Sealed with a Kiss by Leeanna Morgan (microsoft ebook reader txt) 📖

“Perfect.” Bella sighed. “I’ll get some Christmas cookies. We could have them with a big glass of milk.”

John was grateful that Tank went with Bella. He needed a few minutes to pull himself together and get over the shock of seeing so much tinsel.

“What’s wrong?” Rachel asked as soon as Bella was out of the room.

“I don’t do Christmas, not like this.” He climbed down the ladder and sat on the sofa. Everything looked so shiny and new.

“I thought Tank was exaggerating.”

“Tank never exaggerates.” He listened to Bella chatting to Tank, the sound of her laughter as she got her cookies ready for them.

Rachel sat beside him. “Why don’t you like Christmas?”

He kept his gaze focused on the fireplace. Red and orange flames leaped in the air. “Jacinta died a week before Christmas. We buried her on Christmas Eve. Bella was hurt in the car accident and missed her mom’s funeral.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t know. I try to make it a good day for Bella, but something inside of me refuses to forget what happened. It took me three days to get back from Afghanistan after the accident. Jacinta’s parents looked after Bella in the hospital. They wanted me to leave her with them.”

“For how long?”

“Permanently.” He could still hear Jacinta’s parents arguing with him, trying to convince him that Bella was better off with them. The cold logic of why they would make better parents made sense. He’d been overseas for most of the first two years of Bella’s life. He’d known nothing about looking after a toddler, and even less about being a Dad.

When he left the military he had no job, a home he was a stranger in, and a daughter who kept asking for her mommy. He’d barely managed to survive the first six months of life without Jacinta. But life had gone on. Jacinta’s parents had given up waiting for him to fail and he’d realized that being a Dad wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be.

John looked across the room at the big, blow-up Santa. “I think your reindeer and Santa are supposed to be outside.”

“We didn’t want to scare you.”

The smile in Rachel’s voice cut through the memories inside his head. “It must have cost you a fortune for all of these decorations. I’ll give you the money for them.”

“No you won’t. We shopped at Walmart and everything was half price.”

Tank walked into the room carrying a tray with four mugs on it. “Remind me to swap with Tanner next time Rachel wants to go shopping.”

“You just don’t want to admit that you had fun.” Rachel took the mug that Tank held out to her and looked inside. “You made hot chocolate for me?”

“I thought you’d like it better than milk.”

The smile Rachel sent Tank made John frown. “Is there anything else you’ve planned and haven’t told me about?”

Bella left a plate of cookies on the table. She sat on the other side of John, leaning in close. “We bought you some presents,” she whispered, “but Rachel said I can’t tell you what they are. They’re a surprise.”

He glanced at Rachel. She was sipping her drink, watching Bella. She hadn’t learned that his daughter was hopeless at keeping secrets. After a few hours, the excitement of keeping information inside her was too much, and she’d tell everyone what she knew. “Have you gone decoration crazy in the rest of the house?”

Bella shook her head. “Mrs. Daniels had already unpacked the fairy lights for the kitchen. We decided to hang our decorations in the entranceway and living room.” She walked across to the reindeer beside the blow-up Santa and hugged him tight. “Isn’t Rudolph amazing? He’s as tall as me. Do you think we could buy a snowman? He’d look amazing beside Rudolph.”

John focused on his daughter’s face. Bella always looked forward to Christmas, but she’d never been this animated or excited. Each December, he tried to make up for what she’d lost—what they’d both lost—by not turning Christmas into a big deal. But Bella was happier than he’d ever seen her. After all of the issues he was having at work, maybe this Christmas would be different.

“I’ve got another idea,” John said. “Instead of going shopping, why don’t we make our own snowman in the backyard?”

Bella’s mouth dropped open. “Out of real snow?”

John nodded. “You could ask Mrs. Daniels if she has any carrots that we could use for his nose.”

Bella’s arms dropped from around the reindeer. She ran toward the kitchen, yelling over the Christmas carols for Mrs. Daniels.

Tank bit into one of Bella’s cookies and stood up. “You’ve made one little girl happy. I’ll let the rest of the team know that we’re heading outside.”

Tank left the room and Rachel’s worried gaze met John’s. “You’ve got more bodyguards outside? Why?”

This was one of the few times in his life when John didn’t know what to say. Too much information could scare her, too little could be deadly. “I’ve got something I need to tell you, but you’ve got to promise that you won’t repeat this to anyone.”

Rachel put down her mug of chocolate. “It sounds serious.”

“It is. I received a death threat this morning.”

Rachel watched Bella pat a lump of snow into a ball with John. Their faces were inches apart as they worked together to make the snowman’s head.

She didn’t know what was happening, but the more time she spent with them, the faster something seemed to unravel inside her.

“They’re having a good time.” Tank stood beside her, watching the fun taking place in the snow.

“They always have a good time together. I just wish John was home more often. Then he’d really see how much Bella loves spending time with him.”

Tank’s gaze traveled along the trees surrounding the property. “He knows.”

“Why doesn’t he do something about it?”

He glanced quickly at her before transferring his gaze back to John. “He tries. You need to cut him some slack. He’s got a lot happening at the moment.”

Rachel didn’t need to be reminded. John had explained about the threat to his life, the steps that had been put in place to make sure everyone was safe.

Tank nodded at Bella. “She’s a great kid, but it hasn’t been easy. After his wife died, John took Bella to physical therapy classes for a long time. She had trouble walking for about a year. While he was looking after Bella, he was trying to figure out what he wanted from life.”

“He figured it out pretty well.” She watched John lift the snowman’s head onto its body. “Starting Fletcher Security was either the smartest business move he made, or there’s more to his business than I know.”

Tank crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You’ll need to talk to John about that.”

John glanced at Rachel and his smile dimmed.

“You confuse him,” Tank muttered. “He’s used to planning everything down to the last detail. He doesn’t know what you’re going to do from one minute to the next.”

“That’s unfair. You and Tanner have been following Bella and me around ever since I started working here. You know exactly where I am at any given time because you’re right behind me.”

“We weren’t supposed to go shopping.”

Rachel scuffed the snow in front of her with the toe of her boot. “I needed to get my clothes from my apartment. Walmart isn’t far from where I live.”

“It was too dangerous.”

She bent down and picked up a handful of snow. “I couldn’t stay here over Christmas with no decorations. It’s not Christmas without lights, tinsel, and a tree.”

She rolled the snow into a ball and aimed for John. “Maybe your boss needs to unwind and let you and the police worry about the baddies.” The snowball flew through the air and landed with a thud on the back of John’s jacket.

He turned around and looked at Rachel. She shook her head and pointed at Tank.

John didn’t look convinced. He knelt beside Bella and whispered something in her ear. She looked at Rachel and smiled.

Tank stuck his hands in his jacket. “John’s my friend. Make sure you don’t break his heart. He couldn’t go through that again.”

He started to turn away, but Rachel held onto his arm. “Wait, Tank. I don’t plan on getting anywhere near his heart. John is my…” Rachel’s words were cut short by a snowball exploding against the side of her face. She turned just in time to see another one hurtling toward her. She ducked low, narrowly avoiding the missile.

“What the…?” Tank ended up wearing the snowball on his jacket.

Rachel dropped to the ground. “Don’t worry, Tank. I’ve got you covered.” She quickly scooped together enough snow for a decent snowball and aimed it at Bella and John. They were hiding behind the snowman, throwing a stockpile of snowballs straight at her and Tank.