The Darkest Sunrise (The Darkest Sunrise #1)

Until she wasn’t.

The song on the loudspeaker changed and a round of children’s squeals and cheers signaled their exuberant approval.

It happened so fast that, had I been anyone else, I would have missed it.

But it was there. And I recognized it immediately.

I saw it in the mirror every morning when I woke up and every night before I went to bed.

Lowering my voice, I inched toward her, desperately hoping for a better look. “Are you okay?”

“Of course,” she clipped.

Cool, calm, collected.

Hiding in plain sight.

It was almost as intriguing as it was heartbreaking.

She peeked up as I hovered over her. “What are you doing?” she snapped, swaying away from me.

“Nothing,” I replied.

Everything, I thought.

I loomed closer and her dark gaze lifted to mine.

Holy. Shit.

There it was, blazing in her eyes.

The emptiness.

My emptiness.

I’d perfected the ability to lock my every emotion away. Hiding them from not only the world, but myself as well. If I didn’t enable the pain and fear, they had no power over me. But, as the years had passed, the hollowness left behind had been worse.

My smile had become a mask for the kids.

My laugh a guise to throw my family off the beaten path.

Going through the motions of carrying on—all the while, I was withering away.

And there it was, like a beacon of light shining within her too.

“Hi,” I whispered as if we were long-lost friends.

She blinked and craned her head back to peer up at me. “Hi?”

She thought I was insane, and I couldn’t give the first damn. Hell, I thought I was insane too.

But that didn’t stop me from smiling and repeating, “Hi.” When she stared up at me blankly, I added, “For the record, I do have other words in my vocabulary, but I seem to be stuck on that one right now.”

The tiniest smile I’d ever seen played at her lips.

She’d been beautiful before. But, in that second, she became extraordinary.

Her deep-brown eyes flashed back and forth between mine, searching. “You’re freaking me out.”

I chuckled. “You’re kinda freaking me out too.”

“Maybe you could…back up, then?”

Unmoving, I confirmed, “I absolutely could.”

“Today?” she pressed, but she was still wearing that virtually undetectable smile.

No. This woman wasn’t rude. Or bitchy. She was simply surviving.

Just like me.

Shaking my head, I forced myself to snap out of it before I scared her off. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

She nervously looked away only for her gaze to bounce back to mine. “For what part? Ruining the burgers or challenging the laws of personal space?”

I blew out a hard breath and went for humor. “Ruining the burgers?” I pointed to the box of rejects. “You might call that burnt, but I call it food safety. No one is getting E. coli on my watch.”

She aimed that smile up at me. And it wasn’t fake. It wasn’t a mask. It wasn’t even hollow.

It was downright playful.

And unbelievably stunning.

I kept talking for fear it would disappear. “Really, it’s a genetic condition. I didn’t get the gene for charbroiling raw meat.”

“Did you get the gene for passing raw meat?” she asked, the side of her mouth twitching as she tried to wipe away my fucking favorite smile.

I grinned. “I got two of those, actually.” I twisted my hands in the air and made a show of walking backwards to the cooler. After retrieving a stainless-steel tray, I carried it back to her.

“Wow,” she breathed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone carry meat like that before.”

I shrugged. “I harness my powers for good.”

“The world needs more heroes like you,” she told the grill as that tiny smile spread impossibly wide.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as if I’d witnessed a miracle.

“I do what I can for humanity.”

And then she gave me one better.

A real, honest-to-God giggle rang through the air.

Fuck. This woman.

She started placing patties in a rectangle around the outside edges of the heat. “So, tell me, Grill Master Max. How’d you get this job?”

“Surprisingly enough, a dead dog.”

Her head snapped up. “Please, God, tell me that’s not your secret ingredient.”

I barked a laugh. “Hardly. That right there is a mixture of Wagyu, USDA Prime, and Argentinean free-range sirloin.”

She curled her lip. “Wagyu?”

I winked arrogantly. “It’s a thing. Look it up.”

She pointed at me with the tongs. “Oh, I will, and if I find out it’s a breed of canine, I’m calling the health department.”

Chuckling, I opened my mouth to give what was surely going to be a witty response, but everything suddenly changed.

“Lucas,” a woman called.

My gorgeous woman spun so fast that you would have thought she was on fire.

Concerned, I followed her gaze to a little boy. He was no older than two, toddling over, his mother hot on his heels.

“Slow down, buddy,” the mother cooed, scooping the child up before he had a chance to get under the rope.

The whole interaction was utterly innocent, which only made it that much more puzzling when the spatula fell from her hand and she stumbled back a step.

On pure instinct, I caught her bicep to keep her from hitting the grill. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she lied with a practiced ease, her gaze never leaving the departing mother.

Her chest heaved, and her anxiety was palpable, sparking mine to life as well.

As she swayed into me, her shoulder tucked under my arm and her hand clung to my forearm.

Sliding my arm around her hips, I pulled her closer and took some of her weight.

“Are you…” I trailed off. There was no point finishing the question. She wasn’t okay in any fashion.

I knew that feeling too.

“Lucas,” she whispered on a jagged breath, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as though she were trying to catch the word before it had fully escaped.

I glanced to where the woman and her child had disappeared into the crowd and asked, “Do you know that little boy?”

It took her several seconds to reply. “No. I don’t,” she whispered like it was a pained confession.

And then I lost her all over again.

As if someone had snapped their fingers to break her trance, she suddenly pushed out of my arms. “I’m good.”

I frowned when the shake of her hands said otherwise. “Listen—”

“Really. I’m fine.” Tilting her head back, she met my gaze and it was one of the most incredible things I’d ever witnessed. And not in a good way.

A wall came down, dividing her from me—and the rest of the world. Her eyes grew distant, and while her shoulders fell only a fraction of an inch, that slight change was enough to transform her from the beautiful woman with the secret smile to a shattered woman barely able to stand.

It was familiar.

Too familiar.

“I have to go,” she whispered.

“Don’t.” I reached out for her, my pulse quickening.