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“Why Nebraska?”
He took a sip from his cup. “Why not?”
“It’s just that if we’re going to keep this as ‘real’ as possible—so we can keep things straight—we should probably pick a place we’ve both been.”
“Good call. Maryland?”
“Nope. California?”
“Not since I was a kid.”
“I suppose Nebraska it is, then.” She tossed him a smile that didn’t quite make it to her eyes. “Hopefully, someone will steal something, and we’ll get a video. I’d hate for this whole thing to be a waste.”
His resolve not to pursue her weakened. Dancing, making out, and waking up next to her? Not a waste.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asked.
A warning bell clanged in his mind. “Confession time is over, but I suppose it depends on the question. Shoot.”
“Why is confession time over? Shouldn’t it always be confession time?” She tilted her head to the side slightly.
Funny, she hadn’t been gung-ho to play Confessions the other night.
“Last I checked, I’m a reporter, not a priest. This means confession time has limits. What do you want to ask?”
“What’s in the envelope on the nightstand?” Oh. He’d forgotten to take it with him.
“Don’t answer. None of my business.” She shook her head and poured more coffee for herself. “I was just curious because I’ve seen you mess with it a few times.”
“Okay, I’ll play. But you agree to match the confession, yeah? What’re you putting on the line?”
“I already agreed to have pretend children, isn’t that enough for one day?”
He leaned forward, so they sat knee to knee, and spoke slowly. “I confess in the envelope is a…letter.”
She pulled her knees against her chest. “Right, Sherlock.
I got that part. Who is the letter from?”
He backed away from her. “My mother.”
Shock registered on her face. “Seriously?” she whispered.
“Seriously. Got it at the reading of her will.” He crossed his ankle over his knee and shifted in the chair. “I keep it with me. Keeps me grounded.”
“What’s it say? The letter, I mean.”
“As you pointed out, it’s unopened. Which indicates, Watson, that I don’t know what it says.”
She glanced up then. “Why haven’t you opened it?”
“Don’t want to know what it says.”
He leaned back, dangling his arm across the back of the chair on the other side of him.
“Why?” Her brown eyes were genuinely curious.
“Doesn’t matter what the letter says. Most likely it’s a final diatribe of how I screwed up my life. Mom kicked me out, and I didn’t see her for over a year before she passed. The last thing she said to me on the phone was that I needed to quit pissing my life away. Not in those exact words, but you get the idea. The conversation involved a lot of yelling. I don’t need a written reminder of how disappointing I was to her.”
