Her Devoted HERO (Black Dawn Book 2)

by Caitlyn O'Leary

  “Are you here to watch Austin while Kenna and I go do our thing?”

  “Yep, that’s my thing on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Let’s me catch up with the light of my life. But today is a little more interesting.”

  “No. No, it isn’t. It is just one of Rosalie’s projects. Nothing interesting at all,” Kenna said quickly.

  The last thing she needed was her mother getting ideas.

  “As a matter of fact, this is a big project that will take months. Rosalie has taken Kenna off all of her other duties to focus on this. I’ll be spending pretty much all my free time coordinating with her. I’m really looking forward to it.”

  “In that case, you should come to dinner, shouldn’t he Austin? I always cook on Saturdays since Kenna has to work.”

  Come on Baby Boy, do Mama a solid and say no.

  Austin looked at her, then looked at Dex, then looked back at her. “Sounds good, Gram.” He had a shit-eating grin on his face.

  Traitor.

  “Austin, I forgot to talk to you about some chores you need to get done today. Can you come with me?”

  Kenna jerked her head towards the kitchen. He trailed her into the other room.

  “What are you thinking?” she demanded. She had to stare up at him because he was three inches taller than her, but he was still her little boy.

  “I’m thinking this is a way for Gram and me to see if he is make-up worthy.”

  “What?”

  “You like him. It explains why you’re wearing your hair down. I can cope. But this way I can see if he’s a good guy. It’s cool he didn’t listen to you and came to the door. And Rosalie likes him. But then she likes everyone, so Gram and I need to vet him at dinner tonight.”

  She sank back against the counter and crossed her arms. “Are you sure you’re only fifteen?”

  “I’m going to be sixteen in two months. I’ve been the man of the family since forever.”

  “But. But. You were just worried about lucky socks,” she protested she said as she spread her arms out.

  “Mom. I’m a sophomore in high school. You give me the sex talk all the time. In two months, I’ll have my driver’s license. In a little over two years, I’ll be in college. Hell, at that age you were pregnant with me.”

  Shit, she’d so been called out. “You’re okay if this guy comes to dinner?”

  “Do you like him?”

  “He ticks me off.”

  “You like him.” Austin grinned broadly. “We’ll see you for dinner.”

  She stared up into hazel eyes that looked like a mirror of her own. “Look, don’t grow up too fast, okay?”

  “Don’t worry, I haven’t used the condoms.”

  Kenna’s knees turned to water.

  “Mom, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant I haven’t had sex yet. I meant I haven’t grown up that much. Geez, I don’t even have a steady girlfriend.” Austin was twenty shades of red.

  Kenna reached up and threw an arm around Austin’s neck and kissed his temple. “Love you, Kid.”

  “Love you, Mom. See you for dinner. If you need condoms, you can have back the ones you gave me.”

  She turned twenty shades of red.

  ***

  “You have a nice family,” Dex said as he pulled into the Starbuck’s parking lot.

  “Thanks.”

  “What did your son say to you? You came out of the kitchen awfully flustered.”

  “He basically wants to check you out over dinner. Can you believe that?”

  Dex opened the door for Kenna and put his hand on her lower back as they walked to the line. “Yes, I can believe that.”

  Her head swiveled up to look at him. “You can?”

  “Yep. Any man would want to make sure they approved of the guy that their daughter, sister or mother was going out with. It’s in our DNA.”

  “He’s not a man. He’s a boy.”

  They placed their orders.

  “Can I pay?” Dex asked when Kenna reached for her wallet. She bit her lip but then acquiesced. “Thank you,” he said.

  They waited for their drinks and scones.

  “Austin struck me as a level-headed young man who got along with both you and your mother, but he’s also awfully protective of you.”

  “You got all of that from just fifteen minutes?” Kenna’s pretty eyes looked at him curiously.

  “Yep. What did he say to you in the kitchen?”

  “He wants me to have a social life, and he liked that you came to the door.”

  The kid was perceptive. “When was the last time you went on a date?”

  Kenna’s gaze slid away from his. She looked over at the barista.

  “Kenna?”

  “It’s been awhile.”

  “How long?”

  “A date that was make-up worthy? Too damn long. I told you this was not a good idea. You met Rosalie, you met Austin. My life is complicated with a capital ‘C.’ Then I work four tens on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.”

  “So? You have a life.” Dex shrugged. He was not going to be put off no matter how many obstacles she threw in his path.

  “Let’s not forget my neurosis.”

  “Why haven’t you been on a make-up worthy date if you’re signed up on CaliSingles? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Dex!” the barista attendant yelled out. Dex snagged their beverages and pastries. When he got back to Kenna, he could see that she was regretting what she had shared. A wall had gone down.

  Damn.

  “Wanna eat on the way to the mission?” he asked.

  She gave a relieved nod. Even so, she didn’t balk when he put his hand on her lower back and guided her to his jeep and opened the door for her and helped her inside. She was flustered. Flustered was good, it was better than having a wall.

  He drove to Encanto. Even during the early morning hours, it was a less than welcoming area. He was glad that she was not driving in her own car.

  “This place looks like it could use the two million plus another ten,” Kenna said when they pulled up to the brick building. It was surrounded by a rusted chain link fence with plenty of holes in it.

  She was not wrong.

  “How many people did Reverend Langley say they served in a year?”

  Kenna pulled out her smart phone. “Over twelve thousand. That’s crazy. It’s so small.”

  “Let’s go inside.” He liked the fact that she allowed him to guide her into the building. He was fast becoming addicted to touching her. She fit him. She came up to his shoulder. Her hair looked good down around her shoulders. Kenna had been wrong, she looked even better than her picture on the dating site.

  As soon as they opened the doors to the building, Dex could hear the yelling. There was a problem.

  “Get back in the jeep, and lock the doors.”

  “What is it?” Kenna asked.

  “Just do what I say,” he commanded.

  She gave him a questioning look as he shoved the keys at her.

  “Do I need to call nine-one-one?”

  “Yes.”

  She grabbed the keys and headed back to the jeep. Dex carefully pushed open the interior double doors. Three men were beating a fourth man, it was brutal. He saw Reverend Langley holding back a woman who was trying to wade in. He shoved the doors open and rushed in.

  “Do something. Somebody help!” she screamed.

  There were at least thirty people standing around, nobody was doing anything.

  Reverend Langley was in his mid-sixties. If he tried to stop them, he would be pummeled.

  Dex didn’t hesitate.

  The man they were beating was as big as Hunter, but he was being held by two men, while the third was using him as a punching bag. As the guy brought back his fist to deliver another blow, Dex grabbed his arm, twisted him around and delivered a hit to his face. He fell to the floor like a sack of wet cement. Dex felt someone coming up behind him, and he looked over his shoulder as he jammed his elbow into the man’s
gut. The man grunted but reached for Dex anyway.

  In a flash, Dex had the man flipped onto his back, and staring at the ceiling. He heard sirens as he turned toward the third man, and saw who fighting with the victim. Any other day of the year, the huge Hispanic man would have wiped the floor with the scruffy blond guy, but he was seriously injured. He waded in, grabbing the blonde by the neck and flung him into the wall.

  “Watch out!” It was Kenna’s voice. She was close. Too damned close.

  Something metal hit Dex on his side. A chair. He saw a fourth guy holding a metal chair over his head. Easy enough to deflect, except for the fact that he saw Kenna was reaching for the fucking thing.

  “Kenna, get back!”

  The man turned and swung the chair as he went. Dex barely pulled it out of his arms in time to stop him from hitting her. As it was, he lost his balance and fell into her, and took her to the floor. Dex pulled him off Kenna by his arm and hair.

  “Oww!” the man cried. Dex hit him in the mouth, shutting him up.

  “Police! Everybody freeze!”

  Dex dropped the man and knelt beside Kenna who was lifting herself up on her elbows.

  “Are you all right?” She shook her head. He couldn’t tell if it was an answer, or she was trying to clear her head.

  In the background, he heard Reverend Langley talking to the cops, but all his attention was focused on Kenna. He cupped her head gently in his hands and touched the back of her scalp with his fingertips. She winced. She’d gone down hard.

  She struggled to get up.

  “Stay down.”

  “No, I need to get up.”

  “No, you need to stay where you are until the EMTs can come and check you out. You hit your head pretty hard, and probably have a concussion.”

  She gave him an incredulous look. “Are you out of your mind?”

  That’s when it hit him. “Are you out of yours?” he asked fiercely. “I told you to stay in the jeep. What were you doing coming back in here? You could have been killed.”

  She pushed at his hands. “Again. I reiterate. Are you out of your mind? There were no weapons. It was just a fight.”

  He looked at the small woman who was struggling against him to get up. His mind went back to that moment when the man was aiming the chair at her.

  “That chair could have hit you in the head and killed you!” he roared. “When I tell you to stay in the jeep, you stay in the fucking jeep.”

  “Cool your jets big guy,” Kenna said as she once again tried to sit up. “I’m the mother of a teenage boy, I know how to take care of myself and break up a fight.”

  A police officer crouched down beside them. “Is she all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “She needs to be checked out by an EMT,” Dex answered.

  “We have medics on the way. They should be coming any second,” the cop answered.

  “You’re making too big of a deal of this,” Kenna huffed.

  The officer looked at Dex. “What happened?”

  Dex gave him a quick version of the events.

  “Ma’am, you should have stayed in the car,” the officer said to Kenna after Dex was done with his explanation.

  “Look, I don’t need all of you males ganging up on me,” Kenna growled.

  “Over here,” the cop motioned when the medics arrived.

  Kenna looked over Dex’s shoulder and moaned.

  “Are you in pain?” he asked.

  “Yes. I don’t see a female medic. I’m surrounded by testosterone. I swear Dex if one more man gives me shit, I’m going to scream.”

  The police officer coughed. Dex knew he was covering up a laugh.

  “It’s okay, Poppy. No one else will give you a hard time. We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  He wasn’t as concerned as he had been initially. She didn’t look pale, disoriented, just frustrated. Dex really thought that the EMTs were going to give her a clean bill of health, but still, he wanted her checked out.

  “What?” Kenna asked him.

  “What do you mean, ‘what’?” Dex asked.

  “You’re looking at me funny.”

  “Just looking at your pretty face.”

  She snorted and turned to the young man who knelt beside her. “Don’t forget to check out Dex. He took some hits during the fight. I think he might have suffered some brain trauma.”

  The cop covered another laugh.

  ***

  Kenna found herself drinking coffee for the second time that morning thanks to Reverend Langley providing some in his office after the police and EMTs had cleared out.

  “I am so sorry that you arrived when we had violence going on.”

  The clergyman looked awfully tired, and Kenna felt bad for him.

  “Does this type of thing happen often?” Dex asked.

  “We used to have a good security team that worked around the clock. We had to cut back. Now they work at night. In the morning we count on volunteers, but unfortunately, our two volunteers didn’t show up this morning.”

  Kenna held the Styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands so that neither man would see her hands tremble. She still wasn’t one hundred percent since the fight, but she didn’t need their focus. Luckily, her voice was steady as she asked, “what other cuts have you had to make?”

  “We have beds and mattresses, but as we move into the winter, we won’t be able to turn up the heat like we need to. We’re constantly making choices between food and utilities. It’s a balancing act. I know you’re going to go to some of the other shelters today. They need some funds as well, but in Encanto, we have to depend on government resources because our community is poor. The government resources have been drying up over the last three years. I hope that you will see your way clear to help us.”

  Dex leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and listened to every word the Reverend said. As he ended his speech, he looked sideways at Kenna. “What are you thinking?” he asked her.

  “Do you have a budget showing what your funding was three years ago, and where you stand today?” she asked.

  The reverend went to a computer on his desk. He gave a sheepish grin. “Despite my complaints, I have made sure we are connected to the internet. I’ll e-mail you what you requested if you provide me your address.”

  “Reverend, having internet access is a necessity,” Kenna assured him. She set her coffee down on the floor beside her purse and took out a business card. Then she stood to walk it over to his desk and wobbled just the slightest bit.

  Before she had a chance to right herself, Dex had his arm around her waist. It helped. It ticked her off, but the helping part took precedence. He took the card out of her hand and held it out to Reverend Langley.

  “I’m so sorry you both were hurt at my mission,” he said with a frown.

  “It’s nothing,” she assured him.

  “I’m taking her home after this. We’ll visit the other facilities next Saturday. Kenna has had enough excitement for one day.”

  The sad part was, Dex was probably right. But she didn’t want to go home and worry her family. Maybe Rosalie’s house?

  They were soon out in the San Diego sunlight without her sunglasses, it hurt her eyes.

  “Let’s get you home,” Dex said. He still had his warm arm surrounding her, and she took advantage of it. It felt good to lean on someone for a change.

  “If I’m not checking out the other shelters, I should really work. Take me to Rosalie’s,” she requested, looking at him as they stood in front of his jeep.

  He looked at her and gave her a considering look.

  “Rosalie would definitely not want you working today. She’d want you to take it easy.”

  “I can take it easy at Rosalie’s house,” she said firmly.

  His brown eyes assessed her. She saw the minute he saw through her.

  “You don’t want to go home and worry Austin and your mom, am I right?”

  “No, I don’t. Take me to Rosalie�
��s. She’ll arrange for a ride back to my home tonight.”

  “If I take you to Rosalie’s, will you rest?”

  “Yes,” she lied firmly.

  “Bullshit. It’s a madhouse over at Rosalie’s. You’re coming home with me, where I can make sure you take a nap.”

  “It is not a madhouse.”

  “Are you telling me that Smooches won’t try to climb all over you, and you won’t have to translate for the gardener?”

  “It’s either my house or your house, which is it?” he asked.

  She sighed and shook her head. Even that small motion hurt. “Hell Dex, you don’t even know me, and you’re treating this like it was a Las Vegas fight. If I go home and say, I’m woozy because I got knocked down by some bruiser down in Encanto, Austin will lose his mind.” She blew out a breath.

  “I knew I liked that kid.”

  Kenna tried to twist out of Dex’s hold, but it didn’t work. He didn’t hold onto her roughly, just firmly. Firmly and gently. How did he manage that?

  Kenna bent her head so she wouldn’t have to look in his eyes, but he was having none of it. He put his knuckle under her chin and tipped it up.

  “Look at me, Poppy.”

  “That’s a stupid nickname,” she complained because she liked the feel of his hand on her face.

  “Look at me.”

  “No.”

  “What? Are you five?”

  “Poppy makes me sound like a five-year-old.”

  “It makes you sound like a firecracker, all pop, fizz, and fire.”

  Her eyes shot up to look at him.

  “Are you for real?”

  “Lady, you’ve been tangling me up since the first damned e-mail with all of your attitude. I was worried that you wouldn’t be as good in person, but you’re even better.”

  He was the one who was better in person. She’d damned near swallowed her tongue when she’d seen him in jeans and the Henley this morning. Then to see him wade in on that fight, so sure and so in command. Holy hell!

  She shook her head to clear it. Pain shot through her brain.

  “Can we stop off at the pharmacy and get some ibuprofen? I don’t have any in my purse, and the medic said it would help with a headache.”

  “My place is ten minutes from here. I have ibuprofen, and it’s only twenty minutes from here, so that’s where we’re going. We’re done discussing this,” Dex said as he opened the door to his jeep. He helped her in.