His jaw tight with tension, he nodded and took her hand to lead her into the house. “Can I get you anything?”

She shook her head and followed him into the drawing room.

He tugged her down next to him on the sofa. “I’m sorry,” he said, cupping her face with his hand. “I don’t think of you as a little girl, Kate, and that’s the problem. You look like a grown woman, and you act like one. I just can’t get past the fact that you’re only eighteen. People would call me a dirty old man.”

“No one would have to know.”

Resting his forehead against hers, he smiled. “Sweetheart, after that scene in the yard, I think Derek’s already on to us, and nothing’s even happened yet.”

His use of the word “yet” stirred hope within her. He was coming around.

“What you said back at the creek, about your mother. Tell me about it.” He put an arm around her to draw her to him. When she tensed, he looked down at her. “What is it?”

“What about Martha?”

“She visits her family on Sunday afternoons.”

Knowing they were alone, Kate relaxed against him. “I was fourteen,” she said, letting her mind wander back to her darkest day. “We had the best life. My parents were awesome—not like a lot of my friends’ parents. They were still so in love, and we always knew it. I had my sisters, my friends, school, my music. I was happy, you know?”

He ran a hand over her blonde hair and nodded.

“Then one day my sisters and I went shopping with my mom. As we were leaving the mall, this car came barreling at us. It was totally out of control.” Tears rolled down her face.

Reid wiped them away.

“My sisters and I jumped out of the way, but my mom just stood there frozen. We screamed and screamed at her to move, but she didn’t. The car hit her, and she went over the top of it. There was blood everywhere.” Kate shuddered at the memory. “We heard later that the driver had had a fatal heart attack, which is why the car was going so fast. I can still remember the way my dad looked when he came running into the emergency room. He had this wild look in his eyes that stayed there for a long time afterward. In some ways, it was like we lost them both that day.”

Reid tightened his arms around her and rested his cheek against her hair. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said in the lilting Southern accent she already loved.

“Nothing was ever the same. She never came out of the coma they induced after the accident. Time went by, and he seemed to get better when he realized sitting by her bed around the clock wasn’t going to bring her back. Then he met Andi.”