Here we go again. This was important (obviously) and he told me straight out. No game playing, no lies, no avoidance, no subterfuge. This meant something to him (again, obviously) and I had to share.

So I told him, “I wanted kids.”

It was then he started staring at me.

Then I shared, “Around the time we were ready to go for it, Damian started hitting me.”

Brock closed his eyes.

I kept speaking.

“He thought I went off the pill. I hid it from him and kept taking it.”

Brock opened his eyes.

“You’ve got two great sons,” I said softly. “And I lost my shot. So I’m never going to be a Mom. I came to terms with that awhile ago; not easy terms but I had no choice. Something else I allowed Damian to take away from me. But, this keeps being as good as it is, I have the shot to be a damned good stepmom and if that comes with four days a month or every other week or every day, I don’t really care. I had a good stepmom so I have a good role model.

Donna was awesome. She and Dad didn’t have any kids because he was sick and he never knew for sure where that disease would take them and he didn’t want to leave Donna alone to raise a child and he didn’t want to do that to a child because he watched my sister and me deal. So she poured the love she’d have had for her kids into my sister and me. I love her.

We’re still close. She means the world to me. So, if my life with you comes with them, since I love you and I’m falling in love with them, however that comes about, it makes me happy.”

His hand slid into my hair, his eyes got soft and his mouth murmured, “Tess.”

“Convinced?” I asked.

One side of his lips tipped up. “Yeah.”

“Good,” I whispered.

Then I studied his relaxed face and took in a soft breath.

Okay, since we were having a serious conversation, I decided we might as well continue to have it and also address something Brock and I had not addressed since it happened.

In preparation, I slid my hand up his chest to his neck, wrapped my fingers around and relaxed my body into his before I asked softly, “Will you tell me about Bree?”

His fingers tensed on my hip then he asked back, “How much did you hear?”

“Not sure but at a guess?” He nodded. “Most of it.”

He stared at me. Then he muttered, “Right.”

“It wasn’t cool to eavesdrop it was just –”

“Babe, with Levi, f**k, with my entire family, you’d hear it one way or the other and bein’

with me, you’d learn it eventually so it doesn’t matter.”

“I won’t eavesdrop again,” I promised and his hand gave me another squeeze.

“Darlin’, we get to the point where we’re keepin’ anything from each other, we got problems. This is not me and Olivia, where she’d go shoppin’, hide shit in the closet and I wouldn’t find out we were maxed on our credit cards until I got the statements and learned she was dedicated to the mission of memorizing every square foot of Cherry Creek Mall. And this is not you and that assclown where you gotta protect yourself by hidin’ somethin’ as important as takin’ birth control. This is you and me. Eavesdropping is not an available option ‘cause, to make this real and make that real rich, it’s gotta all hang out.”

I liked that. A whole lot.

So I whispered, “Okay.”

“Okay,” he whispered back then said, “I asked Bree out the first day of her freshman year, my sophomore year of high school. She said yes and we were tight from that day on. She was tight with me and she was tight with my family.”

I nodded.

Brock kept talking. “I got a scholarship to U of A to play baseball. She followed me down there. But she was close with her family and mine and her friends up here. She didn’t last.

She hated Arizona not because of Arizona, because she missed home. Her sophomore year, she transferred to UC. We thought it’d be cool, we survived the long distance thing my freshman year in Arizona, we figured we’d make it a couple more years. We didn’t. By Christmas, I’d met someone else and realized I was not the kind of man who was not going to taste the variety of flavors life had on offer. Because of that, I also realized what I had with Bree was more about history and friendship than what it takes to make the long haul. I came home, talked to her about it, she was not in that place and wasn’t happy about it but she had no choice. I was done.”

Oh man. Harsh.

Honest, but harsh.

I pulled in breath but kept quiet and Brock continued.

“I went back after Christmas and so did she. She got it about a month later.” He grinned.

“I got good taste and she was seriously f**kin’ pretty. Available for the first time since she hit the dating game, she had ‘em eatin’ out of her hands. She enjoyed the f**k outta that. She connected with me in the summer when we were both home and told me she got it. I was pleased as f**k, she was a good friend and I missed her. Our relationship changed and it got better ‘cause, like I said, she was a great friend and she was damn fun to be around. We had good times. We still had each other’s families. It worked.”

I nodded again.

Brock kept on with his story and I knew we were hitting the hard part when his eyes got dark.

“She had an older cousin and when I say that, he was a second cousin nearly old enough to be her father. Like my family, hers was close. I knew them all and I did not like this f**kin’

guy’s vibe, never did. Bree was immune to it. To her, family was family even if they were weird, nuts or off. That was the kinda heart she had, she let everyone in and didn’t ask questions.”

Oh man.

“By this time, I was out of school, went to the Academy and was an officer with the DPD

workin’ toward detective. She had graduated, workin’ full-time but still goin’ to school at night to get her Master’s degree. One night, he shows outta the blue, she lets him in.”

“Brock,” I whispered when that darkness in his eyes intensified and his fingers dug into my flesh and didn’t loosen. “Maybe you should stop.”

“Can you handle it?” he asked.

“If you need me to,” I answered.

“That ain’t a good answer, sweetness.”

“Then, yes, I can handle it.”

He examined my face. Then his fingers loosened.

Then he carried on, “He f**ked her up, Tess. We’re talkin’ bad and that shit’s bad anytime but hers was worse, violated her and laid her out. Beat the f**kin’ shit outta her before he raped her and he didn’t do it once, he spent all night with her and did it repeatedly. She was so f**ked up, she reported it took her half an hour to crawl to the phone after he was gone.