She stopped at a large family portrait, recognizing a much younger Elaine immediately. Elaine had aged very well, looking barely different now. A man stood beside her, and it was obvious where Ethan and Joel had gotten their similar features. “Is this your father?”
“Yes. That’s Dad—Lou Brannon. He should be home soon. I think you’ll like him.”
“I’m sure I will.” But her attention had turned to the children in the photo.
Ethan and Joel were easy enough to spot; neither of them had changed significantly since toddlerhood, apparently. Yet it was the other child whose image held her riveted, another boy, this one little more than a baby, perhaps a couple of years younger than Joel. “This little boy…”
“My younger brother. Kyle.”
Sadness filled her as she realized the significance of his never mentioning Kyle to her before. Studying the happy, innocent face in the photo, she bit her lower lip.
“He died in a flash flood twenty-eight years ago. He was almost two.”
Though Joel had spoken without emotion, Nic knew him well enough to understand that his rather flat, even tone was an attempt to hide exactly how strongly he did feel about the loss of his younger brother. “I’m sorry.”
“I barely remember him,” Joel replied with a slight shrug. “I was just four myself. He was with his nanny when her car was swept into a flooded river. The car was eventually found, but neither the nanny’s nor my brother’s bodies were inside. They were never recovered.”
Nic thought of the woman she had met downstairs, and her gaze turned back to Elaine’s face in the portrait. She looked so young, so proud of her attractive family. Nic couldn’t imagine what she had gone through when she’d lost her youngest child.
“I’m very sorry,” she said again.
He nodded and motioned down the hallway. “The guest room is at the end of the hall—next door to the room where I’ll be sleeping.”
She couldn’t resist pausing to look at several more of the family photographs, amused by the images of Joel as a gap-toothed, towheaded little boy, self-conscious in front of the camera. Oddly enough, Ethan looked almost as somber and responsible as a child as he did now. Had he been born an old soul? The mental question made her smile, as it sounded more like something Aislinn would ponder than herself.
Her amusement faded when she studied the photographs of a more mature Joel. Eagle Scout, high school graduate, college graduate, medical school graduate—all of his accomplishments had been recorded and displayed in this family hall of fame. It was during high school that he began to be accompanied in many of the photos by a strikingly lovely redhead. Tall, curvy, intelligent-looking, the woman seemed to be as at home within those frames as Joel and his brother and parents.
“This is Heather,” she murmured.
“Yes.” He glanced at a wedding photo of himself and his late bride. “This was taken six months before she died.”
It was a good thing, Nic mused, that she didn’t have any romantic designs on Joel. It would be hard to compete with the memory of this supermodel-beautiful woman.
The Brannons had certainly known their share of tragedy, yet the general impression she received from this neatly crowded photo gallery was of a close, generally happy clan. Her own family had also suffered loss, she thought with a fleeting memory of her father’s last cancer-racked days. And they, too, had been able to put the pain behind them and move on with their lives, though of course it had been difficult for her mother.
That life could be hard and often unfair was something Nic had learned a long time ago. She had decided to concentrate as much as possible on the positives, a philosophy she knew she shared with Joel. So why did his old friends seem determined to focus on his tragedies rather than his accomplishments? Or was that situation mostly in his own imagination?
She supposed she would be finding out soon enough. They would be meeting his old classmates in less than three hours. Swallowing hard, she looked away from the photograph of beautiful Heather Brannon and followed Joel into the guest room.
“Joel told us you’re a police officer, Nicole. That must be a challenging career for a petite young woman like yourself.”
It was one of the first comments orthodontist Lou Brannon made after being introduced to Nic. She recognized his tone. He was one of those people who was equally fascinated and dismayed by her career choice. His only knowledge of the job probably came from television and crime novels, and he couldn’t imagine why anyone, especially a woman, would want to spend every day pursuing criminals and other lowlife.
“I enjoy it,” she said, as she always did to such comments. “And it pays my bills.”
They were standing in the den, chatting for a few minutes with Lou and Elaine before Joel and Nic had to leave for the pregame gathering of his classmates.
“It’s such a dangerous and unsavory job,” Elaine fretted. “I can’t imagine why any young woman would want to do it.”
An awkward moment of silence followed that comment. Nic finally responded with a simple, “I like it.”
“And she does it very well,” Joel said in an attempt to smooth over the slight tension his mother’s remarks had left between them. “She’s received several commendations just in the relatively short time she’s been on the force.”
Being no more comfortable with Joel’s compliments than his mother’s criticisms, Nic abruptly changed the subject. “What time are we supposed to leave for the reception?”
He checked his watch. “Pretty soon. We’re meeting at Chucky’s Bar and Grill at six for drinks before the seven-thirty kickoff. Chucky’s is less than a mile from the football field, so everyone’s going to caravan over after drinks.”
“How many were in your class?”