Her smile was a bit wicked. Uh-oh.
“You might regret saying that.”
*
“Tell me something,Trevor,” Jedidiah said. “Why did you leave Dallas and move here? Do you have family here?”
“No family. But I have friends.” She was looking at him expectantly. Dammit, why had he told her nothing was off-limits? He didn’t want to tell her the story because it made him look like a loser. But hell, hehadbeen a loser. Hooking up with Raquel had been stupid, believing she was a decent human being even more so. He had truly thought, for a while at least, that she was as beautiful inside as she was outside. The joke was on him. He sighed. “I visited my friends fairly often and I really liked the area. So I bought this house and used it as a getaway for when I got tired of being in the city. Plus I could hole up and concentrate on my work here and sometimes I couldn’t do that in Dallas.”
“But don’t you live here permanently now?”
“Yes. And you’re wondering why.”
“Yes, but you don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to talk about it.”
He was talking to a beautiful woman who was definitelynota horrible human being. Jedidiah didn’t show any of the warning signs he’d tried to ignore with Raquel. The last thing he wanted was to go into his past. “I don’t. Do you want to talk about your last failed relationship?”
She was silent for a long time. Obviously he’d stepped in it. “I’m sorry. Never mi—”
“It didn’t exactly fail,” she finally said.
How could a relationship ‘not exactly’ fail? “What happened?”
“We were engaged and it…ended. But we didn’t break up.”
“No?”
She shook her head. “He died.”
Way to go, dumbass.“Shit, I’m sorry, Jedidiah. Why didn’t you tell me to mind my own business?”
“You couldn’t have known.” She shrugged. “Maybe I told you because I’m tired of never talking about it. And unlike my family, you don’t know me.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“Yes.”
That made no sense to him. “You haven’t talked to anyone about his death?”
“Right after it happened, I talked to a…grief counselor. But not since then. At least, not until recently.”
“What about your family? Do they know what happened?”
“No. Only Damaris knows, and not in any detail. I only recently told her.”
“Do they know you were engaged?”
“No. I was planning on telling them but after he died there didn’t seem to be a point to it.” She shrugged. “At first I just couldn’t talk about it. I know my family. They would have been kind and understanding and solicitous. I knew they wouldn’t mean to, but I’d have felt smothered. So I didn’t tell them. And once I decided not to tell them I couldn’t tell my friends either.”
“So you just kept it to yourself. Both your engagement and losing him.” He couldn’t imagine carrying that burden alone.
“Yes. It happened over two years ago. For a long time, I felt like I was in limbo. Then my brothers and sister all started getting married. I guess that I decided it was time to move on.”
How in the hell did you move on when a person you loved died? “Have you?”
“Have I moved on?” She fell silent. Then said, “I guess as much as anyone could.”
“I’m so sorry.” Shit, he felt worse than ever. What was a scheming woman taking you for a ride next to someone you loved dying? He wondered how it had happened but she was clearly at the end of her confidences.
