Hidden Pleasures - Brenda Jackson [35]
He had delivered her luggage to her and without saying anything—other than telling her about the switch and indicating the top two drawers for her use—he’d left her to her own devices.
She figured he was having one of his quiet moments or he was one of those moody people who preferred being left alone when they had a lot on their minds. But because he was the one who insisted that she come live with him for a week, she assumed he wouldn’t mind the company. She headed downstairs.
She didn’t have to go far to find him. He was in the kitchen. At some point he had buttoned his shirt, but his jeans were still riding low on his hips and he was once again barefoot. He looked both sexy and domesticated standing at his kitchen sink.
“When can I go check out the house?” she asked.
It was easy to see from his expression that he hadn’t known she’d been standing there and he waited a moment before he replied. “I’m ready when you are, but I’d think you’d want this.”
He picked up a legal-size envelope from the table and handed to her. “It’s the papers you demanded yesterday.”
She took the envelope from him and pulled out the legal document and read it silently. Everything was as it should be. She placed it back inside the envelope and glanced over at him. He had returned to the sink. “Your brother is your attorney?”
“Among other things. Usually a pain in my rear, mostly. But I can say the same thing about the others, as well. Being the oldest isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.”
He glanced at his watch and said, “I guess now is as good a time as any to check out that house. We can stop somewhere on the way back and grab lunch.”
She smiled. “All right. I’ll just go upstairs and get my purse.”
Galen watched as she hurried toward the stairs. He knew why that house meant so much to her, but she didn’t know that he knew, and for some reason he wanted her to feel comfortable in telling him herself. He drew in a deep breath thinking he’d much prefer staying here and getting something going with her, but he knew the best thing to do was to get them out of the house for a while. Just the thought that she would be sleeping in his bed, whether he was in it with her or not, had his heart beating something crazy in his chest.
He’d been close to the breaking point when he returned with her luggage and found her standing there, still checking out his bed. There had been something about the overwhelming look in her eyes that touched him in a way he’d never been touched before.
And that wasn’t good.
“So tell me about your brothers, Galen.”
Galen briefly glanced across the seat of the car to meet her inquiring gaze. After she indicated that she preferred they take the rental car, he suggested that he drive. He’d promised himself never to let another female behind the wheel while he rode shotgun after an angry Jennifer Bailey had taken the Sky Harbor Expressway at over one hundred miles an hour—all because he refused to make her his steady girl. He didn’t care that he’d been a senior in high school at the time. Some things you didn’t forget.
He tilted his Stetson back from his eyes. “Why do you want to know about them?”
“Because there seems to be so much unity among you, even though the six of you might disagree sometimes. I lived in a foster home while growing up and although there were a number of us, unity didn’t exist. It seemed everyone had their own separate agenda.”
“And what was yours?”
She hesitated a moment before answering. “Survival, mostly. And hoping the people who were my foster parents would want to keep me. I hated moving from place to place, making new friends, attending different schools. There was no stability.”
Anger flashed within Galen at the thought that she’d never grown up with real parents, siblings or a home to call her own. Now more than ever he was grateful he’d made the decision to turn her mother’s home over to her. Still, he wanted her to talk to him. Tell him why the house meant so much