Fiona hummed as she dumped a cup of fresh blueberries into the bowl, carefully folding the batter over them with a spatula.
“Good morning,” came Gideon’s scratchy voice.
She looked up at him, tossing a coil of hair out of her face, and smiled. “Hello, cutie. Sleep well?”
“What are you making?”
“Whole wheat blueberry muffins. My specialty…one of them, anyway.” She flashed him a coy smile, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Coffee?”
He grunted an assent as he sank onto a chair at the small breakfast-nook-like table.
She poured him coffee, then returned to her muffin batter—dropping healthy spoonfuls into the battered muffin pan her mother had given her. “How was the party?”
“Boring.”
Fiona flashed him a glance. It wasn’t like him to be so reticent. Maybe he was just tired. She slid the muffin pan into the oven and came over to the table, sliding onto Gideon’s lap and wrapping her arms around his sleep-scented body, burying her face in his neck. His hands moved to caress her back for only a moment before dropping away.
“You know, Gideon,” she murmured into his shoulder, her heart thumping madly at the suggestion she was about to make, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh?”
She pressed a light kiss onto his warm, smooth shoulder and allowed her lips to curve into a smile there. “We’ve been seeing a lot of each other, lately…and…”
He shifted so that she was forced to sit up, away from him. “Fiona, could you get me some sugar?”
“Sugar?” she looked at him in surprise.
“For my coffee?” He stared intently at the cup of sable liquid, not meeting her eyes.
“Sure.” She got up, mentally shaking her head.
Gideon always took his coffee black.
Ah well, maybe it would be easier to say it when she wasn’t cuddled in his arms. “Anyway, I was thinking…you’ve been staying over so much lately that I thought you might want to…leave a toothbrush at my place—I mean, at Ethan’s place. And maybe some other things.”
“A toothbrush?”
* * *
Fiona banged into the corner of the big oaken desk, and winced and swore, tears springing to her eyes. Her thigh screamed with pain where the edge—though dull and rounded, but lethal nevertheless—met her tender skin.
She dropped the bundle of dust rags that she’d been carrying and stood there, soundly rubbing the sore spot while moaning in frustration. “For crying out loud!” she groaned, glaring at the monstrosity of the desk on which The Lamp sat. “I should have moved your big butt much earlier instead of letting you block my aisle way.”
The pain ebbed and she stooped to pick up the rags. Just as she stood, she saw a flicker from The Lamp on top of the desk…and saw the fringe on its shade shift and sway as though someone had run a single finger through it.
As always, a prickle of coolness shimmered up her neck, but Fiona felt too annoyed and ornery to even care. Of course, it didn’t help that Gideon had been acting remote and distracted for the last few days, either. He’d been really busy with work, and they hadn’t seen each other since the morning she made blueberry muffins for him the morning after his “date” with Rachel.
She tried not to worry about it, so for now she focused her irritation on the lamp.
Thus far the ghost—or whatever it was—hadn’t caused her any harm other than a few startles, and she wasn’t about to let it start bothering her now—especially when she was going to have the mother lode of bruises on her thigh.
“What do you want?” she snapped at The Lamp. “I sure wish you’d do something other than flicker at me. If you’re trying to tell me something, why don’t you find some other way to communicate?”
Abruptly, everything went still.
The fringe stoppedin mid-sway, every light in the shop went black—even the constant hum of the air conditioning ceased as though strangled into silence.
Fiona swallowed and looked above her, half-expecting to see some specter-like apparition hovering overhead—but there was nothing to see except the railing of the balcony above…and Gretchen—sitting in her spot, tail twitching, amber eyes gazing coldly down at Fiona.
