Tom fished his keys from his pocket as they stepped out into the summer sunshine and headed toward his Tahoe. “Unfortunately, that won’t bring back his victims. The girl died two days later and her mother only hung in there for a while longer.”
“And that’s it with Dr. Morales?” Elle prompted, studying Tom’s closed-off expression. “Or is there more to the story?”
He shrugged. “We had coffee a couple of times.”
“When?” Elle asked.
He cleared his throat. “In the months after the incident.”
Elle’s stomach sank. “You cheated on your wife?”
“God no!” he practically shouted. “I’d never do that. We just chatted over coffee a couple of times during the investigation. That’s all it was. But I could talk to Isa about things I couldn’t talk to Carly about. That was a wake-up call about my marriage, so I decided to really focus on what was important and fix what was broken between Carly and me. She was everything to me, Elle. It was killing me that we were falling apart.”
“I’m sorry, Tom,” Elle said, suddenly feeling like an insensitive bitch for pressing him. “It’s none of my business.”
He shook his head as he opened her door for her. “It’s okay. I just wish Carly and I had been able to work things out before…”
Elle grasped the edge of the door. “Before she was killed.”
He sighed and briefly massaged the back of his neck. “Apparently, she’d been planning to leave me, Elle. I was served with divorce papers two days after her death. Losing her was devastating enough, but finding out she hadn’t been in love with me anymore when I’d been trying so hard to fix things…”
Elle gave Tom a sympathetic look. “Then what’s the harm in spending a little time with a certain doctor who clearly has a crush on you? It’s been three years, Tom.”
He looked down, avoiding her gaze, waiting for her to get in so he could close her door. Obviously, he had said all he was going to on the matter. Taking the hint, Elle climbed inside and turned her thoughts back to what had nearly happened in the hospital room with Gabe—and began to feel like a complete hypocrite. Here she was, urging Tom to take advantage of a little companionship to stave off the loneliness, and yet she was fighting the sexual tension between her and Gabe at every turn.
But she shook her head, pushing away that kind of rationalizing. No, it was better if she and Gabe kept things completely professional, completely platonic. Any other possibility, as enticing as it might be—as enticing as she knew from experience it would be—wasn’t an option.
Chapter 7
“You okay?”
Gabe hobbled toward his living room on his crutches, taking a moment to navigate between the brown leather recliner and end table to get to his comfy-as-hell overstuffed couch before answering his brother. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Joe followed him into the room, hovering and fussing like a goddamned mother hen, plumping pillows, lining up all the remotes on the coffee table so they’d be within easy reach. It was driving Gabe fucking crazy. All he wanted to do was just stretch out on the couch and doze off while watching ESPN, but his younger brother had insisted on hanging out with him on his first day back home.
“You sure?” Joe pressed as Gabe eased down onto the couch, wincing with the pain.
Gabe gave Joe an irritated look. “Dude. I’m fine. How many times I gotta say it?”
Joe folded his arms over his chest and stared down his nose at him from where he stood. “Until I’m sure you’re not lying out your ass.”
Gabe’s brows lifted. “Okay, then. Truth? I’m irritated as fuck with you at the moment, but other than that, I’m good.”
Joe grunted. “Yeah? How’d you sleep last night?”
Gabe looked away, clenching his jaw so tightly he could feel the muscle ticking with the strain.
“That’s what I thought,” Joe replied as he sat in the recliner and eased it back, the smug little shit.
After the silence had stretched on for several seconds, Gabe finally heaved a harsh sigh and turned his gaze back to his brother, not surprised at all to see Joe studying him. “It’s not like what you went through in Afghanistan,” Gabe assured him. “This is totally different, Joey.”
“You were shot, Gabe,” Joe reminded him—as if he needed it. “You could’ve died. A guy doesn’t go through something like that without it affecting him.”