Counterfeit Cupid (Mt. Olympus Employment Agency: Cupid #2)(10)

When I’d woken up that afternoon, I thought about the weird episode with the guy with the ugly wings for a moment, snickered to myself about the guy in 317 being a tooth fairy at a convention, then forgot about it, believing I’d dreamed it. Hell, I was so tired, I wasn’t even positive I’d been to my sister’s house this morning, except that I’d found dog hair on my pants and had to find a clean pair for work.

It was probably time to go back in and let Stuart go have his discounted dinner and free mozzarella sticks. He was being nice for once. I should reward the behavior.

But there was nothing wrong with walking past the gray car on my way.

As I approached the car, I felt stupid. Not only was it not the same car, I wouldn’t be able to differentiate it from one exactly like it if it was the same car. I glanced at it on my way past, expecting nothing, and stopped.

The damn wings were right there in the backseat. He hadn’t bothered to cover them or anything. Okay. So, they probably weren’t magic—though I couldn’t figure out why a grown man was traipsing around in cheap wings in broad daylight with no children around. And he had seemed to appear out of nowhere.

I did a casual scan of the parking lot. Nobody was around. Of course he would have locked the car doors. Even if nobody wanted the wings—they were easy to ignore—the GPS and stereo would be good targets for thieves.

I turned my back to the car and looked the other direction while my hand snaked behind my back and tried the door handle. I nearly fell over when the door swung toward me.

“This is so stupid.” After another frantic glance around the lot, I ducked into the car and shut the door behind me. Apparently, breaking and entering was okay, but I hadn’t yet come to terms with theft.

The wings were slick. My initial assumption that they were made out of parachute material was right. It was stretched across a sort of bendy wire structure. As kids, Val and I’d had a bunch of hollow cubes made of the same material as this stuff. When they were open, they strung together to make a fort or a tunnel. But if they were twisted just right, they collapsed into a flat package that was easy to store.

The wings were broken. One of the elastic bands that was meant to loop over a person’s shoulder had snapped. Two strings hung from one side, which I assumed was to tie the whole thing up in its compact form. A set of longer strings hung from the center of the contraption, probably to tie the wings into place.

I experimented with the wings, attempting to twist them into a smaller shape, fascinated with the puzzle. I almost didn’t notice Carson, the restaurant manager, approaching the car. If he saw me, that would be it for my job. There was no way I could explain what I was doing. I caught my own panicked look in the rearview mirror. He was heading straight for me. There was no doubt in my mind that he’d seen me, or at least thought he had. Ducking down was not an option, and he’d see me if I opened the door and made a run for it.

Heaven help me, I panicked and pulled on the wings. I didn’t actually believe they could make me invisible, but so far, everything else in that crazy dream appeared to be true. If I did nothing, I’d get caught anyway. Nothing left to lose. One arm went through the loop, then I grabbed the broken elastic and wrapped it around my shoulder to touch where it was supposed to connect.

Carson walked right up to the car, frowning. He bent with his hand up shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare and peered inside the car. I would swear he looked right at me. He scanned the rest of the car, shook his head, then walked away.

I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror. It was gone.

The wings came off easily—no swearing or struggling on my part—and I messed with them again to try to collapse them. The wing that didn’t have the two strings on it had a tag, much like the washing instructions on T-shirts and underwear. I smoothed it out and took a look.



Mt. Olympus Employment Agency: Cupid Department



“Cupid department. So…not a tooth fairy.” My fingers smoothed over the tag in wonder.

Could it be true? There were actual Cupids in the world? I scowled. That guy Josh had no business being a Cupid. He was a womanizing slimeball. He didn’t even believe in true love. What kind of Cupid didn’t believe in true love?

As if I’d handled them all my life, I twisted the wings and collapsed them, then folded them over each other and tied them in place. They were about the size and shape of large stack of pancakes. I hesitated. Was I really going to do this? Obviously, stealing was wrong. I turned the packed wings over in my hands.

Maybe it wouldn’t be wrong if I did a better job than he did. I couldn’t believe he’d be any good at it, between leaving his wings lying around and the fact that he didn’t believe in what he did.

I held the wings against my chest. I would be better at it. Nobody believed in true love more than I did.

“Sorry, Josh. You’ve been replaced.” I searched the car and found nothing else of interest. But I knew there had to be more. Cupids had arrows. “As soon as I can find the rest of your work tools.”

When I got done, my little area of Dallas was going to have so much love, nobody would ever be unhappy again.





5. Josh


I woke in my hotel room around three in the afternoon feeling incredibly stupid. Finding Annie in that kitchen had been a shock, but not enough to react the way I had. Or it shouldn’t have been. Now that I’d had some decent sleep—the honeymooners must have gone sightseeing for the day—I realized that Annie probably wasn’t my client. There had been two other people in the room, and she had been sitting there drinking her coffee and not engaging.