Hidden Pleasures - Brenda Jackson [55]
Brittany couldn’t do anything but drop back down on the bed and cry her eyes out. She understood why her mother had given her up thinking she would get a better life, but still…
“Brittany? What’s wrong?”
Brittany snatched her head up and through the tears she saw Galen. Where had he come from? She pulled herself up and by then he was there, pulling her into his arms, and she went willingly, circling her arms around his neck.
“What is it, Brittany?” he asked, his voice soft and filled with concern as he sat down on the edge of the bed with her in his arms.
And then the words came pouring out and she knew to him they probably made no sense and ran all together. “My mother loved me. My father’s name was Britton and he drowned when he was eighteen, leaving my sixteen-year-old mother pregnant with me. My grandparents wanted her to get an abortion but she wouldn’t, so they sent her here to live with her uncle and aunt. The people at the adoption agency let her name me after my father, and promised to give me to a nice couple who would love and cherish me. But nobody wanted me because two of my fingers were crooked and I had to wear those metal leg braces until my bones straightened out. And then when she thought I was doing fine on my thirteenth birthday, that was the year Mr. Ponder tried to molest me, which is why I’ve never liked sex. And I paid a plastic surgeon to fix my fingers. She wanted to find me but had to wait until her husband died and then she died before I could meet her.”
There, she’d said it all and then she cried even more. And Galen just held her.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, Galen thought as he stared into space while holding the woman in his arms. She wasn’t supposed to wiggle her way into his heart so easily. Now he fully understood what had happened to Donovan.
He glanced down at Brittany. The sound of her crying tore at his heart. But he was letting her get it all out—all the pain, heartache, heartbreak, loneliness, the feeling of belonging to no one. And as she cried he gently rubbed her back, held her in his arms and whispered over and over again that everything would be okay.
He doubted when it was over she would remember even half the stuff she’d told him just now, but he would never forget it. She thought she’d never liked sex? A part of him inwardly smiled knowing she’d certainly enjoyed it last night. Was that what last night had been about? Testing the waters to see if perhaps, considering all the sexual chemistry between them, she could possibly enjoy it with him?
And what was all that about her fingers and legs? Was that why she hadn’t gotten adopted as a baby? Most people wanted newborns instead of an older child, and for her not to have gotten adopted meant that someone thought something was wrong with her. So, she’d had a couple of crooked fingers and weak legs, big damn deal. Was that a good reason not to take a baby into your home and love it? And he would love to be in the same room as this Ponder guy about now. He’d put both his feet up the man’s rear end.
Pulling in a deep breath, he continued to rock her and kept whispering that everything would be okay.
Earlier that afternoon he’d begun getting concerned when she hadn’t returned, and when she hadn’t answered her cell phone, concern turned to worry. A first for him over a woman.
All he could think was that she was alone in a house on a secluded road. He’d driven like a maniac to get here. And now that he was here with her, there was no need to question why his heart was filled with so much love for her. Damn.
And with that realization he could only shake his head. No need to ask how it happened, where it happened or when it happened. Those logistics really didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he had fallen hopelessly in love with Brittany Thrasher. Especially when it had been just yesterday he’d assured himself his fascination with her was bound to wear off. Today he realized he had no intentions of