Almost Midnight (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3.5)(59)

When her cell rang, thankful for the interruption, she answered it before even checking to see the identity of the caller.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hi, angel.”

His voice, that’s all it took and she could feel his arms around her, smell his familiar cologne. “Hi, Daddy.”

“I heard you’ve been playing with fire again,” he said. “Is that why my buttocks were itching?”

“I didn’t do it,” she said, feeling her chest grow heavy even when she heard the tease in his voice.

“I’m joking. Your mom told me you saved the day. I just wanted to call and make sure my little girl’s okay.”

“I am,” she said and wondered what her mom had told her dad. Especially since her dad had never been in favor of the competitions.

“I won, Dad,” she said, wanting him to be proud of her, even if she wasn’t completely sure she deserved the win.

“You’ve always been a winner to me,” he said, his tone making it clear that he still didn’t approve of the contests. “But I’m proud of you. Gotta go now.”

She hung up, and realized Shawn was studying her. “My dad,” she said.

He nodded and then went back to staring at his own phone. And breathing.

The silence felt awkward. And after about twenty minutes, she couldn’t stand it.

“Why did you do it?” she asked. “Why did you help me?”

He didn’t glance up. “I told you. You were panicked.”

“I’m sure a few of the other girls were nervous as well.”

“I don’t know the other girls.” He continued to stare at his feet.

“You don’t know me all that well either.”

He looked up, his blue eyes intense. “Yes, I do.”

She shook her head. “Not really. I was your sister’s friend for a few years.”

“You were my sister’s friend who had a crush on me.”

She frowned. “How do you know that?”

He smiled, and damn if that smile wasn’t a heart stopper. “A guy knows.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, but that still doesn’t mean you know me. You never gave me the time of day.”

He arched one brow and half smiled. “I knew exactly what you looked like in that lime-green bikini you used to wear when you came to swim with Ellen in our pool. I knew when you laughed, your hazel eyes brightened to a light green. I knew you ate ketchup on your scrambled eggs. I knew you had PE fifth period when I was a senior. I would sometimes walk through the gym just to get a glimpse of you in shorts and a tank top. And then there was our kiss?”

Miranda stared, his words slowly filling her brain. “You … Wait. What…? We never kissed.”

He grinned. “So you really didn’t know it was me?”

“I don’t know who you kissed, but we never—”

“So you’ve never kissed anyone when you didn’t know who they were? Like on a balcony one night during a full moon?”

“What…?” Holy shit! There had been the New Year’s Eve masquerade party she’d gone to when she was fifteen. A guy dressed like Zorro had found her on the balcony seconds before midnight, and when the bell rang, he’d … he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her like … she’d ever been kissed before.

“You were Zorro?”

“Ah, so you do remember.” A confident smile lit up his face. “That said, if your memory is blurry, I could remind you.” His gaze dropped to her lips.

She shook her head. “But … I mean why … why didn’t you tell me who you were? What kind of guy kisses a girl like that and runs?”

He shrugged. “The kind who’d been caught by his dad admiring you sunbathing and got the back of his head slapped because I was sixteen and you were fourteen.” He glanced down for a second and then looked up. “You didn’t look fourteen in that bikini.”

“I was fifteen when you kissed me.”

“Yeah, but I was seventeen and about to go away to college. And that didn’t feel so right either.”

Angry for reasons she wasn’t even sure of, she snagged her phone and started scanning Twitter.

He let the silence linger for only a few minutes. “Why did you call a couple weeks ago to see if I was okay and then not call back when I asked you to?”

“Because I’m confused.” She spoke the truth without realizing that it might require an explanation.

“About what?”

She hesitated and stared down at her phone. It just didn’t feel right talking to him about this.

“About Perry?” he asked.

She looked up, shocked that he … “How do you know about him?”

He leaned his chair back on two legs. “I met him a while back when Burnett had used him as a lookout for a case. He seemed like a nice guy.”

“He is,” Miranda said.

He dropped the chair back down on all fours. “I admit I liked him less when I found out that you and he were … an item. But I heard he left, and that he sort of broke it off.”

She glanced back at her phone as if she’d stumbled across something interesting, but in truth it was an avoidance tactic.