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“You two are so cute here. What were you, about ten?”
“Yeah, around that.”
He took the picture from her hand and looked at it. His mom was a very pretty and caring woman. She didn’t deserve to be treated so badly, and she surely didn’t deserve to die the way she did.
“Are you okay?” Ava asked, and he felt her hand touch his arm.
Ava was a caring woman, too. He liked that about her.
“She passed away when Evan and I were teenagers. After she passed, we joined the service.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. How did she die?”
“Cancer,” Evan stated as he joined them in front of the fireplace as he looked at the picture, too.
Ava released his hand and stepped away from Colton. He knew that talking about someone dying was tough and especially when someone had cancer, but Ava looked suddenly pale.
“Are you all right?” Evan asked her, obviously noticing the same thing.
“I’m fine. I should probably get going.”
Colton placed the picture back onto the mantel.
“No, don’t go, stay a little longer,” Evan said as he reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles and she smiled. Her cheeks were no longer pale, but a lovely shade of pink.
“Maybe a little bit longer,” she replied and Colton smiled.
Evan led Ava to the couch where they sat on either side of her.
“How about you? Do you have any family?” Evan asked.
“Just my fellow Dixie Chix and their men. I left Georgia, after my husband passed.”
Colton felt a tinge of something hit his stomach when she mentioned her husband. She was so young, and the tragedy she’d faced wasn’t fair.
“Did you have friends or anyone around to help you when your husband was diagnosed?” Evan asked and Colton knew where the line of questioning was coming from. Evan was thinking about their mother. If not for Colton and Evan, she might have died alone instead of in their arms.
“No. He had some friends in the service that stopped in after the funeral. I wanted to be alone. There were a lot of emotions and other things going on as well.”
“When our mom was diagnosed with cancer, Colton and I took care of her ourselves.”
“Oh God, didn’t you have a father?” she asked.
“He was a loser and a drunk,” Colton stated firmly as he eased back into the couch.
“He basically stopped being a father and a husband the moment mom was diagnosed. We took care of her. We were there when she died.” Evan took her hand and brought it to his lips again to kiss.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that. Were you teenagers?”
“Eighteen and seventeen. Then we enlisted into the Army.”
“What about your father?”
“Who cares? He showed up at the funeral. Drunk and obnoxious. We told him that we never wanted to see him again,” Evan told her.
“That must have been rough.”
“I sure wouldn’t want to go through anything like that again.”
