Page 62 of Shadow

“For a while, after my dad died. With my mom.”

He nodded. “Yeah. My mom dragged me to church too. For a while, I…well, believing that God cared helped. Until my sister died. And that sort of felt like a betrayal, so…”

She nodded, her mouth a grim line. “Yeah. I had a hard time trusting like my mom did. Her faith made her stronger. I wanted what she had…but in the end, I couldn’t hold on.”

“So…not church then. How about the gym? We had a workout date.”

“No girl likes her man to see her sweaty.”

“So now I’m your man?” He grinned.

She rolled her eyes. “Pay attention. Where’d you take me?”

“Okay, so you said no to coffee. I had to ask twice more before you said if I bought you food—no, steak instead of coffee, you’d consider it.”

“Steak?” Daphne raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t strike me as a cheap date.”

Despite everything, she smiled. “Steak works. What happened at dinner?”

“You told me about your father. I told you about my sister. We bonded over dead family members and bad guys who needed to be caught. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever met. You thought I was persistent and maybe kind of charming.”

“Maybe?”

“You’re tough to impress.”

“I am tough to impress.” But he was right about the charming part. Oh my.

He leaned back, folded his arms across his chest. “By the end of dinner, you agreed to a second date. By the end of the month, we were dating seriously. By the end of the year, I proposed.”

“Where?”

“Mountains. Hiking trail. Sunrise. Simple. Just us.”

Daphne could picture it. Could almost see the version of herself who’d say yes to that proposal.

“You said yes,” he said, as if he could read her thoughts.

They sat there, the cover story becoming something more. Something that felt like it could be real.

“We eloped, like we said,” Daphne said, breaking the moment.

“Yeah. Simple ceremony. Courthouse. Just us and a judge.”

“Because neither of us have family,” Daphne finished. “And we didn’t want a big production. Just wanted to be married.”

He nodded. Then, “Except, do you have family? You know, in real life?”

“No.” She pushed her plate away. “My mom died five years ago. Cancer.”

“Aw, I’m sorry, Daphne.”

“No ‘sweetums’?”

He smiled. Said nothing.

And the silence of it turned to heat and slid into her. She swallowed, got up, grabbing their plates. “Do we fight?”