Protected by her dads be.., p.1
Protected by Her Dad's Best Friend,
p.1
Also by Alyse Zaftig
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Falling for Her Dad's Best Friend
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An Heir for the Billionaire Werebears
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PROTECTED BY HER DAD’S BEST FRIEND
ALYSE ZAFTIG
Copyright © 2022 by Alyse Zaftig
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CONTENTS
1. Running
2. Diner
3. Flashes of Memory
4. Nighttime
5. Breakfast
6. Invitation to Stay
7. Organizing
8. First Kiss
9. First Time
10. Call the Police
11. Motel
12. Motel Rescue
13. Leaving
14. New City
15. Unreal
16. Returning to Los Angeles
17. Confrontation
18. Fight
19. Cavalry
20. Hospital
21. Proposal
RUNNING
Yvonne
I couldn’t believe I just saw someone get shot. Before I could absorb the way the blood blossomed on his white shirt, I saw Ray swing the gun towards me. Now, I was running for my life.
I was not the kind of girl who enrolled in track and field in high school, which I had just graduated. Instead, I was more of the kind of girl who did what I had to do to keep my gym teacher happy and chatted with Tia Malone, my best friend, otherwise.
Feeling Ray Brewster’s hand on my upper arm, I tried to twist away from his hold. But he dragged me down and made me stop running. My head slammed against the ground. The world around me was spinning.
“Let go of her. She isn’t going to snitch,” said Jeremy to Ray.
“I don’t like leaving loose ends,” Ray replied to him.
Kicking Ray from my prone position, I got his legs out from under him. As he went down, I looked at Jeremy, who also had a gun. He motioned with his chin for me to get out of there. I didn’t know if he’d be able to convince Ray to stop, but I only had a half second to get away this time.
My world was spinning around me. I might be concussed. Swinging to my right, I sailed through the doors of a diner in my neighborhood, that kind that sold standard industrial-strength coffee and pancakes, bacon, and eggs for everyone.
I needed people around so Ray wouldn’t shoot me. I didn’t know if it would work, but I was starting to lose consciousness. As I started to fall, someone caught me in his arms. Before my vision went dark, I caught a glimpse of his azure eyes.
DINER
Grey
My driver and I both heard the loud noise as the engine died. He cursed before thumping the dashboard.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I think you’re going to need to wait while I call an auto service and get a replacement car while they tow it to a shop.”
I looked at my phone and thought about the meetings that I was missing. Often, I didn’t even need to talk during them. Now that the pandemic had changed digital communication patterns, I was content to sit on the phone while on mute during a lot of meetings. I wondered sometimes how useful I was to the company. Maybe I was just a figurehead.
“I don’t mind. I’ll find a place to drink some coffee. You can text me once you have the replacement car ready to go.” He had been driving me home, because I tended to be more comfortable with a glass of bourbon at home than with my tie on at work. Being the face of the company wasn’t as hard when people didn’t see you.
“Will do, sir.” He did a lazy salute in the mirror. I’d picked him up out of a veteran’s support NGO that connected people who honorably left the military to companies interested in hiring them. I offered him a substantial amount of money to drive me; he was the best, having navigated far more dangerous streets than what even Los Angeles had to offer.
As I got out of the car, I noticed that it was my childhood neighborhood. It hadn’t been the best then, and it was even worse now. I had learned at a young age to be very careful of anyone who offered anything with a smile. David Willis and I had spent a lot of time together in those days. It had been tragic when he had died of cancer. If I recalled correctly, he had left behind a wife and a kid. I frowned, not able to remember their names. She hadn’t been anybody all that special to him, because they’d had a shotgun wedding when she told him she was pregnant with the baby. He had shown me a picture, but I hadn’t been very interested. Our paths had bifurcated when he got married and I had buried myself in work. I’d gone to his funeral, but I had not seen any of his family since then.
I pushed open the door of a diner. Given the turnover in the hospitality industry, I imagined that nobody would have any clue who I was. I was just an anonymous businessman here. I had hopes that by staying in somewhere with plenty of light and people, I could avoid being mugged.
A waitress made sure I was seated. “I’d like the biggest cup of coffee you’ve got,” I said.
“Coming right up.” Her teeth were stained with her magenta lipstick. I didn’t know whether she thought I’d leave a good tip or not, but I was here until my driver told me to leave and return to where my car had broken down.
I heard the door open and looked for the new customer. She had dirt smudged on her cheek, but it did not diminish her beauty. She had dark, curly hair like David’s. Getting to my feet, I came closer to her. I could see that her skin was scratched. As she pitched forward, I caught her in my arms before she sank to the floor.
“Oh no, what’s going on?” The waitress had returned with a comically large mug of coffee. She put it on my table.
“I think we need to call an ambulance.” A medical emergency was more important than me calling into a virtual meeting. Still holding the unconscious woman, I handed the waitress a hundred dollar bill. “Thanks for the coffee. Keep the change.”
She blinked at me, but she went to the till and processed the transaction. I lifted the girl in my arms, and I sat at the edge of my booth. I didn’t want to move her too much. I let the warm coffee soothe my throat.
Within minutes, which was great time in Los Angeles given the traffic, there was an ambulance waiting in front of the diner. The paramedics were checking her out.
“Let’s go,” they told me.
I didn’t know why I went or why I didn’t explain that I had meetings scheduled. But I went with them into the ambulance. I couldn’t explain why I was so concerned about this stranger who had fallen into my arms, but I knew that I was.
The emergency room kept me apart from her; I showed them my driver’s license to get a printed name tag that was valid for one day. I just sat in the waiting room, where there was no coffee. I didn’t want to wander around to find the hospital cafeteria and miss any news about the unnamed woman, so I just sat there. I called into the meetings that I had scheduled for that night. With a distributed workforce, the workday was long. I got to set my own hours, but I had to accommodate global teams. Sometimes, the meetings ran into the night.
“Sir, you can come back now.” One of the hospital staff wearing a tag that said RN on it motioned me to join her in the restricted section. I got to my feet, hitting the red button on my phone to end my connection. Following her into a room, I saw that the woman was awake now.
“She’s feeling a lot better,” the nurse said approvingly. “I already let the doctor know that she is conscious. He’ll be in soon.”
Having been in emergency rooms before, I knew that ‘soon’ didn’t actually mean that it would be soon.
She was propped up at the strange angle that hospital beds are.
“Who are you?” she asked me, clearly suspicious. She was wearing a hospital gown.
“I caught you when you fell down at the diner.” I settled myself into one of the guest chairs in her room. “Can you tell me your name?”
“My name is Yvonne. Who are you? Why are you here?”
“I’m Grey. Well, I’m here because I’m interested in how well you’re doing.”
We settled into an uncomfortable silence. I didn’t know if she was going to call back the nurse and get me removed from her room. I still wasn’t sure what was stopping me from running away.
The d
Bad news.
“She can’t be left alone overnight like this. Normally, we’d keep her for observation, but we are short on staff.” Because of the pandemic, a healthcare system which was already strained was even worse. Even paying hospital staff extra money wasn’t enough to keep every hospital staffed to the best level. We weren’t next to the ritziest hospital in town, so we had gone to the local safety net hospital.
“What do you need me to do?” I asked the doctor.
“Someone needs to monitor her condition and make sure that she’s safe. A nurse will call tomorrow to make sure there are no lasting injuries.” He turned to Yvonne. “Do you have someone you can stay with?”
She started to say a name, but for some reason it didn’t make its way out of her mouth. From the set of her shoulders, she seemed scared.
“I can watch her,” I offered.
To my intense surprise, she said, “Okay.”
She hadn’t been enthusiastic about finding a stranger in her hospital room, but she was fine with leaving the hospital with me? What was going on?
FLASHES OF MEMORY
Yvonne
I wasn’t sure why I was in the hospital. My head hurt, and apparently I had a concussion. There was a strange man who said that he would take care of me. I was going to ditch him at the earliest opportunity.
I’d been handed around different foster families since I was 16 and my mom decided she cared more about my creepy stepdad than keeping me around. I had a good idea of what men wanted from someone my age, and I had no intention of giving it to him. I had learned in my childhood that there was no such thing as a free lunch.
I couldn’t remember what had happened right before I hit my head, but I knew that I could not go to Tia’s house to have her look after me. I wasn’t sure why. I felt like someone was hunting me.
Staying quiet while all the paperwork was done, I ignored the nurse who was droning on about discharge instructions. The stranger apparently wanted to pay my hospital bill, which saved me from having to do it. I was on Medi-Cal, but I wasn’t going to stop him if he wanted to take care of my health costs. I wasn’t so rich that a trip to the emergency room wouldn’t cause a serious strain on the amount of cash that I had available.
Once we had the paperwork squared away, he called somebody. The nurse transferred me into a wheelchair, and a patient transport guy pushed me down the hallway and into an elevator. We went to the departure lounge. We could see the parking garage on a screen. Finally, someone came to call him up.
I was surprised by how nice the car was, but I guessed that somebody who casually paid for a stranger’s hospital bill was rich. I wasn’t in line to become anybody’s sugar baby. I had plans, and even though they included getting out of my neighborhood, they certainly didn’t include catering to a rich man.
As soon as the car cleared the parking garage, I told him, “You can take me to my home address.” I rattled off my home’s coordinates.
“The doctor says that you need to be monitored. Is there anybody there to watch you?” He seemed genuinely concerned, but I was always searching for an ulterior motive in people. Nobody just looked after someone who just came out of the emergency room out of the goodness of his heart.
“I can take care of myself.”
There was a frown on his face. “I’d prefer it if you came to my house. My housekeeper can keep an eye on you.”
I relaxed just a fraction. He didn’t intend to “look after” me himself, which I thought he meant to do. He also wanted to make sure there were other people involved, which made me feel less like a potential sugar baby and a little more like a random woman he had plucked off the street, taken to the hospital, and was taking home.
I was still about to say no, but we came to the stoplight in front of the hospital. I could see Ray Brewster standing there, wearing baggy clothing that was too warm for Los Angeles weather. I could feel a sense of alarm, but I wasn’t sure what it was from. I knew I had to get away from Ray.
“I’ll stay one night,” I conceded to the stranger. I could handle him if he tried anything. Ray was a lot rougher to deal with. Tia didn’t like that her brother’s best friend was so aggressive.
“That’s enough. Are you hungry? We can pick up some food.”
They’d given me a little to eat in the hospital, but hospital food was not real food. I’d had enough water for now. “I could go for a burger.”
“Take us to the nearest burger place,” the stranger instructed his driver. He had said that his name was Grey.
Soon, we were pulling through the drive-through at In-N-Out. It was a small luxury for me to buy food there, but I had my standard order. I rattled off all my favorite stuff, and Grey asked for the most basic boring burger possible with plain fries.
“Plain fries from In-N-Out are not as good as mine,” I told him.
“I’ll live,” he gently told me.
We ate in the car. He wasn’t worried about a stray fry or burger sauce being dropped in the car. The food really hit the spot after being in the hospital for a while. When we had finished the food, he said, “I haven’t had a burger like that in years.”
“I doubt you’ve ever eaten from a drive-through.” I snorted through my nose.
“I’m actually from the neighborhood where we met.”
I looked him up and down. “You don’t seem like it.”
“I let a lot of my friendships and acquaintanceships go when my business took off. My best friend died of cancer when we were in our early twenties, and I haven’t had any real reason to come back since I got out.”
Since I also aspired to getting out, I settled into thoughtful silence. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as it had been in the hospital room.
Soon, we were driving up to a gate. The gate swung open, and we pulled up to a huge McMansion.
Typical.
As we drove up to the actual main door, which for rich people was far from the gate, he said to me, “I can make sure that the housekeeper accommodates your needs while you are staying with me.”
“I appreciate it.” I’d be out the door as soon as I could.
We got out of the car as the driver stopped at the front door. Like a gentleman, Grey opened the door and held it for me as I got out. I went to the front door.
His housekeeper greeted me. “I’m Luisa,” she told me. “And Grey told me that you’ve been in the hospital.”
“Yes, I was just in the emergency room. I hit my head.”
She clicked her tongue. “Well, I have already prepared some food for you. It’s in your room. I made sure the sheets in your bed were fresh. If you need me during the night, just hit the intercom button. Someone will connect us.”
She was really nice, but I wasn’t staying the whole night. “That’s really nice of you.” I wasn’t going to take this guy’s generosity for more than a little bit. I only had left the hospital with him because I wanted the medical staff to leave me alone. She walked me into a guest suite, which was beautiful. It looked like a high-end hotel room or something. There was a huge flat-screen TV. In the corner, there was a tray with food on it.
I sat down to eat, even though Grey and I had just eaten burgers and fries. It seemed there was more room in my stomach for a home-cooked meal.
I’d been providing for myself ever since the day I turned 18. And frankly, surviving 2 years in the foster care system was not for the faint of heart. A meal that I didn’t have to cook for myself was a blessing, and I had gotten hospital meals and now two meals from the rich guy. I figured it was reasonable to accept, and I put a spoon into the rich broth.
