Free Protect Me by Selma Wolfe Page B

wasn’t that. Immediately Hope
softened. The ramrod line of her spine eased and she tried her best at a
sympathetic smile. It wasn’t often that somebody was honest enough for her to
actually have the chance to help.
    “Thank
you for telling me,” she said, and meant it. “Based on knowledge I’m
unfortunately not able to share, I don’t think that Rick’s staff - including
you - should be in a disproportionate amount of danger. But of course I can’t
guarantee anything. If you wanted to take a vacation, I’m sure that…”
    “No,
no!” Trinity shook her head vehemently, and then gazed up at her steady, fierce
eyes. “I want to stay. It just makes me feel so… helpless, you know? It makes
me wish I was like you. That I knew how to fight. But…” she opened her hands,
palm-up, and stared at them, “I don’t think I could hurt anybody. Not really.”
    She
sounded guilty about it, and it made Hope’s heart ache. Hope paused, measuring
her response.
    Eventually
she said, “People who choose not to carry weapons can still be killed by them.
You can’t run from every threat. I decided a long time ago that I wanted to
know when to run and when to fight, and how to do both.”
    Trinity’s
eyes were downcast. Lightly Hope laid a hand on her shoulder and crouched down
to look her in the face.
    “But
that’s why I do this. So good people - people like you - don’t have to. There
are people who prey on the defenseless, people who defend the defenseless, and
people who have higher callings than either of those. Being able to fight
doesn’t make you a goddess of war. It’s just another way to shape yourself.”
    The two
of them were silent together for a few moments after that. Hope didn’t know
what to think of her burst of eloquence. She groped for her coffee and blindly
sucked down a too-hot mouthful. She just hoped she’d said the right things.
    “Wow,”
Trinity said after a while. She peeked up at Hope and gave her a tiny grin. “I
feel like I could move mountains after that. Maybe you missed your calling.
Should be giving inspirational speeches instead of hitting folks over the
head.”
    Hope grinned
without holding anything back for once, giddy with the knowledge that she’d
actually done it, she’d managed to say the right things.
    “I
don’t think so,” she said drily. “There’s one of those in me per year. Possibly
for decade. Think I’m done for a while now.”
    Trinity
laughed and got up from her chair. She moved toward the door and Hope let
herself keep smiling.
    “You
should be flattered, you know,” Trinity said, pausing at the door with a small
but honest smile on her lips. It should have scared Hope that she already
recognized it as familiar. She shouldn’t have been so attached to this place,
to these people already, but… She put the thought aside.
    “Flattered?”
Hope asked, scrunching up her forehead in confusion.
    Trinity’s
smile deepened. “The way Mr. Stone listens to you. He never listens to
anybody.” Then she disappeared around the corner before Hope could get out a
word.
    As Hope
had never particularly noticed Rick listening to her, either, she didn’t quite
know what to make of that.
     
     
     
    The
next day there was another extraordinarily boring yacht outing where even Rick
pretty much failed at looking interested. The four men and three women on board
with them had dinner-plate sunglasses and smiles that could swallow you whole.
Hope was extremely grateful that nobody expected her to smile. Nobody seemed to
notice her much at all except for Rick, who kept giving her sidelong looks when
he thought she wasn’t watching.
    She was
always watching.
    Hope
was focusing so hard on her employer that she almost missed it when a tall,
olive-skinned man walked up beside her and reached out.
    She was
halfway through a smooth move-out-of-reach-and-turn-to-glare when recognition
struck.
    “ Boran ?”
    The
burly man grinned at her. He was dressed formally in a black