Gmork batted his tail against the floor, and she laughed.

He held still while she brushed him—it was his favorite thing. Just as she started in on his right side, however, Gmork tensed up. He leapt to his feet so fast that Nora had to scramble backward to get out of his way.

He didn’t growl.

What he did do was trot over to the front door, sit down, and wag his tail. He only ever did that when Juliette stopped by with Céleste.

What would they be doing here at eleven on a Monday night? Nora jumped to her feet just as the bell rang. She hurried to the door and opened it.

A woman was standing on her front step, in the little sliver of streetlight that broke through Nora’s oak tree.

Her hair was tied back up a red scarf, her lips full and lush, and her eyes…her eyes were dark. Nora shook a little when she saw them. Earthquake eyes.

The woman spoke in a warm and steady voice. “I heard you were looking for me.”

Chapter Twenty

Cyrus found Paulina at her kitchen table, textbook open in front of her and a cappuccino in hand. She still had work clothes on—gray skirt, white blouse. And there it was, after eleven already.

“Oh, that’s not good,” he said from the kitchen doorway.

“You’re telling me.” She looked up from her book and grinned tiredly at him. He walked over to her, and she laid her head against his stomach, arms around his waist. Cyrus squinted at the small print in her book.

“‘A theory of social cognitive development of the adolescent brain under stress…’ Baby, you don’t need coffee. You need cocaine to get through this.”

Paulina swatted him on the ass, which Cyrus didn’t mind one bit. She pushed a chair out for him with her foot for him to sit down on next to her.

“It’s interesting,” she said. “Sort of.”

“You got a test?” he asked.

“Paper, due Friday. It’s almost finished. And then only five more modules until master’s degree numero dos.” She raised her hands and waved them in praise-the-Lord fashion.

“Two master’s degrees,” Cyrus said. “I’m marrying a genius.”

“You know it, Daddy.” She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m thinking of getting my hair done like Einstein. Get it dyed all white and gray, stick it up like I stuck my finger in a light socket. What do you think?”

“It’s almost October,” he said. “You could be Bride of Frankenstein with hair like that.”

“And you’ll be my Frankenstein?”

“I ain’t going anywhere in public with you looking like that.”

She swatted him again—his arm this time—then sat back in her chair, laughing. When she reached for her coffee on the table, Cyrus picked it up and held it out of her arm’s reach. She reached for it anyway.

“Uh-uh. No more. It’s past your bedtime.”

“Give it…please…me…” she pleaded, begged, whimpered. Pitiful.

“No, ma’am.” He sat the coffee cup behind him on the table where she couldn’t get to it.