Killian Read online

  not some giant thing. Don’t make a giant thing about it.”

  I was lying. It was the biggest of things. I couldn’t believe I’d just offered to have Silas meet my grandmother. She’d think I was marrying him.

  Silas was still grinning. “Yeah,” he said. “No big deal. When?”

  “Seriously,” I said. “You’re making it a thing. I can see it in your face. Don’t. You can meet her whenever. Maybe tomorrow or something.”

  “No way,” he said. “How about now?”

  “Now is sudden.”

  “Exactly,” Silas said. “I don’t need to give you an opportunity to change your mind.”

  Nana gasped audibly, her hand over her mouth, doing her best to be as dramatic as possible. “Oh my stars,” he said. “This is Silas, isn’t it? My, my, my, look at those eyes.”

  Silas chuckled. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Weston.”

  “Oh, and he’s as polite as he is good-looking, isn’t he?” she asked, gesturing to the chairs in the room. “Call me Letty. Mrs. Weston makes me feel like my mother, and that makes me feel like I’m a hundred years old and I’m not quite there yet. Sit with me and visit, will you? I told you he was a young Paul Newman, didn’t I? Those eyes. Of course, I hadn’t seen you in person, just photos from your mother.”

  “You were friends with my mother,” Silas said.

  Letty sank into her armchair and smoothed the pant leg of her tracksuit, today’s choice a pink and purple rhinestone studded number. “I don’t know that I’d call us friends exactly,” she said. “Your mother - God rest her soul - I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but your mother was a...complicated...person.”

  Silas made a sound that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a cough. “Complicated is a good way of putting it.”

  “Well, then you know, I don’t think your mother really had friends,” Letty said. “I’m not sure she was really that capable of something of that nature. But we were good acquaintances, I’d say, on account of us both being black sheep in the town. Your family and mine, we had that in common.”

  “People didn’t take too kindly to my parents and me running out of town the way we did,” I said. I felt badly about the effect we’d had on so many people.

  “Oh now, I can see that worry line right in the middle of your forehead,” Letty said. “A young girl like you shouldn’t have lines already. Stop concerning yourself with things that happened years ago. I’ve always been a bit of a black sheep, well before your parents did their thing. And besides, it adds a little color to my life, having a salacious story like that- my grifter daughter and her con man husband. It ain’t hurting me a bit.”

  I laughed. “Nana, I’m not sure you need any more salaciousness added to your life.”

  My grandmother leaned forward and looked at Silas. “She’s talking about my active social life here,” she said, winking. “Of course, if I were sixty years younger, I’d give someone like you a run for your money, young man.”

  “Oh my God, Nana,” I interrupted. “Please do not hit on Silas. Holy shit.”

  “Watch your mouth,” she said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “You’re the one who said you were, and I quote, fucking fantastic the last time I came to see you, Nana.”

  “I’m not talking about your language,” she said. “I’m talking about your telling me to not hit on this man sitting in front of me who’s a dead ringer for Paul Newman. Or, who’s that other fellow, the young one with the blue eyes?”

  “I don’t know, Nana,” I said, laughing and shaking my head. Silas leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, smirking as he watched us go back and forth.

  My grandmother waved her hand. “You know who I’m talking about,” she said. “That actor. The one who plays bongos naked in his house.”

  Silas laughed out loud. “You mean Matthew McConaughey,” he said. “Well, thank you very much, Letty.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t encourage her,” I warned. “The next thing you know, she’ll be telling you to stand up so she can get a better view of your ass.”

  “Oh, would you like me to stand, Letty?” Silas asked, smiling and feigning standing. “I’m happy to oblige.”

  “You two make me out to be some kind of lecherous old woman,” Letty said.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Well, you are certainly no nun.”

  Letty laughed. “There’s no confusing me with a nun, that’s for sure,” she said. “Now, more importantly, this Silas. Is he your boyfriend?” She turned to me, making a show of ignoring Silas.

  “Nana!” I said. “He’s sitting right there.”

  “Which is exactly why I asked,” she said, directing her attention to Silas. “Are you her boyfriend?”

  I looked at Silas, my eyes wide, and he grinned, leaning forward in his chair. “I’d like to be, Letty,” he said. “More than that, even.”

  Letty whooped and turned to me while I glared at Silas, my heart pounding in my chest. I couldn’t think of anything except the fact that I’d brought him here, to meet my grandmother, and now he was ambushing me, right here in front of her.

  My head was swimming.

  Letty’s voice broke through my thoughts. “I hope you heard that, girl,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she looked at me.

  “I’m too old for a boyfriend,” I said, looking at him. “We’re not teenagers.”

  “No,” Silas said, not breaking eye contact. “We aren’t teenagers. And you’re right about being too old for a boyfriend. We agree on that.”

  My heart skipped a beat. That was sudden, his changing his mind. I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed.

  I was afraid I was more disappointed.

  But when I looked at Silas, he seemed nonplussed. He smiled and winked at me. What the hell was he thinking?

  “You know,” Letty said. “Life is too short to dick around not knowing what you want. You have to figure that shit out. Otherwise, all you’re going to have is regret.”

  “Letty, I don’t need a lecture -” I began, ignoring the fact that I could feel Silas’ eyes on me.

  “All of us need this lecture, from time to time,” she said. “Life is too short to not take what you want from it, and that includes having ties to people, people that matter. Drifting around is only fun for so long, or if you’ve got some place - someone- to come back to.”

  I didn’t say anything, only half-listening as Letty lectured me. What the hell was I thinking, bringing Silas here? I should have known that Letty would like him way too much.

  I tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head, the one that said that’s the exact reason I’d taken Silas to meet her.

  “Now.” Her voice broke through my thoughts. “Now that the both of you are here. Let’s talk about this town. I asked Tempest to do some research for me.”

  34

  Silas

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked.

  Tempest looked over at me from where she sat in the passenger seat. “Are you okay with bringing me here?”

  “I’m okay if you’re okay,” I said. God, I sounded like such an idiot. Letty’s question about me being Tempest’s boyfriend had thrown me off earlier.

  The problem was that I didn’t want to be Tempest’s boyfriend. We were twenty-four, too old for that shit. Twenty-four was young for most people still dating and playing the field. But Tempest and I, we weren’t young twenty-four-year-olds. We’d both been through too much.

  And we had too much damn history to ever date.

  I couldn’t imagine taking her out to dinner and trying to get to know her.

  I didn’t want to take her to dinner and the movies. I wanted to take this girl home. For good.

  This girl was mine. She’d always been mine.

  “Is it weird for you, coming back here?”

  I shrugged. “Sort of,” I said. “Not really. I mean, I came back to my mom’s house when I got back to West Bend, for a little bi