what were you really talking about?”
“Ahhhhh—” I stall for time and try to think of a plausible story.
Quinn rolls her head until she faces me. Her beautiful face is lit up with a knowing smile. I cave.
“I was talking about hits. You know the Italians were really bloodthirsty,” I say as if this explains away the things I was talking to Trudy about. “They killed a pope. Some guy whacked the emperor. I’d have fit in good. Shit, they even carried out a whole massacre in a church.” I leave out the part where the plot failed and the assassins were hung from the windows of a palace in the middle of Florence, but, damn, those were some juicy stories the tour guide told us up north.
Quinn laughs. “I guess that’s why we keep coming back here.”
“That and because you speak the language.” Quinn studied the Romance languages in college, but since we’ve started traveling she’s gotten almost fluent in about four of them. It’s easy to travel with her because of it.
“In my defense, I did say my favorite place so far was the gardens at the Villa Borghese.” Those were astoundingly beautiful.
“Not because you learned that there was a sculptor assassin?”
“No, but that was cool.” I’m not going to deny I have a predilection for that shit. I spent almost a decade dealing with death. I’ve come to terms with it and, thankfully, so has Quinn. These days, I’m busier with diapers and pacifiers, but there have been times my past skills have come in handy. We had a run-in with some asshole in Amsterdam who tried to feel Quinn up when she was waiting to use the toilet. I took him out behind the pub, broke all ten of his fingers and his nose. He’s lucky I didn’t mangle his dick but Quinn felt that the finger thing was a fair punishment.
Trudy’s head starts to droop. I loop our travel bag over one shoulder, tuck my daughter’s small body to my chest, and help Quinn to her feet.
“Come on. If we can make it back to the hotel in the next fifteen minutes, we can have some alone time.”
“Oh? And what will you do with that alone time?” Quinn teases.
“Things. Many things. Dirty, twisted things that I can’t put into words because our daughter isn’t sleeping yet.”
Quinn’s laugh spills out into the open space. Heads turn and people stare because she’s gorgeous and happy and the whole world wants a piece of her, but she’s mine. I gather my woman under my arm and kiss her, squishing our daughter between us. Quinn tastes like sunshine and joy. Her love has filled all the dark corners of my life and washed my past sins away.
We kiss and kiss and kiss until Trudy squirms and lets out a sleepy protest. Reluctantly, I release Quinn’s mouth. Her lips are shiny red and her face is pink with desire. My hand slides down her arm to capture her fingers.
“Come on, baby, let’s go.”
She lays her head against my shoulder. “I love you,” she murmurs.
Love really isn’t a good enough word for what I feel for her, but it’s all I have. “I love you, too.”
There’s good in this world and most of it is within the circle of my arms. I’ve never done jack shit on this planet to deserve her or Trudy, but I have them both. I’m a lucky bastard, I know this. Maybe the skills I learned early on weren’t for nothing. After all, somebody competent needs to be protecting these treasures. And, for all my faults, the one thing I can do well is guard Trudy and Quinn. Nothing will ever hurt them as long as I’m still breathing and even if I have to go down that dark path again to keep them safe, I will.
“I can feel you thinking,” Quinn says. Her hand rubs along the small of my back.
“Yeah, about how lucky I am.”
“And?”
“And how I’d kill to keep you safe.” It’s a dark admission but those are my honest thoughts.
“I know.”
I pull up short. Her frank acceptance surprises me. “You know?”
“Of course. It’s why I feel safe. It’s why I love traveling. There’s no place I can’t go without you by my side. I sleep well at night. I don’t worry about anything during the day. I used to feel bad about putting that burden on you, but then I realized that’s how you love me and if you didn’t get to protect me, it would get you down.”
Her assessment is so on point that I’m shocked speechless. She grins and winks at me. “You’re the sweetest, Daman.”
“I’ve killed people and maybe not all of them deserved it.”
“You did what you had to do to survive and quit before it took your soul. You’re a good man, my love. I’m proud to be your wife.”
A thick lump grows in my throat. I start walking—fast. Beside me, my wife giggles into a fist. I don’t need to ask what she finds funny. I know her like she knows me. She always thinks it’s hilarious whenever I get slightly uncomfortable by her praise. It’s something that I never really experienced before I met her. I never understood what love or happiness were until I first had Quinn and then our beautiful daughter. What started out as a killer crush with Quinn has turned into a life worth living.