Through the Storm by John Ringo & Lydia Sherrer

Author:John Ringo & Lydia Sherrer [Ringo, John & Sherrer, Lydia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure, Military, Alien Contact
ISBN: 9781625799364
Google: 3bO6EAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2023-11-07T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

“Somewhere nice” turned out to be a fancy steakhouse.

Lynn gave Connor mental brownie points for his carnivorous palate, but that did little to balance out the discomfort she felt as she smoothed the skirt of the “little black dress” she was wearing.

Curse mothers and their embarrassing obsession with romance.

Far from being upset when Lynn had asked her mom about Connor’s “offer” for dinner Friday night, Matilda’s eyes had lit up and she’d actually squealed.

Squealed.

The only saving grace of the dress her mom had lent her was that she was a few inches shorter than her mom, so the thigh-length skirt made it to her knees. Even so, she kept having to resist the urge to tug it down further. It was a simple, elegant black, with three-quarter sleeves and a scooped neckline.

Lynn felt like an alien wearing it. A literal alien from Mars.

Being made from “dumb” fabric, it had an old-fashioned zipper in the back. Her mom had to explain the use of a lanyard to zip it. Even less sense was made by the confusing contraption at the top that secured right above the zipper. Something called a “hook and eye.”

And then there was all the problems of adjusting the . . . top part. Gah!

Overall, Lynn had decided it was a torture device from hell, and she only wore it to please her mom, who’d gotten all teary eyed when Lynn had tried it on.

All right, so the appreciative look in Connor’s eyes when he arrived to pick her up hadn’t been that bad either. But that look simultaneously pleased her and triggered her fight-or-flight instincts, so she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

That seemed to be the theme for the evening, actually.

Connor was much more hands-on than usual. As in hands on her. A hand on her arm, a hand at the small of her back, a hand on her shoulder. The touches made her whole body tingle strangely even as she fought off the urge to jerk away. But this was a date, right? And guys were supposed to do that on dates, right?

Somehow, she felt she should have asked her mom these questions before she’d left. But her mom had been so pleased about it all, while simultaneously swearing to be properly supportive and not pry—then in the next breath threatening to permanently disfigure Connor’s manhood if he so much as made Lynn leak a single tear—that Lynn hadn’t had the slightest clue how to respond. She’d never seen her mom go all . . . gooey-eyed before, and decided she should probably wait until she’d figured out what the heck her own feelings were on the matter before muddying the situation further with her confused, incoherent questions. Obviously, her mom had already given her “The Talk.” That had been years ago. She understood how all that worked. It was just these weird feelings and complicated dancing around with looks and gestures instead of saying things straight out that was giving her ulcers.

It

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