Rhymes with Cupid by Anna Humphrey

Author:Anna Humphrey
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins

Chapter 11

Thankfully after rushing, unbidden, to my rescue and restoring heat to my house, Patrick seemed to know enough not to tease me about it during our driving lesson. I mean, seriously, who hasn’t mistaken a furnace shut-off switch for a light switch at least once in their life? Okay, so maybe I was the only person in the history of the world, but it was an easy enough mistake to make. The idiot who had built the house could have at least made the switches different colors, or labeled them—and that was when I remembered: I knew the idiot who had built the house. Or, at least, I knew who he had been. Patrick had mentioned it during our very first driving lesson.

His grandfather had lived next door since he was a child. His father (Patrick’s great-grandfather) had built both houses. Of course, that would have been years and years ago. The furnace had probably been replaced since then—so I couldn’t really blame Patrick and his relatives for my stupid mistake. Still though, the fact that Patrick’s great-grandfather had built the house must have somehow explained how the heart-shaped necklace had ended up in our attic.

Later that night, in my blissfully warm bedroom, I plugged my iPod into its dock and listened to “Gloria”—which had been stuck in my head ever since I’d heard it in Patrick’s kitchen. I danced around, flinging socks out of my way, as I sorted through the laundry basket looking for the old jeans I’d been wearing four days ago when my mom and I had unpacked the last of the boxes. When I found them, I took the small pendant out of the pocket and danced downstairs to the sink where I poured chalky white silver polish onto a rag and set to work. I did the chain first, working methodically down the delicate links until the black tarnish had lifted away to reveal gleaming silver. Then I turned my attention to the pendant. It was tiny—no bigger than the fingernail on my pinkie—and it wasn’t until I’d rubbed off the last of the tarnish and brought it under the light to examine it that I noticed what had looked like an anchor to hold the stone in was actually a very small diamond. I flipped it over. Some tiny script on the back caught my eye. MBW took AC. 23-3-1917. I studied the inscription. Was MBW a person? And, if so, where did he or she take AC? The last initial, I realized, could stand for “Connor”—which was Patrick’s grandfather’s last name. But, then, the date made no sense. March 23, 1917. I did the math in my head. The pendant was nearly a hundred years old! Patrick’s grandfather couldn’t have been older than eighty-five. I let it dangle from my hand for a minute, watching it catch the light.

As I walked into the living room the music on my iPod upstairs changed to a slow romantic song by Eric Clapton, “Wonderful Tonight.

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