A slight raising of his left eyebrow was his only response.
She closed her eyes and wondered if that had sounded as stupid as she thought. “What I mean is that based on what I said before you probably think I’m a widow, and I’m not. Well, technically Damian is dead, but we divorced first. He died a few months later.”
“All right.”
She could see he was wondering what possible relevance that information had for him. “It’s just that we’d talked about it before. Actually, Maggie mentioned it. She made it sound as if...well...” She cleared her throat and took another sip of her brandy.
“I, ah, should go now,” she said, rising to her feet. “You have work and I—”
“You’re welcome to stay,” he said. “If you’re feeling up to a little conversation.”
“I—yes, that would be nice.” She plopped back onto the seat and smiled. The man made her nervous, but with a little effort on her part, she was sure she could act fairly normal.
“Tell me about school,” he said, moving around the desk and settling into his leather executive chair. “Why accounting?”
“It suits me,” she said, consciously relaxing in her chair. “I’ve always enjoyed math and I’m basically an orderly person. I wanted a career that gave me flexibility with my time and didn’t tie me down to a big city.”
“You want to leave Seattle?”
“No, but I want the option in case that changes.”
“Makes sense.”
“I started college right out of high school, but with getting married and then getting pregnant, I wasn’t able to finish as quickly as I would like.”
“But you didn’t give up.”
He wasn’t asking a question. His gray eyes seemed to see past her facade of quiet confidence—if that’s what her facade was projecting.
“I’m not the giving-up kind,” she admitted, and took another sip of her brandy.
Around them, the night was still. It wasn’t raining and there wasn’t any wind. In the distance she heard the faint sound of a car, but nothing else. While she and Jeff weren’t the only people left in the world, there was an air of solitude in the study. As if they might be cut off from civilization. Oddly, that didn’t seem like such a bad thing.
“Who taught you not to quit?” he asked.
She considered the question. “I didn’t have a choice. If I’d given up, I wouldn’t have survived.”
“Why?”
She hesitated, not sure she was ready, or willing, to tell her life story to a virtual stranger. But, despite his emotional distance, Jeff was easy to talk to. Probably because she doubted she could say anything that would shock him. He’d seen and done so much more than she could ever imagine. Her life would be very small in comparison.
“I had a sister who was four years older than me. Margaret...Maggie. I adored her. My dad ran off before I was born, so it was just us three girls. At least that’s what my mom used to say.” She smiled sadly at the memory. “Mom worked really long hours. She was a waitress. She tried going back to school so she could do something else, but she couldn’t make it. She was always so tired. She kept saying that she should have done it when she was young and that we should learn from her mistakes. Don’t give up on college no matter what.”
“You took her words to heart.”
Ashley nodded. “They made a lot of sense.”
He continued to study her. Was he taking her measure? Did he find her wanting? Lamplight touched his hair, illuminating the light strands. There wasn’t any gold glinting there—just pure blond. A muscle twitched in his cheek.
“You told me you don’t have any family,” he said. “Where are they now?”
Involuntarily she looked away, lowering her chin and biting her bottom lip. “Gone,” she said softly. “Maggie was hit by a drunk driver when she was just sixteen. She and a couple of friends were walking home from the library. It was about nine in the evening and they’d been studying for midterms. All three girls were killed instantly.” She hesitated. “It was a difficult time.”
The simple sentence didn’t begin to explain what she’d gone through. The shock—the incredible pain and disbelief. Her sister, her best friend, was gone.
She clutched the brandy glass in both hands. “Mom was never the same. She sort of disappeared into herself after that. A few months after Maggie died, Social Services put me in a foster home and my mom in a mental institution. One of the times they let her out for a weekend to visit with me, she killed herself.”
Jeff didn’t say anything. Ashley figured there wasn’t all that much to say. She’d had more than her share of tragedy. Most of the time she was able to deal with it, but other times it threatened to drag her down.
