BRIAN (The Callahans Book 1) by Glenna Sinclair

wondering what they were doing to her. Were they feeding her? Giving her plenty of water? Did she have clean clothes? Did she have a safe place to sleep? Were they hurting her?
    I lay awake at night, my mind whirling with the terrible things they could be doing to her.
    Here I was, sitting on a private jet, and she was somewhere in the darkness, waiting for her mother to come and rescue her.
    “Are you okay?”
    I looked up. Brian was leaning forward, a worried frown creasing his forehead. He was watching me, and that frown was growing deeper as he saw something in my eyes he didn’t like. Or maybe it was my imagination. Brian, the Brian I’d known, wasn’t capable of that kind of concern.
    Well…I’d thought he wasn’t. But the pain of separation made things a little unclear sometimes.
    “Did you want me to help you review your notes for the meeting?”
    We were headed to New York City to meet with the head of a small clothing chain that MCorp owned. It was a meeting that could have been handled over the phone, but Brian had insisted that we fly to the city and do it in person. I think it had more to do with the fact that his daughter lived in the city than with the clothing chain.
    He sat back and turned to the window. “No. We can do that after dinner.”
    “Do you want me to check on your reservations?”
    He shook his head again. His eyes drifted from the window back to my face.
    “You have a daughter, right?”
    Pain sliced through my chest, but I only nodded.
    “Did you ever find yourself on the outs with her but unable to figure out what it was you’d done wrong?”
    “Of course.” I smiled, thinking of some of the epic fights Brianna and I’d had over the years. “She was convinced I didn’t understand anything about her or her life when she was in high school.”
    “But you always came out of it friends.”
    “Yes.” I leaned forward and touched his knee lightly. “You will, too.”
    “Stacy and I were never incredibly close,” he said, his eyes moving back to the window. “She came to us at a time when I was in over my head with the business. But she and Abigail were incredibly close. Thick as thieves, I used to say. When she died…”
    “Losing a parent is hard on a child, especially one who’d lost enough already.”
    He nodded. “The things some of these kids went through before Abigail found them gave me nightmares.” He looked at me again. “I thought my life was hard until I met the first of Abigail’s kids.”
    I looked away, not able to handle the pride I saw in his eyes when he talked about Abigail. Wasn’t it enough that I already knew how deeply he loved her? Did I have to see that pride, too?
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t burden you with my personal problems.”
    “No, it’s fine.”
    He reached up and dragged his fingers through his hair. There was still a hint of the red it once was, somewhere among the long strands of white. And those eyes…he had the most hauntingly clear green eyes I’d ever seen. I remembered lying in bed, staring into those eyes for hours at a time. He would talk, but I wouldn’t hear any of it. I’d just be staring into those eyes and watching his strong, capable hands moving over my bare skin.
    I told my mother I was a good girl, but that went flying out the window less than two months after I left home. And if she’d known Brian, she might have lost her stranglehold on morality, too.
    He was beautiful. I knew it wasn’t common to use the word “beautiful” with a man, but Brian was. He had that fine head of hair, but not the pale skin that came with it. No, his skin was a healthy tan, stretched over thick, ropy muscles and a broad frame that just seemed to scream masculinity. I’d grown up in Texas around cowboys who were lithe and tan, but none of them held a candle to Brian. To me, Brian was the definition of masculinity that all other men paled beside.
    I watched him, aware of how ashamed of myself I would be later