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  Back to your bottle…

  “I can’t leave, you know. I belong to you. But if you insist, I can go back into my bottle,” he said, pointing to the bulbous amber glass that sat on the kitchen counter. “I’d rather not be all cramped up again, but it’s your call. Just say the word.”

  “What word?” I said, not getting it. The bottle was about nine inches high. Gene had to be six feet tall. I didn’t believe in genies. I didn’t believe in magic; magic was just sleight of hand and trickery. I looked at Gene. I looked back at the bottle. There was no way that big, solid, seemingly flesh-and-blood man was going to fit in there.

  “Okay, go back in your bottle,” I said as fast as I could get the words out. As soon as I said them, invisible bells tinkled, there was a sound sort of like “poof,” and a stream of white smoke whooshed from where Gene had stood and dove into the mouth of the open bottle. I rushed over and jammed the cork into its top. In its bottom, a miniature man sat cross-legged. He blew me a kiss.

  Careful What You Wish For

  Lucy Finn

  A SIGNET ECLIPSE BOOK

  SIGNET ECLIPSE

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Charlee Trantino, 2007

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 1-4295-3770-1

  SIGNET ECLIPSE and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

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  In memory of my mother

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Acknowlegments

  Chapter 1

  I first heard Noxen called “Hicksville” by a red-haired second-grader who carried a designer handbag to school. She also called tomatoes “tahmahtoes,” so that tells you something. By high school I agreed with her. I vowed that as soon as I could, I’d get out of rural Pennsylvania and live where there was a Starbucks on the next corner instead of an hour away at the nearest mall.

  By the time I was twenty-one, I had done what I promised myself. So how did I end up back in Noxen at twenty-seven, a single mother with her career on the rocks? A crazy one-time-only fling had started the chain of events that yanked me back to my birthplace, maybe for good. I don’t know whether the chance meeting with a guy called Jake really had been love at first sight or lust, but if ever a woman had stooped to folly, it was me, Ravine Patton, unemployed attorney-at-law.

  I was thinking about my “folly” for about the millionth time as I stood looking out a frosty windowpane at the sleet covering everything, including my Five Series BMW, the last vestige of my former existence as a Philadelphia lawyer. It was a beautiful vehicle in metallic Oxford green with a beige leather interior. The car was wonderful, but if I was honest with myself, I would admit my former career hadn’t been so great.

  By the end of my first year of practice, I was bored with business law and secretly making fun of the soft-bellied, dark-suited partners in my law firm, which specialized in real estate investment trusts—REITs. Despite that vague feeling of discontent, a bad case of acid reflux, and a sour expression that put vertical lines around my mouth, I was making heaps of money and seemed to be doing well as far as the world, and my mother, were concerned.

  However, anybody who took a close look at my life would have seen I was stressed out of my mind, eating junk food at my desk, and buying frivolous designer clothes that hung in my closet with the sales tags still attached. I used my credit cards too much and saved too little. When I finally stumbled into my studio apartment off Rittenhouse Square after a sixteen-hour day to be greeted solely by Baby Kitty, my yellow tabby, I was depressed as hell. By any accounting, my success back then was a sham. But my present situation could get a four-star rating as a genuine failure from any independent appraiser.

  This morning my hair needed a good wash. I had an ache that started in my shoulders and traveled in pinched nerves all the way down my back. I hadn’t gotten any restful sleep for weeks, the baby had to be at the pediatrician’s in an hour, and as I noted, the landscape was glistening with a layer of ice. The temperature had dipped to fourteen degrees during the night even though it was only the week before Thanksgiving, not even officially winter.

  I sighed and put down my coffee mug, donned an old down jacket over my Wal-Mart jeans, tugged on snow boots, jammed an orange wool cap on my head, and grabbed my car keys. Then I checked to see that Brady was cooing safely in his infant carrier, which sat on the floor, hopefully out of any drafts.

  No drafts, that was rich. This old house boasted a constant stream of fresh air that whistled in through the ancient windows which rattled constantly in their panes. Yep, I needed replacement windows. I would put them on my to-do list right after a new roof, new floors, and new plumbing. I did get new wiring put in. I figured without it, Brady and I might soon be toast, but the cost pretty much used up all my disposable income. I looked and felt like Grumpy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

  I pulled open
the creaky front door and was hit by a blast of frigid air which came roaring down the mountain to greet me. I started slipping and sliding across the huge flat stone which makes up my front walk. Ice to the north of me, slippery ice to the south of me, and no end in sight. I struggled to keep my balance. Adrenaline raced through my bloodstream. My heart thudded in my chest. Why hadn’t I grabbed my cell phone, just in case I fell and couldn’t get up?

  Of course if I were knocked unconscious, the cell phone wouldn’t help anyway, I reasoned. I soldiered on.

  Considering that the whole wide world of nature had been covered in sleet, I shouldn’t have been surprised that when I finally reached my car, I discovered that my car doors were frozen shut.

  Oh great, I thought, now what? I didn’t have an extension cord long enough to get my hair dryer out here. I needed another bright idea. I gingerly made my way back inside the house, wrinkled my nose at Brady, crossed my eyes to make him laugh, and filled up a saucepan with warm water. Then I half skated, half walked back to my car, trying not to spill all the water, and poured it around the doorframe.

  Snap, crackle, pop, and open sesame, the door responded when I pulled on it. I was brilliant. I started the engine, figuring I’d let the car warm up while I got Brady ready to go out.

  Best-laid plans “gang aft a-gley,” as Robert Burns put it. In other words, they end up in the crapper. I threw some Quik Joe on the walk, wrestled Brady into his bright red snowsuit, then remembered to grab my baby bag and wallet before heading back into the refrigerator that is a typical November day in Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains. The car was purring along merrily as I attempted to enter the driver’s side door.

  I didn’t succeed. The door had frozen shut again, this time with the keys in the ignition and the car running. Brady blissfully stuck his thumb in his mouth. I bit off the obscenity about to issue from my chapped lips. I didn’t want my kid’s first words to be Oh shit! instead of Mama.

  Back in the house, I ran into the kitchen with Brady in my arms for another pan of water and headed out for the third time. I poured the water around the doorframe, got the door open, ducked into the back, strapped my son into his car seat, threw the diaper bag onto the passenger seat, and figured I was good to go. A smile spread across my face. I, a woman down-and-out and totally alone, had triumphed over the wild.

  I kept smiling until I was halfway down the country road that leads from my house to the highway. It was at that point that the car door flew open.

  Criminy dickens! I almost had a heart attack as the door swung crazily back and forth and I could see the black asphalt rushing by beneath me. I gripped the steering wheel and hit the brakes; I was totally shook up even though I was held safely in place by my seat belt. When I had slowed the Beemer down to a crawl, I reached out, grabbed the door handle, and slammed the door shut—only it didn’t shut. It simply bounced open again. I stopped the car completely and kept trying—bam, bam, bam! Finally it dawned on me that the latch had frozen in the open position.

  Time was running out; I had maybe twenty minutes to get Brady to the doctor’s, and I had to get the damned door to stay shut. Although a little voice was whispering in my mind that I was making a terrible mistake, I held the door closed and hit the door lock. I heard it click. The door stayed in place. Smiling to myself, I pressed the accelerator toward the floor and headed for the highway, flipping the radio tuner to Rocky and Sue on “WKRZ-FM in the Morning.” Feeling good again, I sang loudly along with Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Brady babbled almost in tune too, all the way to the pediatrician. Okay, I should have been playing Mozart. Brady was developing a taste for grunge rock, and I was going to regret that someday. But I needed a good beat to keep me going this morning.

  I pulled into the parking lot outside of the doctor’s office in Dallas. That’s Dallas, Pennsylvania, population about two thousand souls, not Dallas, Texas. Then I tried to get out of the car. The driver’s side wouldn’t budge. I slammed my shoulder against it a few times, while I yelled out stuff like, “Don’t worry, Brady, Mommy will get us out of here in a minute.” My son, sitting in the backseat wide-eyed and fascinated by my flailing, seemed more amused than concerned. I, on the other hand, was rapidly beginning to panic.

  I climbed over the console into the passenger seat, smashing my knee on the shift lever and knocking the baby bag onto the floor, where all its contents spilled out. I lifted the door handle and launched myself like a Scud missile against the side of the car. The door was like a rock, immovable, uncaring, impassive. After a few more tries, which had my shoulder aching but the door no more open than when I started, I briefly considered smashing out the glass to reassert my superiority over the dumb machine—me Tarzan, you BMW—but reason prevailed. I finally dug out my cell phone and dialed the pediatrician’s number. I—somewhat hysterically, I confess—told the receptionist of my dilemma, and I thought I heard a muffled snicker.

  After what seemed like the longest five minutes of my life, a perky redhead came prancing out into the parking lot with a pan of warm water. Brady and I were freed in no time, and I should have been appreciative, but the receptionist couldn’t stop laughing, so I glared at her as I mumbled “Thanks.”

  By the time Brady and I got home again, I was sinking fast with exhaustion. I wanted to lie down and die, or at least cry my eyes out. Don’t get me wrong, I was crazy nuts in love with my baby with his big brown eyes and ready smile. I sometimes thought he was born happy. His temperament was certainly much better than mine—blissfully sunny while storm clouds chase across my emotions ten times a day. Like me, however, he had the Pattons’ iron will—or what has been more often called pigheadedness. Cross him and his cry was not a whimper, but a roar. And I could testify from firsthand experience that a screaming baby was more effective torture than anything used in the Inquisition.

  But I was grateful beyond words that I had such a good, healthy baby. I was even grateful that I had a baby at all, although I never planned on having one as the result of an afternoon of lovemaking in a rural Texas motel somewhere near Route 83 south of Laredo. I was sure the whole thing would never have happened if it hadn’t been for the bottles of Dos Equis and the blistering heat—and the fact that I, Miss Always in Control and Reasonable, had fallen smack-dab completely in love at first sight.

  Hell, I knew only the first name of my baby’s father, a tall, lanky, utterly gorgeous Texan who rode an Indian motorcycle. He’d said his name was Jake, and I’d bet dollars to doughnuts even that much was made up. My car had broken down; he gallantly offered to help. The affair was nuts. Of course it was nuts! I got sunstroke or something riding along behind Jake on that motorcycle, my hands around his hard-muscled chest and my…my more sensitive parts…right against his backside. Look at the risks I took. The whole episode was so unlike me, I have to think it was fate. You want to know what happened?

  About a year and a half ago, my law firm sent me down to Zapata, Texas, which is nearly on the Mexican border, to talk to a millionaire client who was a hang glider fanatic. The guy turned out to be a jerk and the deal I was supposed to close never happened. I had wasted hours standing around while the client sailed off into the wild blue yonder—and ended up breaking his leg. I was in a foul mood when I started back to the airport. Then the damned Honda Civic I rented crapped out on me and stopped dead.

  It was late August and the summer sun was out in full force. The car was getting so hot inside that I couldn’t breathe. My blond hair was sticking to my face with sweat. I climbed out, pulled off my suit jacket, and heaved it into the backseat. I felt a lot cooler in the sleeveless cotton T-shirt I had been wearing underneath it. Then I tried to make the cell phone work. No service. No luck.

  Maybe I should have been scared when this tough-looking biker came careening off the highway, his wheels spitting stones, and stopped in front of me, but I wasn’t. The guy rode what looked like a vintage motorcycle even to me, who knows nothing about bikes. He put his long, denim-covered legs down on either
side of the bike, his cowboy boots biting into the dust. He leaned back, and then he took off his helmet. I sort of gasped when I saw his face, and I felt as if someone had sprinkled me with fairy dust. I couldn’t move a muscle; I could only stare at him. He was the handsomest man I had ever seen.

  “Need some help?” he asked.

  I hesitated.

  “I won’t bite. Honest,” he said with a lopsided grin. He dismounted, and stuck out his hand. “My name is Jake.” He smiled again, and his face seemed to catch the sun, lighting up and dazzling me.

  I stared. I couldn’t seem to find my voice. Heat waves shimmered all around him, making everything seem like a dream, while he stared right back at me. This humming started in my blood and I felt inexplicably happy. Finally, after we stood unmoving for God knows how long, he smiled and asked again if he could help. His eyes didn’t let go of mine. I said something witty like, “Yeah, sure,” while my heart did somersaults in my chest and I irrationally felt like throwing myself into his arms.

  He said he’d take me into Laredo to the rental car place to get another vehicle, and I said sure. After I climbed on the back of his bike, he asked me if I was hungry, and I said sure yet again. We ended up at this biker bar—Jake called it an “icehouse”—in the middle of nowhere. When we walked in, we were already holding hands, only I’m not quite sure how that happened. Pretty soon we were laughing together, talking nonstop, eating fajitas, and drinking Dos Equis out of frosty glass bottles.

  Jake showed me how to push a wedge of lime into the bottle and turn it upside down with your thumb over the top of the neck. We had quite a few beers like that, and I was laughing even more while the jukebox played Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and “Fallin’, Fallin’, Fallin’” by Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys, over and over again.