Page 10 (1/2)

He wanted what his parents still had after forty years together

Life was unpredictable He saw that every day at the clinic See problerow older

Falue that kept happiness present Both certainly played a huge part in the healing process He’d seen evidence of that tiain

None of which was pertinent here

And Tricia—maybe she’d somehon, on soht offered an odd co true If she’d known, she’d have ements for Gavin

“I’ you broke up?” Amelia’s tone seemed to have softened by the time she broke into the silence that had fallen

“Tricia was killed in a car accident a couple of years ago,” he said “A drunk driver crossed a double yellow line just outside of town”

“This town? Marie Cove?” She sounded surprised “You hooked up with her when you moved here?”

“Before, actually, but we lanced around the horaduation froreed to be a part of the start-up, physician-owned clinic at Oceanfront “I h Dr Miller, Tad’s mother I don’t kno much you know about Marie Cove’s history, but the town has long been a haven for LA’s rich and famous ant to be able to exist in a sorew up here, the daughter of one of the big city’s wealthiest plastic surgeons and a married man she never named, but whom Tricia firmly believed her mother loved until the day she died”

More than he’d needed to say Or maybe, exactly what she’d needed to hear to be able to ascertain what he was asking of her Either way, the conversation wasn’t unpleasant

“So she was already gone before Tricia’s accident?”

“She died before Gavin was born” She’d killed herself with a drug and alcohol cocktail, due to the pain of loving a married uy she’d conant and nearly three years laterIt was all neatly docuether in a way that aping hole inside him—left not just by Tricia, but by the boy he’d loved like a son, thought of as a son, and then lost

“Oh”

“Oh, what?”

“Oh, no”