Page 1 of The Kiss

Prologue

JANINE

The countdown had already started when I squeezed through the last row of shoulders and found a spot I could breathe in.

Edinburgh Castle sat lit up against the sky, gold and ancient, and the crowd below it stretched farther than I could see. I was eighteen. Seven months into my gap year, five thousand miles from home, and standing in the middle of a Scottish New Year's Eve because a girl in my hostel told me Hogmanay was something you had to see for yourself. She was right. The whole city had poured into the streets, and the air smelled like whisky, gunpowder, and winter, the feeling right before something happens.

The stranger beside me was tall, a few years older, and completely still while everyone around him moved. He stood with his hands in his pockets, his head tilted back, studying the castle like he'd come a long way to see it.

Eight. Seven. Six.

The crowd picked up the count. A thousand voices, then ten thousand, the numbers rising until the stones under my feet hummed with it.

Three. Two. One.

The sky broke open. Fireworks cracked above the castle in gold and white, and the roar that went through the crowd went through me, deep in my chest and the soles of my boots. The stranger beside me turned to face me. The tradition said you kissed whoever was standing next to you when the clock struck twelve. His eyes were blue, his face lit gold by the fireworks, and he was close enough now that I could see him clearly for the first time.

He smiled first.

The kiss was supposed to be quick. A formality, a stranger's mouth against mine for the length of a cheer, something I'd laugh about in the morning. But his hand came up to the side of my face, and I leaned into it. The city roared above us, and the kiss kept going.

When we pulled apart, the fireworks had settled into a steady crackle and the cheering had turned into singing. He looked at me. His mouth opened like he was about to say something. Then a group surged between us, arms linked, belting out a song I didn't know the words to, and the crowd carried him one direction and me the other. I turned a full circle, searching. Every face I found was someone else's.

I went home two weeks later. Finished my gap year, started college in Chicago, built a life. Years passed. I kissed other men at midnight on other New Year's Eves, standing in other cities, counting down other countdowns.

The stranger in Edinburgh was the one I kept.

CHAPTER 1

Dispatcher 41

JANINE

I'd built a life where no one could find us, and I'd done it well. The apartment had no forwarding address. I had no photographs online, no social media, no trace that connected my name to my face. At work, I was a voice on a headset, and when the call ended, I disappeared. My daughter was safe. That was the only thing that mattered.

"There's smoke." The voice was young, five or six at most, and shaking. "There's smoke and I can't find my mom."

I pressed my headset closer and kept my voice steady. "I hear you, sweetheart. Can you tell me your name?"

"Tammy."

"Tammy, you're doing great. Is the smoke in the room with you right now?"

"It's coming under the door."

"Okay. I need you to stay away from that door and get down low for me. All the way to the floor. The air is better down there."

I heard her knees hit carpet. "I'm down."

"Good girl." I dispatched Engine 19, Ladder 20 while I talked. Captain Holloway's crew. "Help is already on the way, Tammy. I need you to stay on the line with me until they get there. Can you do that?"

"I'm scared."

She sounded the same age as Hazel. I kept my voice level, kept the warmth in it, and locked everything I was actually feeling behind my teeth where this child would never hear it.

"I know you are. Being scared means you're paying attention, and you called for help, which was exactly the right thing to do. I need you to do one more brave thing. Can you see a window from where you are?"

"Yeah."