If Ivy was offended by the outright nosiness of the question, she didn’t show it. “I can’t remember ever not knowing Gil and Emily. But I moved away when I was eight. We stayed in touch, reconnected as teens for a few weeks one summer. And then—”
“We lost touch.” As much as Gil wanted her to explain herself, the reason they lost touch was a conversation they would have alone.
“So it had been what, fifteen years since you’d seen each other until we walked in yesterday?” Zane pressed. “What’s your story after you moved away from these guys?”
“My mom and I moved to Oregon. My biological father has never been in the picture.”
She fiddled with a cup on the table. “My mom wasn’t like their mom.” She pointed to Gil and Emily. “She could barely keep a job, slept around, and didn’t hesitate to pawn me off on others so she could do what she wanted to do. But one thing she did rightwas she kept her men away from me. I’m not exactly sure when she met my dad, Wade, but by the time she introduced him to me, they had been dating for six months.”
Zane gave her a searching look. “Was he nice?”
“He was the best. I wasn’t sure about him at first, but he won me over fast.”
“How did he do that?” Zane asked.
“He brought a chemistry set to the house and helped me do some experiments. I forgot to be wary of him when we were in the middle of setting off a controlled explosion in the dining room. From then on, I was smitten with him. The day he proposed to Mom, I began calling him Dad.”
Gil loved that she’d had that. He wished she still had it. But he already knew this story didn’t have a happy ending.
“They got married a year later, and a year after that he adopted me, and we changed my name to Collins.”
Ivy shuddered, and the sadness in her eyes had him squeezing the arm of the chair to keep himself from going to her.
“When I was fifteen, Dad was in an industrial accident. He was an engineer and was working on a large piece of equipment. Somehow the safety mechanism failed, and the part he was working on closed over his arm. It was too heavy to lift without hydraulics. His arm was crushed. He almost bled out on the plant floor. When it was all over, he lost his arm below the shoulder.”
The room went still.
“That story always sucks the life out of a room. But Dad made the best of it. A minute earlier his head and torso had been inside that equipment. If it had closed with him inside, he wouldn’t have survived. He always said he was happy to give that machine his arm so long as he got to go home to his girls.”
Ivy sat up straighter. “We had six more years with Dad, and I’msure you’ve already concluded that his experience is what drove me into my current work. It still drives me. Even though Dad won’t benefit from the prosthetics we design, he’s the one I think of when I’m working. He gave me ten beautiful years of unconditional love. I never doubted that he adored me. Some people go their entire lives without that kind of beauty.”
Luke cleared his throat. “What happened to your dad?”
Ivy stared at the blank television mounted on the wall. “A woman was having car trouble on the interstate. He stopped, along with a few other people, to help push the car off the road. No one knows for sure what happened. He may have slipped—the roads were wet—but somehow a car sideswiped him and tossed him into traffic.” She shuddered again. “He was pronounced dead at the scene.”
“Oh, Ivy.” This came from Emily, and her wobbly voice matched the tears filling her eyes.
Luke and Zane both dropped their gazes to the floor.
Gil couldn’t keep his distance and scooted his chair until his knee pressed against Ivy’s, and he draped an arm around the back of her seat. He’d wanted to go to her when they got the news through some mutual friends, but he didn’t think showing up at the funeral would be a good idea. “I’m sorry, Buttercup.” It was a relief to finally be able to say that to her.
She closed her eyes and her body relaxed, her left arm pressing against his. Then her head dipped until it lay on his shoulder. “Me too.”
GET A GRIP!Sit up. Stop leaning on Gil like a wimp.
But Ivy didn’t move. No amount of self-recrimination could force her to lift her head. In fact, if they hadn’t had an audience, she would have been all the way in his arms.
Idiot. Way to mess up everything before it even starts.
“Ivy.” She stiffened at the tentative way Zane said her name. Gil’s arm tightened around her, and his face pressed harder against her hair. She relaxed deeper into his arm but made eye contact with Zane. “I’m being nosy, but I couldn’t help but notice when you’re talking about your life, once Wade came onto the scene, you don’t mention your mom much.”
“That’s because my mom is a horrible person. She’s a user. Not of drugs, but of people. I’m not sure if she ever loved Dad, but she wasn’t going to walk away from a husband who provided for her. After he died, she didn’t waste time finding someone new. I have no valid reason to dislike her new husband, Preston, other than the fact that he married my mom. He’s tried to mend things between me and Mom but has never understood why I’m so resistant. He even went so far as to make friends with a guy I was dating in an effort to put more pressure on me to patch things up with Mom. They bonded over sports and got along great. Still do. I think they talk a couple times a month.” She gave a small shrug. “It’s hard to explain. The little bit I’ve been around him, Preston seems like a smart guy. I never understood the attraction, and I still don’t.”
“Is he ugly?” Emily asked.
“Not at all. He’s hot.”
Gil stiffened against her, but Emily grinned. “So . . .?”
