Silent Fall

ever played strip poker?"
    "No, but I’m fairly sure I’d win."
    "Why is that?"
    "Because I can read people’s expressions. And everyone has a tell, something that reveals what they’re thinking. My friend Andy, he was a great con artist. He taught me how to look for signs that show someone is nervous or confident or extremely happy about the cards they were dealt. You, for instance, get a little spark in your eyes when you’re turned on."
    "Really? I must be shooting out fireworks right about now, then," he drawled, enjoying the flush that reddened her cheeks. "And your tell is that your face turns red every time you get excited or scared. Which is it now?"
    "You’re not turning the tables on me."
    "I think I am." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "You try to be blunt, in my face, but then you back off, as if it’s not really your true nature to be so direct. But it is mine."
    "It’s also your nature to redirect the conversation away from yourself to whoever is sitting across from you."
    "Touché."
    "And the only reason you’re flirting with me is so you won’t have to think about that photo that’s in the drawer upstairs."
    "That’s not the only reason. And you know it."
    She met his gaze and gave a reluctant nod. "I do know it, but I don’t want to get hurt again."
    "Again?" he queried, realizing it was the first time she’d volunteered anything about her past romantic life.
    "There you go, trying to get into my life when yours is the one we’re supposed to be figuring out."
    "I wouldn’t hurt you, Catherine." Even as he said the words, he wondered if they were true.
    "I’m not talking about a physical hurt, Dylan. But I like you, and if I have sex with you I might fall in love with you, and you wouldn’t want that. You’d leave. And I’ve been left many times in my life. I don’t want it to happen again. How’s that for direct?"
    His gut clenched at the image of them together. Catherine wasn’t the only one who could envision them in bed together. But he could also see himself leaving, because he didn’t do love. He didn’t do commitment. He couldn’t afford to give up any of his power to another person, especially not a woman who claimed to be able to see into his head.
    "So, back to Erica," Catherine said.
    He wasn’t quite ready to move on, but he could see by the resolve in her eyes that she was. "Back to Erica," he echoed. But his mind wasn’t really on the missing brunette. It was still on Catherine, on what she hadn’t told him, and what he knew he needed to ask, even though his every instinct said not to go there. "When you touched the photo album before, you jerked as if you’d seen something."
    "I thought you didn’t want to talk about your mother."
    "Just tell me before I change my mind."
    "She was sitting on a porch swing looking out at the ocean. She was crying. She felt tremendous regret, but also a weary resignation that she couldn’t change what had happened."
    His chest squeezed so tight he could barely catch his breath. "Are you sure it was my mother?" he asked, struggling to get the words out.
    "Yes."
    He looked away from Catherine’s penetrating gaze, trying to absorb what she’d just told him. He couldn’t compute what she’d said and what he knew about the past. And a part of him didn’t want to let go of the anger he held toward his mother. He didn’t want to soften his attitude. He didn’t want to think of her as being sad. Maybe she deserved to be unhappy, to have regrets. She’d left her children behind.
    "She probably should be crying," he said harshly. "She wasn’t exactly mother of the year."
    "But you don’t really know her story, do you?" Catherine asked, compassion in her eyes.
    He wished he could say that he did, but he remembered little about his mother or his life before she left. "I know enough. The facts speak for themselves."
    "The facts don’t always tell the whole story."
    "Why are you defending her? I thought you, of all people, would understand what it’s like to grow up without a mother, although you haven’t told me what happened to yours. Did she leave you? Did she die? What’s her story? What about your father? What happened to him? How did you end up in foster care without anyone?"
    Catherine shrank back in her seat with each pounding question. Her face paled under