Page 93 of Braving the Storm

“She was pregnant, too.” My sister clicks her tongue and shoves her suitcase open. “What kind of man does that to a woman? Abandons her with a child on the way, to the extent that she’s driven beyond the point of no return. It might not have been his hand that poured those pills down her throat, but it had his fingerprints all over the mess.”

Sliding into the far side of the bed, I don’t even look her way. I don’t reply. There is nothing I want to say to my sister right now except to scream at her to get out and leave.

She keeps spewing her vitriol.

“How can you even consider being here? That man is unhinged, and he's completely unsafe to be around.”

My silence only gives her a platform to keep spouting her bullshit from, but I’m reeling and can’t seem to figure out a way to make her stop.

“My god. You don't know anything, do you? Happily staying in a vermin-infested dump with a psychopath. I always knew dad sheltered you too much, he always damn well pampered you, and look at what good has come of it—”

“Cris, I’m tired. Leave it alone, and let me go to sleep.”

“He's unstable.” She snaps. “He might be our uncle, but his own wife was driven to the point of no return, and the note she left behind only proves how much responsibility he had. It’s foul.”

The onlyfoulthing is my sister.

“How can you even consider being here for two seconds with him? Look at this place, it’s filthy. He’s living in squalor, and you’re probably going to end up with some sort of disease just being around him.”

I don’t believe her. I don’t for one second think the toxic cloud she’s spewing has any truth. She’s manipulative and poisonous, and while I have no doubt the man I’ve fallen in love with has a past, he’s not the person she’s painting him to be.

That much is the truth I know in the marrow of my bones.

Rolling on my side, I face the wall, turning my back on the woman who insists on continuing her character assassination beneath her breath while poking around on the other side of the room.

At least this cabin is tiny, there’s no obvious way to tell we’ve been sharing a bed, that we’re inseparable on so many levels. Storm doesn’t exactly ownthingsand the assortment of clothes I have are still strewn half inside my own suitcase tucked beside the closet.

The other side of the mattress dips as my sister gets in, assuming the location where my tattooed giant should rightly be.Who I should be able to openly kiss and wrap myself around, or be encircled in his strong arms as he snores softly against my hair.

“Lord knows why Dad left you this shit hole in his will.” Crisp mutters, fussing with her pillow and moving around so much that my teeth have nearly fused themselves together with how hard my jaw is clamped shut. “Why haven’t you kicked him out? He’s been freeloading, living here for years.”

“Crispin. Jesus.” I have to restrain myself from shouting. “You’ve been here two seconds, and you’re already trying to throw our own uncle out?”

As I say it, I cringe, but it’s the best I can manage, all things considered.

“Just go to sleep. We’ll deal with getting you back to Crimson Ridge in the morning.”

When I tuck myself into a ball and stare at the wall, watching the light flick off when my sister finally shuts off the lamp, I’m a mess of emotions.

I can’t go back with her. I refuse to… no matter what she tries to do to persuade me otherwise.

However, I can’t risk hurting Storm.

Maybe girls like me don’t get a happily ever after, at all.

Chapter 31

Seeing the taillights of my sister’s car disappear down the mountain brought a wave of relief that I could never have imagined.

I damn near had to clutch the edge of the counter to hold myself upright, staring at the contents of my coffee that, up until the moment she disappeared from view, I hadn’t been able to stomach a single sip of. Throughout the entire agony of time she took to pack her bag, the awkward silence left me hovering with bated breath. Eventually, thankfully Cris slammed her door to the driver’s side and left.

It took a good ten minutes of pacing around the cabin before I could calm down enough to feel assured she wasn’t going to reappear like a ghoul from beyond the grave.

I know I have to sort things out with Storm. He vanished while it was still dark out, with the truck engine rumbling to life at some ungodly hour of the morning.

No doubt he didn’t sleep a single second either.

There are a million things I need to say to him, yet there are also no words willing to be forthcoming when I wrack my brain trying to come up with a suitable explanation for all of this.