Chapter Four

“WILL I FIND TRUE LOVE?” asked the woman. She was in her mid-twenties, pretty, with a serious, earnest face.

They were sitting in a corner of the Chihuahua marketplace. Seb considered how to answer as he pretended to inspect her palm – though the information he was getting had nothing to do with the woman’s lifeline, and everything to do with her aura; the feel of her energy; sudden flashes of knowledge.

“There’s a man in your life – his name’s Carlos,” he said. He wasn’t usually good on names, but he was sure this one was right; he was sensing it so strongly. “You’ve been hoping he’ll propose to you. Señorita, I don’t see this happening.”

Her expression fell. “But...he told me just last night to give him a little more time.”

Seb was getting it clearly now. Not only did Carlos have two other girlfriends on the go, he was married already. The woman had no idea; she’d believed everything the cabrón had told her. It was hardly uncommon – a lot of men didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word “faithful”, unless they were talking about what their wives and girlfriends had better be to them – but Seb had given too many readings over the years to stomach this attitude. He knew only too well by now what it did to women; how it made them feel.

“Carlos’s life is complicated,” he said, managing to hide his irritation at the man. “I’m sorry, Señorita, but he isn’t in a position to propose to you. I’m afraid he never will be.”

He wasn’t usually this blunt, but he could tell that on some level the woman already knew it was hopeless; it was why she’d stopped to get a reading from him. Now she winced, and ducked her head down. “I’ve been praying so hard to the angels that things will work out,” she said in a whisper. “I thought – I thought so many more of them arriving might be a sign they’d heard me.”

“The angels are very kind,” said Seb diplomatically. He could see that the woman’s energy field was undamaged; she was just one of the ones who loved the angels anyway. There were plenty of them, and now that the angels’ numbers had increased by so many, he supposed there’d soon be plenty more. “But I can hear them now,” he went on, “and they’re saying to me that you shouldn’t wait for Carlos.”

The woman’s eyes widened. Okay, he was making this part up – but he had to give her something, or else she wouldn’t make the break. “They want you to get on with your life,” he said firmly. “To be happy. You haven’t been happy in a long time, Señorita.”