“Hello, this is the Bennetts’ residence.”
“Mrs. Duncan, this is Mr. Bennett. How are things going?”
“Fine, sir. Kennedy did her homework and went to bed early.”
Michael raised a brow at that. Usually his daughter was a late-nighter. “Is she all right?”
“Yes, sir. She said she’s fine but just tired. Today was cheerleading try-outs.”
“How did she do?”
“We won’t know until Friday. Will you be back home by then?”
“I hope so. I canceled the flight out of Texas that was going to Chicago due to weather conditions there. I’m staying here tonight. Hopefully the weather will improve in Chicago overnight and I’ll be able to fly the plane there in the morning. This is the phone number at the hotel where you can reach me tonight if you need me.”
“All right, sir.”
He smiled. Mrs. Duncan was old enough to be his mother, but she insisted on calling him sir. After giving her the number, he said, “Good night, Mrs. Duncan. Will you let Kennedy know in the morning that I called?”
“Yes, sir.”
Michael chuckled as he hung up the phone. He checked his watch for the time before heading to the bathroom to take a shower. When he walked out of the bathroom twenty minutes later fully refreshed, he smiled when he heard the knock on his door. Perfect timing.
The moment he opened the door lust flared through his entire body. Stephanie Myers on occasion served as a flight attendant under him. At other times, when the two of them could arrange it, she served as a lover…under him…as well.
Tonight would be one of those times. He couldn’t wait for her to get under him in the bed.
“I take it you found your accommodations adequate,” he said as he stepped aside to let her into his hotel room and closed the door behind her.
“Very,” she said as she immediately began removing her clothes. “This is a good night for making love, don’t you think, Captain?”
His body hardened as he watched her undress, piece by piece. “Any night is a good night with you, Steph,” he said, meaning every word. He couldn’t help but remember the first time he’d slept with her. It had been their second flight together, two years after his wife had died. He’d been celibate since Lynda’s death, and Stephanie had known just what he wanted, just what he needed. During the four years since then, she was the only woman he’d made love to. He was a widower and she a divorcée with no plans to ever marry again. What they shared was mutual satisfaction and friendship. No love, no forever-after, just plain sex. Good, mind-blowing sex that had to last him until he saw her again. When that would be neither of them knew. For the past year they’d been lucky and had gotten assigned to at least three flights together.
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” she said, turning to him, now completely naked. She smiled broadly as she glanced down his body and saw that he was ready, aroused. “I take it you’ve missed me since the last time.”
“Very much so.” His nostrils flared as they inhaled the tantalizing scent of her heated flesh. She was just as hot and ready as he was. “Did you miss me?”
“More than you’ll ever know.” She came to him and reached out and opened his robe, groaning sensuously as she rubbed her naked body against his. “This feels good,” she purred in his ear before pulling his head down for a kiss. When he reached down and cupped her bottom and lifted her against his hardness, a passionate groan escaped both their lips. He gripped her upper arms as burning desire pulsed through him, swiping any control he had. It had been four months since he’d had her last, and he wanted her with a vengeance now.
“I want you,” he told her seriously as he picked her up and headed toward the bed. His lips sought hers the moment the bedcovers touched her back. He guided her legs around his waist, fitting his body to hers as he slid into her. It was a welcome reunion of flesh, mind, and spirit. She tried to hold him within her to savor the moment, but he refused to be still. He began moving, his thrusts powerful and urgent, and then she began matching him stroke for stroke, her movements just as powerful and just as urgent as his.
The end, when it finally came, swept them both away in a gigantic burst of pleasure…to last them until the next time.
Michael turned his body toward the sound of the phone and discovered he could not move. Something or someone had him pinned in place. He slowly opened his eyes and discovered Stephanie’s weight curled atop him as she slept. It was a very soft, a very feminine weight. However, at the moment it was hindering him from answering the phone.
He inhaled deeply when he remembered why she was on top of him. After he had made love to her several times while she’d been under him, she had wanted to take the dominant role and had pushed him on his back to give him the ride of his life. The experience had left him deeply satisfied, although at the moment he felt weak as water.
Mustering up all the strength he could manage, he gently lifted her off him and placed her beside him in the bed. Without waking up, she turned her face toward his shoulder and cuddled closer to him.
He reached out and grabbed the ringing phone. “Yes?”
“Oh, Mr. Bennett, I was just about to hang up. I’m so glad I was able to reach you.”
He recognized Mrs. Duncan’s voice immediately. He also heard the distress in it. Reacting to it, he moved to sit up on the side of the bed. His abrupt movement brought Stephanie awake. “What is it, Mrs. Duncan? What has happened?”
“It’s Kennedy, sir.”
Michael was on his feet now. “What’s wrong with Kennedy?”
“I told you earlier when you called that she had gone to bed.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I went in there right after our conversation to check on her. I opened the door and peeked my head in her room to make sure she was fine, since she usually doesn’t go to bed so early.”
“And?”
“From a glance she appeared all right. But then a few minutes ago I got up to get some water and decided to check on her again and noticed something strange.”
Michael drew in a deep breath, hoping Mrs. Duncan would get to the point she was trying to make and not be such a stickler for detail. “What was strange, Mrs. Duncan?”
“Her body was in the same place. No one can sleep for two hours without moving their body to another position. Then I knew I’d been had.”
Michael was pacing the room as Stephanie sat in the middle of his bed naked, looking at him with a sleepy but concerned look on her face. “How had you been had, Mrs. Duncan?”
“Kennedy wasn’t there. She’d put a pile of clothes under the bedcovers to pretend she was there. Oh, Mr. Bennett, I don’t know where she is or how long she’s been gone.”
Now Michael was just as frantic as Mrs. Duncan. “Have you called the police?”
“Yes, sir, they’re on their way.”
“What about her friends, those twins, Faith and Grace?”
“Yes, sir. I just finished talking to Mrs. Larson. The twins are missing, too.”
Several earthy expletives flowed from Michael’s mouth. “Call Morgan, Mrs. Duncan. He lives in the next county, but at least he’ll be able to get there before I do.” Morgan Viscount was a fellow pilot and a good friend.
“All right, sir. Will you be coming home?”
“Yes, just as soon as I can get a flight out of this place tonight.”
“And what do you want me to tell Kennedy when they find her?”
Michael stopped pacing. “Tell her I said no more chances,” he said before hanging up the phone.
“So, are you really going to put your foot down this time, Michael?”
Michael glanced over at the bed. Not only had Stephanie been his lover for the last four years; she’d also become his very good friend and confidante. In addition to making love to her each and every time he saw her, he’d also given her updates on the problems he’d begun having with Kennedy. Since becoming a teenager his daughter had turned into a hellion.
They’d had several arguments about his refusal to let her get a tattoo and his objections to her wanting to get her nose pierced. He’d heard countless times from Kennedy over the past year just how uncool he was. If being a concerned and caring parent made him uncool, then so be it. He would stay uncool.
“I put my foot down all the other times, Steph.”
“But maybe not enough, Michael. Don’t you see what she’s doing? She fighting for attention.”
Michael ran a frustrated hand across his head. “I give her as much attention as I can. I’m a pilot, for heaven’s sake! I have to be gone away from home at least three or four nights each week.”
“Then make sure she understands that.”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried, Steph? It’s like Kennedy has turned into another person, a total stranger. Where is that little girl I used to read a story to each night when I returned home from a flight? Where is the little girl who would come sit in my lap and tell me over and over how much she loved me? Where is she?”
Stephanie got out of the bed and walked over to him and placed a hand on his arm. “She’s still there, Michael; you just have to do whatever you can to bring her back out. But you may not be able to do it alone. I know you have a large family who you can call on if you’ll only reach out to them.”
Michael shook his head. “The majority of my family live in Georgia, and other than my grandfather, Kennedy doesn’t know any of them. Besides, she’s my responsibility, not theirs.”
“But I’m sure they wouldn’t mind helping—”
“No, damn it, she’s my responsibility! I don’t need their help!”
Stephanie knew when to back off. She and Michael had had discussions about his family many times. He’d been very close to them as a child growing up, but for some reason once he’d found out that he had been adopted, he had taken that discovery hard. “All right. Then what are you going to do?”
Already Michael was moving around the room packing. He paused and met her gaze. “The first thing I’m going to do when I get home is give Kennedy the behind whipping she deserves.”
As soon as the airline was able to secure another captain to take over his flight, Michael caught a plane in the middle of the night to go home to Minnesota. A call from Mrs. Duncan before he’d left the hotel indicated the police had found Kennedy and the Larson twins. The three of them had gone joyriding with a sixteen-year-old girl from their school. There had been an accident, a minor fender bender. After the police officer had given the girls a good tongue-lashing he had taken them home.
By the time Michael drove up into his driveway at three in the morning, he was furious as well as shaken up over the entire ordeal. The house was completely dark, which meant Mrs. Duncan and Kennedy were asleep. With as much rage and anger as he was feeling he knew the best thing to do was wait until morning and confront his daughter. But still he had to see for himself that she was safe and sound asleep in her room.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he entered his daughter’s bedroom. Walking over to the bed, he stared down at her sleeping form. From the streetlights shining through the window he saw her features, so much like Lynda’s, as she clutched her teddy bear while she slept. How could such a tiny and petite person be such a hellion while she was awake and appear to be such an angel while asleep? He glanced past his child to the framed picture of his wife that sat on Kennedy’s nightstand.
Suddenly at that moment the weight of all he’d endured for the past six years came crushing down on him. He thought his world had come to an end when he lost Lynda in an auto accident six years ago. How on earth would he have survived if he’d lost his daughter tonight the very same way? For heaven’s sake! She’d been out joyriding with friends when she should have been home in bed, safe and protected.
After pulling the covers over Kennedy, he left her room and walked across the hall to his own. Going over to his dresser, he picked up Lynda’s picture, a duplicate of the one in his daughter’s room. As he stared at it, he felt tears he hadn’t wept in six years wet his face. He had promised his wife that day at the hospital, just moments before she’d taken her last breath, that he would take care of their daughter and always keep her safe. He wondered if Lynda thought the way he now felt, that he was doing a damn poor job of it.
No. Lynda would understand like she always had that due to his profession he had to be gone from home a lot. She would believe in her heart that he would make things work for him and their daughter, always putting Kennedy first.
“Where is she, Lynda?” he whispered to the portrait he held in his hand, the likeness of the wife he’d loved so much. “Where is our little girl? The one you left for me to take care of? I want her back. I don’t know if I’m equipped emotionally to deal with the person she’s become. I need help. I need help, sweetheart. I don’t know if I can handle it alone any longer. I wish so much that you were here with me. You would know exactly what to do.”
Inhaling a deep breath, he placed the picture back on his dresser. Before he went to bed he would thank God for not taking his daughter away from him tonight, and he would do something that he had not done in a long time.
Tonight he would pray and he would pray hard.
“We’re moving to Atlanta.”
At first after he’d said those words Kennedy just stared at him like he had suddenly grown two heads. Then she quietly shrugged, met his gaze, and said, “I’m not moving anywhere.”
“You don’t have a choice, young lady.”
When she saw that he was dead serious the crying and screaming began, putting the tantrum in full swing. “How can you think about forcing me to leave? My friends are here. What about Faith and Grace? What about my school? What about—”
“What about putting a lid on it, Kennedy? Being dramatic won’t do you any good. We’re moving. As far as I’m concerned, none of those things you named makes a bit of difference to me, especially Faith and Grace. What type of friends would encourage you to pull a stunt like you did last night? All of you could have gotten killed.”
“We didn’t,” she countered.
“But you could have and that’s all that matters to me.”
“Well, that’s not all that matters to me. My friends matter to me. You’re never here. I need someone I can relate to.”
Michael took a deep breath. “And that’s why we’re moving. I’m taking this job that was offered to me a month ago. I’ll still be flying, but for a private corporation with flights only in the Southeast. That way I’ll be home more.” The decision had come to him last night after much soul-searching and prayer. He would take only a small cut from his current salary, but in a few years he’d be right back on top of his range again. But at the moment that didn’t matter. What he cared about most was his daughter and trying to coast her through these turbulent teenage years with as much ease as possible and without him losing his sanity in the process.
He had known he made the right decision when he went through his mail at breakfast and came across the letter from Cousin Agnes. There would be a Bennett family reunion in July. It was time for him to stop carrying that chip on his shoulder about being adopted. Donnel and Zoe Lee Bennett had given him a loving home for the first twelve years of his life. After their deaths his grandfather, Grampa Henry, had raised him and the rest of the Bennett family had given him a strong sense of values to live by. The close relationships he’d shared with all of his cousins, especially Taye, Rae’jean, and Alexia, had always given him a feeling of belonging.
He wanted Kennedy to have that same feeling of belonging as well.
It takes a village. That very thought had suddenly struck him last night, and he realized the importance of a strong, loving family system. Lynda was gone, but he still had a loving family he knew was there for him. All he had to do was reach out. Stephanie had tried to make him see that many times, but he had refused. If anything happened to him Kennedy would be completely alone, and he didn’t want that. Lynda’s parents had died years ago, a
nd she’d been the only child. The only relative she’d known about was an elderly aunt who’d died the year before she had. Therefore, his family would be the only one Kennedy had, and except for his grandfather, she didn’t know any of them. Living in Atlanta would put them within an hour’s drive of Macon, where most of the Bennetts lived.
“I won’t go. I’ll run away first.”
Kennedy’s threat interrupted his thoughts. “Yeah, sweetheart, you do that. Think of all the money you’ll be saving me on food, clothes, hair, and nails.”
The tears and the screaming started again. “I hate you!”
He tried to let her words, spoken in anger, roll off him. But they hurt nonetheless and his heart skipped a painful beat. “That may be the case, Kennedy, but I do love you.”
He then turned and walked out of the room.
Three weeks later and his plans had been finalized. He and Kennedy would be moving to Atlanta at the end of her school term. Kennedy was still pouting and was beginning to be a sheer test of his patience and control, but he was determined to ignore her antics. Her negative mood and attitude would not change a thing. In fact, they only reinforced his belief that he was doing the best thing for the both of them.
With the help of a realtor Michael had located a very nice home for him and Kennedy close to the school she would be attending. If everything worked out as planned, he would be settled in his home a few weeks before the family reunion, which was something he was beginning to look forward to. He had been gone away from home too long. After high school he had immediately joined the air force to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot. His travels had taken him just about everywhere, but it was when he was sent to Japan that he met Lynda. She’d been a nurse working at the base where he’d been assigned.
A Family Reunion Page 5