...Here I sit, twenty-five years old, writing in my journal on All Hallows’ Eve, instead of out partying with friends. Oh yeah, I have friends now. People I met in college who knew nothing about my crazy mother or the fact my dad had horns. All they know about me was what I told them.

I could have gone to one of their places, hung out, and got drunk tonight. I didn’t feel like it. Halloween is a strange time for me. I always feel restless and nervous as October thirty-first approaches each year, like I’m waiting for something spectacular to happen. Nothing ever has and that’s the story of my life. The only thing that happens is me being tormented by ghosts from the past.

It often seems like the universe is setting me up to be the punch line in some cosmic joke, but it hasn’t seen fit to clue me in yet.

I stop writing and pop another handful of candy corn in my mouth. It’s a dark and stormy evening. No, really it is. A cold front roared in from the north and it’s been raining for most of the day. Just as I notice the lack of wind, a knock on my front door nearly sends me off my bed and into the closet. I haven’t been in the closet since I graduated high school. I’ve no interest in going back in.

“Who’d be out in a night like this?” I mutter as I shove my feet into my Bugs Bunny slippers and trudge down the hall to the front door.

Probably some trick-or-treaters totally ignoring the fact I don’t have my porch light on. There is no way I’m sharing my candy with the bratty neighborhood kids. My hand pauses at the light switch. Christ! Twenty-five and I’m already a curmudgeon. I flip the light on and yank open the door. Whatever I mean to say disappears from my mind as I catch sight of the man standing on my front porch.

Holy honeysuckle, Batman! An angel stands there, soaked and shivering, but trust me when I tell you he is beautiful. Though with my luck, he isn’t one of the heavenly angels. He looks like I’ve always imagined one of the fallen types does. With blue-tinged lips and dripping blond hair, he looks like a five-mile stretch of bad road covered in mud and potholes, yet his underlying hotness shines through.

“Can I come in?” His teeth chatter, and I blink.

It’s the nice thing to do and I know for a fact my neighbors aren’t home, so I can’t even send him to them. With barely disguised annoyance, I step back and gesture for him to step in.

He flows into the front entryway like he owns the place, and somehow his confidence puts me more on edge. I never liked men who ooze arrogance and belonging from every pore. How could he manage it looking like a drowned rat?

“Do you have a towel I could use?”

Damn, caught me daydreaming again. I grit my teeth and nod. “Stay there. I don’t want water and mud all over my floor.”

I stomp to my guest bathroom, which is hard to do in slippers, but I try to get across the fact I’m doing this under duress. I fight the urge to mutter under my breath, another bad habit of mine. I snatch three towels out of the closet and stalk back to him. He’d stayed right where I left him, earning him some points. So many people you invite into your house tend to believe it’s an open invitation to snoop, and trust me, I don’t want anyone wandering around my house unsupervised.

I hand him the first towel before sighing. “Why don’t you go and clean up in the bathroom?”

He glances down at his clothes. “I don’t have any clothes with me to change into.”

“For goodness sakes,” I mutter. “Fine. I probably have some clothes that’ll fit you.”

He eyed me skeptically.

“Trust me. I have some friends about your size and they’ve left clothes here.”

“I’m surprised you have friends.”

The hint of sarcasm in his tone earns him a few more points, and I incline my head slightly, acknowledging his barb. “Well, some people find me tolerable.”

“Sort of like Grumpy in Snow White,” he murmurs.

I shoot him a narrow-eyed glare. “Watch it, sweetheart. Unlike those dwarves, I’ll toss your ass back out in the rain.”