Page 20 of Fighting His Fate
She stared at the last two words, her fingers hovering over the delete button. “You okay?” asked Brett, making her jump.
He was talking on the comm set, but she turned to him anyway. “I’m fine.”
His eyes were shadowed in the darkness of the chopper, but her stomach clenched at the intensity emanating from his body. “I’m sorry about… in the truck,” he said.
She shot him a censoring look, then looked pointedly at Dire.
Brett shook his head. “He can’t hear us. I’m only talking to you now.”
She turned away, not wanting to talk about this but knowing they had to move past it. “It was my fault, too.”
“Do you love him?”
The blunt question surprised her. It hurt that he would question her feelings for John, but certainly she deserved that much after the way she’d behaved.
You deserve to lose him altogether.
“Yes.”
“You sure about that?”
Now she turned around, temper flaring. “I made a mistake. A stupid, isolated mistake. What do you care, anyway?”
He shrugged. “I just don’t want to see you make a bigger, more legally binding mistake, that’s all.”
“Like you did? Dire mentioned you were married.” It had been meant as a jab, the pointed edge of his gaze showing she’d hit her mark.
“Yeah.”
She cocked her head. “He was under the distinct impression you were still married, as a matter of fact.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You are?”
“No.”
He didn’t elaborate, though her curiosity was piqued, and it further annoyed her that she wanted the details. He was getting under her skin, each little bit of his facade that she chipped away another foothold on the mountain that was Brett. And she just kept climbing, when what she really needed to do was rappel away from this mess and run home to her regular life.
She had to leave, get away from temptation and back onto solid ground. Her eyes closed. Go back to John, go back to safety, go back to what was right. But what about the twins? Her chest seemed to cave in on itself. She’d made a promise to help Brett care for them, but damn it, she was attached to those boys. She didn’t want to leave them any more than she wanted to leave Brett.
She was in trouble, and she knew it. Fatigue pulled at her, and she kept her eyes closed. She’d been up almost twenty-four hours, and she needed rest. Besides, it might keep him from talking to her. She leaned her head back on the seat and let her mind drift.
“It’s been a long time since the boys ate,” Brett said, startling her. He unbuckled Theo and lifted the baby into his arms like he’d done it a hundred times before. “Should I try to wake them or let them be?”
“You already picked him up.”
“I think we should wake them.”
She shrugged. He was already gaining confidence in their care. How much did he really need her to stay with him? If she left, he might be upset, but he would manage.
Sadness clawed at her. She didn’t want to leave, no matter that it was clearly the right thing to do. She loved John. If he were here right now to see how she was behaving, if he knew the traitorous things she was thinking, he would stop loving her in a heartbeat. She took a deep breath. “Brett, I need to go—”
He interrupted. “What’s this?” Holding the baby toward her, he pointed to a spot on the boy’s face.
She ran her finger down the baby’s cheek, narrowing her eyes when she felt a roughness to the skin and leaned in for a better look. A hive-like rash had appeared on the baby’s face, just below his eye. She held her hand to the baby’s forehead, noting a slight fever. “He’s warm.”
He handed the baby to her and reached for Toby. The look he gave Grace immediately showed his concern. She moved to them and felt for a fever. The second baby was even hotter than the first.
