Page 92 of Fierce-Jax

“Relax,” he said, reaching for her hand. “Take a deep breath. I’m doing it. And if for some reason I couldn’t, I would have called Roni or my mother. Even though they haven’t met Gianna, your daughter wouldn’t have been stuck there.”

“I know,” she said. “Thank you so much for this.”

She pulled her key out of her pocket and handed it over. They got to the vending machines and she put her credit card in, then hit the button for iced tea.

“Do you want me to bring her back to your office or mine?”

She pushed her card into the other vending machine and got two candy bars and two bags of chips.

“You can bring her to mine,” she said. “I’ll have her stay in the reception area and she can have a snack.”

“Phew,” he said. “For a minute I thought you were going to eat all of that.”

“Just one candy bar for now,” she said. “I’m starving. I had half a sandwich for lunch between patients by taking bites and running to another room.”

“Not healthy,” he said.

“Then you can make it up to me and cook dinner for us tonight while I put my feet up.”

She was all but running back up the stairs with her arms full of loot. She was walking away from him when they got to her floor. “Your drink.”

“Crap,” she said. “Put it on top and give me a kiss.”

He smiled over that. Not that anyone was around, but there would be questions soon enough when he returned with Gianna. Someone was bound to recognize him as a patient.

Even if they didn’t, they’d know Dillion had a man in her life picking up her child.

He returned to his office, took care of a few emails, and then left and told the front desk he’d be back in about forty minutes.

No one questioned him. Though his calendar was always updated where he was and what he was doing, he’d been known to run out for all sorts of things, even checking on one of his other sites if there was a problem.

He worked enough in his eyes. An hour early most mornings, he stayed late a lot, worked through his lunch, and took care of calls and emergencies at night and on the weekends.

He might have made his job look easy, but it took a lot of hard work for that to happen.

When he got to the Pre-K school a little before three, he walked to the front door to see if Gianna would be ready.

“Can I help you?” the woman at the desk asked.

“Jax Hollister to pick up Gianna Pa—Cannon. Gianna Cannon.” He’d almost said Patrick before he caught himself and remembered Gianna had her father’s last name.

“Yes,” the woman said. “Dr. Patrick called to clear it. If you want to wait here I’ll go get Gianna for you.”

“Thanks,” he said. He liked that there was security here. No one could just walk in off the street and get in where the kids were.

Not that he expected anything different.

“Jax,” Gianna said, running over to him with her arms up in the air. “I didn’t know you were coming. I thought Mommy was getting me.”

“Mommy is stuck with a patient and didn’t think she could get out in time, but she called me.”

Gianna hugged him. Another woman walked in and said, “Hi, Gianna.”

“Hi, Maddy’s Mom,” Gianna said.

He thought that was funny but cute in a way too.

“And who is this?” the woman said. “I’m Sophie, Maddy’s Mom.”

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