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“At this house you and Brownie will be able to share a bed, just the two of you.”
Kinsley nodded, and Hayley straightened and closed the door. She was just walking around the car when she heard footsteps pounding toward her. Just as she turned to see what it was, a large body slammed into her, knocking her backward, then landing on top of her as they both went sprawling onto the pavement.
It was Jay Turner, screaming obscenities as he swung a fist at her, connecting with the side of her head hard enough that she saw stars.
He raised his fist again, but before he could deliver a second blow, he was knocked sideways by Adam. Jessica knelt at her side, helping her up. Maria Turner stood in the doorway of her house, crying. Kinsley Turner sat in the backseat of her car, crying, and as the cold wind blew and her cheeks stung Hayley realized that she was crying too.
She had certainly been right when she thought this visit would end in tears.
* * * * *
1:04 P.M.
Brian Xander paced nervously up and down Hayley’s front porch.
When he’d heard what had happened at the Turner house, he dropped everything and came straight here. Hayley was a great kid, and he hated that she had been hurt.
No.
Not a kid.
She was no longer the quiet, shy little girl who cried a lot. The little girl who was like an old woman in a small child’s body was gone. In her place was a beautiful young woman who was smart, compassionate, and adored her job.
A job that could have gotten her killed.
That terrified him.
The two of them had been friends for so long. He’d been eleven and Hayley five when she was adopted by close family friends, so they had pretty much grown up together. Their families had gone on vacation together several times, and they’d spent holidays together—Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July. She had always been a part of his life, and he didn't want anything to ever change that.
Good friends could be hard to find and once you had found one you wanted to hold onto them and never let them go.
“Where is she?” he muttered aloud.
With a grandfather who was a cop, and two uncles who had also joined the police force, Brian couldn’t deny that he had been tempted to follow in their footsteps. His father was a doctor, and there had also been the temptation to follow him into the medical field.
Instead, he had found a compromise between cop and doctor. He had completed medical school and come to work with his Uncle Ryan and Hayley’s mother Paige Hood who were three-way partners, along with Brady Crowley, in a private security firm. They had thought that having a doctor as part of their team would be good for when they had to deal with clients who had been injured, but because they were in danger and in need of a bodyguard, it wasn't safe for them to go to a hospital.
Since he often worked in dangerous situations, he was a trained bodyguard. He knew how to shoot a gun and hit his target, he was trained in self-defense and martial arts. He worked on a case-to-case basis so because he sometimes had stretches of free time, he also volunteered his services at a free clinic and at the center for abused women and children that his aunt and some family friends ran together. It made for a busy life and a lot of patients with a range of different physical and psychological conditions.
Right now, there was one patient in particular he wanted to see.
Hayley.
Brian yanked his phone from his pocket and punched in Hayley’s name. He was just about to press call when her car pulled into the driveway.
He had crossed the yard in five steps and was pulling open her door before she had even turned off the engine. “Are you okay?” he demanded, perhaps a little more forcefully than he should have but his heart hadn't stopped hammering in his chest since he’d heard what had happened.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I asked first,” he snapped.
Hayley laughed. “Okay then, well if we’re still nine and we’re still doing that then, yes, I'm okay. Now, your turn.”
“I'm here to see you,” he replied like it was obvious. Why else would he have stopped what he was doing and come right over?
“Why?” Hayley reached over and grabbed her bag from the passenger seat, then gently nudged him out of the way so she could get out of the car.
“Why?” he spluttered. “Because I can see a lump on the side of your head from here.”
