The mop of unremarkable dirty-brown hair she had when he found her had lightened in the desert sun. Bright brown now, some days she almost looked blonde. The high ponytail she began the day with was now lower and sloppier, but it still bounced and swayed as she motored along with a determined gait.
She looked like a typical kindergarten kid. His chest flooded with warmth at the thought.
Heather’s soft snort of laughter touched him at the same time that she reached for his hand. “Girl on a mission.”
“Yeah, no shit,” he answered with a squeeze of her fingers. “What do you think she’s up to?”
Not running after his kid every time she moved was one of the hardest things he was learning about being a full-time, hands-on dad.
The woman at his side, his champion in all things and the sexiest human being to ever walk the earth, reached with her free hand to rub his bicep. The soothing gesture was accompanied by a soft kiss pressed on his shoulder.
“Easy, Daddy. She’s fine. Let’s just watch and see what she does.”
He didn’t sigh, and he didn’t hold his breath. He just sort of slowed down and observed.
Her pink sneakers smacking on the walkway, Bella headed straight for the doors to the house with George fast on her heels. A small smile played around his mouth when his badass daughter pivoted quickly, gestured for the dog to stop, and directed the obedient pup to sit.
George plopped down, his tail wagging against the bricks. A satisfied Bella—looking every inch a general commanding her troops—put up her hand so he’d know to stay.
Brody filled with pride as he watched. He’d taught her all those things. His baby Bella Mia was a natural with animals.
Heather, who had the uncanny ability to read his silent thoughts, muttered close to his ear, “Just like her daddy.”
“Shit,” he growled when the kid started to roll open the slider. “She’s headed inside. Where’s my phone?”
Fast hands searched his pocket but came up empty. He’d left the damn thing inside.
Worse than a run-of-the-mill anxious dad, he was single-handedly transforming the word’s meaning where Bella was concerned. All too aware of the fuckery and dangers kids were susceptible to, he’d been over-reacting and shadowing the poor kid’s every muscle twitch.
Until Alex swooped in and saved the day.
Without being asked, the Major developed a customized security system for them. Programmable sensors were tied to an inside video panel and also functioned wirelessly on his phone. He and Heather could control the locks and monitor every room in the house, each window, all the doors and every square inch of the property. If a window cracked open he’d know in five seconds which one.
“Come on,” he said. Snatching Heather’s hand, he practically dragged her across the lawn in his haste to follow Bella inside.
She didn’t resist, but she did caution him as he plowed ahead. “Brody, remember what we agreed on. Don’t be obvious, okay? Let’s not make her feel like a prisoner.”
The reminder of what his kid had endured during the first years of her short life made his insides churn. It also slowed him down. Patting George on the head, they swept past the patiently waiting dog and slid quietly into the house.
Bella was in the kitchen on the other side of the great room. She looked up when they entered. That was when Heather, quite cleverly, laughed out loud and pushed him to lean against the back of the sectional sofa.
“Okay, you,” she chirped happily. Loud enough for Bella to hear. “No more outside time unless you stop by the slime bucket first.”
The slime bucket. Jeez. The woman was effing brilliant.
Pointing to the vintage metal tub right next to the sliding doors, she kept up a running stream of verbal consciousness about the need for sunscreen and how frustrated he made her because she always had to remind him.
While she picked out a sunscreen and rambled on as she applied the lotion to the back of his neck, Brody was able to turn and face Bella.
Despite the kitchen island obscuring part of his view, he saw the precocious little girl take a cup and open the pullout freezer drawer. After that, she bent over and disappeared from his eyesight, but he heard rustling and then the distinct thunk, thunk, thunk of three ice cubes landing in the plastic cup.
He was beginning to understand.
Bella marched away, and he heard the sound of the pantry door opening. A minute later she reappeared with a small bucket that she held by a handle.
Carefully retrieving the ice filled cup off the island counter, she placed it in the bucket and headed for the sliders. Before she could go outside, Heather called her to come closer.
“Sweetie? Are you slimed?”
Bella nodded and shot him a reproachful glance. “Really Daddy,” she drawled in a way only a mini-grown-up could. “We make it simple. Don’t we Heather?” she asked.
He loved that she used the word ‘we’.
“That we do, Bella Mia,” Heather teased. “You tell him!”
Scolding him adorably, she shook her little finger in his face. “Daddy. We told you. Sunscreen or no dessert.”
He bit back a snort of laughter. God. The kid was fucking awesome, and she wasn’t even six years old.
“Heather made me count,” she told him with grave seriousness. “There are nine sunscreens in the bucket. Just grab one. Right?” she asked with a quick look in Heather’s direction.
Well! He sure got told. After putting him squarely in his place, she went back to what she was doing. Yanking open the doors, she picked up her bucket of stuff and headed back outside.
“Hold the doors for us,” Heather called out.
They stayed back for a minute before following her. She’d just rounded the corner from the pool deck patio—evidenced by George’s wagging tail and hindquarters as he trailed behind.
Heather grabbed a hat off the outdoor table and smooshed it onto her head. Then they casually strolled along the edge of the yard and joined Bella on the back patio where her outdoor play stuff lived.
Dashing here and there, she gathered George’s toys and put them in a big pile. When she peered into the bucket, he watched in fascinated silence as a scrub brush and a small squirt bottle of dish soap appeared. She laid these items aside before going to a garden hose in the corner.
Pulling the hose over to the bucket, she dropped it to the ground and went for George’s water bowl. That too joined everything else as Bella spread things out in a semi-circle around her.
Finally, she reached back into the bucket and pulled out the cup of ice. The dog immediately started yipping and running in a circle.
Heather laughed. “That girl is too smart for her own good. She knew not to let the cat out of the bag, in this case, a cup full of ice, until she was ready!”
George Jensen—the dog’s full name according to Bella Mia—had a love affair going on with ice cubes. The second he spied the cup and heard the ice rattle he knew what was coming.
Carefully using the hose to put water in the bucket, they could hear her issuing commands to an overly playful George.
When the bucket was almost full, and the hose turned off, she slapped her hands on her little waist and scolded the dog.
“No ice treats for you until you sit!”
After George finally settled down, she upended the cup into the empty water bowl. As the chunks of frozen water hit the plastic with a thud, his tail wagged like crazy.
Scooping the plastic cup into the bucket, she poured the water carefully into the bowl. Satisfied with the outcome, his feisty, determined daughter sat down next to her stuff and got busy.
“Okay,” she called out to George as she flashed a hand sign the dog would respond to. He instantly jumped on the water bowl and had a doggie freak out over the ice.
A few minutes later, with some soap added to the bucket, she set about carefully washing all of the dog’s toys.
“What brought this on?” he wondered out loud.
H
eather responded—a sense of awe evident in her voice. “I think I know.”
She was standing slightly behind him but moved close and wrapped her arms around his waist. With her chin on his shoulder, he felt her sigh as it hit his neck.
“She’s having company later.”
“What?”
Reacting to his surprise, she chuckled and said, “I know, right? Brace yourself Daddy. Baby Bella has a friend coming over. Amy. Amy Stewart. From down the street.”
Holy fuckballz. Really? Bella having a friend seemed huge. Hell, bigger than huge.
“I like the Stewarts. Mark seems like a stand-up kind of a guy even for a dentist.” His snicker acknowledged that a dentist was nothing to make fun of.
While they kept an eye on Bella’s cleanup project, Heather filled him in on his daughter’s social life.
“April is a powerhouse,” she sniggered quietly. “That first PTO meeting I went to? Well, let me tell you. April got up to ask a question and right away this serious vibe fell over the room.” Heather laughed. “She even winked at me before she stood. I think she missed her calling. We could use someone like that in our diplomatic corps.”
Brody chuckled at the way his lady’s mind worked. He very much enjoyed that she was a deep thinker. They were perfectly matched that way.
“Waiting at the bus stop every morning with April and Lori Pedroza—she’s the one with the boat in the driveway—has been illuminating.”
Bella laughed at the dog’s antics and called him over once the ice was gone. He amended his earlier thought about Bella having her first friend. Amy would be second because she’d bonded with goofy Georgie that very first night they spent as a family.
She got the ornery pooch to lie down. Keeping up a running commentary that Brody was too far away to hear, he watched as she continued scrubbing and rinsing all of the dog’s toys.
“I’ve put her in touch with Angie about doing something for the family center. April Stewart could get money from a stone if the cause was worthwhile, and she loves what Meghan is trying to do with the place.”
The family center. Brody couldn’t wait for it to finally open. Meghan’s idea for a little community center where parents and kids could gather for everything from ceramics workshops and computer classes to basketball games and financial planning seminars had burgeoned into a larger and more complex facility than anyone imagined at the start. Because good attracts more good, as the project grew and developed, more and more people wanted to be part of it. Even him.
“Hey, I saw those cool as shit coat racks Drae made for the offices.” Drawling with a playful sneer, he added, “Asshole. Just trying to get in good with all you ladies so that next time he acts like a fucknut, he’ll have a better chance of you guys being on his side.”
Heather roared with laughter and let loose on his arm with a female swat. Bella looked up at the sound, smiled at them and then returned to her busywork.
“Did you give him the shirt yet?” She was trying to stifle her giggles. The only thing was, the St. John situation was like a running sit-com with the occasional overly dramatic episode thrown in here and there. Not laughing wasn’t an option.
“Got a leadership meeting coming up. Planning to make a ceremony of it.”
“Ah. The Justice Knights gathered at the round table.” Heather’s eye roll was louder than any snicker-laugh could ever be.
He snickered. “I’d expect something more imaginative from Drae than a basic round table. Maybe a giant dick with big fat balls at one end. We could take turns sitting at the head.”
Heather swung and looked at him with entertaining incredulity in her expression. Sometimes she was way easy to rile up.
“Just kidding,” he teased.
“Sadly,” his lady love comically drawled, “no, you’re not. The fact that I can create a visual so easily in my mind means y’all are fully capable of being exactly that kind of crude while casually laughing it off.”
She had her half-snotty professional lady hat on. He grinned. Heather’s attempts at being a hard ass got his blood pumping. And his dick hard. Perfect time to mess with her a little bit.
“Hey, did you hear? Calder found a way to remote control the vibrations in a ball harness. Evil fucker, that guy. Says it’s the ultimate denial toy.”
“Oh, believe me,” she snipped. “We heard all about it.”
She came off confident but he detected that tiny, infinitesimal flicker in her eyes that let him know she was one hundred percent bluffing. Ha! He was just fucking with her, although it occurred to him that with one conversation between him and Calder, the only guy smarter or cleverer than Alex, he could create anything with that fancy 3-D printer he had. To Brody, a harness of kegel balls inserted into his love’s pussy that he could control with his phone sounded all kinds of hot.
And she’d be game to play. Living together hadn’t slowed down their love making at all. And when it came to the deliciously kinky scenes they played out, Heather was just as imaginative as he was. In the filthy mind sweepstakes, they were tied.
And speaking of a filthy mind and an imagination, he smirked when she quietly asked, “What do you want to be for Halloween? Per your request, Mr. Jensen, that I connect with my inner stripper, I’ve got some hooker heels ready to go.”
“Are these acrylic stilettos or thigh high leather boots?”
“Oh,” Heather teased. “Most definitely leather.” The look she fired up turned his insides to molten lava. She had a thing for leather. And not just any little thing. Case in point. He’d taken her on his bike down a remote road to nowhere. He enjoyed sharing his love for riding with her. The sun and the wind on his face were things that nourished his soul.
He’d done the whole get-up because she’d begged. Leather chaps, heavy leather boots. Leather vest. When they found a spot to pull off the deserted road and set up a picnic lunch, she had gotten her freak on in a big way. Before he knew what was happening, his cock was out, and she was bent over with his soft leather belt around her neck and his arm banded about her middle as he fucked her from behind.
When he’d pulled out of her body after a tumultuous climax, he’d been astonished when evidence of his coming inside her leaked from her magnificent pussy and landed on the red dusty dirt. He didn’t know why the sight affected him so deeply, but it did.
So, if leather was her erotic trigger, he was going for broke.
“A pirate. Some swashbuckling deviant who picks up your scent, tracks you down, and does unspeakable things while you beg for more.”
Her eyes sparkled. She liked the sound of his suggestion and offered her lips for a sweet kiss.
“Consider it done, sir.” Heather said it meekly but he knew she was off and running inside her head planning a wicked pirate scene. If she was breaking out thigh high boots, maybe he was gonna luck out and she’d play a lady pirate he could hunt and ravish.
“Oh, and for public Halloween? We’ll be Minions. Bella is dressing as a mermaid. The Stewarts are Things one and two, and Amy is a fairy princess.”
“A cooler in the driveway for the adults?”
She chuckled. “Most likely. And munchies. The perks of living in a gated neighborhood. Turns into one giant block party.”
Something inside him woke up. A memory. The sensory kind that can really rock a guy’s boat. He pushed it down—back into the dark cave in his head where the war couldn’t fuck with the life he was building.
That sound, the one that used to wake him up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat with his heart nearly fighting its way out of his chest, sent a zing into his nervous system. The sound of a sniper’s rifle firing close to his ear.
Shit.
He took a deep breath and held it for a second, then released a heavy exhale that caught Heather’s attention.
Her hand brushed up and down his arm. Leaning close she sought his eyes and softly asked, “What is it?”
There was a lot about life and living that Brody didn’t kn
ow much about, but here was one thing he knew for fucking sure. Speaking his truth was the only way. Hiding from his issues was like asking for trouble. And being totally open and authentic with Heather was key to his recovery and both their futures.
“We’re homeowners, babe. And we chose this house because of the good schools nearby. Holy shit, Heather. Somewhere between last year at this time and today, we grew up and now we’re a family.”
She reached for his hand and squeezed. “Thank you for saying ‘we’.”
Huh? His head whipped to the side so fast she jolted back. “Of course it’s we.” Something new broke loose inside him. Fear. Was Heather feeling insecure? Had he missed something? Hell. He made sure the house was in her name, too. Anxiety started swirling in the pit of his stomach.
He couldn’t do this without Heather. Any of it, and he didn’t just mean Bella. Brody wasn’t sure he could breathe without her. She was that deep inside him.
She sighed at his side. Fuck, fuck, fuck. That did not sound good.
“There’s a problem at school. Not with Bella,” she quickly assured him when his grip on her hand nearly crushed it. “It’s her school records. The paperwork is a mess and, well…” She trailed off to a whisper. “We’re a modern family, for sure, but I’m not the child’s mother no matter how you try to parse the word.” She shrugged but the action felt in no way as though she meant it. “They wouldn’t let me sign off on her health report.”
This was news to him. He’d left all the school details to Heather so he could jump straight into working with his new canine team at Camp Justice. It never even occurred to him that her standing would be called into question. Stupid or naïve? Take your pick.
“So what do we do?”
Her ready answer told him she’d been thinking this through. “Well, we follow the rules of course. You’re her legal guardian so you’ll be the signer on anything like that.”
Damn. Right there inside that moment he saw a bright light shining on one of his truths and mentally squirmed at what it said about him. As a man.
Unforgettable (Family Justice Book 5) Page 5