Page 71 of SEAL'S Baby Surprise
Then three things register with me. First, Kandis and the kids aren’t in the doorway any longer.
Second, Lee has stepped slightly away from me, and is standing relaxed and easy.
Third, Ark is crouched between us, and he isn’t barking. He’s growling, low and mean down in his throat.
“Fork over the dough,” one of the first two men says. “The boss doesn’t like it when players don’t pay up, ya know? You can pay up or pay the price.”
“I . . .I don’t have it,” Jason stammers. “I’m trying to get it.”
“I thought you was gonna sell some gems, some pearls an’ get the money,” the second of the suit-wearing men says. “They oughtto at least make a down payment. But you are in deep, and the interest is totting up every day.”
“I. …I couldn’t,” Jason said. “The pawn shop said they looked like some that were listed as stolen.”
“Did you report them stolen?” Lee asks, so carefully casual I could almost hear what she was thinking. I remembered her saying something about a martial arts teacher . . .
“Lee,” I caution, edging forward. “You aren’t bullet-proof.”
At the same time, Richard says, “I reported them stolen when you disappeared. I hoped they would surface somewhere, and I could find you.”
I noticed that he, too, had taken a casual stance. Only someone who knew him back before his football injury would have known what that meant.
Before anyone could do something rash, a police car pulls up behind the sedan, and that assault rifle disappears like it had melted into thin air.
Then another car pulls up behind that, and a long, lanky man accompanied by four more men in security uniforms get out of it.
It is kind of like one of those old movies where all the cars show up and clowns start piling out of them. Only these clowns all have guns, and one of them has some papers he was waving around.
Jason and the men who had gotten out of the sedan are all leaned up against cars, and the policeman who has the papers is saying things like, “right to remain silent,” and “can and will be used against you.”
Then the four men are being bundled into cop cars, and a tow truck loads up the sedan and the sports car. And then they are all gone.
“Good work, Caleb,” Richard calls to one of the security men.
“Thanks, Boss,” Caleb calls back. “I see you got Rylie. Good to see you, Miss Lane. He’s been some hard to live with while you were lost.”
Lee, I guess I should call her Rylie, looks at her brother open-mouthed. “You cared?”
“Well, of course I cared. You’re my baby sister. You didn’t think I bought all those dresses for you because I hated you?” Richard asks.
“But you always caught me and made me come back,” she says.
“When you ran away from school, yeah. I was sure glad when you were old enough I didn’t have to do that anymore,” Richard explains.
“So you wouldn’t have made me marry Jason?” Lee asks.
“Not if you didn’t want to,” Richard replies.
“But the threats, and the indemnity clauses, and all that stuff,” she says.
Richard laughs. “I was pretty sure the signature on it was forged, and I wasn’t easy about signing off on it anyway. ‘I thee endow with all my worldly goods’ is the guy’s part.”
“Oh,” she says, and sidles up to me. I put my arm around her.
“But you two,” Richard fixes us with a glare, “have some explaining to do.”
We go inside to discover Kandis leading the children out from a room hidden under the stairs. “Daddy!” Julia shrieks and pitches herself at me. I catch her before anything, or anyone could get broken. “They’ve got a Harry Potter closet. Only, it’s lots nicer than in the books you were reading to me.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I say. “Harry Potter closet?” I lift an eyebrow at Richard.
