sad when your mother passed,” she said with a shake of her head. “She was a pretty little thing.”
Julie barely managed to control her surprise, and the tension that had slowly ebbed from Troy shot back with a vengeance. Every muscle stiffened. His mother had died and in all that time in the car, he hadn’t mentioned it. The sadness Julie felt hit her as hard as those bullets had months ago.
“Oh, Lucy, I nearly forgot my coupons,” the woman in front of them said, handing over a few tattered pieces of paper. She drew Lucy’s focus, which Julie considered a good thing. But after she left, and Lucy started scanning the items on the belt, she glanced at Julie, then back at Troy.
“Troy, did you come back to introduce your girlfriend to your uncle?” Lucy asked.
“We’re just friends,” Julie felt compelled to say. Why she had the need to jump in and save Troy, she didn’t know, but here she was speaking up so he wouldn’t have to.
“Uh-huh,” Lucy drawled, but she clearly didn’t believe it.
It was a painful few minutes before Lucy had the items bagged and in the cart. Troy and Julie made their way out to the parking lot. Once the groceries were in the trunk and they’d resettled in the car, Julie bit her lip to keep from asking the questions burning in her brain.
Troy must have sensed her struggle. “My mom died when I was nine,” he said.
The same year he and his father had moved out of town. The puzzle pieces were starting to come together.
“How?” she asked.
He paused a long time before answering. “Fell down a flight of stairs and broke her neck.”
The air deflated out of Julie’s lungs with a whoosh. She couldn’t imagine losing her mother like that, especially at such a young age. It would explain why he was so serious all the time. He hadn’t had the unconditional love of a mother. The kind of love Julie had been raised with. To top it off, he’d been stuck with an abusive father. It explained so much. “I’m so sorry. That must have been the worst.”
He nodded. “It pretty much sucked.”
Julie laid her hand on his thigh and he flashed his dark gaze in her direction before settling on the road again. A few seconds later, he took her hand and linked their fingers. The simple connection made Julie melt inside. It was exactly what she wanted. Not just a physical connection, but an emotional one too. She wanted to know everything about the man.
They didn’t say anything else until they hit the cabin twenty minutes later, and Julie didn’t let it bother her. He had a reason for not telling her about his mother and she’d find out one way or the other. With another week and a half to go, she had plenty of time to finally get to know Troy Mills.
* * *
The cabin wasn’t what Troy expected as he eased up the gravel road. Then again, everything since they hit this part of the trip hadn’t been what he expected. His uncle had renovated the whole thing and doubled it in length. The old raised-log cabin was now a dual A-frame. A short set of steps led to the porch that stretched across the front, and a glider sat in the corner. He’d half expected the place to be boarded up and abandoned, but it looked better than ever. If the cashier hadn’t mentioned his uncle’s recent visit, he might’ve thought the place had been sold.
“This is beautiful,” Julie said. She’d been so quiet on the drive, giving him space and time to figure out how he was going to tell her about his childhood. It was one more thing to love about her. He certainly never intended for her to find out about his mother and he knew she was full of questions. Full of sympathy, too, but he didn’t want that.
He parked the car and glanced at Julie. According to the look on her face, the cabin wasn’t what she expected either. “I thought you said we were going to be roughing it. I was all set to do my Laura Ingles impression and now I see this.”
He smiled at the image of her in braids. Even when he was thinking about how much he missed his mom this many years later, Julie managed to pull him out of the funk.
Troy walked around to the back. A glass jar filled with rocks still