Sweet Seduction Shield(95)

OK. We're having this conversation, are we?

"What's up?" I asked, and almost cringed. God, I'd never had to have this particular talk with Daisy. Any dating I have done over the past few years has been well out of her sight and mind.

"What're you doing?" she asked.

"Kissing," Ryan answered, before I could. I refused to look at him, keeping my attention on my daughter, my lips frozen shut.

"Why?"

"Because it's fun," Ryan intelligently replied. I did flick him a glance at that one.

"Daisy," I started, but Ryan was clearly on a roll.

"Princess, I guarantee you, when you get older, you'll want to kiss someone too. But," he added, making my whole body stiffen and my mind scream to a halt. What the hell? Stop now! "Make sure he's worth it first."

My eyelids closed slowly. This was a train wreck about to happen.

"Oh," she said on a burst of air. "Mummy?"

I sucked in a fortifying breath and opened my eyes.

"Yes, Daisy-girl?"

"I'm glad you're being nicer to deetetiv Pierce. He's worth it."

I smiled, I couldn't help it. Sometimes I wish I could see the world through my daughter's eyes. I imagine it would be beautiful in its simplicity.

"I think so too, baby," I said softly.

She looked at us intently for a moment longer, something working behind those round chocolate eyes, then offered a smile and spun on her heels to rebuild her 'house'.

My body relaxed in slow increments, helped by Ryan's gentle stroking of his hand down my arm.

"Well, that went brilliantly," he declared, setting the swing in motion again. "I'm in!"

The laughter started slowly, a huff of breath through my nose, then a rock of my body, my chest rising and falling with increased speed, until I collapsed against Ryan and let it have full reign. He hugged me to his side, laid a soft kiss in amongst my hair and let me have my moment. Realising, I think, that it was as much from humour as from pent up fear, and my body just needed to let go.

Long after I stopped my near hysterical breakdown, and the welcoming sounds of the sea and gulls and Daisy playing filled the air, Ryan spoke. I guess I had to be content with the fact that he'd waited until the sun began to dip in the sky to bring it up. But delaying any longer was not an option, even if I desperately wanted it to be. We'd had a lovely day together, a family day. Away from danger and angst and dread and the pain of our pasts.

But although we'd come to Ryan's holiday home to hide, it was never meant to be indefinitely. Things had been set in motion, dangerous factors were still in play, nothing had been solved. And as much as I loved the day we'd had, not finishing what I started would take its toll.

"I need to reread that ledger," Ryan murmured at my side. The swing seat still swung, Daisy still played on obliviously, but the world stopped.

"I know," I whispered.

"Do you want to be there when I do?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Unable to think of the correct answer. I knew what was in that book. I remembered it all. Graphically. Did I want to relive it? Watch Ryan's face as he did?

It would have been so easy to say no.

I glanced around the deck we were sitting on, looked over at the garden full of colourful flowers. Realistically, I knew they weren't the same flowers Ryan's mother had tended, even the house may have been redecorated and wasn't an exact replica of the home she'd loved. But there was no denying that when he sat on this deck and looked at those flowers he thought of his birth mother.

When we had nowhere else safe to go Ryan faced down his past, despite the agony he knew would accompany it, and brought us here.

If he could do that, so could I.

"I'll reread it with you," I said, my voice only slightly shaking.

"There's my Tiger," he whispered, leaning forward and kissing me on the cheek. "Let's get Daisy inside watching a DVD while we do this."

He stood up off the swing seat and looked down at me as I hesitated to move. There was such a depth of tenderness and care in his eyes, as well pride. He had no reason to be proud of me, my past spoke of all the wrongdoings I'd done. But with him beside me I was trying to be better. Trying to do what was right.

I took his hand and let him lead me off the deck.

We set ourselves up in the dining room. Enchanted was screening on the LCD TV in the attached lounge. I could see Daisy swinging her legs up behind her as she lay on her belly and fell willingly into her own little fantasy world. But the ledger, spread out in front of Ryan and myself on the table, took up most of my attention. Opened to a date, some eight years ago. Three years before I stole the book from Roan McLaren.

I stared at Rick's writing. So familiar, yet the words were - even to my now jaded eyes - foreign.