Page 21 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
“You were born in September,” Christian correctly guessed.
Ember sighed. “A few more days and my name would’ve been October. Scary thought, right?”
He was looking at her sharply, his green gaze piercing. “And they live in Spain, too?”
Her stomach dropped. She turned back to the stove, and the kettle began to waver from the moisture suddenly welling in her eyes. “Tea’s ready. Do you take milk? Sugar?”
There was a pause that seemed pregnant, then he came up behind her. He was still in stealth mode, his steps silent over the floor. She knew he was there anyway because she was so attuned to his movement, to his presence, his warmth, his very breath, she could pinpoint his exact location in the room. He leaned with his hips against the counter next to the stove and watched her pour the boiling water from the kettle into the waiting mug.
In a quiet voice, he said, “My parents were killed in a car accident six years ago. It was the worst day of my life. But, in a way…I’m glad they went together.”
Stricken, unable to speak, Ember looked over at him. Tears burned her eyes.
A car accident. Killed in a car accident.
She had to fight to breathe, and slowly, very carefully, set the kettle back on the stove.
“They were married thirty-five years. In all that time, they never once spent a night apart. They still held hands. It used to make me cringe when I was young, seeing how they looked at each other. I thought it was so embarrassing. But now I realize how lucky they were. How lucky my brother and sister and I were to have them as parents.”
Ember felt her lower lip tremble, and bit down on it, hard, to make it stop. His gaze dropped to her mouth then jumped back up to her eyes. He waited, silently, for her to speak.
“My father died three years ago. Just a year after we moved here,” she whispered.
“It was sudden?” Christian’s voice was lowered to match her own. The intimacy of the moment was excruciating, standing in her kitchen with a total stranger, serving him tea and speaking aloud words she had promised herself she’d never speak again.
Ember nodded. “Heart attack.”
Christian watched her, still waiting, his eyes vivid with empathy.
She took a breath, tried to blink the moisture away. It didn’t work. “He was at his easel, painting. I’d come up to the studio to bring him lunch and he was fine, everything was fine. Then after we ate he went back to work and I was just sitting there, reading a book, and I heard him make the oddest noise.”
Ember closed her eyes and saw it all again, just as clear as if it had happened yesterday. The relentless summer heat, the smell of oil paint and acetone, her father at the easel, both handsome and haggard. The Beethoven he always played drifting through hidden speakers in the walls.
“He looked out the window—there was a wall of windows in his studio, he needed the light—and he had this expression on his face, as if he…as if he’d seen something. Or someone. But there was no one there, just the trees, the clouds, and the sunshine. And he said, ‘Oh.’ Just that. ‘Oh.’ Then he fell off the stool onto the floor. He didn’t suffer, he was gone instantly. When the ambulance came to take him away the medic said he’d never seen anyone look so peaceful.”
But that wasn’t what the medic had really said. The medic had said happy. He’d never seen a dead person look so happy. And Ember knew he was right. Her father had technically died of a heart attack, but it had been brought on by a broken heart and he had been glad to finally be rid of life.
On the worst of the nights afterward when she couldn’t sleep, she’d stare up at the dark ceiling while memories crowded in, cold and frightening like hovering ghosts. As pain crawled over her body like a thousand writhing snakes, she’d wonder what it was her father had seen outside the window. She’d wonder what it was that had startled him, what had made him meet his maker with that look of relieved euphoria on his face.
Or who.
“And your mother?”
Ember’s left hand stuttered—that awful, telling tremble she hated with every fiber of her being—and she curled it to a fist at her side. With her right hand she picked up the mug of tea and handed it over without looking at him.
He took it from her, cupped it between his palms, looked down at it. He drew in a breath and exhaled it in a rush. “I’m sorry. I’m being rude. This is none of my business.”
In a barely audible voice, Ember said, “Thank you for saying that. You’re not being rude, though, I am. It’s just…It’s just that I can’t talk about it. It only makes it worse.”
He nodded, still gazing into the mug. “I know exactly what you mean. Consider the subject closed.” He downed the scalding tea in one long swallow and set the mug back on the countertop. “So,” he said brusquely, shoving away from the counter and looking at her with a pleasant smile, “I’m still interested in that copy of Casino Royale. You never did quote me a price.”
Equal parts relieved and grateful he hadn’t pressed her and had made an elegant segue into another topic, Ember made an attempt at lighthearted normalcy. “Well, a certain someone ran out on another certain someone before a price could be negotiated, but I’ll let that go. On second thought,” she cocked her head, eyeing his shiny platinum watch, encrusted with tiny diamonds. “Maybe I’ll add a nuisance fee into the price. Say…twenty percent?”
“Twenty percent?” he echoed, smiling widely now. “That’s highway robbery! I should report you to the authorities! Do they have a Trading Standards Institute or a Better Business Bureau in this country?”
“If they do, Antiquarian Books isn’t a member of either,” she scoffed. “With me running it, there’s definitely nothing ‘Better’ about it. It’s practically bankrupt.” The minute the words left her mouth, she regretted them, but too late—Christian had already latched onto them like a dog on a bone.
“The store isn’t doing well? What’s wrong? How bad is it?” He straightened, suddenly imposing with his height, breadth of shoulders, and the electric intensity that came and went with dizzying speed, like a light switch being flipped. At the moment, the switch had been turned to on.
