Surface (Guarding Her Book 1)

by Anna Brooks

  Royce

  Paisley rubs her belly, and my teeth grind together as I try to remain calm. After what she went through earlier today, the last thing she needs is for me to lose my shit in front of her. I told myself I’d wait until she fell asleep, but the longer Erik talks, the more pissed off I become.

  “We’re still gathering information, information I should have fucking gathered before I let her in my goddamned home, but from what Q managed to get the past few hours, it’s bad.”

  “And do you think I give a fuck?” I pinch the bridge of my nose and count to ten. “I don’t care, Erik. She threatened my—”

  “She needs help,” Paisley whispers.

  Her head is on my chest, and I drop my hand to run through the soft strands of her hair. “She’s not my problem. How many times do I have to tell you that. I don’t give a shit about anyone else.”

  “It was bad.” She sucks in a shuddering breath. “I heard her, Royce. I heard her crying and screaming. I saw the bruises and the… the welts he left on her. And she was there before me for God only knows how long, then I left. I got to go home with a loving set of parents.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  “But nobody saved her. Ever. We can’t hurt her anymore. She needs help.”

  Erik clears his throat. “It seems Noble is taking care of that.”

  “Did he tell you any more than what he told us before?” When he recognized her after Q pulled up a picture, Noble tore out of Royal faster than I’d ever seen him move. We managed to find out that she was his daughter’s best friend growing up, but that’s it.

  I got out of Erik’s house with Paisley and brought her home while I left Erik to deal with that mess. Landon feels fuckin’ awful because he let all that happen when he was standing outside. But when it comes down to it, we’re all at fault.

  Nobody suspected a tiny, frail homeless woman to be the one who managed to elude an entire security company. I was convinced it was Chad and was obviously proven wrong. But just because it was a woman doesn’t mean she should get away with it.

  “No. After you guys left, he wouldn’t even let Polly wrap his cut up.” Erik huffs as he shakes his head. “He scooped Brinley up and walked out the door. I tried to say something, and he growled at me. I think everyone was so fuckin’ astounded to see Noble like that nobody even tried to stop him.”

  “She’s not gonna think she can do that and get away with it. She threatened Paisley and wasted a shit ton of hours and resources. I don’t give a fuck if Noble used to know her or not.”

  “Royce, please just stop.” Paisley sits up and puts her hair in a messy knot on the top of her head. “She didn’t hurt me. Yes, she scared everyone, but she didn’t hurt me. She’s the one who’s been through hell. If Noble can help her for whatever reason, then just let him.”

  Fuck that. Fuck some chick holding a knife up to my girl and getting away with it because of Noble. No way. “I won’t—”

  “Yes, you will.” Polly walks into the living room and sits next to Erik. “You will because that poor girl has scars covering her body. Yes, she threatened Paisley, and yes, she happened to have a knife in her hand when years and years of abuse finally caught up with her mental state, but I will personally hold you back if you even think about going after her.”

  “I’ve never touched a woman in anger my entire life, Polls.”

  “And you’re not about to start now.”

  “Poll—”

  She jumps up and points at me. “You don’t know what it’s like.” Her voice raises an octave, and Erik stands. “You have no clue what it’s like to be completely alone with nobody to help you. Nobody to trust and certainly not anybody to have your back. She’s not crazy, and she’s not a criminal; she’s a goddamn victim, and I promise you right now you don’t have to worry about getting through Noble to get to her because you’d have to get through me first, and I’ll die before I let anybody hurt that girl again!”

  Both Paisley and Polly burst into tears at the same time. I take my girl in my arms, and Erik does the same with his. The violence I feel toward Brinley is at a level I’ve never experienced before. Walking into the house and seeing her with a knife… We had no clue we were walking into anything, we just thought we were going there because Noble knew Brinley, but by the way he darted out of the office, we should have known better.

  Polly’s right in more ways than one. I’ve never been without anybody at my back. Even when I wasn’t talking to my father, I always knew he was there. I couldn’t imagine a little girl being scared and alone and beaten and God only knows what else. “Okay.” I put my lips to Paisley’s temple. “Okay, precious. Nobody’s gonna hurt her anymore.”

  Chapter 18

  Royce

  The little girl with pigtails and a kitten in her hand greets me.

  “Hi.”

  She smiles, exposing a missing tooth. “Hi.”

  “Hi. Is, uh, your dad home?”

  “Are you my brother?”

  Air gets knocked out of my lungs, and I clear my throat. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Daddy talks about him all the time. He has pictures, too. They look just like you except there isn’t hair on his face. Wanna see?”

  “Sure.”

  She pulls the door open all the way, but I don’t enter. “Are you coming?”

  “Does your daddy know you open the door to strangers and invite them into your house?”

  She cocks a hip and puts a tiny fist on it. “I never open the door to strangers. But you’re not a stranger; you’re my brother.”

  “Still, I’d feel better if you went and got your dad.”

  “Okay.” She tears off down the hallway, and I hear her screaming, “Dad, my brother is here.”

  Christ, she’s cute. If my calculations are correct, she’s about eight years old… but with that attitude, she acts like she’s going on sixteen. Makes me want a boy even more. Then again, a little Paisley running around would be amazing.

  “Royce.” My… our dad walks down the hall the girl disappeared down a minute ago. She’s holding his hand and still has the cat in her other arm. “What are you doing here, son?”

  “I knew it! You really are my brother!” She drops the cat and runs to me, giving me a hug.

  I awkwardly pat the top of her head. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  “Oh, wow. Royce, hi.” Kim, the homewrecker. The whore. The reason my life turned to shit after it was already scraped off the bottom of a shoe shit.

  “Kim.” I nod at her.

  She doesn’t move from her place at the bottom of the stairs. Agony written in her features and unshed tears in her eyes. She sniffles, and my dad turns around, immediately pulling his wife into his arms. He murmurs something in her ear, and her head bobs up and down.

  He grabs her chin between his fingers and tilts her head up. Then he kisses the corner of her mouth, and I watch as her entire body relaxes. A soft smile pulls her lips, and she glances at me before she holds her hand out to her daughter. “Come with me, Mercy.”

  We watch them walk away, and then my dad motions for me. “Please, come inside.”

  I follow him in, and sure as shit, there are pictures of me on the wall. When we get to the kitchen, he takes a hard left and opens a door that leads to a basement. Or a man cave is more like it. Leather chairs, a theatre-size screen, bar, pool table, darts. You name it; it’s down here.

  “Beer?”

  “Yeah.”

  He opens the glass bottle and hands it to me, tapping the lip of his to mine before taking a pull. “What’s up, son?”

  “I don’t know. I just…” I trail off, unsure of why I’m even here. What made me come to my father. Things between us at work have been… fine. Superficial and more business-oriented, but after everything I’ve gone through with Paisley, I feel like I want to try to make things right. “Your daughter is cute.”

  “She is. Too friendly for her own good. I’m gonna have to get a lock she can’
t open for the door. She’s never done that before. I saw it was you on the monitor, so I gave you guys a minute. I get she thinks she knows you, so that’s the only reason she opened the door, but she still should have known better.”

  That makes sense because there’s no way my dad would be cool with letting his little girl open the door and talk to someone without him knowing about it. I think it’s just a side effect of being born into a family where the head of the house owns a security company. You grow up precautious.

  “Is Paisley doing okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s doing great.” I walk around the large space checking out some photos and articles he’s got on the wall. Some from my childhood, some newer. When I come across one of my mother and me, I almost drop my beer. “I’m trying to understand,” I tell the wall. “I’ve been trying to put myself in your place, and no matter how much I do that, I just… I still don’t get how you could do it, Dad.” I could never want anyone as much as I want Paisley, and if she got sick, there is no way I could even think about another woman while she was fading away before my eyes.

  “Do you want to hear the story? The truth?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  He leans on the bar and I on the wall. “Despite what you think, I loved your mother. I will never utter an ill word about her. She was a good woman, and she gave me you.” He pauses. “You were a child, Royce. She wanted to protect you and give you what she had growing up. But before she got sick the first time—”

  “What are you talking about the first time?”

  When he doesn’t answer, I finally make eye contact.

  “The last time wasn’t the first. You were too young to remember the details, just a little boy only about nine years old, and she never wanted you to know the real reason things were the way they were. But Royce, before even that, things between your mother and I were shaky. I’m not placing blame, but the only reason we got married is because she got pregnant. We loved each other but we weren’t in love.”

  Part of me, when I dig deep into the recess of my memory, knew my parents weren’t in love. Even as a child, I thought it was weird that they never sat next to each other when we would watch a movie or hold hands when we went to the park. Things I’d see other people’s parents doing.

  “It had nothing to do with her being sick. Neither of us were happy, but she insisted we stay together for you. To make you happy and give you a happy family. She had me convinced it was the right thing to do. And yes, there were some good times, but as time went on, those got outweighed by the bad. Then she got sick. Do you remember? Have you ever thought about why she went on ‘trips’ with her friends so much when you were younger?”

  “No, I, uh… I guess I didn’t.”

  “She would go get treatments and didn’t want you to know. I’m not saying what she did was wrong, but I thought you should know. She just insisted on keeping you in the dark. She got better, and I think things between us did as well. Not like it made us fall back in love, but we… respected each other more. And when it came back again, which we knew it would, you were too old for her to hide it from you again.”

  A small part of my hostility falls away, and I cross my arms, waiting for more from him. I’ve never allowed him to explain. Didn’t think he deserved a chance to.

  “What kind of man would I have been if I’d left her the first time she was sick? Regardless of why we got married, I loved her as the mother of my child. Christ, Royce, she knew she was going to die young and begged me… she fucking pleaded with me to just stay with her until then for your sake. So I did that.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I did, though. She knew. Fuck. She knew, Royce. When the cancer came back when you were seventeen, she set me up with Kimberly.” He blows out a breath and blinks a few times. “I thought I was meeting your mom for dinner, but she set up a date with a woman she’d handpicked for me, who turned out to be the right one.”

  I huff in annoyance. “You expect me to believe Mom set you up with Kim?”

  “Yes. She was one of your mother’s nurses, Royce. She saw something was between us whenever we were in the same room together, and before her disease took over her mind, she arranged it. Kimberly and I fell in love instantly, and I don’t think any of us, including your mother, expected that. I swear to you, Royce, I was faithful to your mom until she literally gave me the okay. It happened fast, and I am very ashamed that your mother knew I was in love with someone else while her health was declining.”

  I shake my head. No way would she have done that. “Bullshit.”

  “I wish I were lying. I was never going to tell you but dammit”—he pounds his fist on the bar—“I miss my son. I never went looking, but when she knew it was almost over for her, she made the choice for me. Your mom wanted the best for you, and she thought it would be best to pretend we were still a happy family. Honest to God, it was what she wanted. She didn’t know that you knew I was seeing Kim. And I didn’t want her to find out that you knew. Hell, she didn’t even know Kim got pregnant.”

  I remember vividly seeing them in the stairwell of the hospital kissing. I had never been more angry in my life. But because I knew it’d upset my mom, I didn’t say a word to her.

  There’s a restriction in my throat, and I take a swallow of beer to push it down so I can breathe again.

  “I know it doesn’t make sense to you.” He sympathizes. “And the only reason I tried to hide it from you was because I didn’t want you to tell your mom and have her plans ruined. She wanted to die knowing… or at least thinking that you thought we were a happy family. And I did everything in my power to grant her that wish. Including let you hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  He doesn’t say anything in response, but the emotion that crosses over his face tells me we’re on the right path. His conscience is clear, and I understand things a little better.

  “Daddy! Can I come down and play with you guys?”

  “We good?” he asks me. I nod, and he smiles then turns toward the stairs. “Sure, sweetie, come on down.”

  Her feet pitter-patter down the stairs, and she grabs a stick then stands by the pool table. “Do you wanna rack ’em?”

  Yep, she’s definitely my sister.

  * * *

  An immediate panic hits me, and I slam the door and rush through the quiet house. Even though the threat is eliminated, I’m still on edge. When I get up to our room, I find Paisley on the bed. She’s sitting in the middle with her legs crossed and her bear on her lap surrounded by a bunch of fluffy white stuff.

  “Hey,” I slowly approach and squat down next to her.

  “I forgot.” She’s holding her bear and looks over at me with a tear-stained face. She doesn’t wear a lot of makeup, but the area around her eyes is dark from whatever she had on wearing off.

  “Forgot what?”

  She holds up a baggie with something shiny inside. “When they came to get me, there was a police officer who took pity on me. He sat on the couch next to me and handed me my mother’s wedding rings. When I went to say something to him, he held a finger up to his lips.

  “I was so scared. I remember that. I was scared and didn’t know what was going on. He told me that I’d want these someday.” She wiggles the bag. “He said I needed to keep them someplace safe and never tell anybody that I had them because they would want to take them from me. He said one day I’d find someone special who I would want to share them with, but until that day came, I was supposed to pretend I didn’t have them.”

  “Paisley.”

  “I asked him where I could hide them, and he helped me stuff them inside my bear. This guy”—she laughs—“was big and intimidating with his gun and handcuffs, but he sat there and sewed the back of my bear, and before he left, I’ll never forget what he said to me.”

  I can feel my eyes softening, and I tilt my head. “What’d he say?”

  “If it’s dirty on the outside, nobody will want to see what’s on th
e inside.” Her lips quirk up, and mine part as I laugh. “So I never washed it. But when I moved here, Polly did, so it doesn’t smell anymore. I can’t believe the rings aren’t messed up or anything.”

  “That’s good.”

  “When you asked me… when you said something about wearing your ring a while ago, it reminded me. And then everything happened and I forgot. But I found the bear in the closet today… I can’t believe I even forgot about them.”

  I hold my hand out. “Can I see them?”

  “Yeah.” She opens the baggie and dumps them out into my palm.

  She watches me as I quietly test their weight in my hand. They’re perfect. Simple and elegant. Just like something I’d choose for her myself.

  “My dad was a mechanic, so he barely wore his ring. I don’t know where it ever went to. But I have these.”

  “Did your dad pick these out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They’re beautiful.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “You’re beautiful.” I push up to one knee and take her left hand in mine. Looking into her watery eyes, I slide the ring onto her finger. “I fell in love with you when I shouldn’t have. I knew it was wrong. But it didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered but you. There is nothing else that will ever matter as much as you. Marry me, Paisley.”

  “Okay.”

  I wait until she drags her gaze from her hand to my face. “Just okay?”

  “The entire time I’ve known you, I’ve loved you, Royce. It was never wrong. Not for me. The only thing it was and ever will be is right. So yes.” She smiles. “Okay, absolutely, definitely… yes.”

  * * *

  “Don’t you even laugh right now.” I walk into the living room to find Paisley wearing a sports bra and a pair of my boxers that rest below her huge baby bump. A bucket, not a bowl, a bucket of ice cream is resting on said bump, and she’s spooning its contents into her mouth.