A Little Night Matchmaking. Debrah Morris

I have a story?”

      “Not tonight, baby. Give Mommy a kiss and get to sleep.”

      After they exchanged a noisy smooch, Brandy pressed a gentle kiss in the center of Chloe’s palm and folded her fingers over it. The spare kiss was a long-standing tradition they shared, because one wasn’t enough to last through the night. Brandy shivered at the thought of the Midnight Man’s next visit. Would this be the night he got close enough to kiss?

      Chloe climbed over the covers to the end of the bed, smacked the air and bounced back to snuggle under the flower-sprigged comforter.

      “What was that all about?”

      “I had to give Celestian a kiss, too.”

      “Oh. Right.” Him, again. Still unsure how to handle the situation, Brandy smoothed the covers over Chloe and stroked damp blond hair from her face. “I guess it’s fun to have an invisible friend.”

      “Most of the time,” Chloe corrected.

      “Just so you realize he’s not real.”

      “But he is real, Mommy.” Chloe grinned as her gaze tracked movement from the bed to the other side of the room.

      “In here, sure.” Brandy gently tapped her temple. “He only lives in your imagination.”

      “Nope. He’s right over there.” Chloe pulled her arm from under the pink sheet and pointed. “He’s sitting on the toy box now. He’s happy ’cause Trick came tonight. He said he would, but I wasn’t so sure.”

      Brandy frowned. This had been a long day, full of strange encounters. Not only was she too tired to deal effectively with this troubling problem, she wasn’t sure what course of action would speed the pretend friend along its natural course. It didn’t seem right to impose her will and insist Chloe admit Celestian wasn’t real. What was the harm in indulging her child’s innocent fantasies a little longer? It was her own fantasies she should be worried about.

      Far more disturbing than the new playmate, was her daughter’s unlikely fascination with Trick Templeton. She’d never taken to a strange man the way she’d taken to him. The fact that she’d incorporated Templeton into the fantasy by having Celestian “talk” about him was especially troublesome.