And he was neither. Cursing his stupidity, he waited, wishing like hell he could retract the question. He’d spent the better part of an hour coaxing the prickly princess into a warm, malleable mood, and then he’d destroyed it all with his damned curiosity. Bit by bit, she relaxed. But not like before. Not at all. “Very little,” she said in a voice that was suspiciously casual. “I was really young when she died. Most of the memories are from photographs or from things my brothers told me. My father has never really talked about her.” “You missed out on a lot,” he said, his heart aching for a bereft little girl who would have been far too young to understand what death meant. The finality. The utter cruelty. He felt her shrug. “I did fine,” she insisted. Did she realize that her right hand held the sheet in a white-knuckled grip? He should have dropped the subject. He knew it was the right thing to do.
