Page 27 of Wine and Research
His grip tightened on the wheel. “Ten.”
Elle blinked back the unshed tears suddenly burning her eyes. “I’m really sorry.”
He nodded without glancing at her.
“My mother was pregnant with me when my dad died,” she told him without meaning to, but the words just tumbled from her lips.
It was the first time she’d ever shared that with anyone, but it felt right.
He glanced at her then. “I’m sorry. Must’ve been hard on your mom and you growing up.”
She nodded.
“Was he a cop?”
“No,” she replied. “He was a Navy SEAL.”
He scratched his temple. “Do you have any siblings?”
She did, but not anymore.
Her chest tightened, not as tightly as it used to, but she felt a ripple, nonetheless.
“No,” she replied.
She never talked about her brother, something her mother instilled in her when Elle was seven. The grief had been too much for her mom, so they never spoke about Patrick. Not on his birthday or holidays or the anniversary of his death. But Elle had always sent silent wishes to him.
Still did.
And all Elle could remember about his death was that a driver of a public bus had suffered a heart attack and careened into a crowd of people, including her brother and his field trip class. Two nearby cops, Martin and Mercer, had tried to pull some of the kids out of the way, but it hadn’t ended well. She’d pretty much learned all that from a newscast before her mother had turned off the television. Not wanting to upset her, Elle never brought it up, and after her mother’s death, she’d decided to just hold onto the memories, taking solace in the fact she could now visit her brother’s grave, since he was buried between their parents.
As they traversed several more miles, they rode in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. At another stop sign, Jeremy turned left onto a road that she knew would take them back to town.
“Is your mom a fan of your books?” Jeremy asked out of the blue.
Elle glanced at him, a little shocked that he was sticking to personal conversation. Perhaps she could get a few questions in too.
“I’d like to think she would be,” she answered, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth.
His head snapped in her direction, and he frowned at her. “Would be?”
She nodded. “My mom died when I was twenty-one.”
“Jesus, Elle. I’m sorry.” Empathy softened his expression.
The transformation had her throat heating and brought an unexpected burning to her eyes. She blinked. “Thanks. It was eleven years ago, so before my first published book. I think she’d be proud, and I know she would love how I incorporated a lot of locations that we’d visited into some of my stories.”
Her mother had loved to travel and took Elle somewhere new every summer.
“How’d she die, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“A scuba diving accident in the Bahamas,” she answered.
Elle took solace in the fact her mother had been doing something she loved.
Jeremy closed his eyes momentarily and shook his head, and by the time he reopened them, Elle decided it was time to turn the focus on him.
“So, about your outrageous calls.” Smiling, she tipped her head. “Care to share a few with me?”
