He took her hand in his. “Please. Call me Cole. And I’m happy to help out. I’ll have Elizabeth Riley, my agent, get in touch with you and you can direct her to the right people at the hospital to contact.”

“Thank you, Cole. It would mean so much to the children. It was such a pleasure to meet you.”

“You, too, Mrs. Sandingham.”

“Call me, Helen. And welcome home, Cole.”

He walked away, giving her a wink. She twiddled her fingers at him.

Cole wasn’t sure, but he thought Mrs. Sandingham might have forgotten all about the bidding war she’d been in with Savannah.

Savannah was at the bar sipping a glass of wine. Cole asked for a water.

“You’re my hero,” she said. “But I think Helen Sandingham might be a little bit in love with you.”

Cole took a long swallow of ice water. “I know. We have a hot date later.”

“She’s out of luck because I’m claiming you for myself. Thank you for distracting her so I could win the auction.”

“You’re welcome. You got the necklace you wanted?”

“I did. Time ran out so it was way too late for her to write the last bid. And I’m feeling rather smug about it, too. I should feel guilty, but I don’t.”

“No reason for you to feel guilty. You won it fairly…more or less.”

She laughed. “With a little interference from you.”

“Hey, whatever works. No holds barred in a bidding war.”

The head of the auction announced it had officially closed, and for everyone to step up and check out the list of winners. Those who had won needed to pay for their items at the back of the room.

She slipped off the bar stool. “I’ll be right back. I need to go settle up and claim my necklace, while simultaneously avoiding Helen Sandingham.”

“Sure. I’ll go with you. I need to do a little settling up of my own.”

Her brows rose. “Did you get that barbecue?”

“I’ll go find out.”

“Then I’ll meet you back at the bar.”

He nodded and waited for Savannah to disappear, then went to pay for the items he’d won. He met Savannah back at the bar about twenty minutes later. She had a gleam in her eyes and a velvet box in her hands.

“No fistfight with Mrs. Sandingham?”

“No. It turns out she had bid on a vacation in the Hamptons that she won, so she was too busy clucking about that to all her friends to worry about me and the necklace.”

“Good.”

“How about you? Did you get what you wanted?”

“I did.”

After making a few rounds and more tedious small talk, Savannah said they could leave.

Thank. God.

Though it hadn’t been as boring as Cole had thought it would be. At least the bidding war had been entertaining.

He drove Savannah back to her place.

“Would you like to come in for a drink?” she asked as he pulled into the driveway.

“Sure.”

He grabbed the bag from the backseat and followed her inside.

Savannah laid her purse on the table and strolled into the kitchen while he shut the front door. “I’ll go pour some wine.”

“Just water for me.”

“Fine. I’ll be back.”

When she came back out, she handed him the water. He handed her the bag.

She frowned. “What’s this?”

“I didn’t want to upset you, but this seemed to hold your attention at the auction. I wanted you to have it.”

She set her glass down on the table next to the sofa and opened the bag. She pulled out the music box. Her hand shook as she laid it over the box.

“Oh.” She lifted the lid and the music played. Her bottom lip trembled.

“Shit. I knew I shouldn’t have. I’ll take it.” He reached for it, but she closed the box and laid her hand over his, then lifted her gaze, her eyes filled with tears. “No. Don’t. It was so thoughtful of you to buy this for me. I can’t believe you did that.”

He shrugged. “Like I said, I knew it upset you. But I wasn’t sure if it was good memories or bad.”

She shuddered out an exhale. “A little of both, actually.”

He took the box from her hand and laid it on the coffee table, then pulled her to the sofa, reaching for her glass of wine to hand it to her. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“I don’t like to talk about my past.”

“Maybe you should.”

She stared at the box and took a sip of wine. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

“It obviously bothers you. And you know me, I don’t leave anything unsaid, including things I probably should. I’m the best person to unload on.”

The corners of her mouth lifted in the hint of a smile. “No, you definitely don’t leave things unsaid.”

“But the media isn’t here. No one’s here but you and me. And you can trust me. I’m the last person who’s ever going to spill your secrets.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Why what?”

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

He swept a curl that had escaped behind her ear. “Because something in that box opened up memories, and those memories are hurting you. And like the music in that box, it’s obviously something you’re shutting away instead of dealing with. You should talk about it—exorcise the ghost and make it go away.”

She cocked her head to the side and looked at him. “You’re a pretty smart guy.”

“And that surprises you?”

“Not at all.”

“Okay, then. Start talking.”

SEVENTEEN

SAVANNAH DIDN’T KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN, OR IF SHE should even talk about everything she’d bottled up inside.

It had been brewing for a while now. Maybe since that day she’d gone for dinner at Cole’s family’s house. It had been nice to spend time with his family, but also unsettling, seeing what he had and dislodging memories of what she’d never had. Then the conversation with Elizabeth and now the music box.

She was shocked Cole had bought the music box for her. Such a sweet gesture. Even more gallant was his willingness to sit here and listen to her problems.

What man voluntarily did that? No man she’d ever dated. Not that she and Cole were dating. They certainly weren’t. Having sex, yes. Dating …no.

He was being kind. Something that wasn’t typically attributed to him.

She was learning so many things about him.

“So? Are you going to talk?”

She shifted her focus back to him. He stared at her intently, held her hand, his thumb brushing lightly over hers. “This isn’t part of my job.”

“Consider yourself off duty, Miss Brooks. Now unload on me. Tell me about the music.”

She took a deep breath, then let it out, realizing maybe it was time to talk about it. “I mentioned it was a song my mother liked.”

“You did. You miss your mom?”

She let out a quiet laugh. “No. Yes and no. I don’t know. Not really.” She paused. “Sometimes. It’s hard to miss what you never really had.”

“Okay, that was a mouthful. Talk to me about your mom. You told me a while back it was just the two of you. Were you close?”

“No.”

That one word said a lot. Cole heard the pain and bitterness in that word. And loneliness.

“Did she have to work a lot to support the two of you?”

“Support? No, she didn’t work to support us. Mostly she was on welfare, food stamps, whatever she could do to get by. She’d work occasionally, but only when she absolutely had to, when the system made her. When I was old enough to stay alone, she’d go out at night and work—sometimes.”

He didn’t like the direction this was going. “Work where? Like as a waitress?”

She took a hard swallow of wine. “No. Not as a waitress. She’d get jobs at nightclubs as a stripper. When she got too worn down and haggard-looking from the drugs to do that, she’d just whore herself out on the streets.”

His stomach dropped. “Jesus, Savannah.”

She wouldn’t meet his gaze, instead stared at her hands. “Yeah.”

“How did you survive?”

“I stayed out of her way. She was mostly stoned all the time, so she didn’t bother with me. She’d get high and play classical music. She loved classical. And she’d play Beethoven, especially that music—the one in the music box—over and over again. She’d dance around the house—sometimes she was even fun. She’d grab me and we’d dance together. When I was little, I never knew she was high. I just thought she was fun. Until I got older and realized there was something terribly wrong about her.”

That’s why the song triggered the memories tonight. That’s why it was both a sweet and awful memory for her.

“The welfare and food stamps brought in enough food—when she remembered to go buy it. When I was old enough, I’d go get it, but I had to steal enough money from her purse to get groceries. She didn’t like to part with the cash because that was her drug money.”

“The state—”

“Did nothing. She made sure the state couldn’t take me away. I was a meal ticket for her.”

He frowned. “In what way?”

“Not the way you think. I mean I was a dependent, so the state paid her for me. She might have been a lot of things, but she never used me other than to get money from the state. She never brought guys to the apartment. She always did her…‘work’ on the streets. She kept men away from me. Always told me to never be like her. She told me to make sure to go to school every day and stay away from boys. She wanted better for me than she had.”

She paused, caught her breath. “I guess, in her own way, she tried her best.”

Cole couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Savannah as a child, to grow up with a drug-addicted whore of a mother who was likely too addled to care for her daughter. He wasn’t big on emotion, but Christ, his heart hurt for her.

“So what happened to her?”

“She left when I was thirteen.”

“What do you mean…left?”

“I mean she left. Decided she didn’t want to be a mother anymore. Or maybe she was so high she simply forgot she was a mother. I have no idea. When she didn’t come home for a week I finally ran out of food and there was no money to buy more. I got hungry, so I had to tell the school. Social services took me in after that.”

Cole was stunned. A child of that age left all alone. He couldn’t fathom the loneliness and fear, what that must have been like for her, wondering when or if her mother would be back. “Did they look for her?”

“So they told me. I’m sure they didn’t look hard. Where were they going to look? They knew her history. I figure she hooked up with someone and left town. Or maybe she figured I was better off without her. That’s what I’d like to think, anyway. They never told me she was dead, so…”

He was sure she wanted to think her mother was still out there somewhere. Still alive. Better than the alternative of dying of a drug overdose in an alley somewhere.

“So you ended up in foster care.”

“Yes.”

She was so calm. He wanted her to rage or cry, or hit something, to let out the emotion he knew she held in. But this was her story and she had the right to tell it—and to feel it—however she wanted to.

“How were the families you lived with?”

She lifted her gaze to his and offered a smile, but it wasn’t her normal, happy one. “Pretty good, actually. I got shifted in and out of a few at first, then ended up with a solid family. I had siblings—two younger sisters, which was nice, and attentive parents, which was even better. I had always loved school, and without having to worry or care for my mother, I could finally focus more on my studies. I wasn’t a problem child, so my foster parents didn’t have issues with me. We all got along great, I was an A student, and I ended up getting a scholarship to the University of Georgia.”

Yeah, just one big f**king happy family. Only she left out the love part. He bet she wouldn’t have done anything to make waves just so she wouldn’t be abandoned again.

“Did you miss your mom?”

“She dumped me,” she said with a shrug. “No point in missing her.”

“But you did miss her.”

She frowned. “Don’t push this, Cole.”

She tried to jerk her hand away, but he held firm, refusing to let her run this time. “Why hold it inside, Peaches? Isn’t it better to get all the hurt and anger out?”

She shifted to face him. “It was a long time ago.”

“Doesn’t make it hurt any less. Hell, I hurt after being abandoned by a goddamned football team. But I have a strong, tight-knit family who loves me. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have them. And look at you—you’re smart, you’re successful, and look at the person you’ve become. You did this all on your own.”

She looked down, then back up at him. “I didn’t do it alone. I had a very nice foster family, I was lucky to land a really great scholarship, and I had mentors to help me along the way.”

“But not a family—not your mother. The person who should have been there for you, cheering for you and supporting you.”

“Not everyone has the traditional nuclear family, Cole. Some of us actually survive that.”

“I know.” He leaned in and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “And you can try and pretend it’s okay. That you’re strong and tough and you don’t need anyone. That you didn’t need her. But that’s all bullshit. I know it, and you know it.”