Come A Little Bit Closer (The Sullivans #7)(10)

“What about the poodle puppy?”

“The poodle belongs to my soon-to-be niece. Summer is eight-years-old and she brilliantly maneuvered her single mother and my brother Gabe together. They’re getting married on New Year’s Eve in Lake Tahoe. It’s where they fell in love last year.”

“Oh,” she said with a little sigh, “that’s just lovely.” Her eyes, her mouth, were soft as she practically brimmed over with emotion.

Smith had lit a fire earlier, and now, as they sat together working on the puzzle in front of it, it hit him that this was the first time in his life he’d ever experienced something this warm, this sweet, with a woman. Heck, now that he thought about it, this was actually the second time he’d tried to put this puzzle together. The last time it sat unfinished, the woman he’d mistakenly brought home had thought it would be sexy to swipe it off onto the floor so that he could do her on top of the coffee table. A while later, when the woman had gone to the bathroom to straighten her hair and clothes before he sent her home, he’d immediately picked up the pieces.

Doing a woman he’d picked up at a Hollywood event on top of his coffee table was something a movie star did.

Making a puzzle in front of a fire was something a couple did.

“Your family sounds incredible,” Valentina said, her words tinged with wistfulness as she reached for another puzzle piece and popped it into place. “Your parents must have had a perfect marriage for everyone to turn out so well.”

“They did seem to have a pretty great marriage, although to hear my mother tell some of her stories about my father, he had his moments.” Smith winced slightly at the tug in his chest that nailed him whenever he spoke about Jack Sullivan. Smith didn’t miss him every day, but when he did, the sense of loss could be overpowering. “He died when I was thirteen.”

Her eyes widened at the information, giving him even more confirmation that she hadn’t spent one moment of her life reading about him in a magazine or looking him up on the Internet.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t know.”

He was amazed by how much it meant to him, this possibility of building a relationship with someone where they both started from the same place, so that they could both uncover and discover each other’s stories at the same time that they wrote their own story together.

“My father,” she said so softly he had to focus on her lips to hear the words as her eyes closed and she sucked in a breath, “died, too.”

It was pure instinct to cover her hand with his over the loose puzzle pieces. “How old were you?”

Her breath shook slightly as she said, “Twenty-two. I know I should be over it by now, but—”

It wasn’t enough to simply hold her hand, he needed to wrap his arms around her. It didn’t surprise him when her long, lean limbs fit perfectly against his.

“I used to think the same thing, that one day I’d wake up and I’d be over it. That I’d be able to think of him without it hurting.” He took one hand from her back to put it over his heart, as if to soothe the ache. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

When she instinctively moved her hand over his to try to comfort him, his chest squeezed tight at just how good it felt to have her touch him with such innate sweetness.

“I miss my father so much,” she admitted. “Everything changed after he died.”

“I know exactly what you mean.” And he did. Because even though his mother had been amazing as she stepped up to the plate to parent eight kids by herself, and even with his brothers and sisters all banding together to take care of each other, it had still sucked to lose his dad. Really, really bad. “That first year, all nine of us—” The nine that their father had left behind. “—were all trying so hard just to be normal. But how could we be when nothing was normal anymore?”

“Normal.” Valentina echoed the word in a hollow voice. “I would have given anything for normal. Especially for Tatiana.”

“How did your sister and mother deal with losing your father?”

“Tatiana is beautiful, but resilient,” she told him. “A lot like her character in your movie. She seems so fragile and gentle, but she’s actually tougher than most of us.”

Impressed with her insight into the character he’d written, he told her, “My sister Sophie is a lovely, soft-spoken librarian.” He shook his head as he thought of all the times people had underestimated his quiet sister. Especially the man who had recently become her husband. Jake should have known he never stood a chance. “She also has a core of strength that any warrior would envy. I thought a lot about her when I was writing Tatiana’s character. It helped that Soph was pregnant at the time so I could easily picture her in the role if I needed to.”

Valentina had relaxed against him by degrees as he’d spoken about his sister. He left her hand where it was still resting on top of his, even though he knew it probably wasn’t fair to take advantage of her momentary vulnerability.

“Do have any other siblings apart from Tatiana?”

“No.” She paused before adding, “It’s always just been me and her.”

No question, there was something more behind that statement. So much more that he said, “What about your mother? How did she deal with losing your father?”