Free 4 Cupids Curse by Kathi Daley

for a quick snowshoe. I’d secretly hoped that Zak would miss me so much that he’d work things out and stop by the previous evening, but he hadn’t. I don’t know why I was so surprised about the number of hours Zak seemed to work. He was a successful businessman who’d made millions in the computer software industry. While Levi, Ellie, and I had spent our high-school years attending football games and going to weekend parties, Zak had built a software company in his garage, which he’d sold for tens of millions of dollars by the time he was twenty-one. For the next few years, he’d traveled the world, but he’d recently decided to start a new enterprise and had moved back to Ashton Falls. At least he lived here full-time in theory, though he tended to spend a lot of time traveling to business meetings of one type or another.
    I made a fresh pot of coffee and then went into shower to dress for the busy day ahead. Zak had somehow managed to pull some strings, and the county had completed the inspection and signed off on the permits, allowing us to open on time. The only concession was that we would be unable to use the cages located in the hallway where Trent’s body had been found. The bear cage was located at the end of its own wing, so most of the facility was ready and waiting for the dozens of new guests Jeremy and I were expecting to accommodate.
    As the day wore on , my excitement turned to despair as the much-anticipated opening of Zoe’s Zoo came and went without any animals being dropped off or a single call concerning a stray dog or nuisance wildlife was received. I’m not sure what I was expecting exactly, but I certainly wasn’t anticipating that no one would even drop by.
    “Maybe people figured with the murder investigation , the Zoo opening would be delayed again,” Jeremy offered. “We’ve changed the opening day about a million times. I guess people must have lost track.”
    “Maybe. Still , it seems like we would have gotten a call from someone. Are you sure the phone lines are working?”
    “Checked them seven times,” Jeremy confirmed.
    “I figured it might take a while to get back into our old groove, but the total absence of customers makes me feel like the community doesn’t really need us,” I complained.
    “They need us.” Jeremy put his arm around my shoulder. “We’ve been closed for three months. It’s just going to take a while to remind people we’re back.”
    “I guess.”
    “Listen, I wanted to ask if I could come in late on Wednesday of next week. Gina has a doctor’s appointment and I’d really like to be there.”
    Gina is Jeremy’s ex-girlfriend, who realized she was pregnant with Jeremy’s baby last fall. She was a model at the peak of her career and planned to have the pregnancy terminated until Jeremy offered to step up, pay all of her expenses, and raise the baby on his own if she went through with the pregnancy.
    “No problem,” I responded. “I think it’s great that you want to be involved in every step of the process. How’s Gina doing , anyway?”
    “Not good,” Jeremy answered. “She’s to the point in her pregnancy where she feels fat and bloated. She’s no longer able to work and is bored to tears. I’ve tried to do what I can to make her comfortable and provide some level of entertainment, but everything I do seems to be wrong. I’m pretty sure she’s regretting her decision to follow through with the pregnancy.”
    “It’ll just be a few more months and t hen she can get on with her career, and you and Morgan can start building a life.”
    Jeremy’s baby was due in April and he’d recently found out Gina was having a girl he planned to name Morgan Rose, after his favorite heavy-metal drummer.
    “Does Gina want to be part of Morgan’s life after the birth?”
    My mom had only been eighteen when she realized she was pregnant with me. After my uptight and stodgy grandparents found out she was expecting, they shipped her off to