A Daughter of a Writer and his Muse

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Johanna's POV

"Have you been to other crime scenes without us knowing?!" her mother asked and she started wandering off in the room.

Johanna knew that was no good sign, her mother only did that when she was upset and really didn't know what to do about the thing she was upset about. Johanna looked at her father for help, she knew he never liked having her mother upset either. He gave her a look that said he would try.

"Kate, calm down" he said and he reached for her arm.

Johanna could see that her mother really wanted to get comforted and that's why she without any argument let him take her in his arms. When Johanna was little she had thought it was kind of gross when her parents looked so... she didn't even know how to describe it, but now when she was older she thought it looked kind of romantic and she liked it. Her mother tried to smell her father's scent without anyone noticing but she didn't fool anyone.

"Ok, how many of these have you left?" Rick asked her and Johanna felt down.
She knew she couldn't lie about this anymore, so she decided to speak the truth.

"I only have those I had in my backpack and right now you're holding them".

Johanna saw her mother feel a little relieved.

"Good, from now on you never follow us to a crime scene, understood?" her father said and Johanna looked down.

She didn't want to stop, she wanted to help. She could feel her mother's gaze on her, Johanna knew that her mother knew how she felt.

"Johanna, please, just promise you'll never do it again. We just don't want you to get hurt, it's for your own good" her mother said and in Johanna's peripheral vision she could see her mother leave her father's side and walk towards her.

Johanna kept her head down, she felt her mother's hand on her chin and she didn't refuse looking up when her mother pulled her chin up. Her mother carefully stoke away her hair that was in her eyes and smiled at her. Johanna couldn't help but smile back, she loved when her mother looked at her the way she did right there. She looked at her with love, a love that was so deep that it gave Johanna a feeling that was indescribable. She wanted to promise her mother everything, that look she gave her made her want to promise that she would never sneak into one of their crime scenes again but she couldn't. She couldn't promise anything she knew she couldn't keep, and that was exactly what she said.

"I can't promise, I want to, but I can't" when she got a raised eyebrow from both of her parents as response she continued. "I can't promise anything that I can't keep. You of all people should know that cause you were the ones who taught me".

Her parents gave each other a look. Johanna felt bad, like trash or something, like she was the black sheep in the family since she couldn't even promise one simple thing and keep that.

"Please don't be mad at me" Johanna squeaked and her mother turned towards her again.

"Oh honey, we're not mad, just worried. You have no idea how dangerous it could be for you out there" her mother said soft.

THERE! RIGHT THERE! Johanna saw her loophole out of this mess.

"Ok, I will not do anything dangerous again, I promise" Johanna said with a small smile.

She could see her parents narrow their eyes in thought but they seemed ok with that statement. Her mother smiled at her and she smiled back. Her dad looked a little suspicious but he didn't want to argue anymore and he could see that Kate was happy. Kate opened her arms and Johanna sneaked into the hug, she could feel her mother stroke her hair and she felt a little guilty but didn't show it. Cause what they didn't know was that her limit of dangerous wasn't as low as theirs was.