putting their names in lights. “Matchmakers for the Paige Men.”
Shannon startled for a moment at hearing that name. They were all so used to being Sloans now.
“I meant the Sloan men,” her grandmother quickly corrected.
Just like that, Shannon’s mind latched onto another Paige man. The one who was long gone. Try as she might, the past was never far away. Little things slammed her back in time. Like her old name. Like driving, of all things.
Her father’s final moments had been in a car, driving home from work late one night, pulling into the driveway of his home. The one place where he should always have been safe from harm.
She pressed her teeth into her bottom lip, holding her emotions in as she turned into her grandmother’s driveway.
It was only a driveway. A mundane, ordinary slick of concrete. Her grandmother didn’t even live anywhere near the home where her dad had been shot. But as she cut the engine and looked at her father’s mother, she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Victoria was thinking the same thing. That she, too, had been jolted out of a festive moment of party planning and pretend matchmaking and hurtled back in time to eighteen years ago. She saw it in her grandma’s eyes—the same sadness she felt was reflected back at her.
“Sometimes it’s hard just turning in the driveway,” Shannon said softly. “Makes me think of my dad.”
Her grandmother clasped her hand. “I know. Every day, I think about him.”
Shannon looked down at their hands. “I miss him.”
“I do too, sweetie.”
After she walked her grandmother inside and said goodbye, she returned to her car. She scanned the surrounding area, as always, alert for anything amiss. Listening for that footstep crunching on the grass. Seeking the shadow of someone who wasn’t supposed to be there.
The hair on her neck stood on end, and for a second, she wished she carried her gun with her. But that weapon was locked away at her home.
Shannon’s eyes roamed the sidewalk, the house, and the garage before she unlocked the car door. This hyper-alertness fried her nerves. No one was there. It was morning. She was safe, and Victoria was fine, and she had to refuse to live in fear. She had to kick the damn specter of hidden guns, and gangs, and shooters, and plots for murder far out of her daily agenda.
She took a deep breath, letting it spread through her body, coaxing it to ease away the stranglehold of the past. Good thing she was seeing Brent that afternoon. He was her antidote. He’d wash away the cruel memories.
But by the time lunch rolled around, she no longer wanted to rely on her old habits with Brent. He’d always been her magic bullet to extradite the pain. Maybe to truly change, she needed to give instead of to take.
Over salad and pasta at an Italian restaurant inside Caesars Shops, she asked him more about work, peppering him with questions about his clubs, the expansion, his vision for Edge, reminding herself the whole time not to be jealous. She listened intently, because she didn’t want to feel an ounce of resentment for his choices, including the one to ditch the very industry that had once been so important to him.
“And Edge will keep on growing,” she said.
“That’s the goal,” he said with a wide smile. He truly seemed happy with his new path. That was his special talent. He knew how to find the happiness in everything. Someone like him never seemed to need much, while she often felt she required far too much. That was exactly why she’d picked up the gift at the party store. He loved the little things in life.
“Close your eyes,” she said, after the waiter cleared their plates and she joined him on his side of the table.
“You gonna blindfold me? I’m game,” he joked as he followed her order.
She reached into her purse, rolled up his shirtsleeve, and dipped a cloth napkin in a water glass.
“Go ahead. Undress me here. I don’t mind,” he continued.
“I know you don’t, you dirty man.”
“You wouldn’t have me any other way.”
“You’re right,” she whispered as she positioned the square of paper on his arm, then pressed the wet napkin on top of it and counted to thirty. When she peeled the backing paper off, she told him to open his eyes.
“Tada!” She showed him the mark she’d left on his arm, and his big, deep laugh rumbled across the restaurant.