He drew in a breath. He knew he was going to regret this. He got out, opened the passenger door and waited for her to get out. He led the way into the house, seated her in the kitchen and pulled out a pitcher of iced tea. When he had it in glasses, he sat down at the table with her.

“Go ahead,” he invited. “Get it off your chest.”

“It’s not your problem...”

“You involved me in an attempted suicide,” he said with a droll look. “That makes it my problem.”

She grimaced. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Brandon...”

“Gabriel.”

She hesitated.

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not that old,” he pointed out.

She managed a shy smile. “Okay.”

He cocked his head. “Say it,” he said, and his liquid black eyes stared unblinking into hers.

She felt her heart drop into her shoes. She swallowed down a hot wave of delight and hoped it didn’t show. “Ga... Gabriel,” she obliged.

His face seemed to soften. Just a little. He smiled, showing beautiful white teeth. “That’s better.”

She flushed. “I’m not...comfortable with men,” she blurted out.

His eyes narrowed on her face, her averted eyes. “Does your stepmother have a boyfriend?”

She swallowed, hard. The glass in her hand trembled.

He took the glass from her and put it on the table. “Tell me.”

It all poured out. Finding Roberta in Bert’s arms just after the funeral, finding them on the couch together that day, the way Bert looked and her and tried to touch her, the visit from her minister...

“And I thought my life was complicated,” he said heavily. He shook his head. “I’d forgotten what it was like to be young and at the mercy of older people.”

She studied him quietly. The expression on his face was...odd.

“You know,” she said softly. “You understand.”

“I had a stepfather,” he said through his teeth. “He was always after my sister. She was very pretty, almost fourteen. I was a few years older, and I was bigger than he was. Our mother loved him, God knew why. We’d moved back to Texas because the international company he worked for promoted him and he had to go to Dallas for the job. One day I heard my sister scream. I went into her room, and there he was. He’d tried to...” He stopped. His face was like stone. “My mother had to get a neighbor to pull me off him. After that, after she knew what had been going on, she still defended him. I was arrested, but the public defender got an earful. He spoke to my sister. My stepfather was arrested, charged, tried. My mother stood by him, the whole time. My sister was victimized by the defense attorney, after what she’d already suffered at our stepfather’s hands. She was so traumatized by the experience that she doesn’t even date.”