Falling for the Billionaire's Daughter - Lori Ryan Page 0,60

when they went out that screwed with shit.

People who hadn’t served just didn’t get it. Didn’t get how lucky they were or how freaking ungrateful they can sound at times. Didn’t have the first clue what it meant to really hurt, to really need. To bleed with body, heart, and soul all at once.

Conversation stopped while Jax and Leo finished up their breakfast, each sipping from a cup of black coffee brewed thicker than mud. The silence wasn't a heavy or uneasy one. It just was. It was what they were used to and one of the reasons they were friends. No need for extra conversation or talk.

Leo stood and picked up the empty plates, taking them to the sink. Other people might have thought the man was a project to Jax. He was anything but that. Jax needed Leo as much as Leo needed him. When Jax separated from the Navy, he discovered he had a hard time finding people he was comfortable with. There were a few other veterans at work he got along with, but that was it. For the most part, he and civilians just didn’t mix. Until Leo, he’d been going to work and going home.

He shoved his chair back and went to the other side of the small room, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Leo was still busy at the sink. He stuck the forty or so bucks he'd taken out of the pile of cash on the table into the inside pocket of the fishing vest Leo wore most days. No way in hell he was taking money from the man.

“I have to get to work soon. You need anything before I head out?” Jax crossed back to the kitchen, glancing up to see Leo hunched over the counter, the color draining from his face. “Hey, you okay?”

“Shit.” He took Leo by the shoulders and steadied him as he lowered him back into the kitchen chair.

It'd been a couple of years since Jax had left his detail as a Navy Corpsman to the Marines—essentially a field medic—but his medical training still took over within an instant. He stopped the useless cursing as he checked Leo’s pulse.

His friend tried to bat his hand away, grumbling that he was fine, but needed to rest.

“You’re hardly fine. You look gray.”

“Forgot to put my makeup on today.” Leo pursed his lips and made kissing noises as he crossed his eyes at Jax. His color was coming back, but Jax still stayed close as he checked him over.

“Funny. I don’t know why you haven’t had a career in comedy all these years,” he muttered.

“You about done, Mom?” asked Leo. “I think I’ll lie down and rest now, if you’re done playing that Florence whatever-her-name is chick.”

Jax eyed him once more, before shoving back on his heels. “Yeah, I’m done.”

Jax busied himself with cleaning up the kitchen counter and putting the last evidence of the breakfast making away as Leo laid on his bed. The older man crossed his arms behind his head and closed his eyes before speaking again.

“Hey, when you take off, toss that letter in the mail for me, will you? On the counter there?”

Jax snorted. So Leo was going to ignore the issue of the name on the letter. “Sure. I’ll swing by tomorrow and see if you’re feeling better. Call if you need me, though, huh?”

Leo grunted a response and raised his hand. That was all the goodbye Jax was going to get.

He glanced at the envelope again, reaching for his car keys. No return address. As he grabbed a pen and scribbled Leo’s name and address in the upper left corner of the envelope, he wondered briefly who Michaela Kent was. Possibilities ran through his head.

Wife? Daughter? As close and he and Leo had become—as close as Jax was to his father—he’d never heard the man talk about family.

A loud snore came from the bed. Jax shook his head and left, locking the door behind him. Whoever she was, he wouldn’t be getting that story out of Leo today.

Mia Kent frowned at the envelope topping the stack of mail on her desk. Its face was down, but she knew it would be addressed to Michaela Kent. And that simple fact alone told her who it was from. There wasn’t a soul on the planet who called her that, except her father. In fact, the name didn’t even appear on her birth certificate. Her mother had changed it when she was only