Page 25 of Chasing Shelter (Sparrow Falls #5)

TRACE

I’d watched Ellie from my window for a minute as she struggled to get a goddamned goat into her backyard. For a second, I worried Lolli had slipped me one of her special brownies and I was hallucinating. But after blinking a few times, I knew I wasn’t.

What the hell had Ellie been thinking? Trying to wrangle an animal she likely knew nothing about without any help? She could’ve been seriously hurt. As was evidenced by her hopping, cursing dance.

Ellie froze, her eyes widening at my barked words. I expected her to read me the riot act. To give me absolute hell for being a stick-in-the-mud. What I didn’t expect was for those gorgeous pale green eyes to fill with tears.

“Oh, fuck,” I muttered, moving into Ellie’s space. I pulled her into my arms and held her to me. “Hey, hey. What’s going on?”

“Y-you said the F-word,” she said between sobs.

I just held her tighter against me, wishing I could take back my words, soften my tone. I was such an asshole. “Yeah, I did.”

Ellie kept right on crying as I held her. Each sob was like a knife to the chest, and I would’ve given anything to fix whatever was wrong. Slowly, her cries lessened, but they didn’t cease altogether.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” I did everything I could to keep my voice as gentle as possible.

Ellie pulled back, her eyes bloodshot and still pooling with tears. “I can’t even save a goat. How am I supposed to save myself?”

Everything in me tightened, and I battled not to grip Ellie harder. To keep my contact gentle. Instead, I lifted a hand to her face, my thumb tracking under her eye, the same one that had been bruised yet hidden beneath coats of makeup. “Who hurt you?”

My voice was soft, but fury vibrated each word.

Because there was more to the story. More to what was going on with her father.

Or maybe something else entirely. But I needed to know what it was more than I needed my next breath.

Because in that moment, I would’ve given anything to take away Ellie’s pain.

“My ex,” she whispered.

My jaw clenched so tightly pain stabbed through the bone.

“Just once,” she hurried to add. “When I left.”

“He. Hit. You?” The fury vibrated harder this time, my hold on it more tenuous.

Ellie twisted slightly, looking away but not leaving my hold. I wasn’t sure I’d have been able to let her go if she tried.

“I don’t know what it was about. He never—there was no temper before. It was like this whole other side of him came out,” she admitted.

“Tell me you reported it.”

Ellie was quiet, which was my answer.

“El.”

“It wouldn’t have done any good. His family’s connected. It never would’ve made it to court. And even if it had, I couldn’t deal with any more attention.”

I muttered another curse. Apparently, Ellie made me break all the rules. But I understood her thought process. She already had the world’s attention, thanks to her father’s crimes. Heaping more on would’ve been more than she could take .

But everything about him walking free made me want to rage. There was no justice in that. And justice was the one thing I needed to count on. That whatever bad in the world happened, the evil would pay for it.

“Did you tell anyone?” I asked, defeat bleeding into my tone.

“No,” Ellie whispered. “I just—I was embarrassed.” Her gaze lifted to mine. “I made so many mistakes, Trace. Let the wrong people rule my life. My dad. Bradley.”

“Don’t say his name,” I spat.

Ellie’s eyes widened a fraction.

“Sorry,” I ground out. “I just—I’m too angry right now. I want to hunt him down and—” I cut myself off, not wanting to admit that the same urge toward violence my father had also ran through my veins.

Instead of being appalled, one corner of Ellie’s mouth kicked up. “Don’t worry, I’ve thought about a little justice myself. Throwing him into alligator-infested waters. Buying a voodoo doll and giving him a permanent limp dick. Keying his precious Maserati.”

My thumb ghosted over the swell of her cheek. “You’ve got a vengeful streak in you like Fal does.”

Ellie gave me a wavering grin. “Watch out, Chief. I’ll get you if you cross me.”

“Noted, Blaze. Noted.” I stared down at her, admiring all her strength but so badly wanting Ellie not to have endured what she had. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

She didn’t look away as she listened to my words. “I let it happen, Trace. That’s what makes it so awful. What makes me feel so ashamed.”

“The hell, you did.”

Ellie shook her head. “You don’t get it. I might not have let him hit me, but I let him walk all over me from the moment we met. From the moment Bradley and I got together, he treated me like nothing more than window dressing, acceptable arm candy. And I just went along with it.”

“You’re a hell of a lot more than that,” I ground out.

“I like clothes. Makeup. ”

“Who gives a damn?” I challenged. “There’s nothing wrong with liking those things. And that’s one piece of you.”

“Maybe. But I even changed that for him. For my dad. My boss. I was all neutrals and acceptable styles. I never fought to just be…me.”

Hearing that killed something in me. Because I could see the sparks of the real Ellie coming through now that she was free. And dimming those would be a loss for the entire world.

“Who do you want to be?”

Ellie’s pale green eyes shimmered like dew-covered moss. “I don’t know.”

“Tell me one thing you want.”

“I want a goat.”

I barked out a laugh. “Looks like you tackled that one, even though it’s illegal to have livestock within city limits.”

Ellie winced. “Really?”

“Don’t worry. I won’t turn you in.”

“You breaking the rules for me, Chief?”

“I knew you were going to be a bad influence.”

Ellie laughed, the sound easing something in me. “We’ll make a rebel out of you yet. I did get you to drop an F-bomb.”

I stared at her for a long moment and decided to give her a piece of my own shame. “I don’t like to curse because my parents did. All day, every day. It was like every other word in our house. Hearing it reminds me I could be like them.”

“Trace,” Ellie whispered. Her hands lifted to frame my face.

“Dropping an occasional swear word won’t ever make you like your dad.

You didn’t let what you came from define you.

You let it teach you. It showed you the kind of dad you’d never be.

The kind of man. And dropping an F-bomb won’t change that. ”

I stared down at her for a long moment. I wanted to kiss her so damn badly. Wanted to taste the words she’d just given me on my tongue. “I’ve been holding on to these invisible rules like they’ll keep me from becoming him.”

“You don’t need ‘em, Chief. You’re already a million times the man he could ever hope to be. ”

Maybe Ellie was right. Maybe it was time to let go just a little. Maybe it was time to take a risk. My head lowered, lips hovering just above hers?—

“OH MY GOD!” Keely screeched. “You got a goat! Can we get a goat, Daddy? Pretty please, can we?”

My daughter barreled across the lawn toward us, and I leveled Ellie with a stern glare. “I’m going to make you pay for this.”

Ellie just burst out laughing. And it was the best sound I’d ever heard.