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Before he could say anything, Eleanor grabbed her phone off the dashboard, unbuckled her seat belt, and slid out of the car. Wes followed her, leaning against the hood of the vehicle as Eleanor paced back and forth in the empty parking spot beside them, her phone smashed up against her ear in a death grip.
Her face grew steadily paler as she listened to the detective. After almost ten minutes, she said, “No, I understand. Yes, I… no, I… okay. Thank you, detective. Right. Okay. Thanks.”
She ended the call and stared at the phone in her hand as if she’d never seen one before.
“Eleanor?” Wes said. “Are you okay?”
He could have kicked himself. Obviously, she wasn’t okay.
She raised her gaze to him. “My father is dead.” Shock covered her features in a thick haze, and she stared wide-eyed at him. “He died eight days ago.”
Comfort her, his lion demanded.
He walked toward her and opened his arms. “Come here, Eleanor.”
She stepped into his embrace. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head when she rested her cheek against his chest. “I’m so sorry, Butterfly.”
Her arms crept around his waist and locked behind his back. He stroked the length of her back as she took a shuddering breath. “It took them a while to find me because he… because he didn’t have me listed anywhere as his dependent. Not at work, not in his will, not anywhere. It was like I didn’t exist to him.”
To his surprise, she laughed bitterly. “Fuck, I don’t know why I’m so shocked by that.”
“How did they find you?” he said.
“They only knew I existed because they tracked down a third cousin of my father’s, a woman named Patricia – I don’t even know who she is - and she told them he had a daughter.
She leaned back and stared up at him. “We weren’t close. I hadn’t talked to him in two years, and now he’s dead. He had a heart attack while driving, and he drove off the road and straight into a tree. He died immediately.”
He stroked his thumb across her cheekbone. “I’m so sorry, Eleanor.”
Her dark eyes were still full of confusion. “I didn’t… I haven’t spoken to him in two years, and now I’ll – I’ll never talk to him again. My mom is dead, and now my dad is dead, and I’m… I’m alone.”
Tears slid down her face, and he pulled her close, rubbing her back and kissing the top of her head again. “You’re not alone. I’m right here with you, Butterfly.”
She drew in a hitching breath. Already her tears had slowed, and she wiped at her damp cheeks self-consciously. “I’m sorry for what I said yesterday. I didn’t mean it. I… we’re friends, right?”
“Yes,” he said. “We are.”
“But only friends, huh?” she said with another hitch in her breath.
He wanted to be more. Fuck, did he want to be more. But he couldn’t do that to Eleanor. He couldn’t drag her down with him. “Yes, only friends.”
She didn’t reply, but her sorrow intensified, and the look on her face cut him as sharply as a blade. He glanced around them. “There’s a coffee shop at the far end of the strip mall. Why don’t I buy you a coffee, and we can talk about your dad?”
“You have to work,” she said.
“I can be a little late.”
She hesitated. “I can’t. I have another client to pick up at nine-thirty.”
“Can you reschedule?” He was almost desperate to spend a little more time with her. To stay with her until the confusion and the sorrow he could smell on her was gone.
“No. I’m driving her to the airport. She can’t miss her flight.”
“Maybe we can find someone else to drive her to the airport,” Wes said.
“No, I need to do my job. I don’t drive, and I don’t get paid, you know?”
“I know,” he said.
