The attraction that buzzed across my flesh?
Funny how you always wanted the things you couldn’t have.
“My mom’s hair was just like this,” she suddenly whispered, vulnerability slipping into the words. “I’ve been growing it for years.”
That fierce veil dropped for a beat, and it allowed a river of sorrow to flood through.
Fuck.
I knew that kind of pain.
Knew that she was talking about her mother in the past tense.
Knew the gutting sense of missing something that you were never going to get back.
My throat felt too fucking thick, and I had no clue what was happening to me. “I bet she was beautiful.”
Brinley’s face pinched in an old sort of agony. “There was no one like her.”
“There was no one like my mother, either.” Couldn’t believe that I gave her that when I never mentioned my mother to anyone but my family, and even with them, the words were brutal.
Dispatched like tragedy and grief.
A moment was held between us. Something like understanding and camaraderie passing in the bare, shivery space.
Then she blinked frantically and turned away, rushed as she grabbed two more bottles.
“I think I’m ready.” It was a rasp of her own tragedy and grief.
I stepped back, giving her space because I was in dire need of it, too.
Had no clue what it was about her.
Why this stranger, this woman who was under my charge and my protection, had me twisted up the way she did.
She was so off-limits, touching her would be no less than a religious desecration.
The oath I made to Dereck a badge of my loyalty.
Not that the twat deserved it, but Brinley did.
But it was the oath made to my family and crew that mattered.
She was collateral.
Resource and reserve.
A down payment that her piece of shit brother would come through.
And going there would be treachery.
She moved into line, and her attention snagged on the snacks set up near the register.
Her interest piqued. All cute as her face lit up as she spied what she was looking for.
Gummy worms.
She grabbed a bag.
