Page 3 of Small Town, Big Storm

I tug at the black tie around my neck, hating the many pairs of eyes on me as I walk down the aisle and sit in the front row of the church.

It’s a bright day, sunshine pouring in through the stained-glass windows to send rainbows of color scattering this way and that.

Reminding me that Fate has a fucked-up sense of humor.

Norm Harrison was about as far fromsunnyas a person could get.

He was the brutal violence of lightning storm, the lashing wind of a hurricane, the destruction of an earthquake…

And now he’s gone.

Dead.

Right there on his rickety front porch, beer bottle clutched tight even in death, his face screwed up, prepared to yell at anyone who dared tread too close to his lawn.

Well, the last I don’t know for certain—since I wasn’t here—but I’d bet my life on it.

Because that was my dad.

“About time you showed up.”

I go stiff and glare down at my brother as I slide into the pew.He’s similarly clothed in a dark suit and tie, his face and muscled body almost a mirror of mine—though where my eyes are gray, his are blue, and where my hair falls into my eyes with that trademark hockey flow, his is contained, neatly corralled into an appropriate style for church.

“I’m here.”I jerk my chin toward the closed casket I’ve been avoiding looking at.“He doesn’t deserve even that much.”

“Pot meet kettle,” Rain mutters.“Since you’re doing your best to be exactly like him.”

Rage flashes through me in a hot wave, so intense, so all-consuming that I jerk toward him, my fist lifting, that I barely remember I’m in a fucking church, that I’m not on the ice where I’ll just get five minutes in the box for beating up this asshole.

My brother.

Apparently,he’sstill an asshole too.

But he’s not wrong about the drinking and fucking around and generally being an asshole.

Those traits run rampant in Harrison DNA.

Even if, once upon a time, I thought I might be diff?—

Clenching my teeth together, I shove that thought away and force myself to look forward again, my gaze drifting to the closed lid of the casket.

“Anyone check to see if the bastard’s actually in it?”I mutter and hear a gasp behind me.

My eyes flick back, connecting with an old biddy’s.It takes me a minute to place her face, but when I do, I just look forward again.

Nothing will stop Gertie Walkins from gossiping.

Or from judging.

“Oh, I checked,” Rain mutters.

“Yeah?”

“Looks like fucking Dracula—arms crossed, hair combed, face full of makeup, and trademark Harrison scowl on display,” he says to another gasp from Gertie, and for a second, I almost smile.

Because there was a time when Rain and I?—

No.It doesn’t matter.