She didn’t dare show this to Blake. He’d insist she come back to stay at The Sanctuary, and she wasn’t willing to let fear rule her.
Was this a warning for her to stop looking for her brother? The emphasis on the past made her think it was either that or her investigation into who had killed her parents. But she wouldn’t let this go—she couldn’t. She’d lived too many years in a fog where she remembered nothing, and she wasn’t willing to go back there. Better to face the demons in the daylight than to worry about them lurching out of the shadows in the night.
Chapter 5
Blake watched Paradise’s earlier ebullience evaporate, and her efforts to interact with the boys over pizza felt forced and artificial. Her amber eyes held more worry than she wanted to admit. They played Uno after eating, and she brought a bowl of buttered popcorn into the living room.
He startedMoana. “We’re about to watch this for the twenty-two thousandth time.”
“You’re exaggerating.” Levi liked to use new words.
“Prove it,” Blake said. “I’m sure it’s only a slight exaggeration.”
Levi threw a pillow at him. “I don’t want to count that high.”
Paradise set the big bowl down on the coffee table and handed each boy a smaller one. “Where did you say your mom was tonight?”
Blake sent her a questioning glance. He’d already told her Mom was out on a date with Frank Ellis, a local developer she’d dated in high school eons ago. He was a widower, and they’d rekindled their romance at their high school reunion a few weeks ago. “She and Frank were going to a new end-of-the-world film.” He’d withheld that detail.
One of her eyebrows winged up. “Your mom’s idea or Frank’s?”
“Definitely Mom’s. She loves apocalyptic films. Dystopian ones too. This one is right up her alley with an EMP bomb that takes out the grid.”
The glint in those gorgeous eyes of hers told him he’d gotten through whatever worry she’d been battling. “Want to take me to one?”
“You like them too?”
“No, but I wanted to see how far you’d be willing to go to make me happy.” She leaned down and kissed him.
He took her hand and pulled her onto his lap. “If you give me another buttery kiss, I’d even take you to a chick flick. Or a zombie movie. You like zombies, don’t you?” She’d once told him she liked zombie films because she knew monsters existed in real people and they felt true to her.
“I watched every episode ofThe Walking Dead. Twice, in fact.” She leaned in for another kiss.
He took his time with the kiss so she knew he was serious, and when he let her go, her cheeks were pink and she was fully with him with no hint of worry in those amber eyes. Luckily the boys were engrossed with the movie.
He toyed with a stray curl. “Something’s been bugging you ever since I got back with the boys. Are you sure you want them to have a sleepover?”
Her smile faded, and she looked away. “I’m sure. Um, do you remember how much I likedThe Phantom of the Opera?”
“How could I forget? I’m sure we watched it a thousand times plus one.”
“You’re on a roll with the hyperbole. It wasn’t that many.”
“Close.” He studied her shuttered expression. “That so-called prank call bothered you more than you were letting on, didn’t it?”
“I was trying to remember if anyone else in my class liked it. I mean, Abby knew I was obsessed, but I’m not sure if anyone else did.”
“You never shared personal details with friends much, so I doubt if you told anyone about it. And I wasn’t about to admit I’d watched it with my girlfriend nearly every night. That was back when we were intoDie Hardand action movies. Do you suspect someone you know was the caller?”
She shrugged. “I hadn’t thought about it in a long time, and when I heard ‘The Music of the Night,’ it brought back a lot of memories, that’s all.”
She didn’t fool him—that wasn’t all—but if there was one thing he knew about this woman he loved with everything in him, it was that she’d tell him when she was good and ready.
She escaped from his lap and moved off toward the kitchen. “I made strawberry lemonade for the boys. I’ll get it.” She called back over her shoulder, “I left my phone on the dresser in my bedroom. Could you grab it for me?”
“Sure.” Blake ruffled Isaac’s hair as he moved toward the bedroom. Her personal space was already neat and put together. She’d even set out a picture of all of them mugging it up in front of their one and only sloth. He smiled and touched her smiling lips in the picture on her dresser. With every day he was more and more thankful she was back in his life.
He walked around the bedroom but didn’t see her phone. Her scent lingered in the room. He started toward the door to tell her he couldn’t find it when he heard music playing. He followed the sound to her closet and slid open the door. He spotted the phone on the floor of the empty space. It was lit up, and it only took him a few seconds to recognize a tune fromThePhantom of the Opera: “Angel of Music.” He scooped up the phone and staredat the name on the screen.Phantom. Hadn’t it readUnknownbefore?
