by Lori Foster
Pleasurable sensation, which was nice.
Brodie was just that kind of man.
With a strained frown that she knew was directed inward, not at her, he gave his narrow focus back to the road. “I live at the office.”
“You live...” She hadn’t expected that. The idea that he might be impoverished helped to blunt some of the chafing lust.
“Behind it, actually.”
Her brain went blank.
“I’m not living in a garbage bin, Red. I have an apartment there.” He shifted, his shoulders bunching and flexing, his thick thighs opening a little more.
Of course she noticed the bulge there. A fresh rush of awareness feathered through her bloodstream. She struggled to get her brain off his anatomy—impressive as it might be—and back on the conversation. “An apartment?”
As if he, too, needed a distraction, he gave a sharp nod. “When we were younger, my mother raised us there. Dad ran the shop, that is, when he was around and willing to play family man, which wasn’t all that often. She kept it going the rest of the time.”
Mary tried to picture the office building in her mind. Yes, it was long, all one level, and she’d only been to the front of the building for the office. Where the rest of the building led, she didn’t know. She hadn’t ever considered it, yet she couldn’t recall seeing anything that resembled living quarters. For one thing, only dirt and gravel circled the building. That made sense for the cars.
But for children? Some of the concern must have shown on her face, given how he responded.
“Now, Red, don’t get all maudlin. Mom made sure we had everything we needed, so it wasn’t bad.”
The way he made light of it squeezed her heart in sympathy. She’d needed a different focus, and this worked better than most. “What did you mean about your father?”
“Dad’s a runaround,” he said without any shame or condemnation. “Always has been. Mom got fed up with it when I was an early teen and booted him to the curb, not that he was around a lot before that.”
“I didn’t realize.”
“No reason you should have.” He rolled up to a red light. While there, he looked at her again. “Mom had plenty of reasons to run him down to us, but she never did.”
“He cheated on her?”
“Among other things.”
Gradually, the rigidness left him, so she kept the topic going by asking, “What other things?” Talking would help put them back on an even keel, and besides, she wanted to know more about him.
Brodie shrugged. “If you asked Dad the color of the sky, he’d say green. Ask him where he’d been all night, he’d sure as hell make up a story. For whatever reason, he’s a habitual liar.”
“That must have been...” She didn’t have the words. “Rough?”
“Like I said, Mom made up for whatever Dad did.”
What would it be like to have a mother that attentive, that caring? Brodie obviously loved the woman, and to Mary, that said a lot about her.
Almost as an afterthought, he added, “When Dad was around, he was a good dad. He enjoyed playing with us, coddling us. That’s what Mom always pointed out.”
No doubt his mother had pointed it out for Brodie and Jack’s sake, so they wouldn’t feel neglected.
The light changed and Brodie drove forward.
It wasn’t at all the same thing. Not even close, thank God. Yet Mary felt an affinity for Brodie and his relationship with his father. “What about when he wasn’t around?”
“That’s as often as not. Still.” He gave a quick shake of his head. “That’s just him, the way he’s made. Mom feels sorry for him. She says he hangs on to his youth out of fear. She could be right.”
“So you and your father don’t get along now?”
“Sure we do.” His mouth lifted in a crooked smile. “Mom taught us to appreciate the good times and ignore the bad. Overall, that’s what Jack and I still do.”
Comparisons were a terrible thing, weighing heavily on her shoulders. Would she ever be able to ignore the bad times? There were so many...with only a handful of good times to balance it out.
Mary studied his handsome profile, the heavy brows and dark bristles on his jaw.
That sensuous mouth that had touched her own.
It was impetuous of her, but she couldn’t stop herself from reaching over and lightly, with a single finger, touching the slight bump in his once-broken nose. “If Jack hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have realized.” Her voice sounded softer than she meant it to, but touching him, even in such an innocuous place, felt intimate.
He kept his eyes on the road as an odd stillness enveloped his usual energetic demeanor. After a moment, he asked, “The break? It wasn’t bad. Not a big deal.”
Inhaling slowly, she moved her fingertips to the stubble on his jaw in a very brief caress before withdrawing. Her fingers tingled and heat pooled in her belly.
How nice would it be to touch him as much as she wanted? To be free to touch him anywhere. Everywhere.
A tidal wave of temptation washed over her. Some very basic female instinct whispered that Brodie was the man who’d make it worthwhile. He wouldn’t leave her wondering why she’d bothered.
And there would be no condemnation from him. Just the opposite, he seemed to think sex, for the sake of sex, was the most natural thing in the world.
Mary curled her fingers into her palm and rested her hand on her lap.
“Just so you know,” he said, his voice as rough as gravel, “I liked that.” He laughed a little. “Crazy shit, I know, but there you go.”
Puzzled, Mary asked, “Crazy?”
“You, initiating a touch. Only on my face, but still... For some damn reason it felt like more.”
It felt like more to her, too, and she couldn’t help staring at him. Wanting him.
“Red,” he growled low, before laughing again, a rasp of sound. “Cut me a break, okay? It’s starting to rain and I have a ways to drive to get there, then the drive home, but if you want—”
She’d never calm her heart if he finished that sentiment, so she said in a rush, “Your mother sounds amazing.”
“Not what I’d usually pivot to—but okay, I’ll take what I can get.” His smile widened in what looked like fondness. It drove a dimple into his cheek and added crinkles to the corners of his eyes. “You’d love my mom. I’ll have to introduce you sometime.”
The thought of meeting his mother didn’t sit right. It was enough to know his brother and Charlotte. But a mother? A wonderful mother? No, she didn’t want to.
Besides, knowing his family would make their association too cozy, too familiar.
The business relationship she could handle.
Even sex might be doable—once or twice, to get it out of their systems. But anything more would be ill-advised.
Hoping he wouldn’t notice her unease, she feigned a smile. “She doesn’t live at the office anymore?”
“Nah. Jack and I bought her a house. Man, she bitched about it for weeks on end, but after we moved all of her stuff there, what could she do, right? Her bedroom, family room, all her dishes... We took away her choices.”
“You forced her to move?”
“We made it easier for her to accept.” Brodie cast her a look. “You’re full of curiosity today, aren’t you?”
Still trying to picture him relocating his mother’s belongings without her permission, Mary said, “I, um—”
“Charlotte helped us out by moving in with her. Mom’s at her best when she has someone to take care of. It’s win-win with them. Charlotte deserves a little coddling, and Mom was born for it.”
Mary wanted to know more about Charlotte, but she’d save that for later. “And Jack?”
“He has his own house that he’s remodeling in his spare time.” They turned onto a narrower road,
and he slowed accordingly. “Any other questions?”
A million of them. Brodie and his family dynamic fascinated her. She’d never heard of anything like it.
She’d certainly never experienced anything even remotely close. Her childhood had been one of loneliness, shame, fear and regret.
Brodie seemed to pick up on her mood. “I don’t mind, Mary. I was just teasing you.”
She wished he’d make up his mind on what to call her. “Are you happy to live at the office?”
“In an apartment behind the office,” he corrected, “but sure. It’s more room than I need, really. Small kitchen, family room, two bedrooms, one bath.” Those impressive shoulders shifted. “It’s just me, so it’s not like I need a lot of space, and I only have to walk out the door to get to work.”
Mary knew he was in his midthirties and she suddenly wondered about his ambitions, what he wanted out of life and when. “Do you want a house of your own?”
“Eventually, sure. I’m saving up for it so I can build it the way I want. I already bought the land. Eight acres behind the house we got for Mom. It’s wooded with a creek dividing the property. I like the idea of being close to her, you know? But not too close. We’d both have our privacy.”
She couldn’t remember a time when she’d wanted to be close to her mother—and now it no longer mattered.
“What’s wrong?”
How did he read her so easily? Most people couldn’t, when they bothered to try. Therman, for example, along with his family of friends, had been trying to dissect her awhile.
She’d always been polite, even friendly, but she’d never been tempted to open up.
“I was just thinking.” Mary assumed that privacy was more important to Brodie than to his mother, especially given his carefree lifestyle. Brodie probably had many late nights out, and she imagined when he was home early, he had a woman with him. “It’s nice that you and your mother are so close.”
“She’s my mom,” he said, as if that explained it.
Mary, better than most, knew motherhood didn’t bring any guarantees.
The rain started, hitting the windshield in a steadily growing downfall until the wipers worked overtime. Brodie turned on the defroster and slowed to a near crawl on the rain-washed streets.
“Is your mom big like you?”
He snorted. “She’s probably only a couple inches taller than you. Jack and I were towering over her by middle school.” He pulled up to a stop sign at a busy four-way intersection. “Mom claims she’ll never marry again, and since she won’t even date, I believe her. Charlotte’s twenty-five now, so who knows how much longer she’ll be content to live there.” He frowned. “Charlotte’s a looker, damn it, smart, too. Some clown is bound to win her over sooner or later and then Mom will be alone. The idea bothers me.”
It would’ve been easier, Mary thought, if she could hang on to her initial assessment of Brodie as an indulgent, heavy-drinking, irresponsible runaround—but she couldn’t. Each trip she shared with him chipped away at her misconceptions and reinforced that he was a responsible—although outrageous—man dedicated to his family. The love he felt for his mother was as obvious as his strength, and it made her yearn for someone she could love that much.
Foolish dreams.
She’d level those dreams eventually. It was pure irony that while Brodie would eventually build his house, Mary wanted to demolish hers.
As he pulled forward, he said, “If Mom knew I was saying any of this to you, she’d smack me. She hates to be perceived as weak in any way.” He twisted his mouth to the side, then teased, “Reminds me of someone else I know.”
She ignored that to ask, “What kind of house will you build?”
“I’ve got a few designs in mind. I’m mostly concentrating on the yard, though. I’d put in a track for test-driving the cars I’ve rebuilt, and maybe a big garage for working on Matilda.”
Mary rolled her eyes at the continued use of a name for his Mustang. “You and that car.”
“Hey, we’ve been together a long time.” He laughed, and the remainder of the tension seeped out of his big muscled frame. “Dad got me the car when I was twenty-one. That’s his shtick, ya know? He showed up with a gift for my eighteenth birthday, even though it was months after I’d turned twenty-one.”
“That’s...” Terrible. “A little late.”
“A little.” He shook his head as if amused by it. “He did the same for Jack, only Jack was twenty-four when he got the car.”
“Had he really lost track of your age?”
“I doubt he ever knew it, so how could he lose it?” Tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, he added, “When I was eight, he gave me a BB gun. Mom had a conniption, saying I was way too young, and come to find out, Dad thought I was twelve.”
Mary stared. “He made a four-year error?”
“Mom was ready to explode. She was so pissed, but she always managed to keep it together around us.” He laughed as if his father’s disinterest was funny. “She put the gun away and I didn’t get it until years later, and then only after she’d taught me to shoot it and lectured me endlessly on being safe. After that, every week or so, she’d take Jack and me out to this big target she built and she’d sit with us while we shot cans.”
Brodie made it all sound nice, idyllic even, as if having an awful absentee father was a lark.
She wished she could look at it the same way.
Was her absentee father a nice man? More likely not.
“Now, Red,” he said, switching up her name again. “Don’t act like it’s a big deal. Jack and I were used to Dad missing birthdays and every other holiday. Mom more than made up for it. When Dad did show up, she encouraged us to enjoy the time with him. She said that Dad’s life wasn’t great and he came around when he needed us.”
“Your mother must be a saint.”
His mouth twisted in wry humor. “Meet her before you make that judgment. On any given day you’re liable to see her giving Jack or me hell.”
“But not your father?”
“Guess she considers Dad a lost cause. God, I used to feel so sorry for him. It was easy to see that Mom was right, that he had missed out on so much and that he was always... I dunno, chasing something he couldn’t get. Like lost youth. Lost opportunities.” He glanced at her. “Family.”
“He has family.” She felt angered on Brodie and Jack’s behalf. No parent should ignore children, walking away without knowing if they were cared for.
Or if they were loved.
Her hands tightened.
Brodie shook his head. “We’re strangers he occasionally visits when he starts to think about how alone he is. It lasts a week or so, sometimes a month.” As if it really didn’t bother him, his voice stayed neutral—he could have been reciting the weather. “Once he hung around for a whole summer. In the end he always finds some young thing to boost his ego and he’s off again. His relationships never last, not with the ladies, and not with us.”
“But he must love you,” she protested. He hadn’t left them completely.
Brodie grunted. “He doesn’t know my middle name, hon. He doesn’t know my birthday.” His mouth quirked, not with hurt but with irony. “He has no idea what interests I have other than cars. He wasn’t there to see any music programs in grade school, or when our football team won the championship, or when I went to state for wrestling.” He flashed her a small smile. “That was all Mom.”
Tentatively, she asked, “Do you love him?”
“Sure, but only because Mom taught us to accept him, faults and all, and not to expect more than he could give. She used to say asking Dad to be an attentive father was like asking a cat to fly. No matter what you said or did, it wasn’t going to happen.”
Was that true for her mother as well? Had she expected things that the woman couldn’t give? No. It was d
ifferent, because while Brodie had a mother to make up the difference...she’d had no one at all.
Before her thoughts got too heavy, she shifted to face him, one leg drawn up in the seat, and asked, “What is your middle name?”
“Now, Red,” he murmured. “One kiss doesn’t give you the privilege of knowing that.”
She drew back, surprised that he’d bring it up after everything else they’d discussed.
He continued as if he hadn’t taken her by surprise. “Give me a second kiss, a real kiss, and I just might spill my guts.” His searing gaze cut her way, but only for a second. “You can let me know when the curiosity gets the better of you, okay? Until then, I won’t pressure you.”
So it was all up to her? She had to initiate things? A little stunned, Mary sat there, wondering if she dared, imagining how that second kiss might be...
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right?”
That statement intruded on her imagination. “What?”
“All your questions have me feeling nosy, too,” he explained. “Tell me, where do you live? Instead of you driving to the office every time, it might be easier, and quicker, for me to pick you up.”
She mentally scrambled, trying to think up an excuse not to tell him. Nothing came to mind.
“I won’t drop in uninvited, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
No, she wasn’t. What did worry her was the idea that if Brodie picked her up, he’d also have to drop her off. Thinking the things she was thinking right now, having her apartment, and a bedroom, right at hand might be far too dangerous.
“Relax, Mary.” He glanced in the rearview mirror before turning down a narrow gravel road. “I don’t want you to break anything with all that heavy thinking, so forget I asked.”
There were very few houses around and those she did see were set way back, often behind large, mature trees. “Is someone following us?” She looked over her shoulder to peer out the rear window, and saw only the long stretch of road, barely visible through the rain. Had she missed something?
“Nope.”
“But you checked the mirror.”
