Page 142 of The Spider & the Storm

“What the hell was she trying to do, apply for sainthood?”

“Something like that,” I muttered, then chuckled and lifted my hand in a flippant shrug. “I don't know. I never understood it. She always said it was because she loved Luke so damn much, but I don't know. Sometimes, I thought she just liked having a project, and with us, she had two of them—three if you count the house. But … I don't know. Maybe she just felt bad for us.”

“Or maybe she really did love you guys,” Stormy offered softly, “and she knew she could care for you better than you'd manage on your own.”

My gaze lifted to the blurred trees lining the side of the road, topped by a cloudy gray November sky. Melanie had passed my mind often over the years—that went without saying—but it'd been a long time since her memory had brought a twinge of a smile to my lips, a lump in my throat, and more gratitude in my heart than sadness.

“You're probably right.”

“I wish I could meet her.”

That brought a laugh rumbling past the rock lodged in my throat. “Yeah, well, unfortunately …” I shook my head as the sadness overcame the gratitude.

“You think they would've gotten married if things had been different?”

My lungs filled with air and held it tight. “I do.”

Stormy swallowed audibly, and I chanced a glance in her direction to find the same pain in my heart reflected in her eyes. “It's so sad that they could never work it out. I mean, I get it. I was really fucked up back in the day, and I know there was no way I could have had a decent, healthy relationship. But … it justsucks. Like, you have to think, how different would everything have been if it had worked out between them?”

“I don't like to,” I answered, brusque and gruff. “Not anymore.”

She pressed her lips together and held the wheel tight within her grip. Her emerald eyes volleyed toward mine quickly.

“Oh, no?” she asked, her voice hovering below the nothing-but-white-noise music.

I gave my head a small shake, but unable to say that, if anything had been different, I wouldn't have run from Connecticut and my ever-persistent demons. That, if Luke and Melanie had never broken up, it was unlikely I would've found myself in Salem. That, if any of the tragedies in my life hadn't occurred, it was unlikely that Stormy ever would've been mine.

I never would've been hers.

Somehow, I managed to reach a point where that thought was more devastating than the nightmares that still haunted the otherwise wonderful and dreamless sleep I only ever achieved when I was with her. In the month that I'd known her, she had taken this shattered soul, this broken shadow of a man, and by some miracle, she’d put him back together. And, okay, maybe what was left more resembled Frankenstein's monster than what he had once been at the hour of his birth, but he waswhole. Me! Whole. Happy.

I chuckled at the thought, but wasn't it true?

“Why are you laughing?” Stormy asked, eyeing me suspiciously from across the car.

My gaze landed on hers as my lips stretched in a smile that all at once felt awkward and weird and right and amazing. “I don't know. I'm just …” I shrugged one shoulder, tipping my head back to rest against the seat. Still staring at her. Still amazed. “I'm happy.”

Her black lips lifted in an easy smile that looked so much more natural than mine felt. “DoImake you happy?”

“More than anything.”

A small, acknowledging sound rose from her throat as she nodded, glancing at the road before looking back at me. “You make me happy too.”

Then, marry me.

The thought came out of nowhere, an echo running through my head, yet it didn't freak me out the way it probably should've. No, I knew without a fraction of a doubt that I would make her my wife if I only found the courage to ask. Luke might consider that insane; others probably would too. But I never pretended to be sane, and I didn't care.

She was the one who would never run, and with a glance at the side of the road, I found she was also the one who could take me across the Connecticut state line without my body revolting with panic. I was going to do this. I was going to be okay. And I knew that was only because I was safe.

I knew it was because I washers.

***

Stormy had grown up far enough away from where I had for my familiarity with the area to have blurred over time. It was my favorite thing about her childhood home.

That and the cemetery across the street.

When we pulled onto her street and my eyes landed on the hallowed ground, Stormy smiled and nudged my wrist with her knuckles.

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