“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.
Gabe checked his watch. “About two.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh, Gabe—I’m so sorry. I’ve kept you here way too long. I can’t imagine sitting here with me for a couple of hours while I sniffled all over your shirt was quite what you had in mind for your day.” She brushed at a damp spot on his shoulder where her tears still hadn’t dried.
He lifted her chin with the edge of his hand. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.” But as if to contradict his words, his stomach grumbled, making them both chuckle. “Okay, so maybe I could’ve used some lunch. But you needed somebody to listen, and, hey, I have ears.”
Elle laughed, wiping away the last of her tears, and got to her feet. “Thanks, Gabe. For being here.”
“Ah,” he said, pushing up from the sofa with a knowing grin. “I guess this is where you say, ‘And by that, I mean, get the hell out now.’”
Elle’s shoulders sagged when she realized how ungrateful she sounded. “Oh God—I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant—”
He held up a hand, halting her words. “How about you let me take you to lunch and we call it even?”
She glanced down at her clothes. “I’m a mess, Gabe. I can’t go anywhere looking like this.”
“Sure you can,” he said, giving her that dimpled smile that made her insides flutter no matter how hard she fought it. “I know just the place.”
* * *
Gabe chanced a glance at Elle in the seat beside him, the air from the open windows of the Charger whipping loose curls about and freeing more of their comrades from the confines of her ponytail holder, giving her a reckless, wild look he found damned alluring.
Elle was a beautiful woman whose appearance was impeccable every single day when she was working, giving her a very intense, powerful presence. So seeing her a little disheveled and windblown got his blood pumping to all the wrong places.
She’d been worried about not being dressed appropriately to go anywhere for lunch, but in a white T-shirt that hugged her curves and cut-offs that showed off her long, shapely legs, she was gorgeous, in his opinion. As much as he was aching to feel her in his arms again, the last thing he wanted to do was come onto her like a total asshole when she was dealing with some seriously heavy emotional shit.
“So, where are we going?” she asked, frowning as she glanced around.
“Just be patient,” he insisted, sending a grin her way. “It’s okay to let someone else take the lead now and then, Elle.”
“I’m not a control freak,” she informed him. “I let other people take the lead all the time.”
He glanced over at her, giving her a disbelieving look that made her laugh.
“Okay, okay. Fine! I’m a control freak. Happy now?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” He was more than a little astonished to find that he actually was happy. For the first time since Chris’s death, really. He’d had some moments of happiness, he guessed—and almost every one of them involved the incredible woman at his side.
But even those moments, as amazing as they’d been, and as often as he’d relived them in his mind, were nothing to what he felt just then with Elle at his side, grinning as she smoothed her curls back and closed her eyes, then turned her face into the wind. Knowing he’d been able to relieve her sorrow and suffering, even if for just a little while, made him feel like he could take on the whole goddamned world and come out on top.
He was actually disappointed when their destination came into view and he had to park the Charger. But then Elle’s eyes opened, and she laughed and turned toward him, grinning from ear to ear, her green eyes sparkling with delight.
“You’re kidding me!” she cried, gesturing toward the entrance to the county fairgrounds. “You can’t go in there. You can barely walk.”
