“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “You didn’t come here to listen to me cry about my family.”
“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t. But I’m glad I’m here.” He reached up and wiped at the tears that stubbornly continued to flow down her cheeks. “And I’ll stay as long as you’d like.”
Elle turned her gaze down to where his other hand still tenderly clasped hers. Part of her wanted him to stay, enjoyed the way he caressed the back of her hand, loved the way his deep voice soothed her. But part of her was terrified of what might happen if he did.
She wasn’t naive. She fully realized that she was in an emotionally vulnerable place at the moment and that the longer he sat there, being so damnably sensitive and sincere, the more likely it was that she was going to find herself in his arms again—and this time she had a feeling neither of them would be holding back.
And yet…
She settled back against his shoulder and twined her fingers with his. “It was a car accident,” she began after a few moments of companionable silence. “I was supposed to be with them, but I’d been at the library with my friend Stacy doing research for a school project and had lost track of time. When I realized what time it was, I called my mom and told her to go on without me, that I’d just have Stacy’s mom drop me off at the restaurant where we were supposed to be having dinner for my dad’s birthday.”
Gabe’s thumb continued to smooth over her skin, but he didn’t say a word.
She paused, remembering every detail about that day down to what she’d been wearing, what kind of car Stacy’s mom had been driving when they came upon the traffic jam, the way her stomach had dropped when they finally made it past the wreckage of an automobile that was barely recognizable as the same kind of car her parents drove.
“I saw the wreckage,” she finally continued. “They were working on the car with the jaws of life as the police officer directed us past the scene. I didn’t realize it was my parents’ car until I saw a shoe on the pavement that looked like the ones Eve always insisted on wearing. They were hot-pink Mary Janes.” Elle laughed a little, but unshed tears distorted the sound. “Nobody wore hot-pink Mary Janes. Especially not a redhead.”
“Jesus,” Gabe breathed.
Elle blew out a long, bracing breath. “I started screaming,” she told him. “It was so loud and frantic, Stacy’s mom pulled over and one of the police officers came racing over to see what the hell was going on. They told me they were trying to get my dad out of the car. He lived for a couple of days—long enough for me to say good-bye. They wouldn’t let me see my mom or sisters. I never got to say good-bye to them. Not even at the funeral. I’m told it was better that way.”
“Did they ever figure out what had caused the accident?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she told him, not bothering to check her bitterness. “A guy hopped up on cocaine had plowed into them with his pickup truck. He walked away without a scratch. He was convicted, of course, but got out in a year. He killed my entire family and only served one fucking year. Where’s the justice in that?”
“I don’t know, honey,” Gabe admitted. “Sounds shitty to me.”
“That’s why I became a prosecutor,” she told him. “I wanted to do everything I could to put bastards like him behind bars.”
“I’m sure your family would be proud of you,” he told her. “You do one hell of a job—even in spite of irredeemable jackasses who nearly ruined one of your cases.”
Elle laughed, glad for a little levity, but her laughter died on a sob. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back the additional tears that threatened to break forth now that she was actually talking about that horrific time in her life. She’d refused to talk about any of it after coming to live with Charlotte, had sat with the grief counselor for hours of therapy, willing to talk about anything and everything except that time. But not today. For some reason, she wanted to tell Gabe her story, to make him understand why she was the way she was. Why it even mattered that he understand she couldn’t say. But it did.
And when he shifted, putting an arm around her and pulling her close against him, she didn’t resist. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his torso, buried her face in his chest, and let the tears come.
She had no idea how long she cried, how long he silently held her, smoothing a hand up and down her back, soothing her. At one point, his arms tightened around her and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Unfortunately, his kindness caused her to cry harder.
Sometime later, when her tears had finally subsided, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was only then that she realized the room had grown darker, cast in shadow now that the morning sunlight was no longer streaming through her bay window.
“What time is it?” she asked, abruptly sitting up.