Drake Sisters 02 - The Twilight Before Christmas

need to stay home.”
    Sarah’s eyebrow shot up. “Did I say that?”
    Kate rubbed a caress along Matt’s stubbly jaw right in front of her sisters, then closed the bathroom door on his startled expression. When he turned around, Sarah and Abbey were grinning at him. “She doesn’t listen, does she?” he asked.
    “Not very wel ,” Sarah agreed. “Kate may be quiet about it, but she goes her own way and does what she thinks is right.”
    “Do you have another bathroom so I can clean up real y fast?”
    Sarah grinned at him. “I even have an extra toothbrush. You’ve got that look in your eye when you look at her.”
    He fol owed her down the hal . “What look?”
    “You look at her like you can’t wait to kiss her,” Sarah said. “A toothbrush is definitely in order.”
    “Does she have something against the Rangers?” Matt asked, remembering the smal sigh from the night before. It had haunted him most of the night.
    Sarah pushed open a door to a powder blue bathroom. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”
    “No reason. Thanks, Sarah.” Matt didn’t want to think about that strange little sigh of Kate’s. She wasn’t the type of woman to react that way unless she had a reason. He’d ask her about it later. He hurried through his shower wanting to get back to her.
    Kate was stil in the bathroom when he returned to her room. He rested his palm on the door, the exact level as her head. “Come out of there, Katie, you’re beautiful enough without working at it.”

    From behind the door she laughed. “How do you know? You took a terrible chance staying. You could have woken up and my mask could have slipped off in the middle of the night.”
    “I didn’t go to sleep. I watched over you.”
    There was a smal shocked silence. Kate jerked the door open and stared up at him. “You must be exhausted. Go home and go to bed.”
    “I’d rather go with you.” He reached out and pul ed her to him. Her body fit perfectly against his, as if made to be there.
    “Matthew.” There was hesitation in Kate’s voice.
    He kissed her. He didn’t want her to voice her reservations. Kissing her was a much better and far more enjoyable idea. It was magic, if there was such a thing, and he was beginning to believe there was. He meant for it to be a brief, good morning kiss, a gentle shut-up-and-just-kiss-me kiss, but she caught fire, or he did, and they both just went up in flames. He wanted more than to kiss her, he wanted to touch her, to claim her soft body, to feel her moving beneath him, her hands clinging…
    “Stop!”
    Matt and Kate drew apart, their hearts racing, and blinked at each other, then looked around in surprise to see Sarah, Hannah, and Abbey in the doorway glaring at them.
    “Kate,” Sarah said, taking a deep breath. “You know we’re al connected in some way. You can’t be in such close proximity to us and carry on like that. We’re al in overdrive, thank you very much.”
    Unrepentant, Matt grinned at them as he pul ed Kate tight against him. “Sorry about that. We’re off to see some preschoolers.” Kate hid her face in his shoulder, trying not to laugh. He did the gentlemanly thing and got her out of there quickly, waving at Damon, Sarah’s fiancé, as they hurried past him.
    “The man should thank us,” he whispered, and pretended to wince when Kate smacked his arm.
    Kate stared out the window of the Mustang at the white-capped ocean as they drove along the highway toward the exit to the street where the preschool was located. “The fogbank is very thick out over the ocean,” she said, a note of apprehension in her voice. “See how dark it is, more gray than white, and it seems to be churning.” She turned her gaze on Matt. “I should have been more careful. Somewhere in the diaries there has to be something about this strange phenomenon.”
    “What diaries? You’ve mentioned the diaries before. How can they help?”
    “My family keeps a history, books handed down generation to generation. Somewhere this event had to be recorded. The problem is, al of us were supposed to learn the earlier languages used, but we gave it a halfhearted attempt. Al of us know a little, but El e real y can read it. We have to decipher the books.”
    Matt turned the car onto the exit. “You think this thing is coming back.”
    “I know it is. Can’t you feel it on the wind?”
    He could only feel how close he was to her. How just out of his reach she always seemed to be. Matt