My eyebrows shot up and I stepped to the side to see him better. “Because I’m a shrieking hag?”

Nash pulled me close again and pressed me into the car, then kissed me so deeply I wasn’t sure if I was actually breathing. “You have no idea how beautiful you are,” he said. “But Tod’s been hung up on someone else for a long time, so I thought you’d be safe. I should have known better.”

“Why didn’t you want him to know my name?”

Nash leaned back to see me better, and the line of his jaw went hard. “Because he’s Death, Kaylee. No matter how innocent he looks, or how desperately he clings to the notion that he’s some kind of afterlife hero, carting helpless souls from point A to point B, he’s still a reaper. One day he might find your name on his list. And while I know that keeping your name a secret won’t save you if that happens, I’m not just going to hand over your identity to one of Death’s gophers.”

“He knows your name.” I let my hand trail from his chest down his arm until my fingers curled around his.

“I knew him before he was a reaper.”

“You did?” It hadn’t occurred to me until then that Tod might have had a normal life once. What were reapers like before they surrounded themselves with death and the dying?

Nash nodded, and I opened my mouth to ask another question, but he laid one finger against my lips. “I don’t want to talk about Tod anymore.”

“Fair enough,” I mumbled against his finger. Then I removed his hand and stepped up on my toes. “I don’t want to talk about him either.” I kissed him, and my pulse went crazy when he responded. His tongue met mine briefly, then his lips trailed over my chin and down my neck.

“Mmm…” I murmured into his hair, as his tongue flicked in the hollow of my collarbone. Chill bumps popped up on my arms, and my hands went around his back. My fingers splayed over the material of his shirt. “That feels good.”

“You taste good,” he whispered against my skin. But before I could respond, an engine growled to life a row away, and light washed over us both, momentarily blinding me. Nash straightened, moaning in frustration as the car across the aisle pulled toward us before turning toward the exit. “I guess I should take you home,” he said, shading his face with one hand while the other remained on my arm.

I blinked, trying to clear floating circles of light from my eyes. “I don’t want to go home. My entire family has been lying to me my whole life. I don’t have anything to say to them.”

“Don’t you want to know why they’ve been lying to you?”

I blinked at him, taken by surprise for a moment. I hadn’t considered simply confronting them with the truth. They’d never see that coming.

A slow smile spread across my face, and I saw it reflected in Nash’s. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER 12

“You’re coming in, right?” I asked when Nash shifted into Park but left the engine running.

There wasn’t enough light in the driveway for me to truly see his eyes, but I knew he was watching me. “You want me to?”

Did I?

A slim silhouette appeared in the front window: Aunt Val, one hand on her narrow hip, the other holding an oversize mug. They were waiting to talk to me. Or more likely at me, because they probably had no intention of telling me the truth, since they didn’t know someone else already had.

“Yeah, I do.”

It wasn’t that I needed him to fight my battles. I was actually looking forward to demanding some long-overdue answers, now that the big lie—aka my entire life—had been exposed.

But I could certainly have used a little moral support.

Nash smiled, his teeth a dim white wedge among shadows, and twisted the key to shut down the engine.

We met at the front of the car and he took my hand, then leaned forward to brush a kiss against the back of my jaw, just below my left ear. Even as I stood in my driveway, knowing my aunt and uncle were waiting, his touch made me shiver in anticipation of more.

I’m not crazy. I knew that now. And I wasn’t alone—Nash was like me. Even so, dread was a plastic spork slowly digging out my insides as I pulled open the front door, then the screen. I stepped into the tiled entry and tugged Nash in after me.

My aunt stood in the middle of the floor, a frail mask of reproach poorly disguising whatever stronger, more urgent sentiment peeked out around the edges. My uncle rose from the couch immediately, taking us both in with a single glance. To his credit, the first expression to flit across his features was relief. He’d been worried, probably because I hadn’t answered any of the twelve messages he’d left on my silenced cell.

But his relief didn’t last long. Now that he knew I was alive, he looked ready to kill me himself.

Uncle Brendon’s anger lingered on me, then more than a bit of it transferred when his focus shifted to Nash. “It’s late. I’m sure Kaylee will see you at the memorial tomorrow.”

Aunt Val only sipped her coffee—or maybe “coffee”—offering me no help.

Nash looked to me for a decision, and my tight grip on his hand demonstrated my resolve. “Uncle Brendon, this is Nash Hudson. I need to ask you some questions, and he’s going to stay. Or else I go with him.”

My uncle’s dark brows drew low and his gaze hardened—but then his eyes went wide in surprise. “Hudson?” He studied Nash more carefully now, and sudden recognition lit his face. “You’re Trevor and Harmony’s boy?”

What? My gaze bounced between them in confusion. On my left, Aunt Val coughed violently and pounded on her own chest. She’d choked on her “coffee.”

“You know each other?” I asked, but Nash looked as clueless as I felt.

“I knew your parents years ago,” Uncle Brendon said to Nash. “But I had no idea your mother was back in the area.” He shoved both hands into the pockets of his jeans, and the uncertain gesture made my uncle look even younger than usual. “I was so sorry to hear about your father.”

“Thank you, sir.” Nash nodded, his jaw tense, both his motion and words well practiced.

Uncle Brendon turned back to me. “Your friend’s father was…” And that’s when it hit him. His face flushed, and his expression seemed to darken. “You told her.”

Nash nodded again, holding his gaze boldly. “She has a right to know.”

“And obviously neither of you were going to tell me.”

Aunt Val sank into the nearest armchair and drained her mug, then almost dropped it onto a coaster.

“Well, I can’t say this is entirely unexpected. Your dad’s already on his way here to explain everything.” My uncle’s hands hovered at his sides, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with them. Then he sighed and nodded to himself, like he’d come to some kind of decision. “Sit down. Please. I’m sure you both have questions.”

“Can I get anyone a drink?” Aunt Val rose unsteadily, her empty mug in hand.

“Yeah.” I gave her a saccharine smile. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

She frowned—for once unconcerned with the wrinkles etched into her forehead—then made her way slowly into the kitchen.

“I’d love some coffee,” Uncle Brendon called after her as he sank into the floral-print armchair, but his wife disappeared around the corner with no reply.

I dropped onto the sofa and Nash sat next to me, and in the sudden silence I realized my cousin hadn’t come out to interrogate me or flirt with him. And no music came from her room. No sound at all, in fact. “Where’s Sophie?”

Uncle Brendon sighed heavily and seemed to sink deeper into the chair. “She doesn’t know about any of this. She’s asleep.”

“Still?”

“Again. Val woke her up for dinner, but she hardly ate anything. Then she took another of those damned pills and went back to bed. I ought to flush the rest of them.” He mumbled the last part beneath his breath, but we both heard him.