Playing in SECRET (Corrigan & Co. Book 9) (5 page)

I’d be lying if I
said that I don’t want someone like that. A guy who puts me above
everything else in his life. I’ve kissed a bunch of frogs, and I’m
not really looking for a prince. Just a nice, normal guy who will
respect me, and fuck me senseless. Is that really too much to ask
for?

“Is the tour
finished?” Blake asks, sitting down at the patio table with us.

“Yeah. We’re going
shopping once Audrey’s friend, Stella, gets here.”

“You hate to shop.”

“I know, but Audrey
says Stella can find me some cool clothes that make me feel like
myself.”

“She can,” I say.
“Stella is amazing, and she’ll make sure Jeanne’s comfortable.”

“Can I meet up with
you for dinner?”

“Can we got to
Noodles & Co.?” Jeanne asks, looking excited.

“If that’s okay
with Audrey and Stella,” he says, pulling out his wallet.

“We’re fine with
anything,” I tell him.

“Great. Do you have
your credit card, Jeanne, or do you need cash?”

“I have my card.”

Really? A
twelve-year-old has a credit card? My face must show my surprise.
“She has a card on my account that she can use to buy whatever she
needs if I’m not around,” Blake tells me.

“That’s very
generous of you.”

“She’s my daughter,
Audrey. Who else would I spend my money on?”

“You should buy
Audrey something!” Jeanne tells him.

“Oh. No, I
didn’t…that’s not what I meant. Or wanted. You don’t need to
buy me anything.”

“Challenge accepted,”
Blake says.

“Challenge? What
challenge?”

“Finding the perfect
gift for you.”

“Really, Blake. You
don’t have to. I have everything I could possibly want.”

“Then I’ll just
have to give you something you
need.
”

Yep. I’m in trouble.
Big
trouble. The man
gives his daughter unlimited access to his money, and now just
promised to give me what I need. I don’t think he was just talking
about buying me something from the store either. And God help me, I
really want what he has to give me.

Audrey

Stella is waiting for
us when we walk up to the Fashion Valley mall. Jeanne stops short
when she sees her. “Wait, she’s your friend Stella? But she’s
famous.”

“So is your dad,” I
tell her with a laugh, surprised that she’s star struck.

“Actually, it’s my
boyfriend who’s famous. I just go along for the ride.”

“Is Kace as amazing
in real life as he seems?”

“He has his moments.
Storyside will be coming through here on tour soon if you want to
meet him.”

“My dad said he could
get me backstage, but if you did it, that’d be cooler.”

“I
am
much cooler than anyone’s dad, so I’ll do you one better. You can
come by for sound check and then have dinner with us before the
show.”

“I thought you
weren’t flying out to any of the shows. You wanted to be all
independent and shit, right?” I tease her.

“I miss him, Aud. So
fucking much. I miss my boy.”

“Then go and get
him,” I say, giving her a hug.

“I’m going to. I’ll
be meeting the tour when I leave here tonight.”

“By the way, who’s
here with you?”

We want Jeanne to have
fun shopping, but none of us can forget that she was almost kidnapped
the other day. Stella and I both wanted her to be able to focus on
styling Jeanne, and not protecting her—although she’d be ready if
something happened—and Reina agreed.

“Ainsley, Isa, and
Darcy. They’re on shopping sprees with their guys.”

“Poor girls,” I say
with a laugh. Those three are the most unlikely to want to shop of
any of us.

“They’ll deal.”

“Your nerdy friends
are here? Can they eat with us later?” Jeanne asks.

“It’s not a good
idea for us to be all together while they’re watching you.”

“What if we take the
food back to the house? Could they hang out with us there?”

“I’ll ask them.”

“Now?”

“How about I do it
while you’re trying on your clothes? It’s not a good idea for us
to just stand here for a long time.”

“Okay,” she says,
looking a little disappointed. I hate disappointing her, but her
safety has to come first.

“Let’s get going,”
Stella says. “We’ll hit the big stores first, and then the
smaller boutiques.”

“You’re the
expert,” I tell her.

“Damn straight.”

We’re still laughing
when I sense them. Stella swings her head to the side, and I know she
feels it too, the shift in the air. The Society trains us to look
for, and sense trouble. It took my science minded brain a little bit
of time to trust it, but I’ve come to believe in it after all of
these years. There’s danger in the air right now.

Stella and I flank
Jeanne, and I put my arm around her as we walk her a little faster.
When we veer towards an internal exit instead of the store entrance,
Jeanne realizes something is wrong.

“Why are we going
down this hallway?”

“There are people
here for you,” I tell her. “I don’t know how they found us so
fast, but they’re here.”

“You’ll protect me,
right?”

“Yes,” Stella tells
her. “You just need to do whatever we say.”

“I will.”

We make it only a few
feet before the door slams open behind us. Stella and I have our guns
out, and Jeanne against the wall behind us before they’re all the
way inside of the door.

“What do you want?”
I ask.

“The girl,” the
lead man says.

“You can’t have
her.”

“We’ll see,” he
says, rolling his neck.

“Yes, we will,”
Stella tells him.

There are six of them,
but Stella and I could probably take them if we had to. Our friends
should be here any moment now, but it looks like the fight will begin
without them as the men fan out into a line in front of us. We could
shoot them, but that would stop us from getting the answers we need,
and also draw more attention than we want to what’s happening.
Stella and I both holster our guns, and get ready to fight.

The first guy goes for
Stella, and she easily dodges his fist while knocking him back. The
next four attack at once, two on each of us. We both take a few hits,
but do more damage to them than they do to us. I see the main guy
heading towards Jeanne out of the corner of my eye, and lose my focus
for a moment. I take a hard hit to the jaw, and then renew my
efforts, even as I move back in front of her. Now it’s three on one
as the guy who was going for her joins his friends, and the other one
Stella knocked back rejoins the fight with her. We’re holding them
off, but it’s not easy.

All of a sudden, Darcy
is next to me, taking on two of the guys. Isa helps Stella, while
Ainsley grabs Jeanne from behind me. I hear her hand Jeanne off to
Zack and Brayden, then she and Jake take on the final two. Six
against six is too much for the bad guys, and they realize it, trying
to run. I motion to the main guy, and Isa and Jake stop him from
leaving. His friends get away, but we only need one.

“You’ll never get
anything out of me.”

“On the contrary,
we’ll get everything out of you. How alive you are when we’re
done will be up to you,” I tell him.

“Reina has a car
outside for us. We’ll get him settled with the support staff we
brought until Reina gets here with Matt and Faith, and then meet you
later,” Darcy tells me.

“I was going to ask
you about later anyway, so I’ll call with details.”

“It’s a plan.”

I watch them go, and
then turn back to Stella. “Are you still up for shopping?”

“Yeah, she needs
normal after that. We just need to clean up a little.”

We take care of that,
and once we’ve looked each other over, and decided we look normal
again, we go back into the mall. The sight we find makes us both
smile. Jeanne is sitting on a bench with Zack on one side of her, and
Brayden on the other. They’re all eating ice cream, and laughing. A
few feet away, some girls and boys around Jeanne’s age are openly
gawking.

“Ready to shop?”
Stella asks Jeanne as we walk up to them.

“We can?”

“Of course. We’re
not going to let a minor hiccup stop us from having some fun.”

“Oh my God, you’re
Stella. Like from KaSt, Stella,” a girl says, using the “ship”
name fans have assigned to her and Kace.

“I am.”

“What are you doing
with her? I mean, she’s so…nerdy?” another girl asks,
scrunching up her nose.

“Nerds are hot,”
Zack says.

“Gamer girls, too,”
Brayden adds, and they fist bump in front of Jeanne.

“Well, I don’t want
some girl who has to prove that she’s smarter than me,” one of
the boys says.

“With that attitude,
she won’t have to prove it. Everyone will know she’s smarter,”
Stella tells him, shaking her head.

I see Jeanne looking
sadly at the boy’s friend, who I find staring at my chest. “My
eyes are up here, little boy.”

“When you’ve got it
flaunt it, right?” he says with a smirk. If this is who I think it
is, we may need more ice cream. Yes, I have a denim jumpsuit on, but
it’s buttoned almost to the top, and just, no.

“Actually I prefer to
flaunt my brain, so if you’d like to ask me some science questions,
I might take you seriously.”

“Yeah right. You want
me to believe that you like science?”

“I could really care
less what you believe. I am, however, a scientist. A damn good one,
actually. And I can tell you that back in high school, no one
would’ve guessed what I was hiding behind my glasses and baggy
sweaters. Think about that, hotshot.”

He looks over to
Jeanne, and his eyes widen. When I look as well, I see her glaring at
him. We’re definitely going to need more ice cream.

“Well, we have some
shopping to do, so we’ll have to say goodbye now,” Stella says,
picking up on the vibe that’s going down.

“Need me to hold your
purse, Jeanne,” Zack asks, holding his hand out. He really is a
good guy, despite the problems Ainsley had with him early on.

“A strong woman
doesn’t need a man to hold her purse, but I’ll let you if you
really want to. I appreciate a man who is comfortable with his
sexuality.”

“Oh yeah, you’re
already rubbing off on her, Aud. And after spending time with Stell,
every boy in this state had better watch out.”

“Watch out? They
should be thanking us,” Stella says, hands on hips.

“Too true,” Brayden
says. “There’s nothing sexier than a smart, strong woman. And I
am also secure enough in my manhood to hold a purse or some shopping
bags, if the need arises.”

“Oh, we know you are,
Brayden. Karaoke night will never be forgotten,” I tell him with a
laugh.

“Can we come along?
We’ll pay you like Jeanne’s doing, and we have better style
already,” one of the girls says.

“Jeanne’s not
paying me,” Stella says. “She a cool chick, and I want to hang
out with her. If you want to try and book me, you can ask your
parents to sign up online. I should be available in about five years.
Bye now.”

She links her arm with
Jeanne’s, and we all walk into the first store together. I
seriously have the best friends ever. We’ll make the rest of the
day fun for Jeanne, while Reina gets answers from that asshole who
tried to take her again. A fun time should be had by all, except for
him of course.

* * *

Blake

There was a change of
plans for dinner. Audrey called me to say that men came for Jeanne
again at the mall. She doesn’t know how they found her so fast, and
is afraid that it’s an inside job. Apparently, Reina flew in to
torture some answers out of one of the guys while my girl still went
on her shopping spree. Audrey texted me dinner orders from everyone,
so I still went to Noodles & Co., but we’re all eating here
now.

I’d be lying if I
said I’m not a little stressed out as I get everyone’s place set
for them. My kid was almost taken—again. I know she has mad
computer skills, but they can’t be that much better than the other
hackers out there. Or maybe they are. I know close to nothing about
what she’s doing. I’ve Googled it, even getting a friendly call
from my local FBI office after my searches, but there’s still too
much I don’t know.

“Dad, where are you?”

“I’m in the dining
room,” I yell back.

Jeanne comes running
in, and throws herself into my arms. I hold her tight, until she
pulls back. “I just needed a hug.”

“Good thing I’ve
always got one for you. Nice threads by the way,” I tell her as I
look her over. She still looks like herself, just enhanced a little.

“You’re so
old
.
No one says things like that anymore, Daddy-O.”

“Yeah, yeah, I see
nothing’s changed in the hours you’ve been gone.”

“We were never going
to change her, Blake. You should know I wouldn’t do that,” Audrey
says to me.

Fuck. Here I go
screwing up again. “I
do
know that. Thank you for taking her out, and for you know, saving her
again.”

“We had lots of fun,
and I, for one, am starving,” the blonde bombshell standing next to
Audrey says.

“You must be Stella,”
I say, holding out my hand, which she ignores. “Friend of Audrey’s.
Right, so no handshake.”

“Behave, Stell.
Blake, this is Zack and Brayden. Isa, Darcy, Matt, Faith, and Jake
should be here soon with Reina, and Ainsley, whom you’ve already
met.”

The guys and I do the
nodding thing, and then we all sit down to eat. I’m listening to
Jeanne tell me about her day while trying to ignore that Audrey’s
thigh is touching mine, when everyone else arrives. Everyone stops
talking to greet them.