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But why should she get to breathe when he couldn’t?
“Is that a challenge?” he softly asked.
Uncertainty shimmered in her eyes as she silently studied him, and he bit off a curse, lifting his hand to cup her cheek. Fuck what she would think about herfriendtouching her in a way he wasn’t supposed to. That doubt constricted his chest, and he couldn’t bear seeing it on her.
“Brooklyn? Patrick?”
The familiar feminine voice doused him in freezing-cold reality. He stiffened, and Brooklyn leaped away from him like a cat desperate to save its ninth life.Shit.What was he thinking? They stood on the sidewalk in full view of anyone driving or walking by. And in Rose Bend someone wasalwaysdriving or walking by. So caught up in the silken web of her, Patrick had inadvertently made them a possible target for gossip. He wasn’t protecting her. And now the very last person Brooklyn wanted to encounter stood several feet away from them, her dark, curious gaze shifting to Brooklyn, then to Patrick.
“Hey, Mom.” Brooklyn greeted her mother, her wide smile taut at the corners. “What are you doing here?”
“Your father said he wanted my fried steak for dinner, so I had to go to the meat market and pick up some cube steaks,” Lily Hayes explained, waving a hand toward the small supermarket across the street from Cole’s law office. “What are you two doing here? Shouldn’t you be at work?” Before Brooklyn could answer, her mother frowned, glancing behind them. “Are you coming from Cole Dennison’s office?”
“Um, yes,” Brooklyn said, and maybe her mother didn’t hear the threads of panic in her voice, but Patrick did. “We were just...”
She glanced at Patrick, her lips parted and eyes wide.
“We were just there to discuss some matters regarding Media Mavens. Since Kat had a meeting she couldn’t reschedule, I offered to come with Brooklyn,” he smoothly finished for her.
“Oh, okay.” Lily shook her head, tsking. “Honey, you work too much. I keep telling you that. But you never listen to me. I’m just your mother.”
“Oh God.” Brooklyn groaned.
Lily’s eyes narrowed on her daughter, and Patrick wisely choked back a laugh. He’d been around the Hayes family enough to predict what was to come.
“Excuse me, Brooklyn Regina Hayes?”
“Oh damn. She’s using my government name,” Brooklyn muttered.
This time Patrick couldn’t contain his snicker. She shot him a glare, and he shrugged. He’d helped her out with the excuse to throw her mother off the scent of why they were at Cole’s office. And once Lily Hayes caught whiff of something off, she transformed into a bloodhound. She didn’t let go until she uncovered the truth.
He cocked an eyebrow at Brooklyn.
A little gratitude would be nice, he silently relayed.
“Excuse me?” Lily asked, her narrowed gaze fixed on her daughter. “Care to repeat that?”
Brooklyn immediately shook her head. “No. Repeat what? What did I say? I don’t even remember speaking.”
Her mother sniffed, squinting at her. “Humph. That’s what I thought.” She shifted her attention to Patrick, and he wiped all amusement from his face. Lily Hayes had that effect on people. She carried that “Straighten up and do right” energy. “I’m actually glad to see you, Patrick. It saves me a phone call. We’re having a family dinner tonight before the tree lighting. You’re invited.”
“Oh wow, uh...” In his peripheral vision, he caught the almost infinitesimal shake of Brooklyn’s head. Even if he didn’t catch that, though, the mouthed “hell no” would’ve been a clear indication she didn’t want him to accept. “Thank you for the invite, Mrs. Hayes, but—”
“No buts,” she interrupted with a wave of her hand. “You’re coming to dinner and that’s it. You don’t just work for my daughter. You’re family. And we don’t leave family behind.”
A fist of emotion shoved into his throat, and he swallowed, working to clear the blockage. But he couldn’t. She could’ve been referring to his breakup with Kayla, but Lily wasn’t—or at least not only that.
He’d lost his father this time last year. A sudden heart attack had taken his only parent, as his mother had left both of them before Patrick had turned two. Brooklyn and her family had been there for him. Lily had made sure his refrigerator stayed stocked. Several times a week, Milo Hayes, Brooklyn’s father, had dropped by the house he’d inherited from his father on the pretense of catching the game of whatever sport happened to be playing on television that night. And Brooklyn...
Brooklyn had been his rock. Being his ear when he needed to talk, or his shoulder when he just sat there in silence. All of them had helped him go through his father’s belongings, and it’d been Brooklyn who’d spent the night in his spare bedroom because she refused to leave him alone afterward.
Patrick didn’t know how he would’ve made it through the most difficult time of his life. And this would be his first Christmas without the parent who had molded, shaped and loved him into who he was today. The thought of decorating the house without Lionel King there to give him shit about where he was putting the tree, or how many lights he hung outside—never enough, according to his father—it sat on his chest like a hundred-pound weight. And he’d been avoiding dwelling on it.
But he should’ve known Lily would come for him.
We don’t leave family behind.
No, she didn’t. They didn’t.
