Page 6 of Halloween Town

The new dynamic had taken him completely by surprise, and despite it being, on paper, somewhat acceptable, it didn’t feel right to let her down, to stop being someone safe for her.

In those few minutes before clocking her in that bikini and diving off the raft, he’d realized that being around her meant policing himself. He wouldn’t be able to talk to her or treat her the same way he had before; he’d have to retreat and ignore her. He’d have to hurt her feelings to protect her.

He hadn’t been the only one who’d noticed her transformation, his brother Benji had too. Back then, Poppy and Benji had made sense. The same age, the same level of experience…

Despite knowing Poppy wouldn’t understand, Thom decided disappearing was the less hurtful option. Clean breaks healed faster, he told himself. It had been the right thing to do, but he’d missed her, missed having someone in his life who thought he hung the moon.

And to be honest, nobody had ever looked at him the way she did.

Poppy stomped into the kitchen and slapped her hand on the only empty space on his table. The sound of her palm connecting echoed in the empty kitchen. He studied her warily. If anything, she looked angrier than before—which was saying a lot. Her blue eyes had lightened and brightened, a telltale sign her temper was sparking. Beneath her too-heavy makeup, her cheeks were flushed, the color spreading down her throat and across her chest, which was barely contained by a wedding dress that was cut far too low for a confrontation in his kitchen.

“Explain, Sheffield. Right damn now.”

He wasn’t someone who took orders meekly. Or at all. And especially not from someone who’d stumbled into his house looking like a refugee from the wedding from hell. And talking of, why had she agreed to marry Benji in the first place? He thought she was smarter than that.

Thom simply folded his arms and lifted one eyebrow in what Benji used to call his “supercilious shit” look.

“What are you doing to my grandfather’s house?” she demanded, her voice shaking. With anger, dismay, and fear? Or maybe a mixture of all three.

“My house,” he corrected, deliberately sounding bored. “Why aren’t you in Boston saying I do?”

She waved his question away and pushed a heavy strand of hair behind her ears. It never used to be that shade of blonde; it used to be richer, deeper, bottled sunlight.

“My non-wedding has nothing to do with you, but your destruction of my house has everything to do with me,” she yelled. “Who the hell gave you the right to move the furniture and to strip wallpaper, sand floors, and knock out walls?”

“I haven’t knocked out a wall,” he countered. The house was listed, and he wasn’t allowed to make structural changes, even if he wanted to.

“The reception area is twice the size it was,” she pointed out. A gust of wind through the open door tossed her veil over her face, and she ripped it off her head with one hand and threw it to the floor.

“I took out a drywall. And, again, my house. I can do whatever I want with it.”

“I know my grandfather mentioned wanting to sell the inn shortly before he died, but we didn’t hear anything more about it.”

Now that wasn’t true. Her parents knew that he’d bought the property and that he’d offered to allow Grandpa M. to live in the house until he died. Thom suspected that the rest of Poppy’s siblings knew he was the owner, too, but they’d declined to share that information with the youngest member of the family.

Partly, he suspected, because they knew she would raise hell—this was her favorite place in the world. But she’d never been, as they would put it, as intellectually, financially, and fiscally educated as they were. It was just a fancy way of saying that, because Poppy didn’t have at least two college degrees, they considered her stupid.

Her family were very far up their own asses and considered themselves rather special. He considered all of them to be dicks.

“I own this house,” Thom said, bending to pick the water bottle off the floor. He screwed on the cap and gripped it tightly.

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Poppy scoffed. “I would know if our family home went out of the family.”

It had, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Although he knew the answer, he still asked his next question. “Why are you here, Poppy?”

He saw confusion flash in her eyes, a whole bunch of hurt, and caught the wobble of her full bottom lip. She looked around and shrugged. “Because this is where I needed to be.”

That was how he’d felt two years ago when his world fell apart. But Poppy was the one person he didn’t need in his house, or back in H-Town. Under her weird hair, makeup, and panda eyes, he could see the beautiful woman he always knew she’d become. Her heart-shaped, pixie-like face, perfectly feminine with its high cheekbones, straight nose, and ever-so-slightly pouty lips. Her dress was ridiculous—it was the least Poppy-like creation ever—but the body within it was slim, curvy, effortlessly female.

And God, her eyes. As a kid, they’d always been too big for her face, and that was still, sort of, true. High, arched brows and thick black eyelashes, made longer and thicker by too much mascara, were the perfect contrast to all that blue. Grandma M. had called them Persian Blue.

When Poppy was angry, they turned lighter; when emotional, they deepened to the color of the lake as night fell, dark and mysterious. Thom had never been able to resist her when she looked up at him through her long lashes and thick bangs. Part fairy, part devil.

He pulled his eyes from her and shook himself out of his reverie. Now wasn’t the time to get soppy. He wasn’t a sentimental guy, and he wasn’t impressed by having his peaceful life—boring, but peaceful—derailed by a heartbroken bride. He nodded to her dirty wedding dress. “What did Benji do?” he asked. He couldn’t help it; he was curious.

She looked down and smoothed her hand over her stomach, and her mouth twisted in a grimace. “Nothing in particular,” she told him, sounding bleak. “I just … ran.”