Page 70 of Falling for Brody

"Did I know... what?"

She looked back at Brody trying to see his face clearly in the half dark.

An outside light was on at the corner of the triplex so she could see some of it.

"Did you ask Kay and Misty to talk to me? Is this all some kind of... I don't know, a plan?"

"A plan? No. Not something I'd involve my cousin in. Or Misty. I think they've all seen me looking at you. I'm not really hiding myself in front of my family, Rhea."

She shook her head and started walking again. "I wish I had that," she shut down the thought and continued to walk away.

"Rhea, please." She heard his hurried footsteps, and she felt him catch her by her arms. "Please don't walk away."

She froze in his grip.

"You don't know..." She shook her head, aching on the inside. "You don't know how much I don't want to feel again."

"Rhea-"

"No," she snapped her head toward him, "I loved him. I loved our life. And I have his child. Chip held me together after I lost him." She pressed her palm over her heart. "It took everything I had not to fall apart or cling to Chip like a lifeline. He needed me to be his mom. He needed me not to siphon his energy. I put on my big girl panties, and I worked. I raised him. And I think I did a good job. This move was to make things new again, Brody.

"A fresh start. I don't want to mess that up. I can't."

"Let me help." His hand tightened around her arm. It didn't hurt. It felt... comforting. Soothing in a way she didn't want to acknowledge. "I can help with all of that. With Chip, too."

She wanted to pull away, but the way he was touching her. The way he had a hold on her.

It was more than physical.

The hours she'd spent with him at the firehouse.

In the rig.

Working with each other. Around each other.

It felt like every hour was tying them together. Wrapping their lives together.

Brody was never far from her thoughts.

And when she felt the pressure of the job, he was there with a soft word and a touch.

When she felt joy, he shared in it.

She looked down at his hand on her arm and then up into his gaze.

The intense brown eyes that were fixed on her own.

The eyes that she struggled to keep out of her thoughts and her dreams.

"When I fell for Charles," her voice was soft, almost hushed. It made sense since she was telling him her own secrets. "When I met him, I was a mess. Awkward. Offbeat. My family, my parents, died when I was young. I didn't know how to connect. He did. Somehow he did." She smiled at the memory. "It was all kind of a miracle, really. Which I didn't fully understand until I met his family."

Brody smoothed his hand down her arm and took her hand again.

He could have just as easily released her arm and took her hand, but he seemed to like to touch her.

And she liked his touch.

More than she wanted to admit.

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