Ultimate Courage (True Heroes Book 2) by Piper J. Drake Page B

future, like a lifeline or an escape route.
    “Gary and Greg are good with twitchy personalities,” Forte said approvingly.
    Forte went over to train at Revolution on occasion. Not as much as Rojas did when he was up to dealing with people. Actually, the training helped take the edge off his anxiety, so Rojas tried to get there at least once a week. Sparring with some of the better martial artists in the smaller, private sessions helped him work off tension.
    But neither Forte nor Rojas was good with the shyer students normally. The ones who came for self-defense too late and already had the bruised look of someone irreparably harmed. Those people generally had learned the hard way to seek out training or had been recommended to self-defense as a form of therapy after a traumatic experience. It was a good way to build up confidence, whether it hadn’t yet been gained or had been taken away. Gary and Greg worked with them, coaxed back their confidence, helped them rebuild some of what they’d lost.
    It was why he’d thought to take Elisa to them in the first place. She wasn’t as bad as some, but she had the look.
    “Yeah. Not sure if she’ll stay. She’s got a serious chip on her shoulder about accepting help. She might not be around tomorrow.” And normally, he’d wish a person well if they came and went so quickly. He wasn’t generally one to get attached, not even to the few women he’d dated in the few years he’d been living here.
    Serena was his focus. His daughter. Boom.
    “But you decided to give her a reason.” Forte straightened to a more upright sitting position and placed the half-finished beer bottle on the coffee table. “You’ve got a soft spot for the ones like her.”
    “Not sure I know what you mean.” Only he did. He and Forte had built a lot of history over the years, first in the military and then back here in the States.
    “Doesn’t matter if it’s a woman or a dog or a green recruit, you step up to give the rescued ones an extra chance or three.” Forte wagged his finger at Rojas. “It got you into trouble when we were deployed.”
    And back at home, too. He’d given his ex-wife a few chances too many even after she’d presented him with divorce papers and she’d gone down a slippery slope. By the time he’d realized she’d gotten too entrenched in her painkiller addictions it was too late. She’d died while he was on the way back to home soil. He hadn’t been able to do anything but comfort his daughter when he’d returned, and fight for custody of her when his ex-wife’s parents tried to claim he was unfit to raise her.
    Rojas finished up the last of his yogurt and gummy candy.
    “Granted, she seems like a good person,” Forte continued. “It pisses me off to think about what probably happened to her to make her as twitchy as she was. I wasn’t sure she’d last the morning with the way she’d look up at either of the two of us coming in and out every ten or twenty minutes. It was almost like she was suspicious.”
    Frowning, Rojas shifted his weight in his seat, moved to defend her some. “Nothing wrong with acknowledging people as they come and go. Better than her ignoring us or pretending we’re not around. She’s got some steel strapped to her spine.”
    Figuratively speaking.
    Forte chuckled. “Oh, I saw it. She sat bolt upright whenever I came through. Watchful. Alert. Determined to put up a strong front.”
    To call it cute would’ve been insulting to Elisa. Rojas was glad his friend hadn’t. If either of them was prone to using their vocabulary, maybe they’d call it endearing. Worth some extra effort to foster it, give her a place to come into her own.
    He got a sense from her that there was a lot more under the surface.
    “For what it’s worth, I hope she comes back in the morning.” Forte picked up his beer and drained the rest of it.
    “Cruz is back tomorrow, right?” Rojas asked, standing as Forte did.
    “Yup.”
    Rojas held out his hand