Safeguarding Kelly(5)
Author: Zoe Dawson

 

Lieutenant Emily Johnson was a nurse stationed at the Navy Branch Health Clinic on Coronado.” Emily’s picture and service record popped up on the screen. She was an African American, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners from her bright smile. “She was twenty-eight and did two tours in Afghanistan. She has a mom in Fresno, dad deceased just last year. We’re not sure about a boyfriend.”

 

“Any connection between them?”

 

“None that we have been able to find. They appeared to be strangers.”

 

Jason leaned back against the desk. “Two different branches of the military, one a doc the other a nurse. Could it be that it’s their profession that links them?”

 

“That’s a good possibility. If it’s their profession that’s linking them, we’ll work at tracking their movements and when they were last seen and by whom,” Derrick said.

 

“Sounds like the best course of action. We’ll take Crouch’s family, and you question Johnson’s mom, discover if she had a boyfriend. Then we’ll compare notes,” Davis said.

 

The address was sent to their phones, and they headed toward the elevator. Downstairs, they got into their car and drove toward the front gate.

 

Davis navigated the base, his eyes straight ahead, giving Jason a moment to reflect on his past.

 

Jason had been a CGIS agent for two years. After he’d fallen from a chopper in bad weather, he’d torn his rotator cuff. He’d had surgery, but his strength in that shoulder had hampered him. There was no pain in his everyday life, but he couldn’t go full out in wind-tossed seas, and it effectively ended rescue swimming. It killed him to find another position in the Coast Guard, but he’d had no choice.

 

He’d applied to CGIS and was accepted, went to Glynco, Georgia for his training at FLETC, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. He’d graduated at the top of his class and had his pick of places to go. His family lived just outside of San Francisco, and he made the decision to take the post to Air Station San Diego across the street from the San Diego International Airport.

 

Bitterness mixed in with his anger over Kelly. Everything he’d thought he was going to do had changed in a blink of an eye.

 

He loved being a CGIS special agent, found he had the mind and the drive to do the job. It wouldn’t replace his love for search and rescue, but as an alternative, it suited him, allowed him to remain in active duty and still serve his country. But he missed rescue swimming like hell.

 

They approached the daycare center, and Jason was shocked when he saw Kelly holding a small child against her as she talked to the little bundle in her arms.

 

He sat there after they passed, his breath a bit shallow. Kelly had a child. Had she met someone else? Was she married? Hell, he should have considered that. His whole world shifted on its axis.

 

Kelly had a child.

 

A little girl judging by the pink dress the bundle was wearing.

 

For a moment, Jason couldn’t breathe. Then he let out a pent-up breath. Davis glanced over at him with a puzzled frown. The thought of Kelly married jarred him in a way he hadn’t been jarred since…since…the first time he’d laid eyes on her.

 

He was sure he hadn’t seen a ring on her finger, and he was that observant. Not that he had designs on Kelly. Dammit, he had been blindsided by seeing her like that. To have her just be there after all the years he’d wondered about her sent his brain into shock. Or was it that he’d never really gotten over her and this was his second chance?

 

Had fate really brought them together so Jason could get closure? Was this a way for him to let go of the past and move forward? Or was this a new beginning?

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

 

 

 

 

Kelly walked into her pediatrician’s office with aftershocks of seeing Jason still thundering through her. It would’ve been one thing if she’d prepared herself to see him, but another to have him show up like that out of the blue. It brought home to her that she hadn’t really dealt with her feelings for him. If she had, this would be nothing but panic at the thought he would find out about Kiko. It wasn’t just panic. Yet she couldn’t drop her guard one bit. There was more at stake here than Jason discovering that Kelly had harbored this secret and kept his daughter from him. It would impact both their lives, a life she had built in spite of her lapse in judgment.

 

“No shot, Mommy,” Kiko said as she widened her eyes and pursed her lips, pulling back a bit.

 

“No, honey, no shot. Just a checkup.”

 

She smiled and said, “That’s good, Mommy. I don’t want to be sick. I don’t like icky shots.” She removed Kiko’s light jacket and stuffed it into Kiko’s bag that she carried filled with stuff for Kiko like cheerios and a change of clothing. She signed in and settled into a chair as Kiko headed straight for the blocks.

 

She marveled at how fast her daughter had grown. Kiko’s IQ was just over one-thirty, well within the gifted range. Kelly already had her enrolled in Montessori when she was three. It was her neighbor Jenny who had encouraged it. She’d taught there previously before staying home with her own daughter.

 

Kiko prospered in their home, a modest house Kelly had purchased after she’d gotten out of the hospital with Kiko. Her mom and sister had been her biggest supporters and helped her so much, but her dad’s disapproval was palpable. It had put a strain on their marriage, one Kelly regretted. But it was understandable. Her dad was old school, he believed that a woman shouldn’t have a baby out of wedlock and the fact that Kelly refused to name the father or agree to any reconciliation with him only angered her father further.

 

The shame she felt for upsetting him was born out of her culture. She was aware of how she was expected to act, that tradition was so important to him. But Kelly felt as if she straddled two worlds and she was caught in the middle, pressured by both.

 

She had kept secret her lapse in judgment, fueling even more shame. She was determined to put all of that in the past and keep it there. Rehashing old arguments and opening old wounds wasn’t going to help.

 

“Dr. Hu, we’re ready for Sakiko.”

 

“Come on, sweetie,” Kelly said as she rose, and Kiko reluctantly pulled herself away from her blocks. She thought there was going to be rebellion, but she took Kelly’s hand, and they went through the door the nurse was standing near.

 

Once inside they went down a hallway where the nurse weighed and measured her, then showed them into a treatment room. The nurse took Kiko’s vitals, noted them onto her chart, and said, “Dr. Moore will see you in a few minutes. If you could get her undressed down to her diaper.”