Mike’s father most of all. Or at least, he was the one who’d taken fear of it to the most extreme.

After Mike’s experience in Vegas with Amber-meeting and marrying, half convincing himself he could have something special with this woman, a stranger, because of some connection he’d felt, only to lose both her and his winnings-he could almost begin to see why his father believed in such nonsense.

Almost.

He arrived at the café to find Derek already there. The cousins were similar in looks, with dark hair, but Derek kept his short while Mike avoided the barber’s chair.

“Hey, cousin, how’s life treating you?” Mike asked, sliding into the plastic-cushioned booth across from Derek.

“Pretty damn good considering.” Derek grinned, the same smile he’d been sporting since marrying his high-school sweetheart, Gabrielle Donovan.

“Considering the curse?” Mike asked knowingly.

Unlike Mike, who just didn’t deal with the curse, Derek had openly avoided it, breaking up with Gabrielle before college to avoid the fate of the rest of the Corwin men. Later, he’d gotten another woman pregnant, married her hoping to have a family and a child without invoking the curse because there’d been no love involved. The marriage had failed anyway. And Gabrielle, a successful author, had returned to prove to Mike’s stubborn cousin there was no such thing as a curse-just coincidence and bad choices. She was still proving it, every day of their almost year-long marriage. Though Derek was wary, he was too much in love to live without her.

Derek leaned forward on the table. “Considering your father is making us insane.”

“Can I take your orders?” a waitress asked, interrupting at just the right-or wrong-moment.

Derek shut his menu and ordered a hamburger and fries.

“Make that two, please,” Mike said.

They both ordered colas and the waitress left, leaving Mike to return to the subject at hand.

“Okay, what’s the old man done now?” he asked.

Derek’s gaze darkened. “He’s into voodoo.”

Mike wasn’t surprised. In the last few years, his father had taken to alternative religions to ward off the curse. Juju dolls hung from the trees lining the path leading up to his secluded house and he’d erected ancient totem poles for protection. Mike didn’t understand Edward’s reasoning and didn’t want to try. The farther he stayed from the insanity, the better.

“What’s going on?” Mike reluctantly asked.

“He’s spooking Gabrielle and you know that isn’t easy to do.”

As an author who made a living dispelling paranormal beliefs, Gabrielle wasn’t easily scared. If Edward was upsetting Gabrielle, he must have gone too far. “Tell me.” Mike gestured to Derek to continue.

“Well, we wanted to keep it quiet, but about six months ago, Gabrielle had a miscarriage,” Derek said, his voice low.

“Damn.” Mike shook his head, absorbing the news. “I had no idea. I’m sorry,” Mike said to his cousin.

Derek inclined his head, acknowledging the words. “According to the doctor, it was a freak thing. There’s no reason to think it will happen again or prevent us from having a healthy baby.”

“Thank God.” Mike expelled the breath he’d been holding.

“And we’re trying again.” Derek grinned once more. “But your father found out about the miscarriage. We figure he overheard Gabrielle and her friend Sharon talking about it in town.” He shook his head. “Ever since he’s been obsessed with protecting her.”

Mike muttered an expletive under his breath. “I’m sorry. All it takes is the slightest problem when a Corwin man is in love and my father loses it.”

Derek shook his head. “He’s already lost it, Mike.”

Mike knew. He just hated facing it because, too often as a child, he’d feared ending up like his father. As an adult, he prided himself on how well he had things together. He had a job as a cop, a career that enabled him to protect others, something he never quite felt he’d been able to do for his father. Edward fought his own demons. Mike fought other people’s, at least in a way, and remained sane.

“Look, we know my father has issues.”

“Right. The problem is, he’s spreading the insanity now. Gabrielle came home the other day to find red dust sprinkled outside the front door.”

“In Boston or Stewart?” Mike asked, since his cousin and his wife had a house in their small hometown village of Stewart and a Brownstone in downtown Boston. Gabrielle had lived in Boston before she’d gotten back together with Derek and they’d kept her place as a city retreat or an office in case Gabrielle was on deadline and needed peace and quiet.

“Stewart. But thanks for reminding me. I’m going to have to check the brownstone before I leave. I’d hate for Gabrielle to find a present from your father next time she visits.”

“I’m sure your place in Boston is fine. I can’t see my father going too far, can you?” The man rarely went into Stewart, let alone ventured beyond the town lines.

Derek shook his head. “But you never know. The red dust was followed by a string of juju dolls across the doorway. Gabrielle said she was damn near decapitated by the fishing line he used.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Mike promised. “I’ll call him tonight.”

“I think he disconnected his phone line. Afraid of traveling spirits or some such nonsense.”

Mike raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Are you sure? I just spoke to him before I left for Vegas on Thursday.”

“Did you call him or-”

“He called me from his cell.”

“No wires.” Derek shrugged. “Don’t ask me. It makes sense to him, that’s all I know. I paid him a visit on Saturday and he explained to me. I told him as nicely as possible that Gabrielle appreciates his concern but she doesn’t want his spirit-invoking items left in surprise places.” Derek spread his hands in front of him. “I just don’t think it sunk in.”

Mike nodded. “I can’t imagine it would. He’s too obsessed. I’ll see what I can do,” he promised.

But Mike didn’t hold out much hope. Renee, Mike’s mother, had threatened to leave Edward when the craziness became too much for her to handle, and when nothing changed, she followed through. Since then Edward hadn’t changed, only sunken deeper into his own world.

The waitress arrived with their burgers. While she put their plates on the table, Mike silently thought about his parents’ so-called cursed marriage.

Renee had fallen for Edward in the early days when he’d been fairly normal. But before she’d met him, Edward had been in love with another woman, Sara Jean. And Edward’s brother, Thomas, had fallen in love with her, too. When Sara married Thomas, something in Edward died. Rumors she’d been Edward’s second choice and Edward’s own hard-to-live-with personality, which only grew worse over time, led Renee to finally leave him.

Mike’s mother was now happily married to a doctor and living a normal life. Mike envied her.

Mike would do what he could for his cousin and his wife, but knowing Edward, once he had his mind set on a course of action regarding the curse, nothing would change his mind.

Mike turned his attention to lunch. “I’m starving. Long day in court,” he said, taking a large bite of the burger without bothering to add ketchup first.

“So on to more exciting things. How was Vegas?” Derek asked, taking a bite, as well.

At the mention of the subject Mike had been trying not to think about without any success, he lost his appetite.

“That good a time?” Derek asked into the silence.

Mike knew if there was anyone he could trust with the truth, it was his cousin Derek. “You know that expression ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’?”

The other man inclined his head. “Yeah…?”

Mike drew a deep breath and told his cousin the entire story.

“So basically both the woman and the cash stayed in Vegas,” Derek concluded for him. He shook his head. “Holy shit. Why don’t you press charges? You’re a cop, after all.”

“That is why. Where’s my credibility after I admit publicly that I let myself be taken in by the oldest con in the book?” And that’s what still got to him.

What prevented him from sleeping on the plane back to Boston late Saturday night and again in his own bed last evening. How had he misread Amber so completely? Her sincere gaze, her genuine excitement, that connection.

“I have to talk to her again first.” Because things just didn’t add up. He was a cop who acted on gut instinct and he was seldom wrong.

“Ego.” Derek finished his soda and signaled for a refill. “You can’t admit she conned you, so you’re going to let her get away with it?”

“I’m going back to Vegas first chance I get. I’m going to find her, and then get some answers, and a divorce.”

“Don’t forget to press charges,” Derek said. “Now I have another question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“To quote Jay Leno to Hugh Grant, ‘What the hell were you thinking?’”

He hadn’t been thinking. He’d been feeling and everything he’d felt had been so damn good. Which only made him feel more like a fool in the cold light of day.

“Never mind. Let me know when you plan to go back. I’ll go along and help you out,” Derek said.

“I appreciate it.” But Mike probably wouldn’t call his cousin.

Next time he faced Amber, he wanted to be alone.

A little while later, Mike left Derek and headed to the station to finish up some paperwork before starting his shift tomorrow. He’d taken today off in case court ran long, so he might as well make productive use of the rest of his day.

By the time he headed home, jet lag and plain old exhaustion beat at him. He let himself into his apartment and was immediately on alert. The dead bolt wasn’t flipped shut. He’d been tired this morning, but he couldn’t have been too tired to lock up.