an age Evelyn Shaw had never lived to see—she told herself that a new love couldn’t be expected to replace an old one. That wasn’t what new love was for. A relationship, she told anyone and everyone who would listen, had to exist for and of itself.
Besides, Kit knew it wasn’t possible to forget a love deeply felt, even if the person was long gone. Most remembered that sort of passion for the whole of their lives, but Grif had carried his love for Evelyn Shaw beyond life . . . and, in a way, that was a miracle, too.
“Want to talk about it?” she prodded.
“No.”
“Okay,” she said, planting a soft kiss on his side. The light dusting of hair there tickled her lips, and she inhaled deeply and kissed him again. “Then just start from the beginning.”
He pushed some hair into her face. “You never listen.”
“Yes, I do.” She blew the hair away and looked up at him. “That’s what makes me such a good listener.”
“Should I wait for you to get out your pen and paper? Take some notes. Turn my visions into a feature story.” The errant lock of hair had slipped over his forehead again, making him appear younger than thirty-three, the age at which he’d originally died.
“Don’t be silly. I report for the Las Vegas Tribune, not the National Enquirer. Mine might be a city known for its excesses, but we’re quite practical when it comes to our spiritual beliefs.”
“You mean you’re all heathens.”
“I prefer the word ‘cynics.’ ”
“I prefer the word ‘go to sleep.’ ”
“That’s three words . . . all of which I heard,” she said, as he rose. “Where are you going?”
“Stay here,” said her grumpy angel.
So, of course, Kit followed.
Grif had to know she would. These days, they anticipated most of each other’s actions. They no longer questioned which side of the bed they would sleep on. They’d stopped checking on each other during the night as their days as a couple began piling up, no longer afraid the other wouldn’t be there, or awed that they were. Their passion was now set to a low burn, yet it could still ignite with one sidelong smoky look.
It was those burning moments that Kit loved most. She could see Grif—both his angelic and human sides—when they were joined in flesh. His wings flashed and flared, which had startled her at first, but it was also amazing and awesome and somehow holy. Besides, Kit was as grateful for his Centurion state as his mortal one. After all, it was the only reason she was alive and breathing in the first place.
And that, Kit thought, was the strangest, most wonderful beginning to a love story ever.
Perplexed, she watched from the living room as Grif deactivated the house alarm, opened the front door, and retrieved something from atop the doormat.
“Is that yesterday’s edition?” she asked, stepping forward. This day’s hadn’t even gone to press yet, and Kit would know. Her family owned the struggling paper.
“Special printing,” Grif mumbled, and she tilted her head as he passed, then followed him to the kitchen. He stopped in front of her automatic coffee machine. “Coffee?”
“Decaf,” she said, nudging him aside, and elbowing him again when he almost growled. “It’s three in the morning. I want you to be able to sleep.”
He grumbled again, but couldn’t do anything about it. No matter how many times she showed him, he couldn’t manage to work the “newfangled” device, but she didn’t mind measuring the water, popping in the pods. Fifty years had brought a lot of change to the Surface—some welcome, some not—but he’d claimed the coffee was both recognizable and improved. He took a seat at her vintage café table and sipped it black when she handed it to him, letting its warmth and bitterness chase away the dregs of the dream.
“Well?” Kit finally said, dropping down across the table from him while she waited for her own single cup to brew. She glanced at the folded paper in his hands.
Grif just blinked.
She gave him a deadpan stare. “Don’t make me interrogate you, Griffin Shaw. You know I’ll win.”
“I’ve got a new assignment,” he said, clearly hoping she’d leave it at that.
“A Take?” she asked.
He inclined his head, and though she knew it was his duty—that the newly dead needed Centurions to assist them into the afterlife—she had to fight back a shudder. Someone would soon die horribly. Someone who was alive right now. “When?”
“Dawn.”
“Man? Woman?”
“Man.”
Her lips thinned in an