Page 1 of Off the Naughty List

Bennet

Bennet couldn’t remember ever moving this fast. Not back when he was a kid and they gave out free cake on birthdays. Not when his hot cheerleader girlfriend had screamed his name, urging him to get the last touchdown in high school. Not at any point in his adulthood.

He hadn’t even run this fast when he’d followed the two loves of his life to the fucking North Pole on Christmas five years ago.

He hailed a cab rather than waste time calling for his driver. The gods must have been on his side, because somehow, the first cab he saw stopped. He hopped in, and gave the man at the front the address where he had to get. Right now.

The cabbie, a forty-something man with too much facial hair, lifted a brow. “You’re going to school in the middle of the day?”

Great. Now the guy thought he was a pervert.

“My daughter’s in trouble.” The explanation came out of his mouth without so much as a moment of hesitation.

The dark-haired, green-eyed, ten-year-old gremlin who somehow never lost at any video game may be a Stone, not a McFinnley, but she was his daughter nonetheless. He was the one who dropped her off at school every morning. He’d never missed any of her lacrosse matches. He trained with her whenever he could. He’d taught her to ride a bike when it turned out her mother sucked at it. She was his. The end.

“Got it.”

The cabbie must have understood the urgency of the situation: he took the shortest route and broke a law or two to get him in front of Maya’s private school sooner than should have been possible.

Bennet left a hefty tip and ran up the stairs of the brownstone just as the bell rang. A sea of kids burst out of the corridor, hindering his path.Dammit!

Finally, he was in front of the principal’s office, panting and scared out of his wits.

“I’m here for Maya Stone,” he told the startled man at the desk.

The secretary took a moment to take that in before nodding. “She’s in the infirmary. The principal wants to speak to you before we discharge her.”

Fuck that noise.

It was only when the secretary coughed that he realized he’d said it out loud. “You called me to tell me my daughter was injured and needed me. I need to see Maya. Now.”

There must have been something in his tone that did the trick, because the man finally nodded. “All right. I’ll let the principal know you’ll come down after speaking to Miss. Stone.”

Bennet nodded. That was acceptable.

He followed the thin, well-dressed official to a room on the first floor of Maya’s school.

Bennet’s heart only calmed down when the door opened in front of Maya. She was all right. He exhaled the tension that had crippled him for the last half hour.

She was sitting up on a cot, glaring straight ahead.

“Hey, Honey Bee.”

Maya looked down to her folded hands, avoiding his eyes. His anxiety spiked again. That wasn’t her. She never hid. She said what she thought, right away, without filter, like her mother.

Sensing her unease, Ben was careful as he entered the room. He nodded to the nurse, who checked out another girl on a bunk bed.

“You’re frowning.”

“I’m not.”

“You so are. And I don’t like it. Who do I have to kill to get you to stop?” Bennet asked casually. “I know someone who knows someone. I can make it happen.”

Finally, she grinned, though she kept her eyes down.

“Come on, Honey Bee. Talk to me. What happened?”

When she lifted her gaze, it was to go back to glaring—at the girl on the other bunk bed, Ben realized. The one the nurse was talking to.

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