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I needed to know what happened, so I could protect her and fix this mess.
If she was worried she’d be in trouble for having the need to defend herself from an attacker, she wouldn’t need to be worried for much longer. Because I was going to take care of everything for her.
As Daisy cried and held on to me, I pinned my focus on Avalon. Jerking my head to the room on my left side, I said, “I’m taking her in there to get her cleaned up and figure out what I’m dealing with.”
“Do you need me to do anything?”
I shook my head. Until I knew what I was dealing with, I couldn’t say who was best suited to help in this situation. “Not yet, but please stand by. I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out what’s going on.”
Avalon offered a nod in return. “I’ll stop back here in a little bit to make sure you’re both okay.”
“Thanks, Avalon.”
As she turned to walk off, I shifted my body slightly, bent at the waist, and lifted Daisy into my arms. When I heard her moan of discomfort, it took everything in me to rein in the overwhelming desire I had to find whoever did this to her and make them pay. Of course, she’d already made it clear she’d done that, so for now, it seemed I just needed to do what I could to understand what happened and help her heal from it.
As much as I wanted to get Daisy to a hospital after the initial assessment of her, I couldn’t do it just yet. She was here, alive and breathing, so it was my hope her injuries were just superficial at this point. I needed to assess the situation and understand what we were dealing with before I took her somewhere that might result in her going from being a victim to a suspect.
I sat down on the couch in the makeshift lounge room we had, settling Daisy in my lap. For the next few minutes, I attempted to console her while doing my best to reassure her.
While stroking one hadn’t up and down her back, I allowed the fingers on my other hands to sift through her hair at the back of her head. “I’ve got you, sunshine. Nobody is going to hurt you again.”
She didn’t respond, but that didn’t stop me from continuing to do what I was doing while pressing several kisses to the top of her head.
It took some time, but Daisy eventually calmed down enough that she seemed ready to talk. She pulled her face back from my chest and looked up at me. Seeing her face like that, understanding what she must have gone through, I wished I could have traded places with her.
Keeping my voice as neutral as I could but unable to stop the concern from leaking through, I asked, “Do I need to get you to a hospital immediately?”
She shook her head. “No. No, I think I’m okay.”
It wasn’t the answer I’d been hoping for, but I was also better than the alternative. After taking a minute to assess the situation and her, I finally asked, “What happened? Who did this to you?”
Her eyes roamed over my face for a long time, searching for something; though, I didn’t know what. Eventually, she shared, “I spent so much time looking for something, for someone. I did whatever I could to not feel so lonely.”
Something twisted in my gut at her admission. I hated to think that everything we’d had between us was just an attempt on her part to ease the loneliness she was feeling. I thought what happened between us was something much more meaningful to her than that.
Had she gone back home after leaving the ski resort and found someone else so quickly, someone who could do this to her?
I was sick at the thought, but right now, it didn’t matter how I felt. All that was important was making sure she was okay.
“Tell me what happened.”
“It was two months before I came to the resort,” she started. “I’d gone out to a local pub in Birch Creek, and a man had approached me. It was friendly and casual, and he’d challenged me to a game of Truth or Dare. I played along, choosing to do one dare after another.”
Daisy paused a moment, and I waited patiently for her to gather her thoughts, using the time to try to come to grips with the fact she was here, sitting in my lap.
“It started off innocently enough. The man, Jeremy, asked me to put a song on the jukebox and belt out the lyrics in front of everyone. I never back down from a dare, so of course, I did it. We went back and forth a few times, and I thought we were getting along great.” Daisy paused and let out a frustrated sigh. “I can’t believe I actually thought he was interested in me.”
My brows knit together. “He wasn’t?”
“No.”
“How do you know?” I pressed.
She closed her eyes and turned her head away from mine. If I had expected Daisy to be in a state of panic or physical pain given how she’d walked into Harper Security Ops, I’d have been wrong. She was devastated, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with whatever happened to her today.
“Because for the next dare, he asked me if I’d help to cheer up his friend who’d just recently gone through a breakup,” she revealed. “He pointed his buddy out to me, a guy sitting alone at the end of the bar. I was bummed, because I thought Jeremy and I had hit it off. Obviously, he didn’t feel the same, but I couldn’t be mad. I mean, he was decent enough to want to cheer his buddy up, right?”
Daisy let out a laugh, but there was something about it that told me she wasn’t actually happy. It was a laugh filled with discomfort, because whatever truth was there weighed heavily on her heart.
