Daddy Next Door - The Complete Series Box Set (A Single Dad Navy SEAL Romance)

by Claire Adams

  Finally, my phone told me that I had arrived at my destination. It was a little neighborhood, looking almost-nice in the early afternoon sun; there were a couple of people out on their lawns, mowing or trimming hedges or weeding. I looked at the address on the envelope, and then up at the house I had stopped at on the directions app’s insistence. It was a little house — the siding was crazed, the paint was old and faded, and the yard was full of weeds. It wasn’t dirty or anything like that, but it was easy to tell in an instant that the house was very different from where I had grown up. It was half the size, if that, and looked as if even in its heyday, when it had just been finished, it would have sold for half the value of my parents’ home. I bit my lip; I had known that Johnny hadn’t grown up rich, but while the house didn’t look like he was exactly poor as a child, it was easy to see that his childhood hadn’t always been comfortable.

  I felt bad for how much I had talked about my parents’ wealth and how much contempt I had for it. It was so stupid in the face of the differences between how we’d grown up. I thought it was easy to see where Johnny’s attitude that I should just milk my parents for the support they could give me had come from. It must have seemed like heaven to him, to not have to worry about how I was going to get my hands on a car, to never have to really think about where the electricity came from or how it was paid.

  But thinking about how guilty I was of my own privileges wasn’t getting me any further. I got out of the car and walked towards the front door. I realized I had no idea if Johnny was even home. He had told his frat brothers that he had to go home, but what if he had gone somewhere else? I sighed. I was so tired already; I had to just take my chances and hope that whoever was there in the house would tell me what I needed to know.

  My heart was racing as I lifted my hand and knocked on the door. I waited, chewing on my bottom lip and thinking that it was either the best idea I’d ever had or the worst. It was either complete insanity or the sanest thing in the world to come all this way to see Johnny, to talk to him. It really all depended on what the outcome was.

  No one answered; I couldn’t believe that my long, stupid drive all the way here was going to be for nothing. I decided to try again. I knocked, and I stepped back from the door a little bit, in case someone came to peer out through the windows. I noticed one of the panes was cracked — sealed up, but not replaced. There were some cheerful nasturtiums in window boxes underneath, and I smiled at the strange-looking blooms and leaves.

  Finally, when I was on the verge of giving up and figuring out what to do next, with no leads, nothing at all to go on, the door opened a crack. “Yes?” My mind went blank for a minute. “I’m not interested in giving any comments to any newspapers,” a woman’s voice said.

  “Please, ma’am, I’m not from a newspaper — I’m from a school.” I flinched; that didn’t tell her anything. “Are you Johnny’s mom?”

  “I might be,” she said, opening the door a little wider. “Are you from that college he goes to? I’m not interested in giving any quotes about him to the school, either.” I shook my head.

  “I’m not — I’m not representing anyone,” I said. “I’m just trying to find Johnny. I’m worried sick about him.” The woman opened the door the rest of the way; she was older than my mom, with a few wrinkles around her eyes and lips that turned down at the corners, but I could see in her face where Johnny had gotten his bright eyes from, and I thought that if she smiled, it would almost be that same expression. The one that made me weak in the knees with happiness.

  “Why are you worried about Johnny?” she asked me sharply.

  “I’m…his girlfriend. My name is Becky; we’ve been seeing each other for the past couple of weeks.” The woman’s frown deepened.

  “He didn’t say anything to me about a girlfriend,” she said, looking at me sharply.

  “Please, I don’t mean you or him any harm. I just…I haven’t been able to eat or sleep, worrying for him. I just want to talk to him. I just want to know he’s okay. If he doesn’t want to talk to me, I’ll…drive home, I guess, but I’ve been driving all morning to get here and I just…” I couldn’t think of any way to finish the sentence.

  “How did you meet him?” The woman asked me. I grinned slightly.

  “If you’ll believe it, I nearly ran him over in the dining hall at school,” I told her. “I was backing up and not paying attention, and ran into him.” The woman’s frown softened slightly. “And then when classes started, he was so nice to me. I’m a freshman and had no idea where my class was, and he walked me all the way there.”

  The woman stepped through the door, giving a suspicious look around at the neighborhood. She looked me over slowly. “I guess I have to believe you,” she said, biting her bottom lip. “He’s not here.”

  “Do you have any idea where he is?” I asked. “I — I don’t want to hound you, I promise.” Johnny’s mother sighed and looked me over again.

  “He’s gone to the girl’s parents. He said he wanted to talk to them — he had to.” I nodded.

  “Claire’s?” Johnny’s mother nodded. “Could you give me the address there? I promise I won’t bother you any more than I have. I won’t tell anyone where I’m going or anything.” The woman hesitated and then took a deep breath.

  “If you really are his girlfriend and you’re really worried about him, then I can’t just send you back without anything to go on,” she said. “Let me write it down for you.” She reached into the house and brought out a pad and a pen that must have been right next to the door, maybe hanging on the wall. She scrawled something in handwriting that looked a lot like Johnny’s and handed it to me.

  “Thank you so much. I really appreciate this.” I hesitated for just a moment before reaching out and giving the woman a quick hug. “I just want you to know,” I said, pulling back. “That I love your son very much. And I trust him, and believe him — and I believe in him.” I took a deep breath. “I know it’s been every bit as hard on you as it has on him, maybe worse. But thank you for trusting me.” The woman smiled slightly.

  “I can believe you’re a girl Johnny would go after, all right,” she said. “I don’t know if he’ll see you, but that’s where he’s at, or where he was going.” I gave her my number and she promised that if I couldn’t get to Johnny before he came home, whenever that might be, she would call me and let me know he’d come back. I went back to my car and put the address into my phone’s map app. At least it’s not far, I thought as I turned the key in the ignition once more.

  Chapter Four

  The address turned out to be a little less than a mile away from Johnny’s house. As I approached, I was shocked, though when I thought about it, it seemed stupid, to see that there were news vans everywhere on the street, most of them clustered around the address that Johnny’s mom had given me. I looked around; the neighborhood was a little nicer than Johnny’s, but no one was out on their lawns, enjoying the Saturday afternoon, doing chores, or anything. I could see a few photographers, a few news reporters with cameramen, but no one who seemed to actually live on the block. The tension felt in the air even from within my car was just disgusting; the journalists lingering around the White house reminded me of a video I’d seen of a pack of wolves waiting for the signal to attack prey.

  Waiting isn’t going to make it any easier, I thought to myself. I took a deep breath and parked on the road a bit away from the house Johnny’s mom had sent me to. I shut off the car and climbed out, slipping my phone into my pocket, and made sure to lock the door, though how I imagined anyone would feel comfortable stealing from a car with a dozen journalists covering every stray leaf blowing in the wind in the area, I have no idea. The only way my car could have been safer was if I had parked it in front of a police station.

  I started towards the house, taking as indirect a path up to the door from the sidewalk as possible. It was no good, of course; the journalists noticed me right away and I heard them murmuring amongst themselves, questions
about who I was, what I was doing there, how I might know the family. I kept my face as completely neutral as possible, thinking that if I didn’t give them any hints, they might just assume I was some kind of salesperson or something — a totally uninteresting bystander. They started crowding the front of the house, asking questions as it became obvious that that was where I was going, and I took another deep breath. “Excuse me,” I said as politely as I could, pushing past one of them. “Excuse me,” I said again. I really wasn’t in any mood to be polite, but some part of me thought that if I was going to be captured pushing through a group of journalists on TV or in the newspaper where someone who knew me might see it, I was going to be as completely irreproachable as possible.

  I finally managed to get through the group, not answering any of their questions but pushing past them with as much confidence and politeness as I could hold together; there seemed to be some kind of agreement that the journalists could hover around the area of the yard or on the sidewalk, but not on the porch, and it was weird to feel them watching me as I stepped up to the door. I felt like I was on some weird kind of TV show. Of course, if I counted the news as TV, there was every chance that I would be on later. I knocked on the door quickly, wondering just what I was going to say to whoever came to it. Why had Johnny come here? Did Claire’s parents blame him just like everyone else seemed to? Was he here to pay some kind of penance?

  I knocked again and realized that probably I was totally going about it the wrong way. Don’t you think the journalists knock on the door, Becky? I asked myself. No one inside that house is going to want to talk to the press — or you, if they think you’re the press. I knocked again; it wasn’t as if I had very many other options.

  I saw someone looking through the curtains, though I couldn’t make out who it was. A moment later, the door creaked and the seal broke with a popping sound as someone cracked it open. I saw a feminine face, a little younger than Johnny’s mom. “I’m looking for Johnny,” I said quickly. “I swear, I promise I’m not a reporter or anything.” I raised my hands to show they were empty. “See? No camera, no microphone.” I smiled nervously.

  The woman opened the door a little wider, though not enough that I could see anything but the top of the wall and the ceiling behind her. “Who are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” I smiled slowly.

  “I don’t mind at all,” I said. “I’m Johnny’s girlfriend, Becky.” Behind me, the sounds of the milling-around journalists asking about the girl who was approaching the White house stopped. Everyone went silent.

  Before the woman — who had the same nose and lips as Claire, I noticed — could say anything, the door opened wider, and I saw Johnny push past the woman who had answered the door. His eyes were wide and he glanced over at the assembled press for just an instant, reaching out and grabbing my wrist. The reporters, photographers, and cameramen had recovered from their shock, however; even as he pulled me into the house quickly, they were shouting questions about Claire, struggling to be heard over one another as they jostled to get the picture, the quote. Johnny said nothing, and the woman who had answered the door quickly closed it behind us both as Johnny pulled me into his arms, giving me a quick hug.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked me then, holding me out from him at arm’s length and staring at me. I looked up at him in disbelief.

  “What am I doing here? I love you, you stupid idiot. I couldn’t let you just face this alone.” Johnny almost smiled and stopped himself at the last moment, his hands tightening slightly on my shoulders.

  “This isn’t your burden to bear. This is…you should have just let me take care of it, deal with it myself.” I shook my head.

  “Everyone on campus knows I’m your girlfriend and now all of those journalists know I’m your girlfriend. I haven’t been able to go online for days without seeing something terrible either on my feed or on yours, or some article somewhere about this whole mess.” Johnny leaned in and kissed me on the forehead.

  “Who even told you where I was?” I blushed slightly and told him about seeing his truck at the train station, about going to the Phi Kappa house and asking about him, getting the address for his mother’s house, and then getting the address for Claire’s house from his mother.

  “So, all in all it’s been a pretty eventful day and it’s not even three,” I said, smiling weakly. “I had to see you, Johnny. I had to know you were okay and not about to do something stupid.”

  “I told you; you should just forget you ever even met me, cut me out of your life forever.” I shook my head.

  “They all know we’re together now, so what’s the point? If I left you now, it would just make everything worse for both of us.” Johnny sighed and leaned in to kiss me lightly on the lips. He took my hands in his and gave them a squeeze, his eyes closed.

  “I don’t know what to do, Becky,” he said, shaking his head again. “I just don’t know how to make it all stop — for me, for everyone.” The woman who had answered the door came in with another man; I saw that Claire must have gotten her dad’s eyes, and thinking of Claire made me suddenly so sad. I felt guilty that all this time I had been thinking about Johnny, when these two people had lost a daughter.

  “Mr. and Mrs. White,” I said, extricating my hands from Johnny’s and moving towards them. “I’m so, so sorry to sort of…barge in here. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I was so worried about Johnny, I didn’t even think about how much pain this must be causing you.” Claire’s mother smiled slightly.

  “Easy to see why you’re Johnny’s girlfriend,” she said, reaching out and taking my hand. “I am glad that someone is here to talk some sense into Johnny — sense we can’t seem to.” I frowned.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, looking from Claire’s mother to her father. Claire’s father glanced at Johnny.

  “We know that Johnny had nothing to do with…raping Claire or with those horrible pictures that came out,” the man said, swallowing against what I knew had to be deep, lingering pain at what his daughter had gone through. “We know he did everything he could to get her out of there, to try and help her heal, and then…” He closed his eyes, unable to continue.

  “When it all…” Claire’s mom cleared her throat. “He testified against every last one of those boys. He’s one of the prime reasons that they’re all in jail now.”

  “So why can’t the police tell them that? Or something?” I looked at the three other people: Johnny, Claire’s mother, her father.

  “Johnny’s been trying to protect us. He thinks if he takes all the heat to himself, if he turns himself into the police and they ‘investigate’ him again, then it will all go quiet again.” I sighed, and looked at Johnny.

  “I understand that you want to save us the pain, son,” Claire’s father was saying. “But if you this…you’re never going to get past this rumor if you don’t let us clear the air.”

  “If they investigate me again,” Johnny said, “they’ll say that there’s no proof I was involved, that I’m innocent, and you won’t have to be involved.”

  “Johnny,” I said, gesturing to the front yard. “They’re already involved. And if you don’t let them clear your name, then it’s going to keep coming up for the rest of your life — do you really want that? To keep reliving it, and making them relive it, every few years until you’re dead?” Johnny’s face went white at the thought of not only reliving the pain and grief of Claire’s death, but of forcing her parents to relive it, as well.

  “If they put me away,” Johnny said, licking his lips and pressing them together, “then they won’t have to relive it, either.” I scowled at him.

  “You stubborn, stupid jerk!” I couldn’t help smiling sadly even as the magnitude of his sacrifice hit me. “You’re not going to throw away everything you’ve worked so hard for just to satisfy some scandal-hungry journalists, are you? You’re not helping Claire by doing this!” Claire’s father cleared his throat, and we both turned to look at him.

  �
��Johnny, we’d like to talk to the press; now you can decide that you’re going to turn yourself in for a crime you didn’t commit if you want to, but we all know better. We know you’re innocent. And we want to clear the air.” I gave the older man a little smile of appreciation.

  “If they tell the press that they know you weren’t involved, if they explain what’s going on, then it will all be over. The police know what’s going on; I can’t even believe you think they’d let you turn yourself in.” Johnny looked from me to Claire’s parents, uncertain. “Johnny, this is a chance to finally finish it for once and for all. You owe it to Claire, you owe it to her parents who are still grieving her.” I reached out and grabbed his hand, kissing it lightly.

  Johnny looked at Claire’s parents, and then at me. “Johnny, I love you,” I said finally, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I don’t want to lose you — don’t do that to me, please.” I felt my eyes stinging. “Everyone will get to see you the way I do: the real you. We could be happy together, I know we could.” Johnny hesitated only a moment longer and then he leaned in, touching my face gently, holding me by the cheeks as he brushed his lips against mine, kissing me lightly. He broke away from my lips after just a moment and looked over at Claire’s parents, taking a deep breath and exhaling.

  “I’m ready,” he said quietly, giving my shoulders a squeeze.

  Chapter Five

  It was hard for me to know who was more innocent as we all walked out through the front door of Claire’s parents’ house: Johnny, Mr. and Mrs. White, or me. Claire’s parents had their faces set, neutral and controlled; I could tell that they had spoken to the press like this before — probably in the wake of Claire’s suicide and during the investigation. I felt for them. I couldn’t even imagine what it was like to lose a child. I couldn’t imagine how much pain and grief and guilt they had already gone through, and now they were putting themselves through this additional trial just to clear Johnny’s name. I gave Johnny’s hand a quick squeeze as he moved to stand next between Claire’s mom and dad.