Free Absolutely, Positively by Heather Webber Page A

knew me better, who could look straight through my many masks.
    “Too many things to go into.” Like Mac, like Tristan Rourke, like the FBI watching me, like wanting Sean to move in with me.
    “Hmmm,” Raphael murmured.
    Maggie Constantine hurried over, carrying a plate of salad. She set it in front of the man next to me with a smile. “Lucy! Are you staying for lunch?” She looked around. “I can clear your favorite table.”
    I wasn’t sure how the couple currently sitting at my favorite table would feel about that.
    “I’m actually not staying,” I said.
    I saw how very happy Maggie and Raphael were with each other, even though on paper it wouldn’t seem as though they’d make a good match. She was a Yankee fan; he was a die-hard member of Red Sox Nation. She liked classical music; it made Raphael’s ears bleed. She was younger by a good decade. Yet … they worked. Perfectly.
    Something crashed in the kitchen. Maggie winced. “I should check on that.” She leaned across the counter, kissed my cheek. “We’ll have dinner soon, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    Raphael watched her leave, his eyes glowing.
    “When are you going to marry her?” I asked.
    “There’s time enough.”
    “Is there?” I asked.
    He rubbed an imaginary spot on the countertop. “I have a feeling you’re not talking about me.”
    A server appeared and dropped off a to-go bag. I grabbed it and hopped off the stool. “Look at that. Gotta run. Sean’s probably already waiting upstairs and—”
    “Uva.”
    “Pasa, do you think it will last?”
    He immediately knew what I was talking about.
    My parents.
    He tipped his head back and forth as if weighing options, then narrowed his gaze on me. Softly he said, “Does it matter?”
    I knew what he was saying. They were happy now. In this moment. Wasn’t that what mattered most? Honesty hurt. “To me I guess it does.”
    “Then it’s not so much about them as it is you, no?”
    He was right, of course. He was always right.
    “This is about Sean?” he asked.
    Thoreau licked my chin. I rubbed his head, scratched under his chin. “I’m trying. Really trying to not to fear the future.”
    “The curse,” he tapped his temple, “is here.”
    “How can you say that? Without the auras…”
    “Uva, even with auras love isn’t easy. There are still compromises, concessions. Still the need to understand, truly, the person you love. Their hopes, their fears.”
    “But in the end the auras don’t lie. If you know for certain you’re a perfect match it’s easier to work through any problems. You know, without a doubt, that love will conquer all. With Sean, I don’t know. I don’t have that guarantee.”
    Raphael tapped his temple again. “You do, Lucy. You just need to choose to believe.”
    I closed my eyes in frustration.
    “You’ll see,” he said.
    Opening my eyes, I found him smiling. “Will I?”
    Smugly he said, “Of course. When have I ever been wrong?”
    I shifted Thoreau to my other arm, readjusted my tote bag, and made sure there were three sandwiches in the to-go bag. “There was that time you insisted a tomato was a vegetable.”
    He snapped his hand towel at me. “Get out of here, you.”
    As I pushed open the door, I heard his voice over the crowd: “Just believe.”
    If it were only that easy.

9
    Suz stood at the window, binoculars in hand. “Preston,” she said by way of an explanation as I opened the door to the office.
    I set Thoreau down. He ran over to Suz, sniffed her boots.
    “She’s recruited you as a Lone Ranger lookout?”
    Suz sheepishly said, “She didn’t need much arm-twisting. I have my eye on a new camera, a fancy-pants Nikon, for Teddy’s birthday. I could use some extra cash.”
    I looked down over the snow-covered Common. “Is she down there?”
    “Yep. Has been for the last hour. The Lone Ranger usually shows up around lunchtime.”
    “But he was just there yesterday. He won’t be back for another few days.”
    “You don’t