Page 92 of Kiss Across the Universe
“Watching Aran and Jesse,” Brody said. “I’m heading back up there myself. Just wanted to stop by a minute.” He straightened up, moved around Veris and folded her into a hug, his arms warm and firm. “You did good, ‘lannah,” he breathed.
“Really?” she whispered back. “It didn’t feel like it. I told Kit…everything.”
“It was a good call,” Brody said. “He couldn’t have helped if you hadn’t.”
She let out a deep breath. Something relaxed inside her.
Brody let her go. He gave her a warm smile and with a jolt, Alannah saw that he and Aran could be twins. They looked so much alike, now.
“Gotta go,” he told her, and spun and left.
Veris unfolded his arms. “Step outside a minute with me.”
“I…” She couldn’t think of a reason not to. “Let me get a coat.” She moved out to the mud room and picked the first coat she came to and slid it on. Then she followed Veris out through the front room and onto the verandah. It was fully dark outside, with only the lights of Canmore twinkling in the valley below. There was no moon tonight.
The verandah was in dire need of carpentry work. The railings were shattered and burned.
“Watch your step,” Veris said, warning her that the floorboards had fared no better.
She headed for the steps, but Veris caught her arm and turned her so that she was facing the far end of the verandah.
A silhouette sat between the broken bits of railing. A very still, wide shouldered silhouette.
“He won’t go home. And he won’t come in,” Veris told her. “I think you might know what to tell him that will bring him into the house.”
Alannah’s breath caught.
Her father’s hand settled on her shoulder, not heavily. Then he turned and moved silently back inside.
Alannah moved down the length of the verandah. Kit must surely be able to hear her footsteps—he had phenomenal hearing for a human—but he didn’t stir.
She settled herself beside him. “I don’t know how long I will last out here,” she warned him. “It’s cold, this coat is thin, and the mosquitos seem to prefer my blood over yours.”
“And I’m all out of sage,” Kit said. “There’s none of it anywhere near the house.”
“You looked, already?”
He didn’t answer.
“Farsays you won’t come in.”
“I heard.”
“Isthere anything I can say that will get you off this verandah?” she asked.
“I’ve been sitting here hoping there is.” His voice was low.
Her heart pattered.Hope. Such a small word, yet so heavy with potential.
Kit turned on the boards so he was facing her. His knee settled on the verandah. The new angle let the starlight fall on his face but his eyes were still shadowed. “Technically, things are back to normal, now.”
She sighed.
“But things never go back to the old normal,” he said. “There’s only a new normal. We all have to keep figuring out what that normal is.”
She nodded. “Like a normal where my brother and sister in law are vampires now,” she said softly.
“Like that.” He shook his head. “My measure of normal has been turned on its head, the last few days.”
