Edge Of Darkness

5

“Do you ladies need a refill on your tea?”

Ember tried to communicate with her eyes that Sofia should go back to her table. But, as luck would have it, Sofia took a wrong step and twisted her ankle on an uneven floorboard Ember had been meaning to fix as soon as she had the money. Eyes wide, hands outflung, Sofia pitched forward with a small, surprised cry. It happened so fast Ember didn’t have time to react.

Christian, however, did.

Somehow, from all the way down at the end of the long counter, he was there in time to catch Sofia before she fell. With a hand under one arm, he steadied her and brought her back to her feet with a murmured, “Watch your step, madam. These old floorboards can be treacherous.” Sofia, wide-eyed, hand fluttering around her neck like a big, pale moth looking for a place to land, breathed, “Oh, yes, they can. How silly of me. Thank you, Mr…?”

He didn’t take the bait. He simply smiled down at her—incredibly, she simpered and blushed—then released her arm and turned his keen gaze to Ember.

“Tomorrow, then.”

She nodded, slowly, calculating the time and steps it would take to appear where he had, seconds ago. She didn’t think it could be done. But…it had.

“Tomorrow,” Ember repeated. It almost sounded like a threat.

But Christian’s smile grew wider and his eyes crinkled, as if he were enjoying a private joke. “See you then, September.”

He turned and, with a dozen pairs of eyes watching, made his way to the door. He collected his umbrella and went outside, pausing for a moment on the sidewalk to open it. Then he took a few steps forward and melted like a phantom into the rainy night.

Beside her, Sofia exhaled her breath in a gust. Fanning herself with one hand, she said in Spanish, “My God, sweetheart! Who was that?”

“James Bond,” replied Ember with frown.

Sofia blinked at her, confused.

“Never mind. Are you all right?”

Sofia nodded, still distracted. She looked back at the door Christian had disappeared through. “So how do you know this James Bond?”

“I don’t. He was just looking for a book. I never met him before tonight.”

Sofia turned toward Ember. Her brown eyes were full of questions. She pointed a finger at the small gold nameplate pinned to Ember’s sweater and said, “Then how did he know your full name?”

With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Ember glanced down at the nameplate.

Ember, it read, in clear bold type. Of course it did, because Ember never went by her given name. But Christian, the beautiful stranger disgorged and swallowed again by the night, had somehow known it.

How?

She glanced up at the door of the shop, looked out the windows into the sideways slanting rain, and thought that was a very, very good question.

Ember awoke early the next morning with no foreboding premonitions about the day. The rain had tapered off during the night—thank God—and through the windows of her apartment the sky loomed a perfect, cloudless blue. In the distance the round mosaics that topped the spires of Gaudi’s Sagrada Família cathedral glinted red and yellow and green in the morning sun like enormous bowls of fruit, and all of Barcelona—labyrinth streets, medieval churches, plazas and palm trees and the shimmering azure strip of the Mediterranean sea in the distance—was laid out like a sumptuous feast.

The view from her bedroom was the absolute best thing about her apartment. That and the rooftop terrace, where she took her coffee every morning and tried not to think about the past.

“Americana!” a male voice shouted from the street below. “Hermosa Americana! Estas despierto?”

The worst thing about her apartment lived downstairs.

“No, Dante, I am not awake,” Ember muttered, eyeing the window. She carefully edged away from it, imagining her elderly landlord standing with arms akimbo in his white undershirt, paisley silk robe, black dress socks, and white slippers in the middle of the plaza, neck craned back as he stared up at her window and called to her. He was totally unconcerned with disturbing anyone else in the vicinity, or with how he might look, black toupee askew and hairy shins on display. One of the reasons her rent was so cheap was because she gave Dante English lessons, but said rent was several days past due—again—and judging by the sound of it, and the way he’d called her gorgeous as he did whenever he was going to ask for money, the subject was about to come up.

Again.

She crossed to the secondhand wood console table near the front door and picked up the piece of paper from where she’d left it last night when she arrived home.

Christian McLoughlin. Even his handwriting looked rich.

“Okay Mr. Moneybags,” she said sourly, staring down at it. “Time to put up or shut up.”

A sharp knock on the front door startled her so much she jumped.

“Hey, delinquent. You in there?” a voice whispered through the wood.