Page 91 of Braving the Storm

What are the chances a girl so perfect could ever consider falling for me the way I’ve undeniably fallen for her?

This isn’t about a fantasy of white picket fences or wedding bells; this is about two people choosing a life together. Something I’ve never been able to fathom before now, but Briar Lane makes me want to believe in something deep and soul nourishing and powerful as fuck.

She makes me believe I could offer her happiness.

To try and be that person who she deserves to be cared for and wholly loved by.

As I pull up outside the front porch, warm light spills into the darkening evening air, the curl of chimney smoke winds into the faded tinge of inky blue peppered with a handful of early stars, and I’m drawn like a magnet to where I know she’s waiting inside.

Jogging up to the front entrance, I’m halfway through kicking off my boots and already calling out as I shut the door behind me.

“It’s fucking on.” My voice carries across the room against the backdrop of the crackling fire. “That picture…”

The words are out of my mouth already when I realize.

I fucking see it too late to swallow down what has already come out, but at least it’s nothing too incriminating for Briar.

Because there’s someone else here, and it’s the last fucking person on this planet I’d want my girl to have to suffer being left alone with.

“Stôrmand.”

The clipped, nasal tone of her asshole sister is about as welcome in my house as a bucket of pig shit. Actually I’d take the pig shit any day rather than this human turd sitting on my couch.

“Crispin.” I tip my chin her way, my brain trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.

“Hey.” Briar’s voice sounds so soft and small as she emerges from the bedroom, eyes wide, features pinched and drawn. In her arms are a bundled assortment of what looks like a pillow and blankets.

It’s like all the color and vibrancy has been sucked out of her. She’s back to being a ghost of herself, and now I see her in this light, I realize with startling clarity that this was the version of Briar who showed up unexpectedly on my doorstep.

My fists clench, and there’s a rapid pulse in my jaw.

“What brings you to Crimson Ridge?” I flick my eyes back toward the blonde woman perched on the couch, who glares severely in the direction of her younger sister.

“Well, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have finally found Briar, her little disappearing act from LA has had us all wrecked with worry.”

God, I can smell the bullshit pouring off her. I’m readying myself to put some words together, something to the effect of kicking her out on that bony ass.

Except she opens her bitch mouth, and I watch Briar damn near crumble in front of my eyes.

“I’ve been wondering where my sister ran off to, after abandoning her husband.”

Chapter 30

The man across the room from me is even more striking than normal. Heavy shadows and firelight lick over his rugged jaw and tattoos, and I want to scream until my lungs explode.

My fucking sister found me.

As she says the words that clatter to the floor like a smashed vase, I can’t tear my eyes away from his face. Those features I’ve traced over and over in his sleep, the slight furrow of his brow, the tiny scar hidden by his left eyebrow, remain impassive. He’s entirely unreadable, and that lack of emotion terrifies me.

We can’t say or do anything at this moment, and if this is it for us, I’m forever going to be haunted by knowing I’m in love with this man, but there’s every chance he will never look at me again now he knows the truth.

An ugly misfortune that I foolishly, like a stupid little naive piece of shit, thought I could outrun.

Yet, my flesh-and-blood, my older sister, has arrived like a foul wind, and while she might not know the extent of whatever this is between me and Storm, she’s determined to ruin my life.

Of that, I can be absolutely certain.

Cris believes with every cell in her rotten core that I stole herlife, so it has become her mission to ensure I remain in misery for however many years I might continue to wander around this earth.