Scrunching up her nose at him, she fought a smile. “Only one.”
“Good, because this T-Rex is possessive as hell and does not share well.” He ran his hand over her hip again. “How about here?”
Charlotte looked at the natural seat formed by a spreading limb, and the bubbles of delight went flat. It was time. No more delays. She had to tell him every bit of the ugliness. “Yes,” she whispered and sucked in a breath when he put both hands on her waist and lifted her up onto the tree. Instead of sitting beside her, he leaned against the branch, his arm braced behind her.
“I thought you liked crowding me,” she murmured, heart bruising at the sign that he might already be pulling away.
“I love crowding you. But since you didn’t want to talk in the car, I thought I’d behave and give you some space.” Eyes of steel gray pierced hers. “I’m right here if you need me, and I’m more than big enough to help you fight your demons. Just say the word.”
Her heart ached. She shifted closer to the reassuring bulk of him without a word. Expression softening, he cuddled her by curving his arm around her without blocking her in.
“I don’t know how to start,” she said, watching a girl spin around in the arms of a boy before they both raced away toward the white spire of the university’s clock tower.
“Did it happen here?”
“Yes.” At least it had begun here.
“Then start here. Tell me about your wild college days.”
Charlotte wanted to smile, couldn’t. The past was too heavy, too horrible; the malevolent shadow of it crushed any lightness inside her. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but since I enjoyed reading the business pages, I decided to do a commerce degree, majoring in accounting.” She laughed softly, but the sound held no humor. “It sounds like such a stupid reason to make that big a decision, but I wasn’t thinking on all cylinders.”
“Was your mom sick when you had to decide?”
Charlotte nodded, the memory of loss heavy on her heart. “My mom told me to live my life, to not let her death weigh me down, and I was determined to do that—even after I lost my father too.”
Her throat grew thick despite the distance of years between that moment and this. “It happened just weeks before the start of the semester. At first, I was a zombie sleepwalking through lectures, but after I survived that first burn of grief, I wanted to make Mom and Dad proud.”
Gabriel stroked his hand over her hip. “Did you have anyone to lean on?”
“Molly.” She cuddled even closer to him. “I wouldn’t have made it without her.” Her best friend had all but carried her through the weeks directly after her father’s shock passing. “I’d turned eighteen a couple of weeks earlier, so I was technically an adult when my father died, but I was so lost. Molly’s the one who organized my dad’s funeral, who talked to the lawyers to make sure I was given access to the family accounts so I could pay for things.”
Charlotte had been numb with shock, unable to forget the chill of her father’s hand that day she’d gone to fetch him down for breakfast. She’d found him with a faint smile on his face, his expression peaceful.
Swallowing past the knot of old grief, she said, “I just couldn’t get my mind around the fact that they were both gone.” It had been one blow too many.
“What about your parents’ families?” Gabriel scowled. “They should’ve been there for you.”
“My parents were both only children, and their parents died when I was little.” Charlotte had never known a rambunctious extended family like Gabriel’s. “They had a circle of good friends though, and Molly later told me those friends had stepped in to help her figure things out. But she was the one who held it all together.”
Gabriel touched the fingers of his free hand to her jaw, tilting her face toward him. “I’m guessing you did the same for her when the scandal tore her family apart.”
“It wasn’t the same.” Then, as now, Molly had been tough.
“What does Molly say?”
“That she wouldn’t have made it without me,” Charlotte confessed.
“You were my oak tree,” Molly had said once. “Enduring and protective and with a loyalty so deeply rooted, I knew no storm would wash you away. I would’ve drowned without you.”
“I think she knows what she’s talking about.” Gabriel tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I bet your parents wanted her to live with you after the car accident that took her folks.”
Charlotte nodded jerkily. “Except the doctors had already found the new cancers in Mom’s body. The social workers wouldn’t approve Molly living with us.” They’d said Pippa Baird didn’t need the stress, but Charlotte’s mom had worried constantly over Molly. “She had to go live with strangers, but mostly, she just slept there.” Molly’s foster parents hadn’t been bad people; they just hadn’t had the tools to handle a teenage girl who’d lost everything.
“It was a no-brainer to share living space when we began university.” Neither she nor Molly had anyone else they trusted enough to live with. “At the start, we lived in my parents’ home, but I sold it a month later—they had very good insurance, so there were no bills, but I couldn’t bear to live there anymore.” The silence had been crushing. Her father’s laughter would never again light up the room. Her mother’s voice would never again rise in a silly song as she worked.