Edge of Twilight by MAGGIE SHAYNE

him.”
    â€œHe’s such a stubborn man.”
    â€œAren’t they all?” Rhiannon asked. She swallowed hard, facing Amber again. “Still, I don’t like the idea of leaving here with that Edge character lurking around.”
    â€œI told you, I can handle Edge,” Amber said.
    â€œWe’ll watch over her,” Sarafina said. Then she bit her lip. “Though I don’t suppose that’s very comforting to you, given what happened the last time Amber was in our care.”
    â€œAmber doesn’t need to be in anyone’s care,” Amber said.
    Rhiannon sighed. “Dante and Morgan will be here soon. I suppose between the four of you…” She let her voice trail off.
    Amber didn’t argue that she could take care of herself, knowing it would fall on deaf ears, anyway. How did a twenty-three-year-old tell a pair of centuries-old immortals that she was a mature adult? It was impossible. She returned to the table with her tea, sat down, sipped it and prayed for patience.
    Â 
    Edge smiled at the irony of it as he eyed the abandoned church. He’d stuck close to the peninsula’s shoreline, because he liked it. It had been a while since he’d spent any time near the ocean. The sea was dark tonight, moody, mysteriously hiding whatever it held in its depths. It reminded him of Amber Lily’s eyes. And for some reason, he needed to keep it in sight. So he walked along the shoreline, covering several miles of distance in very little time. And then he spotted it. The tall steeple had bare patches of ribbing, where the shingles had been torn away by the storms and whims of the sea. Its once white paint barely qualified as a decent shade of pale gray anymore.It wasn’t a large church. Just a simple rectangle, slightly longer than wide, with its back to the sea.
    As he walked around the sad little church, he noted the tall windows, arched at the top, fitted with once red wooden shutters, all of them closed now with planks of wood crisscrossing them to keep them secure. At the front, the double doors were similarly boarded up. There had been steps once, but the weather had rotted them away. Only scraps of rotten lumber remained, surrounding a six foot square of black earth underneath the doors like an ugly scar.
    Copses of trees stood on either side of the church, but in front of the building, scraggly weeds and a handful of saplings made for thinner cover. Edge walked that way and found the narrow dirt road that probably didn’t see much use these days. It had grass growing in the middle, barely worn tracks on either side. It had probably been replaced with a paved, straighter road several decades ago. Maybe a newer church was built somewhere along it. But this one—this one hadn’t seen use in a long, long time.
    Moving to the side with the most coverage, he easily tugged off the boards, opened the shutters to look in at the broken window. Just as well it was busted, he would have had to break it anyway. He sure as hell wasn’t going to yank the boards off the back windows, where beach walkers might notice. And the front doors would be more easily glimpsed, as well, should someone happen by. It was this side or nothing.
    He brushed aside the broken glass, careful not to slide his hands over it—he didn’t want to bleed to death before dawn. Then he held to the bottom of the window and easily jumped through, landing on his feet on the inside.
    Brushing dirt off his hands, he took a look around.
    There were crumbling plaster walls, broken floorboards, and cobwebs enough to weave a blanket. He brushed them aside as he walked through the place. A handful of pews remained, like the few remaining teeth in an old man’s head. At the front, the floor was raised, but no altar stood there. He saw a door beyond the dais and went to it, forced it open, admiring the intricacies of the brass doorknob—an antique, no doubt, but tarnished to near