Finding Chris Evans: The 9-1-1 Edition (14 page)

Worried by an unexpected increase in her caseload, social worker Ellie Mittelstadt is looking for anything to make her smile. When she stops in a fortune teller’s tent at the Haralson Fall Festival, however, she never expects the psychic to predict she’ll fall in love—and with a man named “Chris Evans.” What are the odds?

Worse, she quickly discovers five Chris Evanses in Haralson, which means Ellie can only determine her perfect match via bold—and occasionally hysterical—trial and error. Still, she can’t help wonder…what if?

Dr. John Christopher Evans is new to Haralson, and it’s been a challenging first week. He has a hospital administrator who can’t read his handwriting and business cards and ID badge that read Dr. John Enars, and his first patient is a young boy with an illness that defies diagnosis. The only person keeping the child company is his social worker, Ellie—who instantly charms John with her gentle smile and generous heart. If he had any game, he’d ask her out…but after mourning his late wife for the past couple of years then getting so caught up in his work, he doesn’t even know where to begin.

Ellie’s campaign for true love is going nowhere fast, but at least she’s distracted with her newest charge—and his strong, caring physician “Dr. John”, who’d be perfect except he’s not Chris Evans…and he’s still wearing a wedding band. How in the world will she ever find romance when she can’t stop thinking about Mr. Wrong?

Fortunately for Ellie, fate has things well in hand…

Read an Excerpt!

Buy it Now

More from Erin Nicholas

Now Available at all book retailers!

Sapphire Falls

Getting Out of Hand (book 1)

Getting Worked Up (book 2)

Getting Dirty (book 3)

Getting In the Spirit, Christmas novella

Getting In the Mood, Valentine’s Day novella

Getting It All (book 4)

Getting Lucky (book 5)

Getting Over It (book 6)

Getting to Her (book 6 companion novella)

Getting to the Church On Time, wedding novella

Getting His Hopes Up (a Hope Falls Kindle World novella)

Getting Wound Up (crossover novel with Jennifer Bernard)

Getting His Way (book 7)

The Bradfords

Just Right (book 1)

Just Like That (book 2)

Just My Type (book 3)

Just the Way I Like It (short story, 3.5)

Just for Fun (book 4)

Just a Kiss (book 5)

Just What I Need: The Epilogue (novella, book 6)

Counting On Love

Just Count on Me (prequel)

She’s the One

It Takes Two

Best of Three

Going for Four

Up by Five

The Billionaire Bargains

No Matter What

What Matters Most

All That Matters

Boys of Fall (with Mari Carr and Cari Quinn)

Out of Bounds

Illegal Motion

Full Coverage

Taking Chances

Twisted Up

Tangled Up (January 2017)

Opposites Attract

Completely Yours (Dec 2016)

Forever Mine (March 2017)

Totally His (fall 2017)

Anything & Everything

Anything You Want

Everything You’ve Got

Single titles

Hotblooded

Promise Harbor Wedding

Hitched (book four)

Finding Chris Evans:
The Fortune Teller Edition

Elizabeth Danforth, Madame Esmerelda to her clients, and Aunt Izzy to her family, has run the carnival fortune-telling circuit long enough to know sometimes, fate needs a little nudge. After tragedy struck years ago, she waited too long to ask the universe to bring love back into her life. She’s determined not to let others make the same mistake.

When her travels take her to Haralson, Minnesota, though, she’s surprised by a visit from her nephew Christopher Evans, a widowed pediatric physician. Izzy’s heart breaks when she sees the sadness Chris still carries years after his wife’s passing. Surely there’s something she can do?

Then her next client buzzes in, bright and full of joy, and Izzy hatches a plan. Ellie Mittelstadt is looking for romance, and the universe owes Izzy a favor. She intones her fateful prediction as she lifts her hands over her crystal ball…

“When you find Chris Evans, true love will follow…”

Then she sees not only her beloved nephew Chris swirling in the mist of her visions…but five others! How will Ellie find the right one?

Fortunately, fate has its own plans. With laughter, luck and a little bit of magic, true love’s now on the job of
Finding Chris Evans
.

A beam of light pierced the incense-fogged darkness of her colorful tent, and Elizabeth Danforth, also known to the attendees to the attendees of the Haralson Fall Festival as Esmerelda the gypsy fortune teller, adjusted the sheer scarves across her face so that only her eyes showed.

A man stepped in, his features obscured by the bright noon-day sun backlighting his trim form.

“Velcome. I am Esmerelda. Seet. Seet.” She indicated the bench across from the small round table draped in shimmering, multi-colored scarves. “And who might you be?”

A handsome and familiar face appeared before her, and before she could do more than squeal her recognition, he dropped a kiss high on her cheekbone. “Hi, Aunt Izzy.”

“John Christopher Evans! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to town?”

“Technically, you’re in my town now.” He plopped down on the bench across from her.

“Oh! Your mom said you were moving, but I didn’t catch where.”

“This is what you miss out by not having email or being on Facebook.”

She laughed. “And be tethered to my phone every moment? No thank you. Would you like some tea?”

“Sure.”

Elizabeth poked her head out of the tent to check to see if she had a line. Her assistant sat in front of a TV tray which held a cash box, while she scrolled through something on her phone. “Becky, I’m going to take a break. Let the next person know it’ll be about a half an hour.”

“Sure,” Becky said without ever looking up, and Elizabeth grimaced. That girl was a slave to her technology. She probably hadn’t made eye contact with anyone in a month.

The back portion of Elizabeth’s tent was cordoned off with a curtain, and she ducked behind it to grab two tea cups and a hot pot that was always plugged in and ready to go for those guests who wanted their tea leaves read.

She placed a spoonful of tea leaves directly into each cup and then filled them with hot water. “How are you, Chris?”

“Things are really good.”

Elizabeth studied her nephew closely. She didn’t believe him. Lines bracketed his mouth and creased around his eyes that hadn’t been there a few years before. His aura screamed of loneliness. His wife had been gone for three years, brought down in six short weeks by a cancerous brain tumor.

She took his hands in hers. “Really?” The index finger and thumb on her right hand made contact with the wedding ring he still wore on his left.

She knew what it was like to love deeply, and to take the loss of that love so very hard that it seemed like the world might end. At least she’d had her son, Ben, to help her recover. Having an active toddler had somewhat reduced the temptation of wallowing in her misery—or at least made her too busy to do it for long.

She squeezed his hands before sitting back and taking a sip of her tea. “Are you settling in?”

He began to speak, and absently, Elizabeth drew a card off the Tarot deck in front of her.

Chris cleared his throat. “I don’t need my fortune read.”

“Some people crack their knuckles or drum their fingers or bounce their legs. I flip cards. Let an old lady have her quirks.”

“You’re not old, Aunt Izzy.”

“I’m not as young as I used to be either.”

She flipped over a card.
Strength
. A card that often came up when she’d done readings about Chris in the past. Not that she would have told him that she regularly consulted the cards regarding him. She also did so for her sister and her son and daughter-in-law. She recognized that it made her feel more in control. Or at least allowed her to know what was coming. The cards were rarely wrong.

He didn’t reply to that. Instead he answered her previous question. “The moving company delivered my stuff from Denver last week. For now, I’ve moved into a small apartment. I’m planning to buy or build a house next spring.”

She drew another card and flipped it over.
Five of Cups
. Loss and ignoring the things that you still have.

“I’ve had a lifetime to come to grip with the mistakes I made,” she said. That probably sounded a bit out of the blue, but it was something she’d considered a lot recently.

“What mistakes are those?” he asked as if she hadn’t just turned the conversation in an entirely different direction. Of all her nieces and nephews, Chris was the one she felt closest to. He was used to her seemingly random changes of subject and he tolerated her quirks even better than her son, Ben at times.

“Closing myself off after my husband died. If it weren’t for Ben, I would probably have curled up in a little ball and waited to die. Of course, having Ben kept me busy, and kept me from being lonely most of the time. So even after I was through the worst of the heartache, I told myself I didn’t have time to date. Or didn’t want to date.”

“Did you?”

She shrugged then flipped another card. “Opportunities were presented to me. I didn’t accept them.” His present,
The Fool
. A new journey.

That could refer to love or to his being in a new town in a new job. “Do you like Haralson?”

“I do. I think this was just the change I needed. Even though I no longer lived in the house where Ruth and I started our lives together, there were memories all over town. Our first date. Our first kiss. I could go through town pointing out the landmarks.” He gestured to an imaginary spot to his right. “The first fight we ever had was right there.” He pointed to his left. “And there’s where we made up.”

Elizabeth smiled sadly at him. “Believe me, I’ve been right there in your shoes. Which is why I packed up my toddler and joined the carnival.”

“Mom still thinks you were crazy for it.”

“I know. She’s mentioned it. About a thousand times. But it’s turned into a life I love. It’s not for everyone. But it now gives me the opportunity to spend winters in Sudden Falls with Ben and Annie.”
And the new baby.
She didn’t mention that. Elizabeth knew that no matter how nice a person you were, it was hard to be confronted with someone else’s blazing happiness when you were dealing with loss.

“How long until you become a grandma?”

Apparently, Chris had already been told. “Only a few weeks now.” She pulled another card. That was interesting.
The Empress
. In this deck, The Empress had blonde flowing hair and a peach-colored earth mother dress.