Page 23 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
Ember closed the door and stood in the darkness for long minutes, unseeing, her blood and nerves and thoughts frenzied, her hands shaking at her sides.
I’m always off-balance around you.
Well, that definitely made two of them. And despite feeling very clearly he was somehow dangerous, despite her resolve to dislike him and keep it all business, she was equally certain there was something going on between them. Something her body recognized and to which it responded. Something her mind—always so careful, always so calculating—was doing little to counteract.
“Christian McLoughlin,” she whispered to the dark, empty room, “who are you? And what the hell have you done with my brain?”
The room had no answer.
In spite of his promise, Christian didn’t come into the bookstore the next day.
Ember arrived to work early—successfully avoiding Dante—and spent the day in a state of suspended animation, both hoping he’d walk through the door and dreading it.
Because what exactly was going on here? In the clear light of day she determined it was nothing, that’s what. He was toying with her, he was indulging in some kind of macho ego-trip, the knight in shining armor winking at the poor, mud-splattered village girl before riding up to the castle on his steed to ask for the hand of the princess in marriage. She was a diversion, that was all. A momentary blip on his radar.
At least, she’d convinced herself of that until precisely five minutes to six, when the door to the shop opened and a man walked in carrying the most enormous bouquet of roses she’d ever seen in her life.
Ember couldn’t even see his upper body behind the mass of foliage and flowers spilling voluptuously from the vase. The thick, etched crystal vase, no less. The man took half a dozen careful steps into the shop before halting in the middle of the floor and announcing loudly in Spanish, “Flower delivery!”
Certainly he’d been hired for his acute grasp of the obvious.
“Yes, over here!” Ember called, waving from behind the counter though he couldn’t see her. After several unsuccessful attempts to determine her location by peeking over and around the voluminous spray, he finally turned sideways and addressed her, his face strained with the effort of balancing the enormous arrangement in his arms.
“Roses for a Miss Jones.”
“That’s me.”
His expression registered gratitude. “Where you want it?”
“Uh…” She looked around for a space large enough and spied the round table where Sofia’s book club met each week. “Over there. That would be great, thanks.”
He made his way slowly to the table, going sideways like a crab, until finally he’d deposited his burden to the wood tabletop with a relieved sigh. He turned to look at her, a canny smile on his face. “Somebody is in love, eh?”
Ember blushed to the roots of her hair. “No! No, nothing like that. These are from, er, my, uh, um—”
“Boyfriend?” he supplied helpfully.
Ember’s blush spread down her neck. “NO! He’s a customer! Just a customer!”
His brows rose. His gaze moved around the shop and he saw the handwritten sign Asher had taped to the side of the one of the rare book displays near the register as a joke. It read, “Don’t touch yourself. Ask the staff for help.” The delivery man’s gaze settled back on her and his knowing smile grew wider. Ember had the sudden horrible thought he might be wondering exactly what type of customer she’d been entertaining behind the shelves.
“Thanks again. We’re closing now. Good-bye.” She ushered him to the door, all the while avoiding his sideways glances and cocky grin, and locked it behind him. On
ce alone she crossed slowly back to the table that housed the ridiculous display of roses and stood staring at it in stupefied wonder.
Lavender roses—dozens and dozens—so silvery pale and silky they glimmered beneath the lights.
There was no card, no enclosure note saying Hi or Thinking of you or Sorry I blew you off, but as Ember stared at the massive display, she remembered something that made her heart first skip one beat, then two, then stop altogether.
Well-versed in the language of flowers, her mother had often recited to her all the meanings for the different colors of roses they’d grown in their garden at home. She’d had to coax them, of course, the heat and altitude of Taos was an unforgiving place to grow roses, but under her mother’s patient, intuitive care, they’d flourished. Their front yard was a riot of color and all kinds of plants, but the roses that lined the brick walkway to the front door were the piece de resistance, and not one bush was the same.
Red meant love, white meant purity, pink was grace and appreciation, yellow was friendship. Orange was desire. Peach was sincerity.
And lavender roses, rare and royal, the most beautiful of them all, meant love at first sight.
“Oh, boy,” whispered Ember, staring at the luscious blooms. “This is gonna get messy.”
“What happened to you last night?” Asher shrieked down the phone line. Ember winced and held it away from her ear. “You disappeared! I was worried sick!”
