Brody (Texas Boudreau Brotherhood #3) - Kathy Ivan Page 0,6
subject. Honestly, all I had to do was ask you to move in.”
“Well, I’m grateful, and I know Jamie already loves it.”
“Then it’s settled. Get your stuff packed, and I’ll have Rafe and a couple of the Boudreaus move it over to the cottage.”
“What, today?” Beth stared at her sister.
“Why wait? You don’t have that much stuff. Shouldn’t take them long.”
With another hug, Tessa left, and Beth leaned against the closed door. The rent on the cottage wasn’t much more than what she was paying for this postage stamp-sized apartment, and would mean a better space for Jamie. Maybe, just maybe, things were looking up.
Smiling, she headed into the kitchen to help her daughter finish breakfast, and start packing their few belongings.
For the first time in months, Beth felt lighter, as if the giant boulder weighing her down had been tossed aside. Evan might have colored her past, mired her in a pit of quicksand financially and emotionally, but she finally felt like she was moving forward again. Moving to Texas to be near Tessa had been the right decision, she knew it in her gut. Fingers crossed, Shiloh Springs would be a new beginning for her and Jamie.
“Come on, kiddo. We’ve got some packing to do.”
CHAPTER TWO
After tossing and turning for a hour, any thoughts of actual sleep disappeared. Brody headed to the kitchen, and reached for the coffee pot, pouring a cup. Strong and black, the way he liked it. Standing in the open back doorway, he stared out at the sweeping panorama of the Boudreau ranch. He loved the old place, felt the connection deep in his soul, and if circumstances were different, he’d probably choose to live here permanently. He could’ve worked with the horses and the cattle and been happy. But he was compelled, maybe even obsessed, to work with fire. Saving people, saving buildings, it was a calling he couldn’t ignore.
Finishing his coffee, he spotted his father walking toward the barn, his stride purposeful, his ever-present cowboy hat pulled low over his brow. The sight evoked a memory from early days, when he’d first come to live at the Big House. While Douglas owned and ran a large and extremely successful construction company, he was as much a part of the working ranch as the dirt beneath his boots. He’d lost count of the times he’d seen the man working alongside the ranch hands, setting posts and mending fences, doing his fair share to keep their homestead running.
Douglas Boudreau held a special place in Brody’s heart, had from the day he’d met him. Bigger than life, tall and strong, to a small eight-year-old boy the mountain of a man engendered an imposing and intimidating sight, yet he’d quickly learned Douglas was one of the gentlest men Brody ever met. With a heart as big as Texas, Douglas and Ms. Patti welcomed him into their home and into their hearts, with an ease he found remarkable to this day. He couldn’t put into words the special place in his heart these two remarkable people held, helping him bridge the painful gap of heartbreak and loss at a tender age. Some days he could feel Ms. Patti’s loving arms wrapped around him while he’d mourned, sharing his grief, his young mind unable to accept the devastating loss and changes, the yawning despair threatening to swallow him whole.
Shaking his head, he rinsed his cup, put it in the dishwasher, and headed out to the barn. Maybe a little strenuous exercise might help clear his head, make sense of the jumbled thoughts rolling around inside his brain.
While he’d tried in vain to sleep, all he’d thought about, fantasized about, was Beth Stewart. Beautiful, headstrong, and independent, she’d moved halfway across the country to make a clean break with painful memories and a messy divorce. She was making a new life for her and her daughter in a new town under strained and stressful circumstances. Though she’d been welcomed as part of the Boudreau family, he didn’t feel anything close to familial about the feisty woman who kept him fantasizing about a future which could never be.
When Brody walked into the barn, Douglas sat atop a wooden stool holding a bridle, studying it with the same intensity he did everything else. The worn leather looked tiny within his father’s big, work-roughened hands. His dad looked up when Brody walked in, his face a study of lines and angles, tanned from working outdoors his entire life. Years in the military