Another time she could remember was when she was 16 and he had been helping her dad build a deck for the backyard. Her father had left again to get more materials, so Brandon went to lie down in the shade underneath a tree. She had been watching him from upstairs. Her father had been wearing a wife beater and jogging pants. Although the military kept him in shape, he was an older man and getting just a little soft around the edges.

But Brandon...he only had on a pair of loose fitting athletic pants. His bare chest was beautiful. Perfectly defined. He wasn't overly muscular like some body builder,...