropped a marriage bombshell and stormed off, but Chelle was still no closer to coming up with a way around this ridiculous demand, and the high-pitched yaps coming from the crate in the corner of her cramped office could not be ignored.

“You two need to go outside?” she asked.

A chorus of doggie squeaks and yips erupted from the crate where her two pugs, Groucho Barks and Mary Puppins, had been tucked in for their fifth of approximately a million naps they took each day.

“Okay, let’s do this.” She grabbed the leashes from the hook by the door. “You guys are great for helping me plot out my books. Let’s see how you do with fighting a real-life evil jerk.”

Twenty minutes and two poop bags later, she’d learned the answer to that question was that the dogs were not very helpful at all. She’d spent the whole walk through St. George’s Park going over every option she could think of that didn’t involve a wedding and coming up with absolutely nothing. Finally, she sat down at the bench so Mary could sniff every twig and Groucho could roll in the dead leaves with his fat tongue hanging out.

“There has to be a way out of this,” she grumbled while the dogs tugged at their leashes as if they had a chance of actually getting the squirrel dashing around just outside of their reach.

But there wasn’t—at least nothing she could think of—so she swallowed back the bile burning the back of her throat and started making a list of unmarried men who might be open to marrying a forty-two-year-old with two pugs and an almost feral cat, a second-floor walk-up near the park, four finished fantasy novels under her bed that would never see the light of day, and enough family-related baggage to fill the Grand Canyon.

The list added up to exactly zero point zero.

She dropped her chin to her chest in defeat. “I am so screwed.”

“Oh, darling,” a woman said, then made a sympathetic clucking sound.

Chelle looked up at the woman who’d stopped in front of the park bench. Dressed in a voluminous pure-white faux-fur winter coat that was left open despite the cold wind rattling the trees’ bare limbs, the woman smiled. Her purple lipstick matched her brightly colored floral muumuu and the colored tips of her wild gray curls that were escaping from the messy bun on top of her head.

“That does not sound like it’s the good kind of screwed at all,” the woman said.

Shocked into responding, Chelle nodded. “Not even close.” Then without meaning to, she tacked on, “I’ve got less than a month to come up with a way to defy my dad’s will or find someone to marry me for a charity.”

“Oh my.” The woman’s face softened with sympathy as she shook her head and said, “No one would think it a charity to marry you. You must think more of yourself, darling.”

Embarrassed heat flooding her cheeks, Chelle opened her mouth to explain the woman had misheard her, she literally had to marry for a charity, but the woman sat down next to Chelle on the bench.

“What you need,” she said with an excited gleam in her eye, “is a reading.”

Then she whipped out a deck of tarot cards from her large purse and started shuffling. After a few fast rounds of mixing the cards, the woman set the deck down between them and tapped it. “Hold your hands on the deck and think of your question.”

Sucked in by the woman’s off-kilter but just-here-to-help vibe, Chelle did as she was told. She closed her eyes and pictured Uncle Buckley’s little rat face and concentrated on the question of how to save the foundation without damning herself to a life of wifely submission.

“Excellent,” the other woman said when Chelle opened her eyes again. “Cut the cards and let’s get started.”

With the strict and sheltered way she’d grown up, Chelle had limited experience with tarot readings, but this reading was unlike any other Chelle had seen in movies or in the banished books she’d devoured the minute she’d moved out of her parents’ house.

The charitable would have called the woman’s tarot technique unconventional.

The purists would have called it a horror show.

The woman’s gold bracelets, with a dozen charms hooked to each one, jingled and jangled as she laid out the cards. Instead of a simple three- or five-card spread, she made a circle out of seven cards but only read three she seemed to pick at random.

“Oh, fantastic,” the woman said as she turned over a card with the word Death scrawled across the bottom of it in hot pink ink. “It’s a time for new beginnings and”—she flipped over one labeled The Knight of Wands— “adventure and”—she revealed a card with Ace of Cups in block letters at the top—“relationship help is on the way.”

“In the form of a tall, dark stranger?” Chelle asked, as jumpy as if a whole hive of wasps was under the bench at the sight of the death card. New beginnings yes, but death all the same.

“No.” The woman swept up the cards and piled them onto the rest of the deck. “He’s blond, but my son Nash is perfect for this job. He always has the answers, or at least thinks he does. He’ll know just what to do.”

Okay, this encounter had definitely gone from quirky to possibly serial killer-y. Chelle briefly wondered what the woman’s son would think of his mother volunteering him to help a stranger. “That’s sweet, but I’m not sure that—”

“Oh, not to worry. Nash will be sure enough for forty people.” The woman held out her hand. “I’m Celeste Beckett. I’m so glad the universe put me in your path today. We’re going to get along famously.”

“Chelle Finch.” She shook Celeste’s hand. “Nice to meet you, but I’m not sure your son can help.”

If none of the lawyers could, what was he going to be able to do?

“Of course he can, dear. He just always does,” she said. “He can fix anything.”

And what did it say that talking to the dog park’s surprise tarot reader’s son was the best option Chelle had? Bad things, it said very bad things.

But what other choice did she have? Too many people depended on the foundation for Chelle to just give up without a fight. And if that meant talking to random strangers with super problem-solving powers…so be it.

This was nuts. And she was doing it anyway.

“As long as we can meet in public”—Chelle said, wondering what in the world she was doing—“then I’m in.”