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“They didn’t want me.” She shakes her head, her smile sad as she brushes her fingers down my cheek. “They wanted you.”
I frown.
“Liam, it was your dad.”
And my ears start ringing.
“He wanted to talk to you. He wouldn’t say what it was about, but?—”
“You opened the door for my dad?” I snap. I can’t help it. Rising to my feet, I pace away from her, palming the back of my head.
Rachel pauses, then softly explains, “I didn’t know he was your dad when I opened the door. I checked through the window and saw this frail-looking guy, and I just… had to make sure he was okay.”
“Frail?” My head jolts back before I start to shake it.
“Yes. He didn’t look that well, to be honest, and then after we were done talking, he?—”
“You talked to him?” I’m snapping again. Or growling. Whatever it is, I sound pissed.
I don’t mean to be, but what the fuck? She opened the door to my dad?
“Was he drunk?” I spin to face her.
“I… I don’t think so.”
“How could you talk to him? You should have slammed the door in his face and called me.”
“Liam, he looked like?—”
“I don’t care!” I flick my hand in the air. “You shouldn’t have…” My voice starts to break apart. “If he’d hurt you, I…” I clench my jaw. Images of Rachel on her knees begging him to stop torture me. She morphs into my mother, then back again before my brain is terrorized by the idea of Dad’s fist pummeling Rachel’s delicate skin, his blinding anger wreaking havoc on her gentle soul.
Crumpling to my knees, I cover the back of my head and let out a shout before crawling toward her. My voice is fast and panicky. “Ray, please, you gotta promise me you’ll never talk to him again. If he comes back, you can’t open the door. You can’t?—”
“Shhh, Liam,” she whispers, cupping my cheeks and gazing down at me. “He wasn’t going to hurt me. He looked sad and broken. I think something’s really wrong with him. I just got this overwhelming sense that?—”
“Please, just promise me.” I can’t hear the rest of her sentence because I don’t want her to tell me that I should give him a chance. I don’t want to know that he’s in trouble and I have to help him too.
I can’t do that.
I can’t.
“Liam.”
“No.” I shake my head.
Moving away from my woman hurts in a whole different way, but I refuse to sit here and watch her be sympathetic toward my father. Mama did that over and over again, and she was always punished for her kindness. Her care.
I won’t let Rachel fall into that trap.
I want to protect her, but that’s not going to happen if I let her entertain this notion that my dad’s not all bad.
He is.
He’s bad.
He’s a wife beater. A child beater.
He never got help.
