Surprise registered on Flash’s face but, after a beat, he broke out that smile Brooke saw every time Bean grinned at her. “Trust me, hurting Brooke is the last thing I’d ever want to do.”
Then both men turned to her.
So this was the moment when she had to make a decision. Was letting Flash back into her life and her son’s life a good idea, or was it another mistake waiting to happen?
Knowing her luck, both.
Just like Bean had been both the biggest mistake of her life and the best thing that had ever happened to her.
“Let me give you my info,” she told Flash, holding out her hand for his phone. She would have preferred not to do this with Kyle standing right next to her, but this was still better than having Kyle catch them kissing.
Flash unlocked his phone and handed it to her. Her heart going a mile a minute, she put in her address and number and added the note, “half an hour” to give her enough time to get Mom out of the house and...and decide how she was going to handle Flash.
She was not bringing Flash home to have wild, crazy, great sex with him again. Absolutely not. This was about Bean. Her world began and ended with him now. That’s all there was to it because a boy needed his father. Even if that boy was only three months old.
She handed the phone back and turned to Kyle with a studied casualness she definitely wasn’t feeling. “Hey, if I need a little help on a few songs, you’re interested?” Because everything on the Roots album was...energetic, to say the least, and Kyle was good for ballads.
Kyle’s eyes lit up. “Hell, yeah, sweetheart. Just give me a call. Good meeting you, Lawrence.”
But the man didn’t move. He just stood there, watching her and Flash to see what was going to happen next.
“Morgan.” Flash tipped his hat. “Brooke. I’ll be seeing you.” He packed a hell of a lot into his gaze before he turned on his heel and strolled out of the parking lot.
She about broke out into a sweat as she watched him walk away. One thing was for sure—if anything, Flash’s ass had only gotten better in the last year. A man who rode broncos and bulls for a living had the legs and backside to go with it. The first time they’d had sex—against the wall of her dressing room—he hadn’t even taken his chaps off. She’d had a view of that ass in her dressing room mirror that even now threatened to make her melt.
She wasn’t inviting him over for sex. She had a single-minded purpose here—informing him he was a father.
But Lord, that man made every part of her weak. Always had and, apparently, always would. She just needed to be strong enough to get through the next few hours.
Honestly, she wasn’t sure she was that strong. Especially when he turned and tipped his hat to her, the model of the country gentleman.
“Honey,” Kyle started when Flash was out of sight. “Did I just meet the inspiration for all those new songs?”
“It’s not like that,” she protested, and to her own ears, it sounded weak. “He’s a friend.”
Kyle gaped at her. Yeah, he wasn’t buying it, either.
“The way he looked at you? No way. That’s a man who wants a lot more than ‘friendship,’” he said, throwing in air quotes for good measure. “And the way you’re looking at him? Come on. I may be an old man, but I’m not blind.”
Brooke didn’t have a snappy comeback to that, but Alex saved her. “Are we going?” she all but shouted through the car window.
“Be careful!” Kyle called as Brooke climbed into the car. “And call me if you need backup!”
Yeah, like that was going to happen. She just waved as Alex sped off.
How would people like Kyle react when he found out that she’d been sitting on the juiciest of details for months? She hoped people wouldn’t be too hurt that they hadn’t been important enough to be in the know, but, seriously, aside from the executives on her record label, the private OB/GYN and nurse who’d delivered Bean at Brooke’s home, the equally private pediatrician and Alex—and Mom, of course—no one else knew.
But she couldn’t hide her son forever. She wanted to take him to parks and the zoo and...and just out. She wanted to talk to other moms she knew about what was normal and what wasn’t. Hell, she wanted to take some pictures with Bean, not just cell phone shots. She wanted to do all the normal stuff with her son.
She didn’t want to hide. Not from her friends, not from her fans and not from Flash.
Worse, when she daydreamed about all those fun things, she wasn’t alone. Flash was next to her.
In her perfect world, Flash was by her side during the day and in her bed at night. Her son didn’t have to grow up without his father, like Brooke had. And she didn’t have to feel so alone anymore.
But that fantasy was just that—fantasy. Instead of that perfect world, she’d invited him home to tell him about Bean and also to not have sex with him.
The tension rolling off Alex was palatable, which had to be the only reason Brooke heard herself repeating the lie, “He’s just a friend.”
“Uh-huh.” Yeah, Alex wasn’t buying any of that as she took off for the 440.
From there, they’d take 40 west to the house she’d bought with the money her uncle had managed not to embezzle. Her home was on five fenced-in acres. If she had another hit record and successful tour, she had plans to completely renovate the sprawling mid-century ranch house. She hadn’t even been able to paint the rooms while she’d been pregnant because the smell of primer had made her sick.
“The show went well, don’t you think?” Brooke tried again, desperate for a subject change.
“Hon,” Alex said in her growly voice, “did you tell him about Bean?”
This was the problem with best friends. There was no hiding anything from them. Because of course Alex had figured out that the one show she’d missed was the rodeo in Texas.
“No,” she said, because more lies would only be an insult to Alex’s intelligence.
Alex thought that over as she began to weave through traffic like the devil himself was hot on their tail. Finally she asked, “Are you going to?”
Brooke had closed her eyes. Flash was the boy’s father. She simply didn’t have a choice.
“Yes,” she admitted, wondering why it felt like such a defeat. “But...”
“Yeah, I know—don’t tell your mother,” Alex grumbled. “She’ll find out sooner or later.”
Later, Brooke prayed. Please let it be much, much later.
Her mother had sat on the secret of Brooke’s paternity for twenty-some-odd years. Brooke could keep Flash a secret for just a little bit longer.
She was going to tell Flash about Bean and hope all he’d said about not letting his anger rule him was the truth. But...
God, it was selfish and wrong, but she wanted just one more time with him before she told him she was the mother of his child.
One last grasp at the woman she’d been a year ago. A lifetime ago.
Humming a melody that built itself around the words, she had to wonder—was bringing Flash to her home another huge mistake or the making of another perfect memory?
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