Free Rock Bottom (Tristan & Danika #2) by R.K. Lilley Page A

sound like a cold bitch, don’t I?”
    I shook my head, bending forward slightly to kiss her temple.   “No.   You’ve met my mother.   I can well understand what you’ve gone through with yours.”  
    “She thinks I’m like her because of what I let that old man do to me.”   The words burst out of her as though it were an embarrassing confession.   “I’m not, though.   I was just a kid, and I didn’t think I had a choice.”  
    A bullet to the chest couldn’t have hurt my heart more than the weak thread to her voice as she whispered those words.   My eyes stung as I clutched her to me, whispering into her ear.   “Of course not.   You don’t ever have to defend yourself to me, sweetheart.”  
    “I know.   I know.   And I know what the truth is.   It’s just so hard to feel it.   Some dirt you just can’t wash off.”  
    I picked her up, cradling her to me.   “There’s not an ounce of dirt on you, sweetheart.   You have the purest heart I’ve ever known.”  
    That seemed to appease her, and she calmed and quieted for a long time before she spoke again.   “We’ve made a spectacle of ourselves on the front lawn.”  
    “Ask me if I give a damn.”
    I was gifted with a tiny smile and flashing silver eyes.  
    God, she was beautiful.   Perfect.  
    “Promise me you won’t ever do that again.   It scares me when you get like that.   You can’t kill a man because I have a few bruises, Tristan.”  
    I kissed her, a blatant distraction from her train of thought.   There was no way I could make that promise when her bruises hadn’t even faded.  
    “You should never be scared of me, Danika.”  
    We laid on the grass, side by side, hands clasped, in Bev’s front yard as I told her haltingly about the boy I’d been, always too big, too strong for my own good.
    Too good at fighting, too ready to fight, with too much to fight for, albeit futilely, with a mother I could never protect, because she didn’t want protecting from the men that hurt her.  
    I shared that piece of myself, the huge piece that needed, above all things, to protect , because I hadn’t been there protect her when she’d needed me the most, though of course I hadn’t known her then.   It wasn’t logical.   It was a feeling, an undeniable sense of failure, because I’d always failed the biggest tests when it came to sheltering the ones I loved.
    There were things I needed to explain to her, about the girl she’d been, the girl who’d needed a protector, and hadn’t had one, and how she’d never be that girl again, because she had me, and I took my duty seriously.  
    It was why I went crazy when any man so much as looked at her shifty, I explained carefully.   I couldn’t regulate that part of myself.   No anger management class in the world could convince me that there was a way I could keep her too safe.
    That seemed to bring her peace, and her eyes closed, the gentlest smile transforming her lovely face, her hand laying quiet on my racing heart.  
    And that brought me peace, because she was my perfect girl, and as much as I needed to safeguard her, she needed what I had to give her just as desperately.    
    We lay on the front yard like silly teenagers, for minutes, for hours.  
    It was one of those slowed moments in time, where things became clear, and parts of the past were brought to rest.   I’d learned long ago that moments like these were few and far between, and I tried to remember everything.   The rustling leaves in the tree overhead, the nearly cloudless sky, the mild autumn weather.  
    The perfect, intensely trusting tranquility written on her face as she lay with her head on my shoulder.
    And later, when we finally rose from the grass, I remembered the slip of paper in my back pocket.  
    I handed it to her gingerly.   It contained no words, just a phone number.  
    Her brow furrowed in question, her teeth catching her lip.  
    “Dahlia’s phone number.   Your