by Diane Roth
The Other Brooks Boy
by
Diane Roth
Book One of the
Texas Wildfire Series
Texas Wildfire ... untamed, unpredictable, ignited by nothing more than a spark. Love is exactly like wildfire, bigger, hotter, consuming everything and everyone in its path.
If you can't stand the heat, stay out of Texas.
They're friends, Greg Brooks and his sexy sister-in-law, Cara. Always have been. Since his brother's death, they've grown even closer, dealing with their grief together, as strong families do. These days though, Greg feels he's in an alternate universe, where Cara is the sun, and he's attracted to her in a gravitational pull he can't escape. And like the sun, she's become something he can't seem to do without. He's done denying he's attracted to Cara. There is no denying it. He doesn't understand how you can be a part of someone's life in one capacity for twenty years and suddenly find yourself looking at them differently one day. But there it is. Right in his face.
He wants her.
Since her husband died eighteen months ago, Cara's handsome brother-in-law, Greg has been her go-to-guy for advice, help with her teenagers, handyman repairs, and just about anything else she needs. His broad shoulders are more than able to carry the load. Lately, Cara's been feeling drawn to him in an altogether new way and she can't deny the sparks between them anymore. Greg Brooks is a dynamic and successful forty-year-old man who just happens to be really fit and damn good looking. No, there is nothing wrong with Greg Brooks.
Except one thing.
He's her brother-in-law, and that is a deal-breaker.
Dedication
This book is lovingly dedicated to my husband, Jerry, who inspires each and every one of my heroes. You're the real deal, Honey. Thank you for your belief in me from the very beginning. I love you.
And to my BFF, Missy, who dared me to write the very first one and fully believed I could do it. I love you, Minnie.
Copyright © 2013 T. D. L. Rothrock
All Rights Reserved
No part of this work may be copied, printed, digitally transmitted, or used in any manner without the expressed written consent of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to actual persons or events are purely coincidental.
Cover by The Killion Group, Inc.
Copy-editing by Paula Howard
Special thanks to Sandy Raven for her invaluable assistance in all things Indie-publishing, and to my parents Joann and Weldon for their unflagging support.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Biography
Excerpt
Chapter One
She looked hot, Greg Brooks thought, then reined in his runaway thoughts as he approached the outdoor kitchen belonging to his sister-in-law Cara, who at the moment, was blissfully unaware of his presence. She was probably going deaf one day soon, if the volume on her MP3 player was any indication. Greg had called her name a couple of times to no avail, but as he approached her it was easy to understand she couldn't possibly hear him over the screaming vocals of Steven Tyler and Aerosmith. Hell, if he could hear that from her earphones at this distance, she wouldn't be able to hear it thunder.
It amused him to watch her unawares for a minute. She danced around, her back to him, auburn hair all piled on top of her head in a messy updo, wearing damn near Daisy Duke cutoffs and a tight baby tee. If she wasn't his sister-in-law he'd have thought her smokin' hot.
The thought brought him up short.
Again.
For the second time in the last thirty seconds he'd had to give himself a good mental shake. What the hell was up with that? This was Cara, damn it.
She wiped at the stainless steel grill top with a damp cloth, then paused to lean back, a bitchin' rock and roll expression on her face, and played a little air guitar. Greg laughed and decided he might have a seat on one of the barstools behind her and watch the show. But the show was over the minute he pulled it away from the counter, his movement catching her eye. She whirled around like a kid caught raiding the candy jar, her cheeks pinkening, and she wrinkled her pert nose, embarrassed. She finally lost the battle with a grin that spread across her face, and she removed the buds from her ears.
"How long have you been there, Gregory?" She couldn't conquer that grin for anything, but her hands came to ride those saucy hips to add some semblance of censure to her question.
Greg didn't even try to fight his own smile. "Long enough, Caroline." They locked battle gazes for a moment. "Helluva air guitar you played there. I had no idea."
She finally lost it and laughed right out loud. "Enjoyed that, did you?"
"Oh, yeah." He sat down on the stool and rested his elbows on the mosaic tile bar top. "Got a cold beer in that fridge, barmaid?"
"Sure do," she said, then turned and bent to retrieve a couple of cold ones out of the under-the-counter fridge. Greg caught himself almost checking out her ass and wondered what the hell had happened to him today to have him acting like such a horn dog.
"Will lager do? I'm out of anything lighter out here." She spoke to him over her shoulder, bent at the waist in those little bitty cutoffs, and he literally had to avert his gaze to keep from looking at her.
"Yeah, sure. Anything's fine," he said distractedly. Hell, he might pour it in his lap. Something was bad wrong with him today.
She opened both bottles and handed him one, then pulled a long draw off hers. "Oh, man. I needed that. Glad you stopped by and gave me an excuse to take a breather." She pressed the cold bottle to one of her cheeks to cool herself off.
He took a drink of his, too. "Yeah, Rock and Roll is a hard way to go."
She shot him a wry look out of the corner of her brown eyes, but refused the bait. "Where's my son?"
Greg jerked his head toward the front of the house. "Out front. A car full of girls followed us into the neighborhood, and he stopped to talk to them while I came in to find you."
"How'd he play today?"
Greg nodded. "He did well. Gave away a few runs, but we won. And his arm stayed pretty hot the whole game. Good stamina."
"I'm glad he won. Last game of the season ... wish I could have been there."
"I know. But you can't be everywhere at once, momma." Greg knew it was a constant source of worry for her now that she was the only parent to his niece and nephew, that she counted every game missed, every event she couldn't quite manage. Single parenting was not for the faint of heart. And while Caroline Brooks had one of the best and bravest hearts he knew, even her strong heart ached for her kids when she couldn't do it all.
"Thank you for reminding me of that, but it doesn't keep me from wanting to."
"How'd Maddie's thing go?"
She wobbled her head back and forth and grimaced slightly. "So-so."
He raised his bottle to take a sip, but stopped in mid-air, surprised at her answer. It wasn't like Cara's kids to do anything "so-so". Madison and Ryan excelled at virtually everything in life, like their dad had. Good looks, good grades, athleticism ... great kids. Greg knew he was biased, but he was also intelligent enough to know that these kids were far above average. Cara was doing a bang-up job of rearing her teenagers to be succes
sful in whatever they chose to do with their lives.
"This was dress rehearsal, right? What happened?" he asked.
"Yes, but her ankle is still so weak and tender. I don't know if she's going to be able to really shine tomorrow. And if she can't do it perfectly, she hardly wants to do it at all," Cara said and rolled her eyes.
He chuckled. "Wonder where she gets that?"
She dimpled at him. "Must have been her dad. It seems like a Brooks trait to me."
He laughed again. "But she gets her good looks and talent from you, right?"
"Sure," she said, winking and patting at the back of her messy hairdo with one hand. "Can't tell it today, though, can you? Ryan and his friends were out here around the pool yesterday afternoon and left this kitchen in a mess. I've been out here cleaning since Maddie and I got home from rehearsal. And it's hot as Hades today. Way too hot for early May."
"It's Texas, babe. That's the way we roll around here."
"Hey, I'm a Texan. I know this weather as well as you. But it's still too early to be nearly triple digit heat out here," she complained.
He only nodded and drank more beer. That's the way Texans survived the heat. More beer. Lots of good, cold beer.
"Are you coming to the recital tomorrow?" she asked, scrubbing at a particularly stubborn stain on the grout.
"I'm planning to. What time does it start?"
"Three o'clock. It's in the high school theater. Do you know where that's located?"
"I think so," he said, frowning and trying to remember exactly. It seemed as though Maddie had danced there before in some production or another he had attended.
"Well, you're welcome to ride with us if you want, but we have to be there super early," she offered under advisement.
"No, I'm good. I'll find it. Besides, I've got to be at the airport around eight tomorrow evening. I'll need to take my pick up."
She stopped her scrubbing and canted her head to one side. "Where are you off to now?"
"Wichita, Kansas," he said with all the enthusiasm of a pallbearer.
She winced sympathetically. "Woohoo!"
He pulled a swig out of his bottle and placed it on the bar in front of him. "It pays the bills."
"You're flyin' out tomorrow night, but you're coming to the recital." Her eyes softened and her smile went sweet. "You're a great uncle to my kids, you know that, Gregory Brooks?"
He tried to shrug it off.
She reached across the counter and laid her hand on top of his, then gave it a squeeze. "I mean it. You spend more time with them than their dad--" she said, then stopped and closed her eyes for a time. He said nothing, but watched her. Finally she gathered her emotions and opened her eyes again. "I'm sorry, Greg. I didn't mean to speak ill of your brother."
He turned his hand over and laced their fingers together. "Listen, Cara ... I don't hold any judgments about that kind of thing. I know good and well that Jason wasn't the best dad in the world. He traveled all the time and worked really hard."
"And so do you." She rounded her brows and nodded smugly, then gave him another squeeze with their entwined fingers. "Yet, you're always here. Always involved with their activities."
"It's where I want to be," he said.
"And that, my handsome brother-in-law, is what makes it so very special," she said, and released his hand after one final hug-like squeeze. And he felt as though she'd hugged him. Just that innocuous touch of their intertwined hands had felt more like a full body hug for some reason.
He smiled lopsidedly and wished they'd move on to another subject.
She parked one fist on her hip. "You don't, however, have much of a social life," she added as an afterthought, a frown pinching her auburn brows together.
"Not unless you count watchin' big, strappin', corn fed, overall wearin', Kansas boys wrasslin' on a mat in a gym. That's who I'm going to meet on Monday. Now that is what I call entertainment," he said in his best Texas drawl.
She giggled at him. "No, I'm serious, Greg. Are you seeing anyone lately?"
He shrugged and peeled at the label on his beer. "Not really."
She didn't say anything, but when he finally looked up at her, she looked back at him with all sorts of emotion rippling in those brown eyes. Pity was not a pretty thing for him to see there. "Still having post-divorce trauma?" she ventured.
"No," he said, shaking his head assuredly. "That is definitely not it."
"Then what?"
"What, what?" he asked, being deliberately obtuse. This line of questioning was making him squirm.
"Come on now. You're a thirty-nine-year-old, healthy male. Surely you've got a desire to date and ... well, you know," she said, trailing off and looking like she might have painted herself into an awkward conversational corner.
Oh, she had to know he was going to intercept that ball and run with it. His gaze found hers and tied it up. "What? ... have hot, sweaty sex with every willing woman I can persuade?" he asked with a wicked grin. "Is that what you mean?"
Now she looked really uncomfortable. "No. That is not what I meant, and you know it." She reproved him with a frown. "You know ... someone to share things with. Somebody to eat dinner with, or take to a movie, or a game. Just somebody." He watched her for a time. There was something running deep in that sentiment for her, Greg recognized.
"Are you lonely, Cara?" It wasn't something he thought about before he asked it. It came out of his mouth before he even considered what her reaction might be.
She started shaking her head at once and waved her cleaning rag at him. "Oh, heck no. I don't have time for a man in my life," she said, scoffing, but he noted she wouldn't quite meet his eyes.
It had been, what ... eighteen months or so since Jason died? At times, it seemed forever ago. Other times, Greg could hardly believe he'd been gone for over a year. But it was certainly enough time that a healthy, thirty-nine-year-old woman might consider finding a man to share things with. Surely the thought had crossed Cara's mind. A woman in her prime had needs, too. And that thought sent him off on another horn dog trail about his sister-in-law, God help him.
He didn't say anything for a time, and she wiped at the now clean counter absently. But soon, they were stealing looks at one another across that mosaic tile top and wondering what was going on in the mind of the other. Just a whole lot of surmising, he surmised.
"Guess it's a good thing we have one another, huh?" she said quietly, but he felt it ricochet around in his mind, fraught with possibilities.
Lord, he had to go home now.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he needed to find some willing woman and have a whole lot of hot, sweaty sex. That'd cure him of this sudden malady of adolescent hormones.
He handed her the empty beer bottle. "Thanks for the lager."
She took it from him and pitched it in the recycle bin under the cabinet. "No charge." She turned back to face him as he got off the barstool and returned it to its place under the counter overhang. "See you tomorrow?"
"Sure thing. Tell Maddie to ice that ankle tonight and that I'm pulling for her tomorrow."
"I will, Greg." She walked around the bar and hugged him. "Thanks for taking Ryan to the game. Your support means the world to me. I couldn't do this without you, you know."
He hugged her back and felt like three kinds of a heel for noticing that she felt distinctly like a woman in his arms. Damn. "Yeah, you could," he argued. "You're doing a great job with these kids, Cara."
She stepped back, putting some distance between them. "I get by with a little help from my friends," she sang, smiling at him with twinkling eyes.
He winked at her and left to go find a cure for what was ailing him. It was clear he was one jacked up guy today.
***
Cara slumped into the chair opposite her mother-in-law, Barbara, who had come ahead to their favorite Italian eatery in west Austin to get a table after the recital Sunday evening. The place was packed, as usual.
"Thanks for coming to get us a ta
ble. The wait can be long on weekends, and I'm absolutely famished," she told Barbara.
"I'll bet you haven't eaten a thing today, have you?" Barbara fussed. Once a mother, always a mother. Even if she was a mother-in-law.
"I did. I had breakfast. But that was a long time and lots of nervous dancers and stage mothers ago." Cara usually loved what she did, but owning a dance studio on recital day was the dues one paid for that privilege. Dealing with twenty-six hormonal teen-aged girls and their mothers was enough to send darn near anyone over the edge.
The waitress approached. "Hello. Can I get you something to drink?"
"Oh, hi. Yes. I'd love a glass of your house cabernet," she said, her hands, measuring in mid-air as if wrapped around a large goblet indicated how much she wanted.
The waitress smiled. "One extra-large glass of house cab. Any wine for you, ma'am?" she asked Barbara.
"No, thank you, dear. I'm fine with the tea," she said, her hand patting her half-empty glass.
"Sorry you had to wait so long. Etta and I had so much to do. I thought we'd never get the dressing rooms picked up and back to rights," Cara told her, noting the half-empty glass. It was clear Barbara had been there a while.
"It's fine. But where are my grandchildren?"