If Wishing Made It So

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Praise for Careful What You Wish For

  ‘‘Finn displays promise and personality to spare in her debut novel… . Fans of high-concept, multilayered fantasy romance populated with quirky, comical characters will find this novel a charmer and Finn an author worth watching.’’

  —Publishers Weekly

  ‘‘This wonderful twist on the genie-in-the-bottle story features a very human genie and an intelligent heroine who must make some hard decisions. It’s a warm, sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, and sometimes heart-wrenching magical love story with a touch of mystery.’’

  —Romantic Times (4½ stars)

  ‘‘Finn’s paranormal romance provides fast-paced entertainment, and the various subplots … add depth and complexity to this new twist on Aladdin’s lamp.’’ —Booklist

  ‘‘Sexy and fun … the perfect read… . A wonderful mix of suspense, comedy, true love, and second chances, Careful What You Wish For has all the elements that make it a keeper.’’

  —Michele Bardsley, author of

  Don’t Talk Back to Your Vampire

  Also by Lucy Finn

  Careful What You Wish For

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

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, July 2008

  Copyright © Charlee Trantino, 2008

  All rights reserved

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  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.

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  eISBN : 978-1-4406-3251-8

  To my sister, Corrine Boland.

  She’s the only sister I have—and the

  best one I could ever want.

  ‘‘The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance.’’

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Tempest, V, i

  Chapter 1

  Like a writ of execution, the light green sheet of copier paper announced the end of the world as Hildy Caldwell knew it. Her breath became shallow, her knees turned weak, and her feelings skittered toward panic every time she passed the place where it lay atop the old upright piano.

  The invitation to the tenth reunion of her class at Lake Lehman High School had come in April, the cruelest month. On that day silver sheets of rain flattened the butter yellow daffodils to the ground, their bloom ending prematurely in the violence of an early-season thunderstorm. The omen could not be more obvious. The minute Hildy opened the envelope, the paper started shaking in her hand.

  How could she go? How could she face her old classmates with the truth? They had expected so much from her that they had voted her the Girl Most Likely to Succeed.

  She could lose the extra five (okay, it was more like ten) pounds she had gained since she had graduated. She could buy new clothes. She could get streaks in her long tawny hair. But how could she change her life? Look at the Girl Most Likely to Succeed now—the Woman in a Rut on the Road to Nowhere.

  She faced the facts as others would see them. She still lived in the small town where she had been born. Although her older sister had helped out, the long illness of Hildy’s mother had kept her living at home and commuting to college while most of her friends moved far away. She had never followed her dreams to become a painter in Paris, New York City, or Gauguin’s Tahiti.

  Instead, last year after her mother passed away Hildy had taken her small inheritance and put a down payment on an old white clapboard house with pink roses crawling up a lopsided trellis. The 1920s Craftsman-style home looked so romantic to her; it had such potential, but it needed paint, a new bathroom, plumbing work—the list was as long as Hildy’s arm. And the rustic dwelling sat on a muddy lane so rural it was nearly ten miles from the nearest grocery store and had access only to dial-up Internet service.

  As for her job—talk about a yawn! Hildy taught English at the same high school where she had graduated a decade ago. Nothing exciting or unusual had ever happened to her, unless she counted a blue ribbon at the Luzerne County Fair for her portrait of a neighbor’s pet sow.

  Worse, she had no kids; she had cats. As much as she adored Shelley and Keats, few of her old classmates would ooh and aah if she showed off their baby pictures on her camera phone.

  Worst of all, she had no honey to handle her honey-do list—no boyfriend, husband, or for a while now, even a date. Her last serious relationship had ended when the admittedly gorgeous but neurotically neat
Procter & Gamble engineer she had been seeing for months issued an ultimatum.

  ‘‘It’s me or the cats,’’ he had demanded, looking down at the patina of Shelley’s white fur on his black jeans.

  Hildy chose the cats.

  To tell the truth, the breakup had been a big relief. She resented spending her leisure time cleaning the house to his level of satisfaction. And as much as she had trouble admitting it, Hildy knew the real reason why the breakup was inevitable. The invitation to her high school reunion brought it to the fore like an avalanche of cold realization crashing down with chilling truth on her heart.

  The reason was Michael Amante. Big Mike. Six feet tall, with auburn hair and eyes the warm amber of a good bourbon, Mike had been the best dancer in high school, the best athlete, the best kisser. All the girls went crazy for him.

  Hildy should know. She had been one of them. He had been her first crush, her first steady boyfriend, and, she was beginning to fear, the only man she might ever love. How pathetic was that? Hildy shook her head at the thought. She was heading for the Big Three-Oh and she was still hung up on her high school sweetheart.

  And Mike had been wild for her too, or so he had said. But then there was that one awful day— Oh, what was the use of remembering?! It all had happened long ago, and even if Hildy was still carrying a torch for Mike, he had no similar secret fire burning for her. Last she had heard, he had made a name in real estate, lived in Manhattan, and had become engaged to a famous celebrity photographer who looked like a supermodel. What was her name? Kiki? Tiki? Wiki?

  Whatever it was, the name was a far cry from Hildy—short for Hildegard. What had her mother been thinking? All through grammar school she had been tormented by kids calling her Hildegarden, Hill-da-Garbage, or Hillygarter. Finally in seventh grade she had a teacher—he was young and handsome—who had volunteered at her tiny school to teach a class in writing. The first day of the semester, he glanced down at the class roster, saw her name, and said, ‘‘Ah, Hildy. Right out of His Girl Friday!’’ After that she was Hildy, and no one dared to call her anything else.

  So, it was a particularly painful turn of the screw that Mike—once her Mike—had chosen a woman who lived a life of glamour and excitement and whose entire name was just one word, like Cher.

  That wasn’t my world, Hildy thought as she pried her eyes open first thing in the morning, climbed out of bed wearing her Penn State football T-shirt, and dragged herself into the kitchen to stick a cup of coffee made yesterday into the microwave. While she waited for it to heat up, she steeled herself to face scooping out the cats’ box—a job best done when she was half-conscious.

  After doing the dirty deed, she held the plastic bag of scooped poop at the end of her outstretched arm and ducked barefooted out the back door to put it in the trash.

  No one would see her ‘‘half-nekked,’’ as they said around here, except for the squirrels and birds. When she deposited the bag, her thoughts turned once more to what she would say if she ever ran into Mike again. She would act as if she barely recognized him. Mike? She’d furrow her brow. Mike? Oh yes, Mike Amante, I remember you now.

  Poised outside the screen door, the sun pouring down on the budding leaves above her, Hildy let her thoughts wander to that well-planned moment. She would raise her chin and extend her hand coolly to take his. She would be wearing very high heels to show off her legs, always her best feature. And she might not be a supermodel but she still had bright blue eyes, a turned-up nose, and looked young enough to be mistaken for her own students when the class went on field trips.

  Hopefully Mike would eat his heart out. And even if he didn’t, he’d never know how much she ached inside whenever she thought of him.

  A bloodcurdling scream from inside the house shook her from her reverie. Her heart beating fast, Hildy rushed inside and followed the cacophony of murderous yowling into the dining room.

  Shelley and Keats had crowded together on the sill before the open window. Their fur stood on end, their tails swished back and forth in unison like two metronomes, and their full-throated voices let the neighbor’s cat Chief—who was standing on the porch rail on the opposite side of the screen— know how much they despised him. They hated Chief especially much, Hildy thought, because he still clearly sported the testicles they no longer had.

  All at once, realizing what was about to happen, Hildy sprang forward with an Olympic-class lunge. She reached the window while yelling ‘‘No!’’ to all three cats. Shelley and Keats got the message, jumping in opposite directions to land gracefully on the floor.

  Not Chief. He had turned away from the screen and raised his tail. Then he began a little two-step with his hind feet as he assumed the dreaded spray position.

  ‘‘No!’’ Hildy yelled again while she reached desperately for the sash to slam the window down. Too late. The warm, pungent urine arced through the wire mesh to catch her midchest, soaking her T-shirt.

  ‘‘Oh no,’’ she moaned, holding the wet cotton away from her body. She watched the neighbor’s cat sashay away, pleased with himself. ‘‘Chief!’’ she called after him. ‘‘One of these days I’m going to neuter you myself!’’

  Even as she said the words, Hildy had an epiphany. She had gotten a wake-up call from Chief that she couldn’t ignore. She looked down at her odiferous garment and wrenched it off over her head. She marched to the clothes washer and threw it in, and suddenly she was filled with the understanding that she was spending these precious days of her life cleaning cat boxes and dodging cat piss.

  It was no one’s fault but her own. Her world had gotten very small. She had accepted its being quiet and dull. She needed to find love, excitement, and adventure. She needed to get Michael Amante out of her system and stop living in the past. She had to take action.

  As she poured detergent into the machine and turned it on, she knew she had to do more than wash her T-shirt. It was time she cleaned up her act and cleansed her soul.

  Over the next few weeks, as the school year ground to a close with excruciating slowness, Hildy made a decision to take the entire summer vacation to plan the rest of her life. Sitting at her desk marking final exams in front of her third period senior English class, she looked up and gazed unseeing out the window at the school parking lot while her mind wandered far and wide.

  She needed to break out of her comfort zone and make a sea change in her existence. Sea change. Hmmmm. She thought she might enjoy being by the ocean. She always felt that the blowing salt-scented breeze, the endless blue waters, and the crashing waves held a kind of magic. Yes, she decided, it was time to go down to the sea. She remembered the famous lines by John Masefield. She was an English teacher after all and knew her verse: ‘‘I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, / and all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.’’

  Back home that very night, Hildy went on the Internet and searched for a summer house near the Atlantic Ocean that was within driving distance of Pennsylvania. Not many pet-friendly rentals existed. After hours at the computer, her eyes beginning to blur, she found a small place—actually it was tiny—at the Jersey shore in the VRBO, Vacation Rental by Owner, listings.

  The gray, shake-sided cottage was in an oddly named town called Ship Bottom in a place named Long Beach Island. Hildy had never been to that part of the shore; she was buying a pig in a poke. And the cost for the season took her breath away. But displaying a characteristic impulsiveness, she grabbed it, spending the lion’s share of her savings on leasing it for the entire summer.

  Two days after school ended in June, Hildy closed up her home, put Shelley and Keats in their carrier, and drove south to this town where she knew no one but where she secretly hoped she might find someone. Maybe what she found would be a summer romance; maybe she would find peace of mind; or maybe, just maybe, she would find a man waiting near the sea in this unfamiliar place, and he would be the one she was meant to love.

  Chapter 2

  But if a r
omantic meeting on the sands had happened as she had fantasized it might, Hildy would not be where she was a week or so later on an unseasonably rainy and cold late-June morning. She was walking with her sister, Corrine, past the larger-than-life statue, an exact replica of Augustus of Prima Porta, which held a commanding position inside the huge, cavernlike lobby of Caesar’s Atlantic City.

  Hildy’s eyes darted back and forth. Firelight flickered from torches on the stone walls in the four-story-high atrium above her head. A sense of unreality, of being outside of time and space, overcame her as she hurried past a row of white marble maidens in togas. The faux-Roman decor of the hotel overwhelmed her senses and even became a bit frightening.

  ‘‘You know,’’ Hildy said, trying not to spill her Styrofoam cup of hot coffee as she hustled across the dun-colored stone floor to keep up with her older sister’s brisk stride, ‘‘you could have driven down to see me instead of coming with the day-trippers from St. Vladimir’s.’’

  Corrine didn’t look at Hildy as she hurried forward, explaining, ‘‘The bus from the church was cheaper. Twenty bucks. Plus you get a coupon for fifteen dollars from the casino. And the Ladies Auxiliary at St. Vlad’s provides a paper bag lunch and a snack on the trip going home. They’re trying to raise money to save the church, you know. It’s for a good cause.’’

  She didn’t bother to tell Hildy that on the way from Edwardsville, Pennsylvania, to Atlantic City, Father John also said a prayer for their safety and to wish them luck at the casino. Corrine firmly believed this plea for divine intervention increased her chances of winning—not that she didn’t hope that somebody at St. Vlad’s hit the jackpot to repair the old Byzantine church, too.