Burn (29 page)

“He was right there!” Cinder moved closer to the
curb and scoured the street in each direction. “He was
dressed as a ninja. Natasha saw him, too.”

“I believe you.” Gian joined her, stepping into the
street to better see. “He’s gone now, whoever he was.”
Pulling her close, he wrapped her in his cape. “You had
yourself a real Halloween spook, didn’t you?”

“He was watching me. I know he was.”

Rubbing her back, Gian gave the street one more
look. Halloween was a night for fun and sweets, a time f
or pretend monsters to roam the night. Someone had
scared Cinder, and that was enough to make that mon
ster real. “Whoever it was—”

“Natasha thought he might have been Karl.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me,” Gian said. “Let’s close
up the dojo and I’ll take you home. There’s probably
some gut-slashing, blood-splattering movie on cable we
can watch.”

“I thought you wanted to get out of that costume,”
Cinder reminded him. Within the safety of Gian’s cape,
her adoration and affection for her super man overrode
the creepy feeling the ninja had given her.

“I do. The sooner the better.” His hands roamed
down to her buttocks, and for an instant, he wondered
how far he could go with his voluminous cape concealing
his actions.

“Cory invited Natasha and her girls over for cake. You
still have a little bit of entertaining to do before we can
leave.”

“I’ll make them a to-go platter,” Gian said. “I can’t
wait to climb into bed with the most beautiful woman in
history.”

“In your history, at any rate.” Cinder winked.

* * *

Gian moved through the darkness.

So familiar with Cinder’s apartment, he disturbed
nothing and made no sound as he looked for her. The
bathroom was empty, but for the blue-grey moonlight
f
looding through the skylight. She wasn’t in the kitchen as
Gian had first suspected. The spacious living and dining
room area initially appeared empty, and Gian quickened
his step to return to the bedroom to put clothes on and
see if she had gone outside for some reason.

But then he caught sight of a pretty brown foot
poking from behind Cinder’s sectional sofa. Rounding it,
he found her lying on the plush bench positioned behind
the sofa to face her wide, slanted living room windows.

Aware of his presence, she sat up, curling a small piece
of paper in her hand. Gian sank beside her.

“Did I wake you?” Her voice was raspy.

“Not at all. How long have you been out here?”
Staring at her hands in her lap, she shrugged a
shoulder.

Gian raised an arm to embrace her. Before he could,
she swung her legs back onto the bench and laid her head
in his lap, her hands tucked under her chin.

“Are you still creeped out by the ninja?”

“No.”

He stroked her hip through her thin cotton shift. She
wore nothing under it, Gian discovered, his hand
roaming freely over her abdomen and backside. “Did you
have fun tonight?”

She nodded.

Gian forced himself to ignore the effect the move
ment had on the sleeping creature at the back of her
head. “Are you going to tell me what pulled you out of
bed, or are we going to keep playing twenty questions?”

“I keep thinking about Danielle.”

Gian chuckled. “About the frosting she got all over
her cheeks when Sionne challenged her to a cake eating
contest, or how she laughed her head off when she flat
tened Chip?”

Danielle, Natasha’s youngest, had been little more
than a baby when Gian founded Sheng Li. The little girl
had taken her first steps in the cushioned safety of the
dojo, and she seemed to believe that the entire world was
safe for her explorations, with cushions to soften her
landings and a handful of strapping surrogate uncles who
would protect her. Danielle had everyone at Sheng Li
wrapped around her pinky so tightly, Chip hadn’t hesi
tated—and no one had stopped her—when she decided
to demonstrate the GEFS defense technique Gian had
created specifically for his youngest students.

“She’s nine years old, and she can already defend her
self better than I ever could,” Cinder said quietly.

“Is that what’s bothering you?”

“No.”

“This is frustrating.” Gian took her by her shoulders
and sat her up. The paper scroll in her hand jostled to the
floor. Cinder made a dash for it, but Gian got to it first.
Without thinking, he unfurled it. “What is this?” The
murky black and white image made no sense to him. “Is
it a constellation?”

Her face drawn, her eyes wide and melancholy,
Cinder shook her head.

“Damn it, Cinder, tell me what’s wrong,” Gian
insisted. Sitting naked in the moonlight, he had never felt
more helpless. He could fight almost anything with a
b
etter than good chance of coming out the victor, but he
was powerless against the haunts in her head.

“I always wanted a daughter.”

Her voice, quiet as a sigh, combined with her words
and the photo to hit Gian hard in a place a punch would
never reach. He took the photo from her and studied it more closely. “This is a sonogram.”

“I should have told you when you proposed to me,”
she nearly whispered. “But I can’t be a mother.”

Her eyes searched his. The tension in her neck and
hands, the tremble in her lower lip, and the sadness ema
nating from her served as warning. He had to choose his
next words with great care.

“Sure you can.”

She chuckled sadly, wiping away the tears that had escaped the trap of her lower lashes. “Two very good
OB/GYNs would disagree with you.”

“You don’t have to get pregnant to be a mother. There
are a million kids who need parents like us.”

Cinder covered her face with her hands and wept, her
shoulders shaking with the release.

“I can’t promise that we’ll take the whole million, but I’m good for two or three. Five, tops.”

Cinder climbed into his lap, tightly hugging his neck
to smear his face with tears and kisses.

“Sometimes the family you pick is even better than
the family born to you,” he went on, fastening her in his
embrace. “I’m a lucky man, Cinder. I got to pick you.
Our kids will be the luckiest kids in the world because they’re going to have you for a mom.”

* * *

Gian entered Grogan’s Superette with the sole inten
tion of picking up lunch. Or so he kept telling himself as
he walked the convoluted path to the salad buffet in the
middle of the store.

Founded in 1952 as a tiny neighborhood grocery store, Grogan’s had since tripled its floor space and
evolved into a landmark specializing in whole and
organic foods. Though it had kept the unassuming label
of “superette” in its name, Grogan’s was the only place for
miles where one could find canned snails imported from
France, pancetta flown in from Italy twice a month, and
fresh panko straight from Japan shelved alongside
Missouri staples such as Vess soda, C&H sugar, and
Mama Toscana’s toasted ravioli. The current owner, Sean
Grogan III, had brought the store into the twenty-first
Century by giving it an online presence with a website
from which patrons could order home deliveries.

The long line at the salad buffet, the best in St. Louis
County, gave Gian a chance to look around. Not for a
beverage to accompany his meal, but for a Grogan’s employee. Specifically, former karate instructor Karl
Lange.

Gian’s stomach rumbled. The scents of the day’s hot
entrees—lasagna, chicken parmesan, fried eggplant, and
grilled chicken breast—tickled Gian’s nose. Hunger
could wait. Gian wanted immediate satisfaction of a dif
ferent kind once he spotted Karl in the soda aisle chatting
with Jalesa Usher, Natasha’s oldest daughter.

J
alesa, a freshman at Webster University, was exactly
the sort of target Karl preferred. She was young, and with
her sparkling brown eyes and pretty smile, she was too attractive for Karl to ignore. Gian had trained Jalesa for
eight years and he knew that she was no fool. But he left his place in line at the buffet to let Karl know that Jalesa was off limits.

Or so he told himself.

“I loved your costume last night,” Karl was saying as
Gian approached. “I saw a lot of diva princesses last
night, but you were definitely the cutest one.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lange,” Jalesa said without looking
at Karl, who had rolled up the sleeves of his T-shirt to dis
play his big deltoids.

“You’re eighteen now, right?” Karl folded his arms
over his chest and stepped closer to her.

Studying the label of a grapefruit soda from Italy,
Jalesa offered no more than a disinterested grunt of affir
mation.

“Hey, kid,” Gian greeted.

Jalesa looked up and smiled. “Mr. Piasanti, hi,” she
said brightly.

Karl scowled.

“Danielle and I had such a good time at Sheng Li last
night,” Jalesa went on. “My mother told me to thank you
for inviting us over.”

“No problem, kiddo,” Gian told her, although he was
staring at Karl. “I’m hosting a mini-tournament on
Thanksgiving Day. You and your sister should come by
and watch the fights. It’s in the morning.”

“
Good,” Jalesa said and laughed. “Because my dad
won’t want to miss any of his football games.”

“Then I’ll count on seeing you.”

“Great. See you, Mr. Piasanti.”

Grapefruit soda in hand, Jalesa started away. Karl
leaned to his right to peer past Gian, watching the young woman go. “Natasha sure makes beautiful girls,” he said,
leering at her. “Where does the time go? I remember
when she was in braids, bouncing around Sheng Li in the
Beginners class. She was a long way from braids in that
leather skirt and tiara last night.”

“You saw her last night?” Gian asked.

Karl straightened and fixed his stare on Gian. “So what if I did?”

“Who else did you see?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just answer the question.”

“I don’t answer to you. Not anymore.”

“Stay away from Cinder.”

A deep laugh stuttered from Karl. “What?”

“If I ever catch you trying to scare or intimidate her
again, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Karl sneered.

“If you have a beef with me, take it up with
me
. Don’t
take your petty grudges out on Cinder.”

“Kiss my ass,” Karl spat. “I got better things to do
than fool around with Cinder White.” He cracked his
knuckles and played with the tiny knot fastening his long
white stockboy’s apron around his hips. “Although I hear
y
ou don’t. I hear that little fox has you so whipped, you
can’t walk straight unless she’s leading you by the nose.”

Gian grinned. “Still jealous that I got the girl, huh?”

“It’s not like anyone else had a chance. We all thought
you were teaching her karate in the private studio, when
all along you were getting paid gigolo-style to dip your
stick in her—”

Gian cut the insult off with a quick jab to Karl’s
mouth, sending the big stock boy reeling into a display of
sugar-free two-liter sodas. He charged forward, clashing
with Karl, who had lost none of his agility in his weeks
away from the dojo. Shoppers stood frozen in shock,
watching a very real battle between former sparring part
ners. Grunts and sweat flew in every direction, plastic
bottles of soda bounced onto the gray and white floor
tiles, six-packs of canned beverages clattered from
shelves. A few cans landed on their rims, popping their tops to send fruity, carbonated sprays of purple, orange,
and brown into the air.