He swore he’d take care of her always.
And her mother, too.
And putting his hands on Brooke that way was crossing a line.
This wasn’t some welcome home hug, an affectionate kiss on the cheek. This was…more.
She knew it, too.
He needed to get his head on straight and stop thinking the things he’d been thinking about and desiring lately.
It needed to stop before he did something stupid. Something he couldn’t take back. Something that crossed a line and might make her turn away. Something that might make her hate him. Something that hurt her.
That was the last thing he ever wanted to do.
Nothing was worth losing what they’d shared these last many years and what they’d always have if he just kept his head—and his hands off her perfect body. The one she’d grown into the last few years and he’d ignored until recently.
If she wouldn’t think of the consequences, he had to do it for both of them.
He didn’t look at her as he left. “Fled” probably described his action better than anything. But he had to do it. Because one more second of her being that close, of her warmth seeping into him, her scent filling him, his desire rising, and he’d have lost all sense and given in to the temptation she’d suddenly become.
He found Kristi at one of the picnic tables and pulled her close as she smiled up at him. He didn’t much feel like smiling back but he did because it was expected. The woman at his side didn’t feel half as good as the one he’d just left. He’d barely touched Brooke. And yet it cracked something open inside him.
He focused on Kristi and told his brain to fucking stop thinking about Brooke and that breathless moment they shared in his study.
A moment he would always remember without regret. A moment filled with promise and yearning and potential and possibility. A moment he could hold her and the notion that for a brief second they were of the same mind and heart before reality hit, the breach Brooke opened inside him sealed, leaving this persistent ache, and he had to do the right thing.
Brooke wasn’t for him.
He had a beautiful woman here, not headed back to college, and her family was helping him achieve the success he’d beendreaming about and working hard to reach. Did it matter that his relationship with Kristi helped to make it happen? No. Not really. Because in life, sometimes it was who you knew, not your experience or expertise, that opened doors.
How he got the job didn’t matter as much as how well he did it. And Cody couldn’t wait to show Kirk and the governor that their faith in him wasn’t misplaced and he deserved it.
He settled into the embrace with Kristi and the bond they were forging.
When thoughts about that moment in his office with Brooke, how it felt good and right to have her in his hands—even if it had been on the precipice of cheating—popped up, he ignored them.
Well, he tried.
Chapter Five
I’m such a fool!
Cody wasn’t interested in Brooke like that. She should know better after all the times she’d pushed and he’d stepped back. She forced this unfair dance on him. Again.
He had a girlfriend. He wasn’t a cheater.
Yetshe’dput him in that position.
It wasn’t the first time either.
Her hand went to her roiling stomach.
I sure know how to mess things up.
What he must think of her.
She wondered if he ever teased her behind her back with his friends. Or worse, if they’d teased him about being pursued by a kid. Because that’s what she’d been compared to him, just a few short years ago. Seven years older than her, his twenty-seven to her twenty didn’t seem so great now. But she imagined Cody at twenty might have been embarrassed on several occasionsto have a thirteen-year-old girl hot on his heels when he came home and hung out with his college buddies on the ranch.
