Page 99 of His to Protect

He just had that way about him, and at six foot two and over two hundred pounds, he was smaller than me now, but he still was not a guy to mess with. Years of being in the Army Reserve and working as a firefighter had made him a man no one wanted to mess with.

“My boy,” my mom said when she saw us. Immediately her hands framed my face and she pulled me to her. I inhaled the familiar scent of jasmine before her lips brushed against my cheek.

“Hey, Ma.”

She let go of my face and smiled. “What am I going to do with my boys?”

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and nodded toward Trina.

“Ma, this is Trina.”

I didn’t have the time to introduce Trina to my mom before she threw her arms around Trina’s shoulders and she yanked her from my hold. “Oh, you poor thing! I can’t imagine everything you’ve gone through. Are you okay?”

My shoulder jerked back with the force of my dad’s punch and I lifted a hand to rub the sore spot. “What’s up, old man?”

I looked at Trina to see her eyes wide and amused.

I flashed her a wink and nodded toward my dad.

“Dad, Trina. Trina, this is my old man.”

“Old man, my ass,” he muttered and reached out to take Trina’s hand in his. My mom released Trina from her hug, but she was fussing over Trina like she was her very own long-lost daughter.

Trina’s eyes grew wider when my dad brushed his lips across her cheek, looked back at me, grinning, and said, “She tastes delicious. I can see why you like her.”

Trina’s face paled.

My mom slapped my dad on the back of his head.

He shrugged.

I threw my head back and laughed.

“See?” I pulled Trina into my arms when my dad left to go grab their luggage. “Told you they’d like you.”

—

“This is absurd,” Trina proclaimed as the door shut behind her. She unwrapped a scarlet scarf from her neck. Outside the door to my house, I could still hear shouts from reporters, and through the window, I could still see the flash of lights.

They’d been camped out for the last forty-eight hours, and if Trina hadn’t insisted that our new life continue as normal—meaning going back to work at the restaurant between visits to the vet to see Boomer, and spending some time with my parents before they left town this morning—I would have wanted to just keep her inside the house until the chaos died down.

It didn’t take long at all for Kevin’s death to become national news. The fact that the senator had flown in increased the media that descended on Latham Hills.

Blue and Tyson spoke to us immediately. Blue had pulled Trina off to our bedroom and told her how to handle it, based on what she’d gone through only months before.

The fact that Blue, formerly Gabriella Galecki, was seen in connection with Trina increased the attention on both women.

At least the madness had caused traffic to pick up at the restaurant, even though I knew it would be short-lived. The number of people who flocked to Fireside wanting to see an actual crime scene, even though it’d been cleaned up and the yellow tape had been removed, amazed me.

I was hoping that now that Kevin’s body had been transported back to Kentucky, interest in Trina would begin to die down, despite the speculation about why she’d been shacked up with another man since before Kevin died.

News that Kevin had been abusive had been released, and Senator Morgenson made several public statements denying any knowledge of his son’s behavior, saying that now, so soon after his death, was not the time to look into such matters. And while Trina had initially been maligned in the papers, the senator, surprisingly, had also fervently supported Trina, saying that if this news was true, he was deeply sorry for the way his son mistreated someone so special.

It’d been difficult for anyone to call her horrific names after such a public show of support, and I knew it wouldn’t have happened if Trina hadn’t had the courage to face both the senator and his wife when they showed up in town the night after we took my parents to dinner.

As I’d promised, my parents fell in love with Trina pretty much the moment we met at the airport. My mother continued to shower her with familial affection for their entire visit.

By the time they boarded a plane to Arizona, I figured my mom was already planning a bridal shower and picking out colors for a wedding that hadn’t been planned yet…but it’d happen.

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