Page 83 of The Fighter who Needed Me
He had known he would protect her that day and that she would become someone to add to their little broken family.
And he had been right. She became their sister and had founded the orphanage, cementing the fact that Brooks knew she was meant to be in their family.
She cared about the people in Whitechapel and gave all that she had to keep the children of those cruel streets safe.
He thought that they had completed their family then. But always knew that Burk longed for the girl with her reddish hair and angel green eyes.
But he knew love was not in the cards. Not the way his mother had described it.
It was his dearest desire. But the women he met were not her. They threw themselves at him. Daily, hourly.
Whispering things in his ear and trying to get a response from him as they promised him all the pleasure he could handle.
He had quickly shut it down and pushed them away, letting them know in no uncertain terms he was not to be touched.
And it helped, but he still had women screaming his name in the ring, and while fighting was fulfilling because it kept him off the streets, it was not what he wanted.
When Eden had told them about Cole, and how she was in love with him, but he had no idea who she was, Brooks hurt for her.
She had not had much love after the death of her parents, and her brother certainly wouldn’t show it to her.
She always hoped that Cole would see her, and Brooks had wanted to go to that bloody Mayfair townhouse he had and tell him about the girl that would just give him the world if he cared to notice.
But notice he had. Cole was a good man, and after his brush with death, decided to stop being so afraid of the unknown and make Eden his woman.
This union brought Lily into their life and had hit Burk like a ton of bricks. He knew she was the woman he had loved and searched for for years.
And Brooks could not be happier for his siblings. Except he wished for love himself.
When the world slept around him, he would lay in his bed and think about what she looked like.
What she was doing. Who she was. And then, there she was. On the first adventure they had ever gone on outside of England.
She was thrust into his arms and he had not looked back.
As soon as she lifted her golden eyes up to look into his, it felt as if someone had punched him in the gut.
Which had not happened since he was a young boy.
And he embraced the pain. Wanted it for the rest of his life.
And after that? They were both brought into the protection and love that Aidan wanted to give.
And Brooks had been wary at first to accept that the St. Andrew family truly wanted to make them family in their own way, and yet here they were today.
He looked around at the men he considered his brothers and at Jacob. Who genuinely accepted his children and their choice of spouse with nary a blink.
Brooks felt the weight of so many things lift free from his shoulders and knew that he was truly home for the first time ever.
The men spent a few hours riding around the property and Aidan showed them where he had found Rhia.
The woman who changed it all.
Brooks grinned as Aidan recalled the tale of how they met and everything that happened afterwards.
Jacob looked over at them, “She is truly the catalyst we needed to shake up our world isn’t she?”
Aidan nodded, “She is. If it weren’t for her, I doubt that Cole would have finally gotten up the courage to speak to Eden. And I know that Katarina and Braddock tried to ruin it all for us, but instead they opened our eyes. Made us see. Shook up our world and made us realize there was more out there.”
Cole nodded, “Agreed. I feel that life would be so different had Rhia not come and pushed Katarina over the edge. She played her hand too soon and had she not, we would have never known the joy that waited for us.”
Jacob was sober, “And if it hadn’t been for them, I would have been stuck in that hell.”
Aidan shook his head, “Our lives will never go back to the half living we were doing. We never have to do that again.”
The men cheered and then rode home, ready to be with the women they loved.
