“Did you care for Rene?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what I felt for her. It was a chaotic time in my life. I put one foot in front of the other and hoped to hell I didn’t end up with bloody and bruised knees tripping over every decision.”
That was an answer without really answering.
If he felt anything toward the woman, it was gone now and not worth her worrying.
“I’m sorry for being nosy. Your mother is the first family I’m meeting of someone I’m seeing in over seven years. I’m a little rusty.”
He laughed. “There is no reason to worry. She won’t bite. I promise.”
“Because Becca is around. Nothing like a three-year-old for a good buffer.”
“There is that,” he said. When her jaw dropped again, he yanked her in for a hug. “Relax. I mean it. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I’m glad you did. At least my expectations are lower.”
“Maybe that was my evil plan all along.”
“Daddy!”
“Looks like someone is up early,” he said. “I’ll go get her and then we can leave. My mother is only putting snacks out.”
Brennan had told her that Sadie had offered to keep Becca overnight so they could have the evening together. He hadn’t asked, his mother offered.
That alone gave her hope that Sadie wouldn’t shut the door in her face before she could step a foot in.
Twenty minutes later, Brennan’s mother held the door open, a wide smile in place, and reached for her granddaughter.
“Grandma, it’s my friend Alana.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Sadie said. “Come in, please. I don’t have claws regardless of what my son might have told you.”
“He said little,” she said.
“That’s not nice, Brennan,” Sadie said. “You’re supposed to talk me up.”
She laughed. “I’ve heard a lot of wonderful things about you and how you raised Brennan.”
“That’s sweet,” Sadie said. “I’d like to think I taught him some things about being a single parent. Lord knows it’s all he had.”
Brennan had said Sadie never tried again because she was so in love with her husband.
There was nothing more in this world that Alana wanted than to feel that kind of love towards someone and have them return it.
She didn’t get it with Jonathan.
She wasn’t sure it was possible to get it with anyone, even though all her cousins were finding it.
Yet what she felt for Brennan in a few short weeks was heads over what she’d felt for Jonathan after years of being together.
Not love. Or so she was telling herself. Not there fully.
She wasn’t letting her heart completely open just yet.
But physically, he brought her to stages she hadn’t known her body could feel.
A need and craving threatened to remain unfulfilled until she was alone with him.
