CURSED BY LOVE
By Jacqueline Floyd
Chapter One
Dodging through the backstage chaos of the popular antiques’ appraisal show, Your Grandma’s Attic, Molly Webber pulled up just short of following her speedy studio guide under an enormous suspension ladder.
Not that she truly believed walking under a ladder caused bad luck, but was it only coincidence that seconds later Ernie careened into a senior citizen carrying a box of doorknockers?
She thought not.
After Molly and Ernie, the stagehand, up-righted the old man and returned his treasures to their carton, they hurried on through the maze of unused lights, cameras, props and cables.
“Wait in here.” With a gesture, Ernie indicated a small, nondescript room that reeked of stale coffee.
Other than snack and drink machines, the temporary holding area contained a couple of folding tables with chairs, and one lone male.
“How long?” she asked, eager to get to the |
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on-camera appraisal of her palm-sized pink carving.
“’Bout an hour,” Ernie tossed over his shoulder, hot-footing his way back to the studio.
“Okay, then,” Molly muttered to his disappearing backside. She’d already waited in line for three hours to see an appraiser. What was another sixty minutes?
She took stock of the room’s other inhabitant—a preppy type in a crisp button-down shirt and sharply creased khakis. He looked too carefully pressed and repressed for her taste, until her gaze caught on a pair of red Goofy socks peeking out between pant cuffs and loafers. Aha, she thought, kind of quirky. Cute and...interesting.
Hunched over a laptop computer at a table in the corner, he tapped on the keyboard, tense with focus; his fingers skimmed the letters with deft and knowing strokes. She suspected the economy of motion masked a barrel of pent up energy.
He was as slender and taut as a steel blade. Agile, but toned. No spare flesh there, just lots of well-honed male strength. Lithe, she decided. He was lithe, whip-cord taut, more like a swimmer or a
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