AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He smiled. "Yeah, I do."
"She's not going to date you. She doesn't go out at all."
"Why is that?" he asked curiously.
"She just doesn't," Megan said. "She works a lot."
"Maybe she should take some time for fun."
"She's forgotten how to have fun." Megan sighed and settled back against the seat. "She used to laugh all the time. Now, I hardly ever see her smile."
"Why is that?"
Megan shrugged.
A moment of silence passed, then he said. "You two aren't very close in age. Do you have the same parents?"
Megan frowned, and then winced at the pain that followed. "That's a weird question," she said, a grumpy note in her voice. "I'm her sister. We would have the same parents, right?"
"I was thinking maybe there was a second marriage or a divorce or something."
"Oh. Well, you should ask Tory."
"She's not very talkative," Drew said.
Megan acknowledged his comment with a nod. "Trust me, I know. I talk all the time, way too much. It used to drive my mom crazy. She said I had an endless number of questions. And now it makes Tory crazy, too."
"Questions are good. It's the only way you learn anything."
"I think so, too. So what do you do?"
"I fly helicopters for the Coast Guard."
She sat up in her seat, new interest in her eyes. "Seriously? That's cool."
"It is cool," he agreed. "Have you ever been in a helicopter?"
"No, but I want to. My mom and dad took a helicopter tour in Hawaii, and they flew into a volcano. They said it was really exciting. Have you done that?"
"I haven't done that yet."
"You should," Megan said, ending her words with a yawn. "So where did you meet Tory?"
"In a bar." He figured he wasn't giving anything away with that answer.
"My mom met my dad in a bar," she said sleepily.
"Yeah?"
"My father told me that his heart literally stopped when he saw my mom; she was so beautiful. He knew right then that she was going to be his wife," Megan said, a dreamy note in her voice. "I want someone to fall in love with me like that."
Her words took him back to the island, to the moment that he'd set eyes on Ria. His heart had stopped, too. He hadn't called it love; he'd been much more comfortable with desire. Because physical attraction he understood and could handle. The emotional component had always eluded him.
"My mom said my dad swept her off her feet. She fell madly in love, just like they do in the fairytales." She took a breath. "But she didn't get her happily ever after."
Drew's gaze narrowed as Megan ended her words on a sniff and then quickly blinked away tears.
"Did something happen to your mom, Megan?"
"She died. So did my dad. It's just me now."
"You and Tory," he said.
"Right. It's just me and Tory, and I shouldn't talk about my parents."
Considering how many times Megan had already brought them up, Drew found her words to be a bit ironic. But he wasn't going to question a teenager about her dead parents.
After a moment of quiet, he said, "I lost my mother when I was five years old. She died of cancer. I don't have a lot of memories of her, but one that has always stuck with me is the lavender smell of her perfume. Whenever I smell lavender, I think of her."
Megan stared back at him. "My mom smelled like gardenias. She loved flowers. She'd spend hours in our greenhouse, and at night when she'd tuck me in, I'd smell gardenias in her hair." She paused, a guilty look flashing through her eyes. "Don’t tell Tory I told you that."
"I won't. But can I ask why?"
"It makes her sad."
He nodded. "I can understand that."
"I missed my mom today," Megan confessed. "When I was waiting in the hospital by myself, I really wished she was still alive so that she could hug me and tell me everything would be okay." Megan sniffed again. "I can't cry because my nose is going to get all stuffy," she added, a desperate note in her voice.
"Don't cry," he said quickly. "It's going to be okay."
"My prom is on Saturday night. And I look like a monster. How is it going to be okay?"
