Or could she? Was she merely fooling herself? Was the idea of freedom so tempting that she was refusing to face reality? Would she find a place for her and Paige to settle down and call home, only to constantly look over her shoulder, the way Daryl warned?
Kelsey's shoulders sagged as her dreams of freedom were crushed under the weight of reality. Disappointment washed over her and with it, the sudden certainty that this nightmare would never end. Daryl was right—she would always be looking over her shoulder. Always waiting for the monsters to show up.
And they would. They always did.
"I can keep you safe, Kelsey." Daryl's voice softened, gentled into the voice she remembered from that night so long ago. "Both of you. But you can't fight me. And you have to trust me."
Trust.
He said it like that was something so easily done. It wasn't. She didn't know him, couldn't trust him—even if her father did. Especially not with the most important thing in her life.
But she didn't have a choice. Not in this.
She nodded but said nothing. There was nothing to say, no words she could utter that wouldn't be an outright lie.
"Finish eating."
"I'm not hungry." That, at least, was the truth. The thought of putting any food in her mouth made her stomach clench and roll in distaste. Would he push her? No—he just simply watched her for a few minutes then shoved his own plate away.
"I have a meeting in a few hours to discuss strategy. Come up with a plan. Before then, I plan on getting some sleep. You should probably do the same."
"I'm not tired."
"Is that why you look like you're ready to collapse right now?"
Did she? Maybe. But she didn't care. She started to say as much but Daryl stood, started clearing the table as he talked.
"At least lie down. You might surprise yourself. If you don't sleep, that's fine. You have the run of the house. And just so you know—everything's alarmed, Kelsey. One door opens, one window cracks, and I'll know."
Was that meant as reassurance—or as a warning? She studied his strong face, saw no indication of either and decided to take it as a warning. If she tried to leave, he would know about it.
And he'd stop her.
Fair enough. She wasn't planning on going anywhere. She couldn't, not when the only person alive who knew her daughter's location happened to be standing there, studying her with those calculating eyes.
Kelsey nodded, stood up and left the room without saying another word. She didn't need to, not when it was clear he saw her understanding of the subtle warning.
Chapter Seventeen
The shift from sleep to awake was instantaneous. No startling, no jerking, no grunt of surprise. Daryl's body had been floating in the blackness, insulated from consciousness—
But aware. Always aware.
That awareness shifted to alertness as he lay in bed, listening to his surroundings, searching out whatever had caused him to come awake. He didn't need to search, he already knew.
But he remained still, listening anyway.
A sob, quickly muffled, followed by a soft sniffle.
The noise came from the guest room—the room he had given Kelsey.
He swallowed back a groan and turned his head to the side to glance at the clock. He'd been asleep for two hours—longer than he thought he'd sleep, but nowhere near enough to catch up on the rest his body needed from the last seventy-plus hours of hell.
Fuck it. Sleep was overrated anyway.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, grabbed the sweatpants from the floor where he had dropped them and pulled them on. Then he stood there, torn between indecision and worry.
Another sob, this one even softer than before. Fuck. Kelsey was crying. Should he go to her? Ask her what was wrong? Offer comfort?
Yeah, that would be like comforting a viper. He hadn't missed the flash of anger in her gaze earlier, when he had told her they weren't leaving right away.
Flash? Fuck. It had been a hell of a lot more than a flash. She had wanted to do bodily harm—and his was the body in question. Part of him understood—she was a momma bear and he was keeping her from her baby cub. Of course, she'd be pissed. If he were honest with himself, he'd be pissed, too. But if she stopped to actually think about what he'd said, she'd understand. She was Davis's daughter, she must have inherited at least some of his reasoning skills.
Yeah, he could hope. Just like he could hope that those skills asserted themselves tomorrow when he told her she wasn't going with him when he went to get her daughter. Fuck. Now there was something he wasn't looking forward to.
He grabbed his t-shirt, pulled it over his head as he made his way to the bedroom door. There was no noise when he opened it but Kelsey must have heard anyway because the quiet sniffling coming from her room silenced immediately.
He started toward the kitchen, intent on ignoring the woman in the guest room and walking right past that closed door. Pretend he hadn't heard anything and go put on some coffee, let the caffeine burn away the remaining rough edges he couldn't quite shake off.
Except for some reason, his damn feet weren't working and instead of making it to the kitchen, he was standing right in front of Kelsey's door.
Listening.
Waiting.
He swallowed back a sigh. Called himself every name he could think of. Told himself not to be stupid, to move, to keep walking.
And then he knocked on the door, just a quiet rap that wouldn't wake her if she was actually sleeping. Yeah, because he'd only imagined those noises.
Silence answered his knock. He started to move, heard a rustle, then—finally—a muffled voice.
"Yeah. Come in."
And fuck, that wasn't what he expected to hear. Not even close. At best, he thought maybe she'd say she was fine. At worst, he expected her to tell him to get lost.
But come in? Not even close.
He ignored the warning voice in his head and reached for the knob. Turned it and pushed the door open, just enough to poke his head in. Kelsey was leaning against the headboard, her knees drawn to her chest—much like she had been this morning, after he cornered her in the cabin. Even now, he had trouble reconciling the woman he was watching with the woman he remembered from three months ago. Not just because of the physical differences—it was more than that.
The woman he'd met in the Caribbean had been quiet, reserved. Maybe even a little shy—at first. But there had been a small playful spark there, too. A light in her eye that seemed to hint at an appreciation for life.
At least, that's what he'd told himself at the time.
The woman he watched now was nearly the complete opposite. Despite the way she had fought him this morning, despite the strength he sensed deep inside her, this woman seemed almost...hopeless. Dejected.
Battered and worn, like she no longer had the strength to fight everything being thrown her way.
Sympathy welled inside him and he ruthlessly quashed it. He needed to keep the two different women separated in his mind. Hell, he just needed to completely forget the woman he'd met three months ago, put her out of his head for good.
Yeah, sure. He'd get right on that.
He cleared his throat and focused his gaze on the wall just above her shoulder. "You okay?"
She nodded, which was good enough for him. So why wasn't he moving? Why wasn't he backing out of the room and closing the door behind him?
Because she wasn't okay and he knew it. And then he made the mistake of meeting her gaze and dammit, he felt like he'd been sucker-punched in the gut. Hard. The expression in those green-ringed hazel eyes did him in.
He stepped into the room, cautiously made his way over to the bed. Still waiting for her to tell him to get lost. Waiting, hell—he was hoping she'd tell him to get lost.
But she didn't. And dammit, she was still watching him, looking at him like he was her last chance at saving the world.
He reached the side of the bed, sat on the edge—close but not too cl
ose. "Anything you want to talk about?"
She shook her head, reached up with one hand and wiped her face. Shook her head again. "I just—I miss Paige."
"You'll be with her soon enough."
She looked up, the hope in her eyes mingling with something else. Fear. Worry. Disbelief. "Will I? And then what? Do I keep running? Keep looking over my shoulder like you said?"
"Maybe not." Not if he had anything to do about it. Not if he could remove Grady Byrne from the picture permanently. And yeah, he really was losing his fucking mind, just like Chaos accused him of on the plane.
She started to say something, clamped her mouth shut and shook her head. Took a deep breath and let it out. "Sometimes I wonder if maybe Paige isn't better off where she is now, without me. And then...then I wonder if Grady already has her—"
"He doesn't."
"That's what I keep telling myself. He wouldn't be after me if he did, right? He wouldn't have gone after Dad—" Kelsey squeezed her eyes closed and took another deep breath. Opened them and met his gaze. "I'm sorry, I'm not usually such a mess. I just—I haven't—the last two weeks..."
Since she found her father. But she couldn't seem to say the words. Could Daryl blame her? No, he couldn't. "You don't have anything to apologize for."
"How—how did you know Dad? He never told me."
"He was my old CO. When I was stationed in Texas."
"Texas? That was one of Dad's last duty stations. Almost—" She hesitated, her lips moving as she silently counted. "Seven years ago, I think."
"Nine years ago. For me, I mean."
"Nine?" Her head shot up, understanding flashing in her eyes. "When you lost—"
"Yeah." Daryl cut her off before she could finish. "Your dad got me through a pretty rough time."
"I didn't realize—I'm sorry."
He shrugged off her sympathy, forced a cold smile to his face. "It was a long time ago."
Kelsey watched him for a long minute. What did she see when she looked at him? When she studied him with those clear eyes? Fuck, he didn't want to know. Didn't care. And he sure as hell didn't want to bring his past up again. He started to move. Stopped, frozen in place, when she spoke again.
"What was her name?"
He didn't have to ask who she meant—he knew. And he didn't want to go there. Didn't want to bring up memories better left forgotten and buried. "Kelsey, I don't—"
She reached out, placed her hand on his bare arm. In sympathy. In understanding. Holding him place when all he wanted to do was run. "Please."
One simple word. One simple word, spoken in her low voice, was all it took for his will and resolve to crumble. It made no sense, this sudden need to share with her details he had never shared with anyone else.
He forced his gaze away from hers, stared down at the hand resting on his arm. Pale, her long fingers trembling just the faintest bit. Warm. Comforting.
She was comforting him, when it should be the other way around. His past was just that: in the past. Nothing he could do would ever change what happened. But there was still a chance for her—for Kelsey and her daughter.
Maybe Chaos was right, maybe he really had lost his mind to even think of doing what he wanted to do. But he knew, right here at this moment, that he would stop at nothing to get Kelsey's daughter back. To make sure all threat to them was eliminated.
Not for the woman waiting patiently to hear his story—
But for the little girl with light brown eyes who never had a chance.
He closed his eyes, pushed the last memory of his daughter from his mind, searched for another memory. And just like that, the gates opened, flooding his mind with memories he had convinced himself were better off forgotten.
The sight of Layla's tiny fists waving in the air, her eyes squeezed tight the day they brought her home from the hospital.
The time she reached for him with chubby little hands and smiled her first smile.
When he'd been so worried because she was feverish and cranky, only to learn that she was cutting her first tooth and the only way to keep her calm had been for him to hold her and rock her.
Her first word. Not Daddy, not Mommy, but BaBa—the name of her stuffed bunny.
Her first steps. The way she had gone from cautious toddling to full-out running in what had seemed like a matter of hours.
Memory after memory assailed him. Instead of filling him with regret and sorrow and anger as he'd been afraid of all these years, they filled him with a tender happiness. The sorrow and loss were there as well, but their sharp edges were tempered, no longer as painful as they'd been for all these years.
He opened his eyes, surprised to see that Kelsey's hand was in his now, that their fingers were threaded together. Had she taken his hand—or had he reached for hers?
Did it matter?
"Her name was Layla. She was three-years-old when she—" No, don't think of that. Remember something else. "She was the most precocious child you've ever seen. So inquisitive, always getting into things, trying to figure out how things worked. It used to drive Melissa crazy."
"Melissa was your wife?"
"Yeah. She, uh, she didn't always have a lot of patience." Daryl frowned, shook his head. No, he couldn't paint Melissa as a villain. Not now. Yes, she bore a lot of the blame—but he carried his own, as well. "In her defense, I wasn't around a lot. She hadn't really known what to expect as an enlisted soldier's wife, I don't think. There were a lot of times she felt like a single parent. She, uh, she couldn't handle the fact that I was getting ready to deploy again. That's why she was leaving, taking Layla—"
No! He forced that particular memory away, refused to remember the pain and agony, the way he had come unglued and lost all control.
He squeezed Kelsey's hand, slowly released it. "Like I said, your dad was my CO at the time. I'm not sure I would have made it through if he hadn't been there, riding my ass. He's the one who pulled strings, put my packet together for the Rangers."
Where Daryl had learned to pull from the rage eating him alive, had learned how to turn it into something else. Something constructive.
Something deadly.
Kelsey was no longer watching him, focused instead on the frayed hem of her sweatpants. She fingered it, pulled a thread loose and slowly balled it between her finger and thumb.
"Dad told me a little about you." She looked up at him, offered him a fleeting smile that didn't touch her eyes. "Nothing personal, not like that. Just that he knew you and trusted you. That you could help if I needed it. I—I think he was preparing for the worst, that a part of him knew I'd need more help than he could give me."
"Is that why you were you there this summer?"
She lowered her gaze again. Because she heard the underlying accusation in his voice, no matter how hard he tried to hide it? Or for another reason?
"Yeah. I had no idea who you were. And as much as I trust my dad, I still had to see for myself. Had to decide if I could trust you the way he did."
At least she didn't try to deny it. And her reasoning even made sense—to a point.
Daryl shifted, asked the question he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to. "Did you? Decide, I mean."
"Yeah." Kelsey nodded, shot him a shy glance and quickly looked away. "Yeah, I did."
"And?"
"I think Dad was right. At least, that's what I thought then."
"Then? But not now?"
"No, now too. At least, I think so." She sighed, tossed the tiny thread ball onto the nightstand and wrapped her arms around her bent legs. "It would have been easier to trust my instincts if we hadn't, you know, slept together."
A small burst of anger shot through him. Daryl pushed it away, did his best to hide his reaction. But there was no hiding the defensiveness in his voice when he spoke. "If you're blaming me—"
"No, I'm not." Kelsey shook her head hard enough that her hair flew into her face. She swiped at it, tucked a few waves behind her ear, shook her head again. "I'm not. That
was pretty much all me."
The anger and defensiveness left him as quickly as it came. "Pretty sure it was both of us."
"No. When you came over to me—"
"You kept staring. I thought you were interested—"
"I didn't mean to. Stare, I mean. And then you came over and I didn't know what to do. Part of me wanted to run away."
"You almost did."
"Yeah. But then you started to walk away, after you asked my name, and I—" She stopped, lowered her gaze with a shrug. "I didn't want you to. But I hadn't planned on anything else happening. That wasn't why I went there. And then it did and..."
Daryl waited, the silence stretching around them. He leaned forward, met her lowered gaze. "And what?"
"It made me question all my impressions. I couldn't figure out if I trusted you based on what I had seen and learned so far—or if I only thought that because we slept together."
What she said made sense, in an odd kind of way. Yeah, he could understand why she would question herself, why she would second-guess her instincts. Hell, wasn't he doing the same damn thing in a way?
He reached for her left hand, stretched it out between them and turned it palm-up so her tattoo was visible. He traced the bold lines surrounding the eye with the tip of one finger then looked up, caught Kelsey's surprised gaze.
"Your tattoos. The Eye of Horus here. The triquetra on your shoulder. They're symbols of protection."
She pulled her lower lip between her teeth, nibbled on it for a brief second then finally nodded.
"I asked you then what you were protecting yourself from. You said nothing. Everything. Do you remember that?"
She nodded and Daryl kept talking.
"I also asked if you needed protection from me. Do you remember what you said?"
Another nod. A quick sigh, a brief lowering of lids over wide eyes. "I said no, not you. Not tonight."
"Not tonight. Not then. But what about now, Kelsey? Do you need protection from me now? Can you trust me? Do you trust me?"
The Guardian: DARYL (Cover Six Security, #2) Page 15
