Her Defender (MacLachlan Security Group Book 2)

by Rianna Campbell

  “I am. This isn’t my first rodeo, kiddo. You’re ready. Just remember to trust the process.”

  “Right,” Janie replied.

  “Just call me when it hits you.”

  “What?” Janie asked, but the line had gone dead.

  She tucked her phone away, grabbed her keys and headed out. Confronting the boogie man would have to wait until after she’d dealt with the grumpy old man waiting for her at the hospital.

  ✽✽✽

  “You are an idiot,” Jackson clenched his jaw and tried to take a deep breath through his nose. He and Parker had just gotten back to normal and he didn’t want to screw that up by trying to punch him again.

  “How so?” Jackson replied, trying to remain calm.

  “I mean, I get you’ve got this martyr complex, but did you really think that was going to go over well?” Parker asked him, looking at him like he’d grown an extra head.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Jackson replied, shaking his head.

  “Jesus, let me break it down for you,” Parker sighed. “At sixteen you dragged a worthless troublemaker with no family home for dinner and spent the next fifteen years looking out for his ass.”

  “You weren’t worthless then and you certainly aren’t now,” Jackson argued.

  “Then, you lost your dad and decided you were going to sign up to be shot at so that your mom and your brothers would have enough money to get by.”

  “What else was I supposed to do?” Jackson asked, bewildered.

  “And I could give you at least a dozen other examples when you stuck your neck out for someone else without thinking once about yourself.”

  “Isn’t that what heroes do?” Jackson said bitterly. They both understood that most of the world viewed them as such when they themselves felt like anything but. Nothing made them more uncomfortable then being called a hero when they were just out there, scared shitless, trying to survive.

  “Yeah, man. It is,” Parker replied, his tone serious.

  “Don’t,” Jackson snapped.

  “Listen. I get it. And when it comes to most of those douches we served with,” He said with a wry smile. “It couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m no damn hero, that’s for sure. But you… You really are a hero without even realizing it.”

  “I’m not. I just did what anyone would do,” Jackson said.

  “I sure as hell wouldn’t have adopted a stray orphan at sixteen. And I didn’t crawl twenty feet to a burning vehicle to pull an injured teammate to safety.”

  “You were covering my ass,” Jackson pointed out.

  “I was shooting at the people who were shooting at us. Don’t kid yourself,” Parker said, shaking his head. “But that’s not my point.”

  “What is your point?” Jackson asked, his frustration growing by the second.

  “My point is, you take on the weight of the world, whether it’s your responsibility or not. More often than not, that makes you a hero.” Jackson snarled at the word but Parker ignored him. “And sometimes it just makes you an interfering asshole who thinks he knows what’s best for everyone.”

  Jackson picked up a couch cushion and tossed it at Parker’s head. Parker dodged it and gave him a cocky grin.

  “Never could aim for shit,” Parker laughed.

  “Shut up,” Jackson growled.

  “What I’m trying to say is, maybe you should ask if someone needs help next time instead of just rushing in and taking charge the way you usually do. Especially when that someone is an independent, strong-willed woman who had just decided she liked you.”

  “You’ve made your point,” Jackson muttered through clenched teeth. “Can we drop it now?” He was sorely regretting telling Parker anything at all, but after nearly three weeks of moping around and snapping at everyone, he felt like it was time to get it off his chest.

  “Sure.”

  “So, what’s going on with you?” Jackson asked, hoping to distract himself from what Parker had said, because, damn him to hell, he’d hit the nail on the head. As usual.

  “Nothing.” Parker shrugged, turning his attention back to the flat screen TV.

  “How’s that new detail Connor’s had you working on?” Jackson asked. Parker had been pretty tight-lipped about it, but it must have been a big deal because Connor had people working overnights three nights a week which must be costing the clients a pretty penny.

  “It’s fine,” Parker replied, shrugging again.

  “What’s the job?” Jackson asked.

  “Just some club,” Parker said, sounding frustrated.

  “What kind of club?” Jackson asked, suspicious of how reluctant he was to talk about it.

  “What does it matter what kind of club it is? I’m only there to work.”

  “Oh, it’s that kind of club,” Jackson replied with a smile.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Parker barked, popping out of his seat and heading to the kitchen. “I’m getting another beer, you want one?”

  “Yeah. Thanks,” Jackson laughed. It felt good to have his friend back and to have someone to talk things over with, even if he wasn’t happy with Parker’s honest assessment of the situation.

  If Janie didn’t need him to look out for her, to stick up for her, then what good was he? What could he offer someone who was so good at taking care of herself? He loved her. He knew that, though he’d never gotten the chance to tell her. But was that enough?

  “Hey man, your phone’s ringing,” Parker said, handing him his cell. He’d been so lost in thought he hadn’t heard it ring. He checked the ID and swore to himself.

  He’d been putting off this conversation for weeks, but he couldn’t keep avoiding it. It wasn’t fair to make his mother worry.

  “Hola, Mami,” he answered.

  “Hola, mijo!” his mother replied, sounding overjoyed.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, wondering what could have made his mother sound so happy.

  “Mijo! You remember your cousin? Rosa’s youngest in California?” his mother asked.

  “Gabriella?” he guessed. His Aunt Rosa had seven daughters and he could never remember which was which.

  “No, no. Gabriella is the stylist in Houston, the third youngest. Alicia is the youngest. She lives in San Diego. She works for that man who makes the strange paintings.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry,” Jackson cringed. Alicia was a fine arts major who was currently working as a personal assistant for some up and coming artist who painted with his feet or some stupid shit like that. Jackson was more of a dogs playing poker type of guy so he didn’t understand the appeal. But, Alicia seemed happy with her job so who was he to judge?

  “What about Alicia?” Jackson asked.

  “She’s getting married!” his mother practically shouted through the phone. “And she’s having a baby!”

  “Wow. Seems a little fast, but I’m happy if she’s happy.”

  “Fast? She’s been seeing her boyfriend for three years now. Rafael? He’s Italian I think. Rosa hated him for months in the beginning but I guess he’s a good boy.”

  “Okay,” Jackson replied, his eyes glazing over. He loved his cousins, but there were so many of them that he couldn’t keep track of them all and he certainly wasn’t up on all the gossip. Lord knew there was always plenty to go around.

  “All these weddings,” his mother said with a sniffle. “Makes me wonder when I’m going to see my sons get married and finally make me an abuela.”

  “Ma…” Jackson sighed. He really wasn’t up for this conversation right now knowing that he’d probably just lost the woman of his dreams. He needed to change the subject. “How are things with you and your boyfriend?”

  “Ay, Mijo. Boyfriends are for teenagers,” his mother scolded him.

  “Whatever you want to call him.” Jackson shrugged. “How are things? Is he taking care of you?”

  “Lord, no!” his mother laughed. “Lord save me from any man trying to take care of me. I take care of
myself, Mijo. Always have. Even your father, may he rest in peace, knew better than to try to take care of me. If anything, I took care of him.”

  “Is he treating you well?” Jackson asked, already calculating how quickly he could be in Texas if he got an answer he didn’t like.

  “He treats me like a queen, but he knows I can take care of myself. He brings me flowers and takes me out and he lets me pick the movies we see. He’s a good companion, but I don’t need him doing things for me.”

  “Oh, well… that’s good, I guess.”

  “Of course it’s good. What else would I want?” his mother replied with a chuckle.

  “Mami…” Jackson said hesitantly. “Do you think I rush in and take on things that aren’t my responsibility?”

  “Of course you do,” his mother said surprised. “It’s one of the things I love most about you. It’s also one of the things you do that makes me crazy,” she added with a laugh. “Ever since you were young you were always telling your brothers to clean their rooms or do their chores, like I wasn’t even there! You should have been off playing in the dirt and scraping your knees like a normal boy.

  Oh, you still did those things, but usually the scraped knees were from trying to keep your brothers from hurting themselves. You also came home with more than your share of scraped knuckles. Always getting into fights to defend the smaller kids.”

  “You knew about that?” Jackson asked quietly.

  “You think your mother is stupid?” his mother replied. “Of course I knew what my children were up to. The school called me more times than I could count, but it was never you who started the fights so you never got in trouble.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Jackson admitted.

  “You were a good boy. I knew if you got into a fight it was probably for a good reason. I just wish you’d spent more time thinking about yourself.”

  Jackson wasn’t sure how to reply, but he didn’t need to.

  “You get that from your papi, you know,” she said after a pause. “He always went out of his way to fix things when he saw something that was wrong. You’re a lot like him, you know. And you both drove me crazy!”

  Jackson chuckled.

  “I’m sorry, Mami,” Jackson said quietly.

  “Never apologize for that, Mijo. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t do what you thought was right.”

  Jackson just wished he knew what to do now, but at the moment he couldn’t seem to figure out what the right thing was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Janie was losing her mind. Two weeks she’d been here. Two weeks of being stuck in her childhood home, tending to her father, cleaning up messes and sleeping in Makenna’s single bed.

  Makenna had wanted her to take the master bedroom, but Janie absolutely refused to sleep in Nancy’s bed. So Makenna had taken the master for now and she was staying in Makenna’s room.

  Her father had taken to sleeping in the recliner downstairs since he usually fell asleep there most nights anyway. At least that way he didn’t have to deal with the stairs and she didn’t have to worry about him falling down said stairs.

  She’d never thought of her father as fragile before, and she didn’t like that she was facing that prospect now. Although he claimed he was fine and grumbled about all the “fuss,” He was still moving a little slow and tired easily.

  The doctors had told him that medically, he’d be cleared to resume his usual level of activity after two to three weeks, they also told him not to push it too hard and that everyone recovered at their own pace.

  James Carpenter was not the best patient, but at least he hadn’t been stupid enough to go against doctor’s orders and his daughters’ very persistent suggestions about changes to his diet and drinking habits.

  He’d never been a heavy drinker, but he did enjoy his evening scotch and the man loved red meat and potatoes. He’d complained, although only mildly, about the additional medication and suggested supplements Janie handed him the first few days after being discharged, but he swallowed them all the same.

  They still hadn’t talked much. Makenna was a virtual chatterbox, taking on the responsibility of occupying their father’s down time, which there was a lot of, with card games, jigsaw puzzles and town gossip.

  Janie did her share, but it usually involved the cooking, shopping and cleaning, since neither her father nor her sister could even boil water without burning it. She let Makenna act as social director since she simply didn’t have the energy.

  It was a rainy afternoon and she’d sent Makenna out to the store with a short list of items Janie wanted for dinner that night. Janie, who had just finished up the lunch dishes, was wiping down the counters and wondering what to do with herself until it was time for her to make dinner.

  She’d read a lot the last couple weeks, a few ebooks she’s bought but hadn’t gotten around to reading and a few more that she’d found around the house. She’d finished the last one last night so she decided to hunt for a new one.

  Makenna’s bookshelf was still crammed full of kids books with a few young adult books scattered amongst the Judy Blumes and Nancy Drews. She chuckled, recognizing a lot of her own books that had been handed down. Nothing jumped out at her so she decided to check downstairs.

  There were a few shelves in the living room that held family photo albums, which Janie had zero interest in, a set of encyclopedias and a metric ton of books on military history. Her father apparently wanted to know everything there was to know about World War II. He could probably write his own damn book at this point, and it would be longer than the set of encyclopedias on the bottom shelf.

  Giving up on finding anything of interest there, she wandered into her father’s office. They’d never been forbidden from his office, per se, but interrupting him while he was working had certainly been frowned upon. So it was with a guilty glance over her shoulder and more than a little trepidation that she turned the knob and pushed the door open a crack.

  Her father was in the living room, of course, watching baseball or something on TV, but she still half expected to walk in and see him hunched over his ledger books, reading glasses slipping down over his nose.

  Janie told herself she was being silly and pushed the door wide before walking into the office and over to the bookshelf. Her father’s office was tidy, but dusty. Clearly Nancy hadn’t considered it necessary to clean in here. Maybe Janie could tackle that task tomorrow.

  Her father’s desk was a large mid century piece. Simple, heavy and very functional. It had drawers for days, most of which went unused according to the way only three of the brass pulls had been polished to a shine by repeated use.

  On the desk sat a poorly made ceramic mug that he used as a pencil holder. Janie recognized the poorly painted blue flowers as her own handiwork. She’d made that back in grade school and given it to him for father’s day one year. She hadn’t realized he’d kept it.

  There were a few file folders and several papers strewn across the desk, as if he’d been working on them and just stepped away for a few minutes. She ignored them and turned away from the desk to scan the shelves behind it.

  More military books. Apparently he could also write books about the Civil War, World War I and Korea. The family bible that had belonged to her grandfather sat sandwiched between a history book and a series of western novels.

  Janie skimmed titles, but she’d never been much of a western person. A little further down she found a few mysteries that piqued her interest. She pulled out a worn copy of Murder on the Orient Express and flipped through the yellowed pages.

  A scrap of paper slipped from between the pages and fluttered to the ground. She picked it up and looked at it, flipping it over to look at both sides. One side had a series of numbers, along with the initials NB. Curious, but not overly so, she decided to put the paper in her father’s desk drawer in case it was something he needed.

  She opened the top left drawer, one with a shiny handle so she knew he’d look in there eve
ntually in case she forgot to tell him where she’d put it. But when she opened the drawer, she forgot all about the paper in her hand.

  The drawer was full of photos, dozens of them. Photos she’d never seen before, all featuring one person - her mother.

  She had a few photos of her mother that she’d unearthed in old photo albums, but by the time she was old enough to look for them, her father had apparently removed nearly all of them. Of course, he was married to Nancy by then and Nancy probably wouldn’t have taken kindly to having photos of her husband's dead wife all over the house.

  She’d even asked her father about the photos a few times and each time he’d been vague, saying they were packed away in boxes but he didn’t have time to dig them out, or wasn’t sure whether they were in the attic or the basement.

  Janie had looked through every box she ever found to see if she could find any, but she rarely found anything of her mother’s. No jewelry, no clothes or books. Every trace of her had been swept away long before Janie was old enough to look for them.

  It was one of the many, many, things that had made her resent her father. It made Nancy’s claims that her father was still obsessed with her absurd. He hadn’t seem to care enough to even keep photos of her mother to give to her when she was old enough. He seemed to want to forget her completely, so how could he still be pining for her?

  But then, here she was, standing in her father’s study looking at a drawer full of photos. Janie tucked the slip of paper back into the book and set it aside on her father’s desk. She reached in, hands shaking, and withdrew a photo from the top of the pile. Her mother, red-gold hair flowing over her bare shoulder as she smiled at the camera. Judging by the puffed sleeves on the pink taffeta gown she wore, it was probably taken in the 80’s. Prom, maybe?

  Her mother wore a pink carnation bound in white ribbon on her wrist. The next photo had clearly been taken at the same time, but this time her mother stood gazing up at a young man in a black tux. He had wavy brown hair and he was smiling down at her mother like she was the moon and stars.

  It was her father. How had she not even known that they’d been childhood sweethearts? That they’d gone to prom together? Had her mother been one of the popular kids? A cheerleader? Or had she been nerdy and artsy?