Page 49 of The Forbidden Sitter
“More details, babe. I’m a little lost here,” I urgedher.
Her brows shot up. “Oh! I forgot the best part. She was spying on us. She knows about me and you. And that is whymy…”
I stopped her. “Yes, yes. I get it now. That’s why your room was shot into first.” I rubbed my forehead as it all sank in. “She was trying to kill me. Not Braiden.” That was a relief, but notentirely.
Sure, Braiden was safe, but not fully. If she got her hands back on him, then he wasn’t safe at all. She was a monster, through and through. “I’m calling the lead investigator to let him know aboutthis.”
“Yeah, you need to do that right away.” She got up and started picking up some toys that were scattered around. “When my sister asked me if you and I had really been screwing—I won’t tell you what she called you, by the way—I just aboutfainted.”
I paused my fingers over the cell screen and looked at her. “Wait. What? She asked you about us screwing?” My heartpounded.
Were we finally free to be open about ourrelationship?
“Yes, she did.” Her eyes rolled. “It was terrifying, Gannon. I was all like a deer in the headlights when she asked methat.”
“And you said?” I crossed my fingers.Please say you told her we are indeedscrewing!
“I told her no way.” My heart plummeted with her answer. “I told Brianna that the crazy bitch must be seeing things. You and I do not do that. We’re very close and are friends above having an employer/employee relationship, but it’s nothing more thanthat.”
Well,fuck!
“You know that would’ve been a great opportunity to come clean, right?” I watched her as she put away the toys she’dcollected.
Her narrow shoulders moved with a shrug. “I didn’t see it thatway.”
Of course, shedidn’t.
It was quite obvious that it would have to be me who outed us. I didn’t know when or how, but I knew it was all up tome.
After making the call, I had the investigative team heading our way to get all the fingerprints they could from the windows outside Brooke’s and Braiden’s bedrooms. I hoped against hope that Cassandra hadn’t had the smarts to wear gloves when she was being a peepingTom.
While I was on the phone, I saw Braiden waking up and Brooke going to lie on the floor beside him, stroking his back and talking to himquietly.
After I’d hung up, I sat there, watching them. I knew it then. I had known it for a while, but then at that moment as I watched the two of them as he smiled at her and touched her face so gently and she ran her hand through his dark hair with such tenderness, that I had to make thingsright.
“So,” I said as I got up, “I’ve got the team coming over, and if they find her prints anywhere at all, she’ll be picked up and taken first to be hooked up to a lie detector and then to thepolice.”
I went to sit on the floor with Brooke and Braiden. They’d sat up, and he’d crawled onto her lap. When he saw me on the floor, he kissed her cheek then came to sit in my lap. “Did Daddy’s little man have a nicenap?”
While he and I conversed with nods and nose nudges, Brooke glanced at her cell and got up. “I should get to finding something to make for dinner. Care to join me in the kitchen, youtwo?”
So off we went to the kitchen, just like a normal family, a thing I’d never been a part of but had seen on television. Meals cooked by a mother weren’t a thing I knew about. My mother had never cooked a day in herlife.
I placed Braiden in his highchair then carried him in it to the kitchen. “I want tohelp.”
Brooke opened the fridge. “Hmm. Okay. What do you know how todo?”
“Not much. But you can teach me.” I washed my hands to get ready to learn fromher.
She laughed as she pulled out some frozen chicken. “Funny, huh?” She put the bag into the microwave and startedit.
“What’s funny?” I had to ask her as she didn’t goon.
She ambled up to me, throwing her arms around my neck and gazing up at me. “You teach me in the bedroom. I teach you in thekitchen.”
I kissed her and picked her up as I did, holding her tightly. “I can teach you some things in here too. Maybe one night—after this shit is over—you and I will head to the kitchen for a midnight snack, featuringyou.”
“Always the naughty boy,” she said with a giggle. “Now put me down. Braiden is looking at us through his fingers. We’re embarrassing thekid.”
