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I said no more. To me that said it all.
“I take it you’re not close,” he hedged.
“He’s difficult.”
Ha. That was an understatement.
“Difficult?”
I turned to look at Wilson.
Shirtless with a pair of navy-blue sleep pants that hung low on his hips. I’d never seen him in something so casual.
A suit or naked—never in anything else.
“Yes. Difficult.”
“Difficult how?” he pushed.
I looked back out the window. There was only so much sexy Wilson I could take.
“It’s a long, boring story,” I started. “Nothing that will interest you.”
I didn’t see him raise his hand, but I sure did feel his fingers wrap around the back of my neck and squeeze.
What was it about his hand on my neck that set my body on fire?
“Everything about you interests me.”
God. If only that was true.
“Well, this won’t. My father’s a doctor. A traveling doctor. He works mostly in third world countries servicing disadvantaged populations. It’s good work. Noble. He’s good at it. An excellent doctor but a shit father. Or at least he became that after my mother died. Before that I remember him being loving and engaged.”
That was why my father’s deflection hurt so badly. Once upon a time I had a good dad. Now I had a man who only found time once a week to connect with me and when he did it was to berate me and tell me I was a disappointment.
Using his hand on the back of my neck Wilson turned me to face him.
“You lost your mom?” he murmured softly.
Danger. Danger. Danger.
Wilson’s normal take-charge, in control persona was perilous enough, I didn’t need him to add a side helping of sweet for him to be hazardous to my wellbeing.
“When I was thirteen. Complications from a heart condition she’d had since birth. I think that’s what pushed my father into his work. He couldn’t save her. That and it was his expert opinion that pushed her into getting a pacemaker. Her cardiologist said it was unnecessary at that stage but it would be necessary in the future. My father found who he said was the best cardiologist in New York to perform the surgery. She died the day after the pacemaker was put in.”
Saying it out loud, knowing my father held a tremendous amount of guilt for my mother’s death, made me feel like a total twat for not having more empathy for a husband who adored his wife.
“Gram was devastated, so was my grandfather. They were beside themselves with grief, but they never blamed my father. They did everything they could to console him even though they were in pain. But nothing worked. The dad who loved me and doted on me was gone.”
“I didn’t know Mrs. S lost a daughter.”
He looked perplexed. The all-knowing Wilson McCray didn’t know something about a woman who he’d adopted into his inner circle.
“No? I know she spoke to Letty’s parents after their daughter was murdered.”
Typical of my grandmother, she’d spent a lot of time with the Welshes guiding them through their grief even though I knew it was hard for my gram to talk about my mother’s death.
Wilson frowned and brought the conversation back to my father.
