Kat Knight Watch: Iron Orchids

  Kat, Knight Watch

  Iron Orchids

  Danielle Norman

  Copyright © 2020 by Danielle Norman

  and F Squared, LLP

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission from either the author and or the above named publisher of this book with the exception for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction.

  The name Danielle Norman® is a registered Trademark

  Iron Orchids™️ is a pending trademark.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Kat

  2. Jackson

  3. Kat

  4. Kat

  5. Jackson

  6. Kat

  7. Jackson

  8. Kat

  9. Jackson

  10. Jackson

  11. Kat

  12. Kat

  13. Jackson

  14. Kat

  15. Jackson

  16. Kat

  17. Kat

  18. Jackson

  19. Kat

  20. Kat

  21. Jackson

  22. Kat

  23. Jackson

  24. Kat

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon

  Binge Read Me

  Box Set Madness

  Sneak Peek—Adeline, Getting Even

  A Word From Danielle

  Find Me

  Meet Danielle

  Also By Danielle

  Acknowlegements

  Kat, Knight Watch

  I never believed in love at first sight...

  Until the ATM ate my debit card, and Jackson Boudreaux stepped in to save the day. All business, in his nine to five banker suit—I couldn’t help but wonder of what he was hiding under that perfect form.

  I was leather and handcuffs.

  He was ties and cuff-links, but it didn't matter that we were from two different worlds.

  Once we collided there was no going back.

  Neither of us were ready for love… He came with baggage and drama not to mention a young son. I avoided drama like the plague and avoided little kids even more.

  This is to Corona, you suck. You have fucked up my life, I’m bored as hell, I’m finding it entertaining to pull pranks that I’ve only written about up till now. And to top it off, there is nothing left to wipe all the whiney, self centered, it’s all about me mentality people’s asses.

  Let’s not forget my palm tree that up and died over night, sure the horticulturalist call it blight, but Im blaming that motherfucker on Corona as well.

  Oh and whose idea was it to name a virus where the first case was geographically diagnosed in China after a Mexican beer?

  If he steals your heart,

  plan revenge.

  Unknown

  Prologue

  Jackson

  Three years ago . . .

  The bright pink glow of the bougainvillea that surrounded the front of our house was like a beacon, it was the sign that I was home. I turned into my driveway and shielded my eyes from the bright Louisiana sun; I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I heard the words but didn’t have time to process what they meant before I was out of my car, flying through the air, and tossing my body like some superhero.

  Please God, please let me save him. Please not my son.

  Stretching, reaching, throwing myself into a thick line of the once bright shrubs that had been my welcome home sign were now my nightmare. Their thin stems ripped my suit, penetrated my shirt, and sliced my skin.

  It was tenths of a second before I caught him against my chest, cradling him from the fall into the pit of the razor-sharp shrubs, but he hadn’t been protected from his impact against me, six feet, one hundred and seventy-five pounds of lean body and bones.

  Kat

  Someone needed to kill me now, anyone please. God, if you’ve listened at all then you know the day I’ve had. I’m sure there’s some angel up there who you’ve grown tired of, one who has gotten on your nerves and has nagged the fuck out of you like my mother has done to me for the last…I don’t know…three hours. Can’t you just…maybe flick them out of heaven with your big god-like fingers and make sure they fall on me? Everyone will be so stunned that they will shut up and I can die in peace.

  “Kallista Theresa Lappis, are you listening to me? You can move back into your old room, it is just as you left it,” my mother demanded.

  “Mana, please. She can move in with Petra and me, we have plenty of room,” my oldest sister Galena said.

  I locked eyes with Pop, who was smirking. He thought this was funny. Of course he did, he lived in a home with six women, he was used to this kind of stuff.

  “Hey, everyone, will you listen to me?” I said for what had to be the fiftieth time.

  “But we want her here,” Alyssa whined. “Isn’t that right, Thalia?” Alyssa, my baby sister, asked Thalia, my other baby sister.

  “Yep,” she agreed.

  I met my father’s eye again, and he was shaking his head. I had no allies in my home—not even my parents. They always stuck together. My older two sisters, who were closest in age, always tag-teamed, while my younger two sisters ended up as a team. That left me alone. “You know, if you would date more, you might be married by now and have a home of your very own,” Mana sighed, completely ignoring the fact that I did have my own home until my landlord decided to turn the apartments into overpriced condos. “Christine’s boys were all working on giving her grandchildren by the time there were y’all’s ages.” She looked at my older two sisters and me.

  “Fine, we’ll get right on that,” Alyssa said, and everyone shut up.

  “Oh, no you won’t!” Mana shouted.

  I glanced at Pop, and he was rolling his eyes. He had leaned back in his chair and was slowly sipping beer, letting Mana do her thing.

  “You’re grounded. You can’t leave your room for one month,” Mana ordered.

  “Fine, I’m tired of school and working in the restaurant anyway. And besides, Bobby likes sneaking into my room once you all leave for work and I’m left alone.”

  “What? Who is Bobby?” Mana’s face was as red as her fire-engine-red lipstick.

  I was happy to watch this continue because, for a few moments, the attention was off me. I glanced over at Alyssa while Mana was hollering as Pop just kept listening.

  Go, Alyssa mouthed.

  Love you. I blew her a kiss and escaped. Most days, I hated being the middle child in an all-girl family, but at times like this, when one of us took the heat to protect one of the others, I felt that we were bound tight.

  “Hang on,” Galena whispered behind me as I stepped outside. “Come on, we’ll drop your motorcycle off at my house and then we can go by your apartment and pick some stuff up. I have no clue why you waited so long to come to us.”

  “I thought that I’d be able to find something, who knew that one-bedroom apartments had over a year waitlist?”

  I straddled my bike and let the crisp early evening air penetrate my clothes and send light chills over me. The moon was barely a thumbnail tonight, and I loved it. It was peaceful as I rode through the backstreets of my parents’ neighborhood, down a few side streets, and over to where my sister lived. It wasn’t far, less than two miles, and
my apartment was barely another two miles. We fought, but in the end, we were family.

  I quickly parked my bike then hopped into Galena’s BMW and we headed off.

  “Do you get tired of Mana trying to fix you up?” Galena asked.

  “Yes, don’t you?”

  “No. I want to find someone; I want a family.” Galena was thirty-two, so I guessed she was thinking about those things. “I can’t believe you don’t. Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to find a husband and settle down.”

  “I don’t know, G . . .” I paused while she parked in a vacant spot in front of my apartment building and we got out of the car. “I think it was different for me growing up. You and Petra always had each other, you saw Mana and Pop always happy together.”

  “You haven’t seen them happy?” she interrupted.

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, everyone in our family was in pairs, you and Petra, Mana and Pop, Alyssa and Thalia. We went on vacation, I always sat by myself or they would try to get three seats together and put me with one of you all, it didn’t matter who. I was always just me.” I unlocked my apartment and moved to grab some boxes that I had picked up earlier this week. All that was left to pack was my bedroom and some random kitchen necessities, everything else was in storage. I handed a box to Galena. “Either you two were babysitting me or I was babysitting the two of them. It didn’t really foster the type of personality that sought out the whole marriage and kids thing, you know? I like depending on me. I like hanging out with my girls.”

  “I get it, but it is sad. You know if you meet a man, you won’t be left out anymore,” Galena said in one last-ditch effort to change my mind. As if that was all it was going to take.

  “You know that, despite what Mana says, it is possible to be happy without having a man in your life, right?” She shrugged, not looking happy that I’d led her straight into a billboard of obvious. I laughed. “Listen, it’s okay if it’s your dream, but it’s also okay if it isn’t mine.”

  Jackson

  “Julien, can you finish putting your clothes away for Daddy?”

  “Yes, sir. I finis dis.”

  “You’re getting so big. I’ll be in the kitchen trying to get through some of those boxes, okay?”

  “Okay, Daddy.”

  I stared at my son, and my heart ached. He was getting so big, and even though he had been through so much in his short four years, he was a great kid. I grabbed a beer from my fridge and popped the top, moved to the television, and flipped it on to hockey. Then I turned to the wall of boxes waiting to be unpacked.

  Grabbing the first one marked pantry, I carried it over to the cupboard. Why did this job look so daunting? I mean, we didn’t need that big of a truck in the first place and the movers unloaded it fast. But piled up, it looked like the Great Wall of China. Another damn wall I was up against.

  I set my beer down and picked up the box cutter just as an annoying ringing filled the air. I hated having a house phone, but since I was the new general manager of a bank, it was part of the job, our security company needed a way to contact me, and I had to have a back-up number to my cell phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Jackson, it’s me. I’m so glad that you’re home.”

  I groaned. “Tammy, what are you doing calling me?”

  “I’ve missed you. Haven’t you missed me?”

  “No, Tammy. You left us.”

  “But, Jackson, I miss you, I miss us.”

  “I don’t buy it.”

  “I know Julien misses me.”

  “Too bad. You gave up your rights so you wouldn’t have to pay child support or take care of him, remember?”

  “I made a mistake,” Tammy whined. “I’m getting counseling.”

  “For what? Your psychotic behavior, your lying, or the manipulation?”

  “That’s not fair.” Good god, her and her cries of not fair. “No, counseling for us, for our marriage.”

  “What part of there is no marriage and there is no us anymore, don’t you understand? There is Julien and me. Goodbye, do not call me or my son again.”

  “I’ll change your mind.” I heard Tammy’s words but only faintly as I rolled my eyes and slammed down the phone. It rang again before my hand was even off the receiver. For a second, I debated answering. In the end, I did, because my job required it.

  “Hello?” I snapped.

  “Well, hello to you too.” My mom’s gentle voice lulled over the line.

  “Sorry, I thought you were Tammy.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. I have no clue how she got this number, it’s unlisted.”

  “Jackson, you need to be careful with her. I swear, she is like that woman in Fatal Attraction. She isn’t done with you and Julien yet.”

  “I know, and I’ll be cautious. But enough about her, why are you calling this number and not my cell?” I turned off my television, knowing this was going to be a long call.

  “You haven’t given me your new cell number yet.”

  I laughed. “Mom, you don’t have to switch your cell number when you move. Just because I live in Orlando doesn’t mean I have to have a local cell number.”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense.” I grabbed the nearest box that I had been working on and got back to work. “Well, I called to speak to my grandson. Is he still awake?”

  “Sure, hold on.” I placed one hand over the receiver. “Julien, grandma is on the phone.” I cringed at the sound of something dropping to the floor but let out the breath I was holding when no cries followed and out ran Julien with his hands held out.

  “Grandma, gran-gran-grandmaaa,” he sang as he took the phone from me. I swept him up and sat him on the counter so I could keep him close and he couldn’t wander off with the phone and forget where he’d put it. “Oh, yes, I’m helping Daddy a lot. Aren’t I helping you, Daddy?”

  “You sure are, buddy.” He kicked his heels against the cabinet door, his sneakers leaving little tread marks with every new thump.

  First thing on my list was to find a housekeeper. The second was to find a babysitter.

  “Okay, Grandma, I pomise. Okay. No. He’s puttin’ away the gross-a-ries. Okay, I’ll tell him.” Julien pulled the phone away from his ear. I got up and took it from him.

  “Mom, you still there?”

  “She’s not. She asked if you wanted to talk to her so I said no.” Julien shrugged.

  “Okay, little man, go get ready for your shower, I’ll go start the water.” I grabbed him under his arms and popped him off the counter.

  This was going to be our life—just him and me. I was starting my new job on Monday, we were in a new city that was far from Tammy, and she couldn’t hurt Julien again. This would all work out, and everything would be okay.

  That night, I lay in my bed, hands curled behind my head, staring up at the ceiling. How had everything gone so wrong, hell, how had I been so wrong about one person? “I was trained to study people—to take in and analyze their most subtle gestures—and yet, I hadn’t seen the truth about Tammy. ”I owed it to Julien to protect him, that kid meant more to me than anything in this world.

  Kat

  What the fuck, Steve Perry, you and Journey can kiss my ass, that whole don’t-stop-believing thing was bullshit. After the day I’d had—wait, no, the week I’d had, the only thing I believed in was . . . I believed that I’d have another vodka. That was as soon as I could get to Sixes Bar and Grille and hang out with my gang.

  It was finally Friday, and I’d officially lived with my two older sisters for a week. Yay. Not as in yay I lived with them, it was more yay that I hadn’t murdered either of them. Especially since I sort of swore to protect the law.

  Trying to get my shit done, I pulled into the bank parking lot next to some older blue car, unbuckled my helmet, hung it on my handlebars, and then tightened my ponytail. I cracked a smile as I caught my reflection in the reflective chrome from my fairing. All those commercials and movies where
a woman whipped off her helmet and out popped their bouncy locks were bullshit. Everyone—even Kate Moss—would have helmet hair. I pulled back my shoulders and headed to the front of the bank. I just needed to grab some cash and then the weekend could officially start. That was, of course, after I got home, changed out of uniform, and dropped off my sheriff-issued motorcycle.

  I came to a stop in front of the ATM built into the wall of the bank and inserted my card. I entered my code and waited and waited and waited; nothing happened. I pressed the button to cancel the transaction, but my card wouldn’t eject. “Damn it, you motherfucker.” I pounded on the machine, but it wouldn’t budge. My card was stuck. I checked my watch, groaning because I needed to get my cash, get in and out of my sisters’, and then get to Sixes Bar and Grille.

  I tossed my head back to get my loose strands out of my eyes, glared into the round orb that protected the camera, and let my frustration run out. “If anyone is watching, you might want to get your lazy ass up and fix this damn machine. You know there are people who actually do physical work for a living and don’t have time to waste on your crappy shit. This is your idea of convenience—”