She sat down. Camellia covered her hand. “That’s a huge step, Mom.”
“Here’s another one,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about selling the house.”
Camellia felt her face react but tried to hide her surprise and dismay. She had expected to inherit the house. And either live in it or sell it and explore new places. She was making decent money investigating for insurance companies and attorneys, but even then, mortgages were huge.
But that was not, she reminded herself, her mother’s problem. So she wiped the disappointment off her face and nodded, and said, “I see.”
“The property taxes, school taxes, and all the maintenance are more than rent would be in a nice apartment,” her mother said. “And I’d be closer to people. I feel like I’m keeping you from living your life just because I don’t want to be alone.”
“I love being with you, Mom. And it’s given me time to save some money, too, so I can have my own place someday.”
“I know,” her mom said. “If the house sells, I’ll give you half. It’s your inheritance, after all.”
“That’s really generous.”
“Well, like I said, I’m only thinking about it.” She sighed. “I’m also thinking about a new town. What do you think?”
“I’ve been feeling a little bit of wanderlust myself, Mom. I’d be open to a new town,” she said. “It’d be an adventure.”
Her mom smiled, clearly relieved. “I’ll miss you on my cruise.”
“I’ll miss you too,” she told her mom.
“So, tell me about your day. Is this the dying woman with the secret identity?”
Camellia wasn’t supposed to discuss her cases, but she told her mother everything. It hurt no one and kept Erica from grieving so much. She’d do worse things to ease her mother’s pain. “Yeah. I met the son tonight. He’s…not what I expected.”
“No?” Erica poured a little balsamic glaze over the veggies in her bowl, then reached across the table to offer her the bottle.
Camellia drizzled while Wolf Travail’s brown eyes appeared in her mind. “No. I had to tell him. He was pretty upset.”
“Poor man. What’s he like?”
“He’s the handsomest man I’ve ever seen in my life, Mom.”
Her mother paused with the fork almost to her mouth.
“The kind of handsome that smacks you in the face, you know? When he opened the door, I just gaped for a second.”
“Oh?”
“Don’t say it like that. And yes, he’s single.”
“I didn’t ask if he was single.”
“It was in your ‘oh’.”
“When are you seeing him again?”
“We’re having breakfast together, during which I’ll probably tell him more stuff that’ll ruin his life. And then I’m going to visit his dying mother. It’s not a first date, trust me. Besides, this guy doesn’t even know which end is up right now, and the last thing I need is another broken man-child to try fixing. Or any man, since I’ve sworn off them for good.”
“He seems broken to you?”
“In the ten minutes I talked to him, you mean?”
“He’s going through a rough patch, though,” her mother said. She broke off a piece of bread, then gestured with it. “I bet I could tell in ten minutes.”
Camellia sighed. “This is just a job. Understand?”
