Page 76 of Lost in the Moonlight

I switched off the light and joined her on the sofa. As I started the movie, I swooped an arm around her waist and tucked her up against me before covering us with the blanket. She hesitated, resisting ever so slightly before she allowed herself to sink into me.

Within minutes of starting the movie, her eyes were already glued to the screen and Heath Ledger. The guy was dead, and I was still jealous of the way she was watching him so avidly. What had she called herself earlier? Ridiculous. I was equally ridiculous. The entire situation between us was, but I wouldn’t change a moment of it.

Sitting there, with her in my clothes, sharing a blanket in the dark of my bedroom, it was intimate and personal. While my body practically vibrated in every place we were joined, ahopeful serenity also swept through me. As if everything in my life had somehow righted itself simply because she was at my side. As if this was what was always supposed to happen when I decided to move to Cherry Bay. I thought of Sienna’s words once again.

She’s your person.

I believed it. Not just because a ghost had told me, but because my soul felt such absolute tranquility with Willow there.

? ? ?

The credits rolled, and I hit the off button, pitching the room into darkness.

Willow was asleep. She’d barely made it halfway through the movie before passing out, even though it was only nine o’clock. Her body was deep in slumber while mine was wide awake. While this was nothing new, I was more furious at the itching sensation growing inside me than I had been in years. I didn’t want to leave the peace of our embrace. I was enjoying the full weight of her leaning into me, reveling in her sugary scent and the gentle warmth of her breath as it feathered along the arm I had around her.

Even with her eyes closed and her thoughts tucked away in dreamland, my mind reeled with new ways to paint her. Ophelia. No…not the tragedy of Ophelia. Sleeping Beauty, then. Hunted by evil because of her parents, but kind and generous and gentle. With a bed of flowers and moonlight streaming around her as her inner light pushed at the shadows of the forest.

My fingers twitched. The desperate need to get up that always found me pricked at my insides. My brain was unable to stop flipping from scene to scene like an old slideshow reel. I spiraled from one idea to the next before slipping back to thatfirst Sleeping Beauty image of her and how I would show the shadow and light.

My soul was happy here, tucked up beside her, but my mind wouldn’t shut the fuck up. My restless body was even now threatening to wake her, twitching restlessly beneath her.

I closed my eyes, sighed, and then slowly and reluctantly moved. I held her up gently while I slid out from under her and piled several throw pillows in my place. When I eased her down, her lids fluttered, and I thought maybe she’d wake, but then she squeezed one of the pillows to her, and her breathing evened out again. I stared at her, the longing to wake her with a kiss almost impossible to ignore. I reached out, brushing her cheek that glowed even in the darkness of the room that was broken only by the starlight slipping in the window.

More kaleidoscope images reeled through me.

I spun on a heel and headed for the hallway, picking up a blank canvas from the stack I’d moved out of my room, wishing I hadn’t taken the majority of my supplies to the studio. I needed more of my things at home so I wouldn’t have to go downtown in the middle of the night. Although, it could hardly be called the middle of the night, even for people without insomnia. Maybe if you were a five- or six-year-old, you’d be tucked into bed by now.

But as Willow worked baker’s hours, I figured it might just be her normal pattern. Maybe she was able to train her body to sleep in ways I’d never been able to teach mine.

In the kitchen, I propped the canvas up on the counter at an angle against the upper cabinets. It wasn’t an easel, but it would suffice. I turned on all the lights, made myself a cup of tea, and then stared at the blank linen for several minutes before finally starting a long curve that would be the slope of her lying in the grass. I let the Sleeping Beauty image guide me.

How long had it been since I’d had multiple projects going at once? I couldn’t remember. Maybe before Lyrica had been shot. Before Dad was elected President. Before my life had been put on display more than ever before.

As I worked, I wished for music. The blaring of a symphony. But I couldn’t put it through the house speakers and wake Willow. I could listen with my earbuds, but who the hell knew where I’d left them? I barely remembered my phone these days. Where was it now? In the pocket of my jeans? I could pause what I was doing to search for it and play the music softly in the kitchen, but my fingers were already moving. Black across the page.

Maybe I wouldn’t do this one in oils. Maybe I’d do pencil and ink. Maybe I’d do watercolors.

The strawberry-and-chocolate dessert Willow had made sat nearby, adding an aroma to the visual, and suddenly, prickly berry vines grew around the edges of the drawing. Sweet and dangerous.

I wanted the smells embedded into the painting to give it the full sensory experience Willow’s food art had provided. How would that even work? Oil scents near the display? A card below the image that people could scratch? But how would we keep the smells from blending in the gallery? Maybe only a few select pieces would have the scent. I’d think about it. Lyrica might have some ideas.

Somehow, I’d bring it together.

I had time.

Weeks, if not months, before anything of mine would be ready.

A loud crack drifted through the house from the front, ripping my eyes from the bouquet I was shading. Sienna’sshimmering ghost appeared in the archway as another loud snap followed the first.

Lincoln, go! Go quickly!Worry bunched her brows together.

I dropped my charcoal pencil and headed for the front door.

One of the antique panes in the door was broken. A long, jagged slice skittered along the surface like a splintered windshield. My pulse raced, my gut twisted, and I fought the instinct to throw open the locks and chase after whoever had done this.

But I’d promised Hardy I wouldn’t be stupid. Running, unarmed and barefoot, into the street while someone was taking shots at my house, with rocks or worse, would be entirely stupid.

Instead, I turned, intending to rush to the study, my laptop, and the cameras, when I caught sight of a figure coming down the stairs. For a single, panicked breath, I thought it was Sienna again until Willow’s sleepy eyes, blinking awake in my clothes, registered.

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