The Curse Keepers Collection Read Online Free PDF Page A

“That’s what I have you for.”
    Confusion flickered in his eyes. “I don’t have a jacket to share with you.”
    I fought a groan as I picked up my purse. This man was dense. “That’s okay. I’ll take my chances.” I followed him out and locked my door. As we descended the steps from my third-floor apartment, a weird tingling tickled my palm. I felt as though someone or something was watching me. I shook it off. All this curse nonsense was getting to me.
    We walked to the theater, and I snagged Dwight’s hand. The streets of Manteo were filled with tourists going to dinner and walking around the town and by the pier. The shops that lined Queen Elizabeth Boulevard, the main street downtown, stayed open late in the summer, snagging more sales of beach trinkets and Roanoke souvenirs. We passed Poor Richard’s Sandwich Shop, a small restaurant and bar.
    “Do you want to grab something at Poor Richard’s? I didn’t have a chance to eat.”
    He scrunched up his nose. “But we’ll be late for the movie.” In the few times I’d been out with Dwight, I’d learned he was a creature of habit who didn’t like the rules changed midstream. He’d asked me out to the movie, not dinner. To throw in dinner was like derailing a train.
    “We’ll only miss the previews.” I gave him a sweet smile. “Or we could skip the movie and just talk.”
    His eyes bugged as though I’d suggested we set his pants on fire. “But I really want to see this movie.”
    I forced a smile as we passed the restaurant and turned the corner at the old courthouse.
    “Do you ever get tired of all the chaos?” Dwight asked as we stepped around a family who’d stopped to pick up their kid’s fallen ice cream cone.
    I shook my head. “No. It’s so quiet the rest of the year that I like the reminder that there’s a whole world out there outside of this little town.”
    “Why not go out there and see it yourself?”
    Now didn’t seem like a good time to bring up the fact that I found it physically difficult to get too far from Roanoke Island. “So what’s playing tonight?” I knew it was an action movie, one that had been out several weeks. There was one small movie theater in town, and it only had one screen.
    Dwight didn’t notice that I’d avoided his question and told me that the special effects were supposed to be spectacular. He was excited that the theater had recently added digital so he wouldn’t lose all the great CGI. I nodded and smiled, hoping this evening would end up with an entirely different kind of action.
    The movie was loud and packed with explosions. The theater was freezing, and Dwight was too dense to catch any hints about putting an arm around my shoulders to keep me warm. To top it off, a kid sat behind me, kicking my seat the last half of the film. When we left the theater, I was cold, hungry, and cranky. I was cursed all right.
    We walked through downtown on the way back to my apartment. The sky was still overcast and the clouds churned overhead as if they were angry. The wind had picked up, and I grabbed the bottom of my dress to keep it from blowing up. Not that Dwight would have noticed.
    The crowds were thinning, but I loved the excitement of the people who wandered the streets during the summer months. Wondering where they’d come from. The places they’d seen. Since I could never get more than a couple hundred miles away from Roanoke Island without a crushing pressure on my chest—which Daddy always declared was a byproduct of the curse—I had to fulfill my desire to see the outside world with the Internet and cable TV. That and the stories of home the tourists shared with me from time to time.
    When we reached the bottom of the wooden steps to my apartment, Dwight leaned over and gave me a peck on the lips. “Thank you for a wonderful evening, Ellie.”
    My eyes flew open. “Wait. Don’t you want to come up?”
    Dwight glanced at his watch. “Well . . . I have work in the morning.”
    It