Page 18 of Some Cowboys Fight for Love

She was quiet for too long, causing him to find her gaze. When he did, she shrugged. “I wasn’t hurt as much as my mother.”

“Still doesn’t make it okay.” He looked down at her wrist where he’d grabbed her. Embarrassment and guilt roared like a storm inside him, made worse when she brought her wrist to her other hand and rubbed it. Daniel worked his jaw. “It won’t happen again.”

Aria nodded, her eyes dropping to her feet.

He promised himself he would never touch her again. Of course she hid her past. He couldn’t see a woman like Aria being happy about being called a victim. She didn’t look like a victim. It had to take a great deal of strength to live each day like the new opportunity it was.

Before he reached out to take her hand, he shoved his own in his back pockets. He rocked back on his heels. “Aria?”

When she didn’t look up right away, that guilt wrapped around his throat once more.

“Aria, I’m sorry you went through that.”

She did meet his gaze then. Moisture filled her eyes, but she blinked it away and those walls he was familiar with were shoved back into place. She offered him a smile and shrugged. “I survived.”

“Yes, you did.” He blew out a sharp breath. “And that means you’re probably much stronger for it.”

His words hit her in a way that caused her to stare at him with a strange expression he couldn’t decipher. There was surprise in those green depths, but there was also a bit of relief along with something else.

Aria’s expression smoothed out and she flashed him a smile, ending the conversation. “Let’s get these dishes washed so I can head back home.”

She might not have felt it, but he did. There was a new kind of connection between them—a new kind of kinship. They’d both been hurt by people who thought that being bigger gave them the right to cause pain. Those people thought they could break people like Aria.

They were wrong.

8

Aria

For the tenth time, Aria glanced down at where she could still feel the heat from Daniel’s touch. The strange thing was that she hadn’t felt scared. The breath that had been stolen from her lungs had been related to an entirely different emotion.

She hadn’t felt scared. That was the first thing she’d noticed. Perhaps it was because there wasn’t any menace in his touch. He’d merely wanted to stop her from leaving.

It was a fluke.

It had to be.

As Aria stood beside him at the sink, washing the dishes they’d used, she tried to make sense of it all and came up blank. Surely if he’d been upset, he would have triggered the memories she had from her childhood.

His hand brushed against hers when he took the dish she held out to him. Daniel visibly stiffened, and a twinge of embarrassment prickled at her. She should have never told himabout her father. Now he wasn’t going to see her as anyone but a victim.

Sure, he’d told her that he thought she was strong, but that didn’t mean that was how he felt. It could be a consolation sort of comment. She’d heard them before. Why would he be any different?

Aria glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Bubbles clung to her skin, crackling and popping, but they weren’t nearly enough of a distraction to pull her thoughts away from the way Daniel had reacted when she’d told him of her past.

It was more than just being upset for her.

She’d seen that reaction in people she knew as well.

This was different.

Had he dealt with abuse first-hand as well?

The question was on the tip of her tongue, but then his fingertips grazed hers again and she noted how her touch had affected him. Her cheeks flushed hot, and she let a sigh burst from her chest. “You don’t have to treat me like a piece of crystal. I’m not going to break.”

He eyed her, his shoulders tensed.

There was pain in those blue eyes. He was harboring secrets of his own.

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