“Don’t bring politics into this. And you should be ashamed to take handouts like that. We raised you to be stronger than that.”
“It’s an investment, and I am smarter than that.”
“Education has corrupted you, and I’m taking you home so you can come to your senses. Pastor Williams will set you straight as to what your role is. Right now, you’re nothing but an idiot and a failure.”
“I’m not going with you, and I’m not a failure,” Colleen told him and glanced back at Tristan. A hint of a smile curved Tristan’s lips. “I just needed time to separate my finances from yours so I could do the FAFSA paperwork without you, and I just needed someone to believe in me so I could make myself stronger. I’m staying here.”
Tristan blinked, his dark lashes sweeping over his eyes, and his smile grew.
“The hell you will.” Her father reached out and grabbed Colleen’s arm.
As Colleen twisted and wrenched her arm away, her father jerked.
Tristan was standing with his forearm against her father’s neck, having shoved him up against the wall. Tristan growled, “Don’t touch her.”
Her father yanked at Tristan’s hand, but his arm was like an iron bar across her father’s throat and didn’t move.
Unconsidered duty made Colleen step forward to help her father, but she stopped. She didn’t want to go with him.
Her father spat at Tristan, “And who the hell are you to tell me what I can or can’t do with my daughter?”
Tristan growled right in his face, “I’m the man who loves her.”
25
Just A Comeback
Colleen
Shock washed through Colleen like a warm ocean wave.
The man who loved her?
Tristan didn’t mean it.
He was just saying that to clap back at her father, and it was a really good comeback, she had to admit.
He couldn’t mean it because they’d only met six days ago, and that was if she included Saturday night when he was Twist at the Devilhouse.
It was only Friday morning, and nine o’clock on Friday morning at that.
No one could fall in love in only six days.
No one could fall in love with her in six days anyway.
But with Tristan?
Well, yeah, she could see how someone could fall in love with Tristan in only six days.
Obviously, he was a tall, hunky man with an iron-ingot jaw, ripped abs, and star-fire blue eyes, who was steadfast in the face of danger but fun to walk on the beach with.
And, yeah, he’d built Colleen up so she could fight her own battle, and then he’d stepped in to protect her from her father at the first sign of violence.
And he was a guy who said he’d been born on a poor Iowa farm but seemed to be working hard, because now he flew across the world in a private plane and rented penthouses in five-star hotels on the cliffs of the Pacific Ocean.
And he’d remembered how she liked her coffee from their first discussion at Starbucks after he’d gotten her fired. Every morning, a delivery person dropped off her caramel macchiato with a mountain of whipped cream sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.
Who wouldn’t fall in love with that?
Other than Colleen, of course. She was fine. She wouldn’t fall in love with anybody in only six days. She was more sensible than that, and besides, there was no way Tristan had meant it. It was just a really great comeback to freak out her father after he’d been a jerk to her, and she appreciated what he’d said.
And it was a truly excellent comeback.
Tristan was still glaring at her father, nearly nose to nose. He didn’t unclench his teeth as he said, “Now get the hell out of this apartment, and don’t try to contact Colleen unless she sends for you. She’s been through enough.”
He flipped his arms around and grabbed her father’s shirt collar, propelled him to the door, opened it with one hand, and shoved him out before closing and locking the deadbolt.
In two steps, Tristan strode back to where Colleen was standing and wrapped her up in his arms, pulling her against his broad chest. His heart thumped under her ear. She slid her arms around his waist, holding on tightly. He growled, “Dammit. I’m sorry.”
Colleen could barely catch her breath. “Sorry for what?”
“I was trying to let you deal with him and not overstep, but when he laid his hands on you, I couldn’t stop myself. Your skin is cold. Come.”
Tristan led her over to her mattress, swirled the blanket around her, and pulled her onto his lap to cradle her in his arms.
And that’s when the shakes started.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, a tenacious scrap of hope had held on for years, believing that someday her family would come around. Someday, she might have been able to go back to them, and they might have been proud of her for getting her degree and being the first person in her family to graduate from college. She might have been able to do stuff for them, to send money home or to put nieces and nephews on the track to go to college, and maybe more people in her family would have had a little more.
Maybe it would have been okay.
And now, it wasn’t ever going to be okay.
Even though there had been problems the last few years, and even though every visit to them had left her feeling worse than when she’d arrived, she’d always known they were out there somewhere. If she’d needed a kidney or a bone marrow transplant or gotten stranded somewhere, it had at least felt possible that she would be able to call them.
The air conditioning felt too cold, like she’d lost whatever insulated her from the world.
Instead of being part of a tree, Colleen was a fallen leaf.
She burrowed more deeply into Tristan’s arms, but there was a difference between a friend with benefits and family.
Tristan said, “Again, I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
“No, I appreciate you pulling him off me.” She stared at the beige patch on the wall. Her eyes burned, and then the beige spot blurred. “That’s how he gets before he starts hitting people.”
Tristan's jaw set harder than before. “He’s hit you?”
Hot streaks jumped down her face. She rubbed the blanket on her cheeks to smear them away. “Not very often. Only when we made him really mad. A couple of times a month, max. But it’s one of the reasons I left home to go to college in the first place, to get away from him.”
Tristan started to lift and move her off his crossed legs. “I’m going after him. I’ll teach that asshole not to hit women.”
“Please, don’t,” Colleen said.
Tristan stilled, and his voice dropped to a sinister rumble. “Give me one good reason.”
She shrank herself down and laid her head on Tristan’s shoulder. “Because I don’t plan to ever see him again. You told him to stay away, and I’m certainly not going to call them. I just want to live my life away from them. I want people in my life who I can text red flag to, and they’ll come help get me out of whatever pickle I’ve gotten myself into. I want to be with people who don’t think I’m an idiot.”
“No one should ever say that to you, princess,” Tristan said, his voice a low growl again.