One Less Problem Without You Read Online Free PDF Page B

in her .
    He shook his head. “She loved reading those cards, though. She’d shuffle them up like a professional blackjack dealer, then ask me to pick one. Damned if she couldn’t make it all sound true, too. But that’s how those things work. Don’t be fooled by them. It’s like horoscopes—they’re just vague enough so that you can read whatever you want into them.”
    Actually, Prinny disagreed. She’d been teaching herself to do readings, and all the ones she’d done on her own life were spot-on. Her father would say that was a perfect example of reading into them to make things fit, but she knew there was more to it. She suspected her mother had had the Gift and that she’d passed it down to Prinny.
    The only thing was, she didn’t know how to use it. Or maybe, more specifically, she didn’t know how to harness it. Because the thoughts came to her wildly. She could ask a question and get an answer right away, but the problem was that all of the questions were hers and she didn’t always remember the answers so it was tough to say how fast or accurate her prognostications were.
    She had talked to plenty of psychics, though. Mostly phone psychics, though she stuck to the ones that had a money-back guarantee if you weren’t absolutely amazed. And most of the psychics she’d talked to, without any prodding from her, had told her she was going to open a business to light the way for other people.
    Other people like Prinny and Ingrid.
    So when her father died and Leif started making noise about her not being responsible enough to handle her portion of the inheritance—implication, she was not responsible enough to handle life —she knew she had to come up with a viable business.
    And what better than one her own mother would have loved? What better than a business that would help and comfort people, the way it had helped and comforted Prinny and her mother in their lost years?
    She could see it before she even bought it: the baskets of beautiful shining, glimmering, glittering stones and crystals; an array of oracle cards (now there were so many more than in her mother’s day: mermaids, unicorns, saints, and angels); colorful book spines lining the shelves with titles like Most Magikal Herbalism and A Wink from God. It was clearly Meant To Be, as far as Prinny was concerned.
    And as far as Prinny was concerned, she knew when things were Meant To Be.
    And, seriously, where better than in Georgetown, a place filled with funky little shops and at least one neon PSYCHIC light that had been up as long as Prinny could remember, and might well be the very one her father had spoken of stopping at in the middle of the night on her beautiful, eccentric mother’s whim?
    To say nothing of all the other browse-about places that made foot traffic so likely. Three seasons out of four the weather was nice enough to stroll along the streets and shop, and people also loved Georgetown in the snow.
    It was perfect.
    And so Cosmos was born.
    It had to be.

 
    CHAPTER THREE
    Twenty-eight Years Earlier
    â€œDid you see that ? ” Jessica, aka “the New Maid,” nudged Lena, the cook, who was the closest thing she had to a friend in the Tiesman household, and pointed into the dining room, where the family was getting up from dinner.
    â€œWhat?” Lena was distracted, trying to clean the plates, but the baby’s wailing turned her attention to the dining room. “What happened?”
    â€œThat little shit just pinched her.”
    â€œWhat, the baby?”
    Jessica was instantly incensed. “Yes, that’s why she’s crying. He thought no one was looking, and I watched him do it! Jesus, she’s not having food allergies or any other reaction. She’s being abused by that kid!” She shook her head and tried to resist the urge to go in and beat the crap out of him in front of his parents. “Son of a