Page 25 of Light in the Dark
She doesn't answer right away, her strange, silver eyes searching mine, expressive and intense but unreadable. "It's…fine. It's fine."
I lurch to my feet before my hands do anything else idiotic. "You, um, need anything from in there? We’re coming back in a few minutes, obviously, but if there's anything valuable you don't want to leave…"
She shakes her head, shrugging. "I mean, everything is valuable to me—it's my stuff. But nothing of much monetary value." She frowns. "Except…"
She rolls to her hands and knees and crawls into the bus, sliding aside a secret panel under the bench seat to reveal a hidden safe.
My god, her ass is absolutely ridiculous. I can't look away. Perfectly round, delectably plump, and on mouthwatering display in those micro shorts and in that position, facing away from me.
"You're staring at my ass, Felix," she says, over the sound of digital keys beeping as she enters her code.
"Yep," I say.
She snorts. "Not even gonna deny it?"
"Nope." I clench my hands into fists, but that's not good enough so I shove them into my pockets to prevent them from going rogue and petting her perfect, pretty ass. "Art is meant to be appreciated."
I hear the safe door open, and a moment later she sinks backward to sit on her heels, a fireproof, waterproof, zippered cash bag in one hand and a wooden box in the other. She sets them down, turns back to shut and lock the safe, and returns the secret panel back in place.
She returns to sitting on the edge of the open doorway. "Okay, number one, that was a fucking stellar line, Felix Crowe."
I grin at her. "Wasn't a line, Ember James, it was plain facts. What's number two?"
She shrugs. "Isn't one." She lifts the items she retrieved from the safe. "All the money I have in the world, and my mother's jewelry. Well, my family heirloom jewelry. Belonged to my three-greats grandmother. She brought it over when she left Germany in the twenties."
"They got out early, huh?"
She nods. "Family lore, at least, claims my three-greats grandfather saw what was coming when Hitler first started in politics after World War One and got them out. How true that is, I have no idea, but that's what GramGram told me."
"I mean, sounds believable to me," I say. "They wouldn't be the only ones, if I'm remembering my high school history correctly."
She opens the box, which is about the size of a quart of strawberries. Within is a jumble of silver necklaces with small precious gem pendants—a ruby, a sapphire, an emerald, and a diamond. I'm not a jeweler, obviously, but they look like they're high quality although small. There are a few rings, also with a variety of stones, and also small but of high quality, some silver and some gold. A brooch with a large, oval, opaque reddish stone set in delicately filigreed silver, and a stunning pair of diamond earrings.
"Damn," I say. "No wonder you're not leaving those here."
She closes the lid, nodding. "I mean, monetary value aside, it's all I have connecting me to my family."
I frown. "Really?"
She nods. "I'm sort of alone in the world, Felix." She doesn't look at me, tracing idle patterns on the lid of the box with a fingertip. "All my grandparents are dead, I never knew my father, Mom is dead, and I'm an only child." She waves a hand, giving me a breezy smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. "But hey, that's life, huh?"
"That all you wanna grab for now?"
She nods. "I'll pack a bag when we come back for Pumpkin."
I hold out my hand, and she accepts it—her hand is small and warm in mine, and I gently pull her to her feet. I make a point of meeting her eyes for a long, intense moment.
"See?" I say. "I can make eye contact."
She snorts. "Lovely. You get a gold star."
I keep hold of her hand, drawing her toward my truck. I open the passenger door and toss the detritus of my job into the back seat—a clipboard and pen, a pneumatic nail gun and its hose, a partial case of bottled water, and a few cardboard tubes containing blueprints.
"Sorry about the mess," I say. "I have a house, but I spend most of my time in here."
Her laugh is bell-like, musical, and infectious—just the sound of it puts a smile on my face. "I am the last person on the planet to judge you for having a messy vehicle you live in, I promise." Once I have the seat cleared off, she leans in, sets her box and cash bag on the seat, and then climbs up and in.
I shut the door after her and round the hood to slide behind the wheel. I start the engine, put it in gear, and glance at Ember.
