Page 144 of The Spider & the Storm

Shit. I quickly extended my hand and said, “Hello, sir. It's nice to meet you.”

“Please, call me Chris.” The nicety didn't quite reach his tone though, even as he clasped my hand in his.

We shook, and I looked right into his skeptical glare.

Does he know?

A trickle of ice slithered down my spine. It was possible. Stormy might not have been around when Luke had murdered Ritchie, but her parents had. They'd never left Connecticut.They'd been here, paying attention to the news and talking to the locals. Maybe he recognized my face and knew my name, and he was now wondering how the hell to save his daughter from the Corbin curse.

He dropped my hand, then gestured into the house. “Come on in. Take your coats off, make yourselves at home. Mom's about to pull some cookies out of the oven. Miles has been going on and on and on about these peanut butter ones he had last time he was here. You should've seen him. He …” His voice trailed off as he wandered through the door and disappeared quickly into the house, as if assuming we were on his tail.

But we stopped inside the door, shedding our jackets and hanging them on a coatrack.

“Should we …” I waved toward the doorway he'd wandered through, and Stormy brushed me off with a flippant gesture of her hand.

“Nah, it's fine. He's just babbling about my nephew, my sister's youngest. My dad is obsessed with that kid. Like, I mean,obsessed.”

I huffed a laugh I didn't quite feel as I stuffed my hands into my jeans pockets. “Well, I don't think he likes me very much,” I commented. My voice sounded bitter. I regretted that immediately. “I mean, it's fine. I just—”

“It's nothing personal,” she was quick to say, regret blanketing her features. “You gotta understand, the last guy I brought home to meet my parents was strung out on drugs. Granted, that was, like, fifteen years ago, but they know about as much about my love life as they do my career. Which is next to nothing. And, yeah, I guess that's my own fault, but …” She sucked in a deep breath and shook her head. “Anyway, don'ttake it personally. They're going to like you, I swear. The bar was already set pretty low. As long as you don't describe our sex life in explicit detail before passing out on the couch, you're as good as golden.”

I raised one brow at her. “Sounds like a real winner.”

“Yeah, well.” She offered a half smile while a spark of sadness struck her gaze before spinning on her heel and leading the way through the foyer. Then, looking over her shoulder, she added, “Just remember, you're the one standing here, and he's buried across the street.”

“Well, now, I feel like an asshole,” I muttered regretfully, following close behind.

“I'm just saying, I chose the path that brought me to you, not him. So, as far as I'm concerned, you're the real winner here. Because I'm a fucking prize.”

She grinned like it was a joke, like maybe she was poking fun at the woman she used to be. The woman who'd brought home a guy she got wasted with. But that wasn’t who she was, not at her core. She'd gotten out of that life and into the one that brought her to me, as she'd said, and for that, I had to agree with her.

Shewasa prize. The greatest of them all. And somehow, for once, I could consider myself a winner because I could call her mine.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CONNECTICUT, PRESENT DAY

While Chris had been a little more on the skeptical side, Barbara—Stormy's mother—welcomed me into her home with arms wide, wide open. The moment I stepped into her kitchen, smelling cookies and fresh bread and apple pie, she wrapped me in a hug that made my heart weep and my lungs heave with an excruciatingly forlorn sigh.

God, how I missed my mother, and Barbara reminded me of her instantly. Full of love and laughter and acceptance, not at all batting a lash at my long hair or the webbed tattoos encasing my exposed hands and forearms. I supposed that probably had something to do with the type of guy she'd expect her body-piercer daughter to bring home to meet the parents. But it touched me all the same, and I knew immediately that I'd hit the jackpot when I walked through that front door.

“God, Stormy, when was the last time you brought a boy home?” Barbara asked, as if I wasn’t a man staring directly toward middle age. “It's been forever.”

Stormy's cheeks reddened beneath the pleasant, warm lighting as her eyes volleyed quickly toward me. “Um, I—”

“Billy, wasn't it?” Chris chimed in, a sour distaste forming the refreshed scowl on his face. He shook his head. “That guy was such a—”

“Chris.” Barbara didn't look at all pleased. “We're not going to talk about that. Wedon'ttalk about that.”

“You brought it up,” he pointed out.

“It was a rhetorical question,” she fired back, raising her brows and daring him with a look to continue.

He didn't.

She sucked in a breath and turned back to her daughter, satisfied. “I'm so glad that you two could make it for Thanksgiving. You must be pretty special for Stormy to want you here, Charlie,” she said. “And I hope you like cookies ‘cause”—she swept a gesture across the island, littered with full baking sheets—“I made a lot.”

A memory came forward, one I had forgotten I'd even had until this moment. Mom baking cookies for Christmas. Rolling out the dough on the dining room table. Dumping out a big Tupperware of cookie cutters. Holding my hand as we pressed each cutter into the sticky, flattened sheet. The kitchen filling with the warm, sweet scent of sugar cookies baking, then us decorating them once they were cooled. I could remember the way they'd tasted and how much we'd enjoyed making them.

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