He could still remember that horrible day, sixteen years ago.

“When’s Mom coming home?” Holly asked, passing the green beans over to Cam.

Looking up at his father, Cam waited, trying to do the math in his head. She’d left yesterday? Or the day before? He wasn’t sure. His mother took frequent trips for her job, so having her away had become the norm for them. Sometimes to the point that they didn’t get the details of the trip.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” his father told him, sipping his iced tea.

“Did you talk to her today?” Holly asked. “Is she having fun in Florida?”

Michael shook his head. “Not yet.” The smile on his face said he looked forward to hearing from her. “She’s having dinner with some colleagues.”

“Well, hopefully she got to go to the beach,” Holly said, stuffing chicken into her mouth. “I’ve always wanted to go to Florida.”

For the next few minutes, Cam listened to his sister ramble on and on about how great Florida was and how cool it would be to visit. How one day, when she got married, she wanted to have her honeymoon at Disney World.

“Who’s got the dishes tonight?” Cam’s father asked when they finished their meal.

“It’s my turn.” Holly frowned.

“Good. Cam, help your sister clear the table. I’ll be in the living room.”

Cam nodded, then began stacking the plates. As he was placing them on the counter beside the sink, there was a knock at the door.

Glancing over at his sister, he lifted an eyebrow, silently asking if she was expecting someone.

Holly shook her head.

Wiping his hand on a dish towel, Cam went to the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room, watching as his father made his way over to the front door. After a quick look through the security hole, Michael glanced back, meeting Cam’s eyes.

That was when Cam knew something was very, very wrong.

With his heart in his throat, Cam stood there as his father opened the door to reveal two uniformed officers standing on the porch.

Cam recognized them as a couple of guys his dad worked with. He couldn’t imagine what they’d be doing there. It wasn’t their regularly scheduled poker night, and not once had Cam ever seen them show up in uniform.

Afraid to move from his spot, Cam stood in the doorway, straining to hear what they were saying, but their voices were too low. When his father’s legs gave out and the two officers reached for him, holding him up, Cam knew that the news they’d brought hadn’t been good.

“What’s going on?” Holly whispered, coming to stand next to Cam.

He shrugged.

Before he could stop her, Holly took off toward their father.

“Daddy, what’s wrong?”

Michael muttered something, and when Holly turned to look back at him, Cam wasn’t sure he wanted to know what he’d said. His sister’s eyes widened, her chin trembled, and then she screamed, a horrible sound that had echoed through the entire house. When she crumpled into a heap, one of the officers managed to grab her, easing her down onto the couch.

Cam waited, his heart pounding in his throat. He didn’t want to know what they’d said. If he didn’t know, whatever it was hadn’t happened.

“Cam,” Bruce Derby said, moving toward him.

Cam shook his head adamantly. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to know.

Bruce’s eyes were sad. “It’s your mom.”

Cam’s heart stopped beating at that moment.

“She didn’t come into the office this morning. After a few hours, they got worried, so they sent one of her coworkers over to her hotel to check on her.”

Cam’s chest began to burn. He wasn’t breathing.

“They found her—” Bruce swallowed hard, then cleared his throat. “They found her body. Medical examiner said she’d suffered a brain aneurysm.”

From that point on, everything in Cam’s memory was a blur. At least for the few days that followed.

His mother had been away on business.

Alone in a hotel room.

And she’d died.

They’d never gotten to say good-bye.

“How’s Cam?” Milly asked, joining Gannon at the hotel bar. “Hear from him today?”

Gannon shook his head, wrapping his hands around the tumbler of scotch sitting in front of him.

The bartender strolled over and Milly rattled off her order before turning to face him.

“Talk to me,” she encouraged.

That was when Gannon accepted that the woman sitting beside him wasn’t his assistant, the woman who’d flown to California with him early that morning so they could spend a couple of days working on the marketing plan for the next game rollout. No, sitting beside him now was Milly, his friend. The woman who knew more about him than anyone on the planet.

“I tried calling, but he didn’t answer,” he admitted.

“Did you text?” she asked, thanking the bartender when he delivered her apple martini.

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Gannon lifted his head, looking directly at her. “I think he’s got an issue with me traveling.”

“Why do you think that?” she questioned, sipping her drink and blowing her bangs out of her face.

“Last night…” God, he didn’t even know how to explain what he didn’t understand. “Last night, after you went to the car, I was saying good night. Things were fine. Right up to the point I reminded him I had to come here. To California. Then it was weird. He just shut down, retreating into himself. Just like the last time.”

“The last time?” Milly’s ice-blue gaze settled on Gannon’s face.

“The first time I mentioned that I travel, he acted … strange.”

“You think maybe he’s just worried about you?”

Gannon shook his head. He tried to see that angle, but he didn’t think that was it. It was more than that.

“Didn’t you say his mom died?” Milly took another sip of her drink, crossing her legs and adjusting her skirt.

Nodding, he lifted his glass to his lips.

“How’d she die?”

Gannon shrugged. He didn’t know.

“Ever thought maybe you should ask him?”

Of course he had. He’d wanted to ask Cam, but after that first night, when he’d seen the sadness that had dimmed the light in Cam’s eyes, he hadn’t wanted to risk seeing that again.

“Want me to ask him for you?” Milly’s chipper tone said she’d do it in a heartbeat if he let her.

Gannon’s head snapped up, his eyes slamming into her face. “Don’t you dare.”

The smile she shot him was mischievous.

“I’m never letting the two of you in the same room together again,” he noted.

“Well, that’s good. ’Cause I’ve got a lot of questions for him. Last night, I was just being nice.”

“Like?” Gannon knew he shouldn’t encourage her, but what the hell. He was sitting at a hotel bar in California, and he wasn’t going back to Texas until tomorrow afternoon. Cam wasn’t answering his phone, so there was nothing stopping him from getting blind drunk at the bar and hashing out his problems with his closest friend.

“For one, why the hell hasn’t he jumped your bones yet?”

Gannon was grateful he hadn’t been taking a drink. He would’ve shot it out of his nose.

“And I’d ask him if he has any hot straight friends.”

“He doesn’t,” Gannon told her.

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I’ve met his friends.”

“And they’re all gay?” Milly didn’t sound convinced.

“The ones I’ve met, yeah.”

“Well, shit.” Milly grinned, lifting her glass to her lips.

Gannon chuckled.

“Did you tell him about your parents?” Milly inquired a moment later, her tone less enthusiastic.

“Not yet.”

“But you plan to, right?”