Page 1 of The Fighter who Needed Me
Prologue
Brooks
Whitechapel, England Nov, 1812
Brooks Parker sat on Cabe’s ship waiting. Just endless waiting.
They had finally spotted the other ship in the distance and Burk was pacing in their room, as if that would help get them to Lily faster.
Brooks wanted to laugh but couldn’t. His brother was wound up and he felt for him.
Truly he did. He knew that Burk had finally found his woman only to have her taken from him.
And Burk was not going to have someone fight his battles for him. He was going to go after Lily and that was that.
Even though she still did not give him the time of day.
Brooks sighed. He wished he could find the woman who was meant just for him.
He knew she was out there, just had not seen her yet.
And that was the biggest reason Brooks had never even touched another woman.
He had never been kissed, had hardly hugged Eden. But to him, Eden was his sister.
And he knew that she was not for him.
He recalled the night before his mother died.
She had called him in to talk to her, and he knew, and she knew that she wasn’t going to last much longer.
He did not know why she had gotten so sick so quickly, but she had.
She was breathing hard and her skin was flushed and had a yellow cast to it, when he walked into her tiny bedchamber.
You could smell her death in the air. It was a lot for someone of his age to bear, but he had been through a lot already in his short life and this was just the beginning of the end.
He sat by his mother on her bed and she held her hand out to him. Which he took.
She was shaking, shivering and her eyes were almost lifeless, glazed over with the fever that wracked her body.
But she still smiled at him. “My dear sweet boy,” she said as he took her cold, sweaty hand and Brooks had to fight not to cry.
“You and I both know that I am not going to live much longer. Burk does not want to see it, but it is the truth. My time has finally come. I wanted to talk to you before I go. To tell you how much I love you. How proud I am of the man you are becoming.”
She had to stop and cough, which racked her small frame until she finally sat back, gasping.
She wiped a bit of blood from the corner of her mouth and Brooks hated seeing it there.
She grabbed his hand again, “I wanted to tell you something. A secret that I never told anyone. Until today.”
Brooks nodded and she went on, “When I was a young girl, of about five and ten years of age, I met a man. He was wonderful Brooks. So good to me, so in love with me. His name was Reece Parker, and he gave me you.”
She smiled at him and Brooks gave her a tiny smile back.
“We had only been together for a few months before we found out I was with child and he was so happy. Oh, my Reece was a wonderful man. And I was so happy that I was going to be living a different life. One full of love. My parents were not good people and hated me, and my siblings. When they found out I would be leaving, that was the only time my mother cared. She told me she was happy for me and to live my life in a different way than theirs. And that was the last time I saw them.”
Her eyes filled with tears, “Reece and I left our tiny village and moved to one by the sea. And as each day passed, our life was perfect. Reece had a wonderful job as a fisherman, and I took in sewing and mending to pass my day as I waited for his return. Until one day, he did not come home. A storm came up out of nowhere and he, his ship and his crew all died on the sea. It broke something in me and while I wanted nothing more than to raise my child in the house, we had been so happy, I could not. I moved to London, hoping against hope that I could do more mending and sewing, but that did not bring in much and after giving birth to you, I needed some way to feed you. To clothe you. So, I did what I never thought I would do.”
