Free Worth the Risk by Karen Erickson Page A

barely able to hold her broken heart together.
    Yeah, so not the image she wanted to think about right now.
    “Okay fine, it’s a really—awful story.” The rest of the words clogged her throat, and she tried to swallow them down.
    He reached for her hand again, clutching it in his grip tightly so she couldn’t pull away if she tried. “Did someone hurt you?” The fierce warrior was back. His blue eyes dark and full of turbulence, his jaw tense, he appeared ready to kill for her.
    “No, not really.” She sighed. She just needed to spit it out and be done with it. Clearly he wasn’t going to give up. “My mom was young when she had me, in her mid-teens. I have no idea who my father is. I don’t think she did either.”
    Hunter watched her solemnly, nodding for her to continue when she remained silent for so long. “After I was born, we lived with my grandma, who my mom named me after. But she kicked us out when I was really young, so we moved around a lot. I don’t remember it much, but we lived in really awful apartments. Cheap motels. I—I think she was a drug addict. I was so young, I don’t really recall.”He held her hand tight, his expression urging her to go on.
    “When I was close to five, she finally gave up on me. Literally took me down to the local social services office and dropped me off like a bag of books you leave at Goodwill. Told them she couldn’t deal with me any longer and then left. Of course, they tried to find her, but since she hadn’t left her name and I didn’t know it, they had nothing. So I became a ward of the state.”
    “Jesus, Gracie,” he breathed. “That’s awful.”
    She shrugged and offered a phony smile. “It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I went to foster homes. Met some nice people.” And some really screwed up people, but she wouldn’t bore him with those details. “I got a job when I was sixteen and worked nights and weekends. When the dad at the last place I lived tried to cop a feel, I bailed. I moved in with a friend at her parents’ house for a while, but that only worked for the summer. By the beginning of my senior year, I was living in my own apartment and going to school in the day and working at night.”
      He was shaking his head, disbelief written all over his starkly handsome face. “You had to grow up way too fast.”
    “You’re right. I did. I’m better for it, I think.” She shrugged, trying to play it off. Inside she felt like she was nine years old again, going to yet another strange foster home. Hoping like crazy they’d love her so much they’d want to keep her forever.
    But that never happened. She’d grown up with no one. She still had no one. Just her job. Oh, and Hunter, but he was temporary.
    “You really believe that?” He brought her hand up to his face and rubbed his jaw along her knuckles. The faint stubble that grew there prickled, spreading warmth throughout her limbs. “It must have been scary.”
    “It was.” Her mouth went dry when he held her hand against his mouth and kissed her there. Gentle, sweet kisses, one after another, that were meant to soothe her frazzled nerves.
    But those kisses didn’t necessarily soothe. More like amped her up and made her burn for more than just simple kisses on her hand…
    “No wonder you’re so tough.”
    She frowned. “You think of me as tough?” Did that please her? She wasn’t sure.
    “Oh yeah.” He nodded slowly and tugged on her hand, leaving her no choice but to lean closer to him. “Very tough. You wear your sleek sophistication like armor, but just beneath it you’re soft and warm. Like a cuddly little kitten.” He grinned.
    Which made her realize he was teasing, and she needed that so badly right now. She hated it when things got too serious. “I am definitely not like a cuddly kitten.”
    “Maybe when you bare those fangs and wield those claws, you are.” He laughed and shook his head. “That’s what Alex calls Tessa. Kitten.”
    “That seems