Page 107 of Downpour

Brooke sat to my left while Gracie sat on my right.

After our conversation this afternoon, I was hoping Bree and I would have started mending fences, but it seemed like she was keeping a safe distance for now. I knew I couldn’t expect much. Still, despite our distance across the table, she talked to me and laughed at everyone’s jokes.

I kept my arm around Brooke’s shoulders throughout the meal. It was the best I could do to hold her close while we ate.

I had been distracted, spending time with Nate and CJ and the new horses while the girls went to lunch, but I had missed the fuck out of her.

I didn’t want to let her go.

“Brooke?” Gracie asked, leaning around me to see Brooke while my mom put a giant platter of cookies in the middle of the table for dessert.

Brooke grabbed two, dropping one on my plate and one on hers. “Yes?”

“So, are you like… Uncle Ray’s girlfriend? Or do you work for him? Because I just thought you worked for him.”

Hushed laughter rose up from the table.

Brooke’s cheeks turned bright pink. “Um?—”

“Geez, you can’t ask that,” Bree whispered in the loudest whisper known to man. “Everyone knows it’s both.”

Gracie scoffed. “Well, I didn’t know it was both and that’s why I asked.”

I rubbed my temples. Brooke held onto her cookie like it was the last life jacket on the Titanic.

“I—um—“ Brooke stammered.

“Grace, that’s none of your—our—business,” Christian chided.

Honestly, I wanted to agree with Bree and put the debate to rest.

Brooke was both.

But that also didn’t sit right with me. Part of me doubted if she would stay if she didn’t have a fat paycheck dropping into her bank account every Friday.

I didn’t want to believe she was with me for the money, but it had certainly started that way and I couldn’t fault her for it. That was what had brought her to me to begin with.

But if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t want to keep paying her to stay with me.

Brooke had said she wanted me. That she wanted to see where this spark between us would go. I didn’t want to make her unemployed, but I needed to know she meant it.

I had to figure something out.

“She works for the company that we hired to send help,” I said to Gracie as evenly as I could. It was as middle-of-the-road as I could make it. I didn’t deny what was going on with Brooke, but I wasn’t ready to officially throw our relationship into the court of public opinion.

Brooke took a sip of water and nodded slightly. “Yeah…”

The single syllable was crushed beneath the weight of her overwhelming disappointment.

Shit.

26

BROOKE

“I’m gonna change,” Ray said as we caravanned into his house after dinner at Claire and Silas’s house with the whole family.

It should have been a great night, and it was. For the most part, at least.

---