About time! They both stood up.
“Just her,” Dray said.
Janita gave her brother a reassuring look, but he knew better. They wanted to drill down on her again. Treat her like dirt again. “We do everything together. We’re a team,” he said to Dray.
“Not today you aren’t,” Dray said to him. Then he saw the concern on her baby brother’s face. “I won’t let them treat her too badly,” he added.
It wasn’t much, but Von took it. “Thanks man,” he said, and then Janita left the room with Dray. Von sat down and prayed when she left.
But when Janita followed Dray next door and walked into that parlor room where the Webster family was located, she was so nervous that she thought they could hear her heart hammering.
But when she walked in and she and Hawk locked eyes, both of them had an immediate reaction.
For Janita, it was a kind of embarrassing awkwardness. This man hit on her once, and she turned him down. She just knew he was going to go hard on her.
For Hawk, it was just seeing her again that got a reaction out of him. And it wasn’t embarrassment that she had turned him down a month ago, nor was it awkwardness. It was thatjolt again. As if she was shaking him up again in ways that were out of character for him. He dealt with beautiful ladies every day and he never wanted to take them to bed or get to know them better or any of that. He never gave those ladies a second thought. But he thought about her many times in the days after they met. And it disturbed him mightily.
Was this the “girl” his father was talking about? Was this young lady his mother’sbodyguard? “Hello.”
Although she was still awkward around him, at least his face was the first non-accusatory face she’d seen all day. These people hated her guts for what happened to their mother on her watch, and rightly so. But it still hurt deeply to be looked upon with such disdain. And although she knew he was one of Mrs. Webster’s sons too, and they had that brief history together, he seemed to at least be willing to treat her outwardly with some respect even if he inwardly he probably despised her too. “Hello,” she said.
She recognized every one of Mrs. Webster’s children, not because she’d been introduced to them, but the moment she won that contract she went online and checked out that entire family.
“Your name?” Although she had an initial electrifying impression on him when he first met her at his house that night, he had forgotten her name.
“Oh I’m sorry.” She stiffened her spine and spoke up. “I’m Janita.”
But she didn’t speak up loud enough for Hawk. “Ja-who?”
Janita cleared her throat, which was never a good sign. “I’m Janita Cooper. My company oversees your mother’s security.”
Wait a minute. His mother told him that she was her assistant. But she was, in actual fact, her bodyguard?Her? “Which member of your staff was on duty when this happened?”He assumed it was some seasoned veteran who’d seen it all before. Including kidnappings.
Janita knew she was about to disappoint him too. “My brother and I were on duty because my brother and I are the only employees of Cooper Security.”
Hawk was astounded. “You’re joking?”
Minka laughed. “I told you!”
Hawk was shocked. She was no kid, but she was no seasoned veteran either! Perhaps her brother was? “Where’s the brother?” he asked. “Bring him to me.”
Dray rolled his eyes. He could have brought the brother in when he brought the sister in. “I hope you people make up your minds,” he said. But he left the room once again and went and got Von.
While they waited, Janita and Hawk kept taking peeps at each other when they thought the other one wasn’t looking. It was as if they still remembered that night vividly. As if both of them, in their own way, had considered what might have been had shenotturned him down, and regretted that they’d never know.
But when Von walked into that parlor, Hawk was too amazed to consider anything. Because when he saw that Von was even younger than his sister, and that he looked like he could still be in his teen years, he knew this couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be! “Were you in charge when my mother was kidnapped?” he asked Von.
“Yep,” said Minka. “He was in charge. This child was in charge.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Janita corrected him.
But Minka ignored her the way he always ignored difficulties. “It gets crazier and crazier,” he said.
This was a joke to Minka, but it was an affront to Hawk. This was their mother they were talking about. He had a fixedfrown on his face. He needed to understand this! “So you were in charge?” he asked Janita.
“Yes sir.”
“You’re an experienced bodyguard?”
