Sealed with a Kiss, Leeanna Morgan [black authors fiction .txt] 📗
- Author: Leeanna Morgan
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Rachel glared at him before turning her attention to Bella and her friend. “That’s Franky. And yes, he does have an amazing voice. I’m surprised you remembered.”
John wasn’t going to answer her. He was going to see his daughter.
“Your brother called Bella to wish her all the best. He seems like a nice person.”
John grunted. He walked around another group of people and Rachel followed him.
“He said he’d come to the play to watch Bella, but she wanted to keep the seat for you.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel worse, you’re doing a good job.”
Rachel walked ahead of him and stopped him in his tracks. “I don’t want you to feel worse. I want you to spend more time with your daughter.”
“Dad?” Bella side-stepped around Rachel and headed straight into his arms. “I missed you. Is everything okay?”
He held her close. “Everything is fine. How was your play?”
Bella’s face glowed as bright as the lights on the Christmas tree behind her. “It was wonderful. I remembered all of the words to the songs.”
“That’s great, Bella.”
“Why couldn’t you be here?”
John looked into her brown eyes and felt like the worst father in the world. “Some people were trying to hurt a person that asked for our help. I needed to make sure the person got home for Christmas.”
“And did they get home?”
John nodded.
“That’s okay, then. Franky’s dad couldn’t make it either. Can we invite him to our place to watch the play? Tanner recorded it on his phone. He said he didn’t miss anything this time.”
He pulled Bella into his arms. “Franky and his dad can come over for dinner as well, if they want to. If Franky gives us his phone number, I’ll give his dad a call.”
“Okay. I’ll find Franky now.” Bella darted between the people behind her. Tanner moved fast to keep up with her.
“Does she need a bodyguard all of the time?” Rachel whispered.
John wiped his hand over his eyes. He was so tired that he could have fallen asleep standing up. “I need to talk to you about what happened today, but I can’t do it here. We need to go home.”
Rachel put a hand on his forehead. “You’ve got a temperature.” She looked across the room and waved at Patty Daniels. Within seconds, John’s housekeeper was standing beside them.
“John isn’t well, Patty. Can you take him out to his truck while I go and find Tanner and Bella?”
“I’ll be all right. No one died from a temperature.”
Rachel stuck her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You’re as stubborn as a mule, too. I’m not taking no for an answer. Where’s Tank?”
“In my truck,” he muttered.
“Now you tell me. Patty, tell Tank to take John to the hospital. We’ll meet you there.”
He wondered where Rachel’s bossy streak had suddenly come from. He turned to say something to her, but she’d disappeared into the crowd of people around them.
Patty linked her hand under his elbow. “You’d better come with me, John. Why are we going to the hospital?”
“We aren’t. I’ll call Tank on my cell phone and tell him to meet us at home.”
Patty shook her head. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“As sure as I’ve been about everything in the last few weeks. Let’s go home.” He glanced around the room one last time. Tanner was walking toward him, talking to someone on his cell phone. Bella and Rachel were beside him.
At least they were together tonight. What happened tomorrow would be a whole different problem.
“I’m not staying here,” Rachel said. She’d been sitting in John’s kitchen, enjoying a hot cup of tea with Patty, when John walked into the room. He’d had a shower, changed his clothes, and come up with his silliest idea yet.
At exactly ten o’clock at night, he’d told her she was staying at his house. Not for the night, not even for the week. But for the next month, or until whatever mess he’d made was sorted out. And what annoyed her the most was that he hadn’t even asked if it was okay. He’d told her. He didn’t want to know what she thought about staying in his house or if there were other things she needed to do. His decision wasn’t open for discussion.
Patty had wisely left them to their conversation. After John’s first earth shattering announcement, Rachel wished she’d gone straight home from the Christmas play instead of waiting to see if he was all right.
“You don’t have a choice.” John sat at the table opposite her, frowning something fierce.
If he thought he could intimidate her with his macho-man tactics, he was wrong. “Of course I have a choice. I have a life that involves more than these four walls. I will not hide inside while the rest of the world celebrates Christmas.”
“You don’t have to hide inside. You can do whatever you want, but I can’t risk letting you go home each afternoon on your own.”
“Fine. Ask one of your bodyguards to stay with me. My apartment isn’t big, but I’ve got a spare bed. They could drive with me to work each morning.”
“You’re safer here.”
Rachel felt like stamping her foot. “I don’t want to stay here.”
John’s mouth set into a grim line. “It’s better than being kidnapped.”
“What are you talking about? No one wants to kidnap me.” She thought about the bullet graze on his arm, the temperature that he’d been given antibiotics for. “You’re delusional. You need to go to bed.”
“I am not delusional.”
“Don’t tell me this is payback for making you see a doctor? It’s just as well Tank and Tanner have some common sense between their ears. If you hadn’t gone to the hospital, you could have been a lot worse than you are now.”
John dropped his head to his hands. “What did I do to deserve you in my life?”
Rachel snorted. “Nowhere in my contract does it state that I have to live here. And if someone’s trying to kidnap me, then they’d better be worried. I’ve done self-defense classes and I know how to use a frying pan.”
“A what?”
“A frying pan,” Rachel said slowly in case his brain was having a hard time keeping up with their conversation. “You know. A metal pan with a handle that you use for frying food.”
“I know what a frying pan is. What has it got to do with being kidnapped?”
Rachel sighed. “You’d know if you got hit over the head with one.”
John tilted his head to the side. “You’re crazy.”
“If you think that intelligent observation is going to change my mind about staying here, you’re wrong.” She picked up her mug and took it across to the kitchen counter. “In case I don’t see you before Christmas, enjoy your vacation.”
She opened the dishwasher and stacked her mug inside. “If you haven’t already bought Bella a Christmas present, she was hoping Santa might bring her a puppy. But with what’s happening in your life, I’d say it was the last thing you need.”
Rachel turned toward the kitchen door and stopped. John was standing in the doorway with his arms planted either side of the frame.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“There’s no point squinting your eyes at me like a ninja turtle. And don’t get any ideas about using your karate moves on me. I was a Navy SEAL. I know how to protect myself.”
Rachel walked up to him and poked him in the stomach with her finger. Okay, so he had tight abs, but that didn’t mean she believed him. “You got punched in the face and shot in the arm. I’d say your defensive moves are a bit rusty.”
“Really?”
Rachel didn’t like the way he was looking at her. She squared her shoulders and waited to see what he’d do next.
When he didn’t move, she started to go through her list of vulnerable parts on the human body. She could poke him in the eyes, nose and throat, but she didn’t want to hurt him too much. That took out the groin and knees as well. She could always karate chop his arm where the bullet had scraped his skin, but that would be mean. That only left his stomach, and she knew how hard those muscles were.
His smile was enough to make her wish she’d been born bad.
“It’s not as easy as it looks, is it?”
John had no idea what he’d just unleashed. There were lots of ways to be bad, and some of them didn’t involve a whole lot of physical violence. In fact, some of them just required a steady hand and a devious mind. Rachel pulled her bad girl out and decided to work with what she had.
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