He nodded, stepping in and waiting as she closed the door behind him. “Are you alone here?” he asked her, the frown still furrowing his brow.
“No, Clara is here. She’s taking the night shift. I can’t do it because of Nick.” Brooke glanced over at the closed office door. “I want to make sure everything’s clean and ready for tomorrow before I leave.” She bit her bottom lip. “I usually say goodnight to them all,” she admitted. “I don’t want you to think I’m crazy or anything.”
“Don’t let me stop you.” He gestured toward the pens. His eyes softened as he looked toward the dogs behind the Plexiglass doors. “Hey, is the dog you rescued from the resort still here?”
“Perdita? Yeah, she’s going to be with us for a while. We need to train her before we rehome her.” Brooke inclined her head, and he followed her gaze toward the light brown medium sized dog laying down in her pen.
“She looks different,” Aiden said.
“She cleaned up well. And luckily she’s healthy too. Now she needs to learn a few manners.” Brooke raised her eyebrows.
“Perdita,” Aiden murmured. “The lost one. Did you name her?”
“I liked it. It seemed fitting.”
“It does.”
His eyes caught hers, and she felt her heart leap. Strange how he still did that to her after all these years.
“I had a visitor myself this evening,” Aiden told her. “I thought you sho
uld probably know.” He leaned on the counter, tipping his head to the side as he looked at her. “It was your dad. He came to warn me off. Told me it was my fault you’ve left home.”
“Oh God.” Brooke squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry. This has nothing to do with you. He shouldn’t have involved you.”
“Of course it has something to do with me. You left because of what he did to us. He’s right, this is my doing.”
She opened her eyes. He was closer. Close enough for her to see the brown flecks in his irises. Her fingers were trembling, so she laced them together to still them.
“You should have called me when you left. Where are you staying?” Concern softened his words.
“With Ally. But only for a couple of nights. I’m going to start looking for somewhere tomorrow, as soon as I drop Nick off at school.”
“Let me help you look. I know a good realtor. I used her to find my place.”
“There’s no need, it doesn’t take two of us. And anyway, haven’t you got to work? From what I hear, the whole site would shut down without you,” she teased.
He grinned back at her. “Nobody’s irreplaceable, Brooke.”
“That’s pretty much what my dad hinted at.”
“What do you mean?”
“He said something about Nick living with them if I’m homeless.” She paused, thinking about his words. “Do you think he could make that happen?” she asked, alarmed. “Could he take Nick away from me?”
“I wouldn’t let him.” His words were like oil on troubled water. “Don’t worry about what hasn’t happened. He was probably spouting off.”
“But he did it before, didn’t he?” she asked softly. “He made sure he got his way by forcing you and your family out of town. Who’s to say he wouldn’t do it to me, too, if I was standing in the way of what he wanted?”
“Your father loves you, Brooke. I might not be his biggest fan, but not even he would steal a child from his mother. That would be crazy.”
She leaned back on the counter, her arm an inch away from his. She could feel the warmth radiating from him. “This is such a mess. And I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be offloading it all on you. You didn’t ask for this.”
“I want to help. That’s why I’m here.”
Her father would have said it was a typical Brooke move, expecting other people to help her with the mess she’d created. And maybe he’d be right. For too long she’d relied upon other people, expected them to clear up her mess. She could argue all she liked about her circumstances being bad, and not having the choices she wanted. But at the end of the day, she was luckier than most. She’d lived a life of privilege, and she knew it.
“You shouldn’t have to,” she told him. “It’s not fair you have to pay the price of my decisions again.”