Change

"What things?"

"He told me that my Master's degree made me overqualified for most entry-level positions in the current job market, but my lack of real-world experience made me underqualified for the more advanced positions that companies might have available. I couldn't change my lack of experience, so I changed my educational records. I was hired by BWH within a week of dumbing down my education history."

"Your student loan obligations don't appear on your credit report. Did you alter those records as well?"

Rockie merely nodded.

"How much student loan debt do you have, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Approximately twenty-eight thousand is outstanding, but I have never missed a minimum payment."

"Don't worry about it," Patty said. "I'm sure that Bobby will agree that we'll take care of that debt for you."

"Please don't do that." Rockie pleaded. "It's my debt and I intend to pay back every cent of it, no matter how long it takes."

Patty laughed and said, "I don't think you understand, Rochelle. While Bobby could certainly make your federal student loan debt simply disappear, what I meant was that he and I will pay the debt for you. Consider it our birthday present to you if you like. We set up educational funds for our children, and while you may be a little late coming to the party, so to speak, you are now part of our family and your education is now our responsibility. While we are willing to discuss any further educational desires that you may have, who will pay for them isn't open for debate."

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Completely," Patty said. "And there's also no way that you will pay another month's rent on the condo."

"But I have a lease..." Rockie began.

Patty cut her off, "Not any longer. We're terminating your lease immediately. Whether you stay in that condo or move in with JR, which I know is what he wants you to do, we will not charge rent to a member of the family."

"Wait," Rockie said. "You own the condo that I live in?"

"You didn't know?"

"No. JR never mentioned it and I never had reason to investigate who owned it. I just thought it was some corporation or something."

"The title for your condo and for the one that JR lives in are in the name of our family trust. That way, any member of the family would be considered an owner of them both."

Rockie just stared at Patty without comment. It seemed like the entire Brandt family was one big onion that she needed to peel. She was tempted to use her computer to re-establish the penetrations that she had used to research Bobby, but that would be like slicing and dicing the onion and she was afraid that this would reveal things that she wanted to learn during the natural progression of her relationship with JR. If anything about the progression of their relationship had been natural so far.

"I see it too," Patty said to break the silence.

"See what?"

"I see a lot of you in Katie, especially where your devotion to JR is concerned, but also in other ways. For example, both you and my little girl have this streak of tenacity that everyone needs to watch out for. If anyone tells Katie that she can't do something, we know with total certainty that she will do whatever it takes to prove that person wrong. Tell me that you're not the same way."

"Well, depending on what it is," Rockie said with a grin. "If someone told me that I couldn't flap my arms and fly, I suppose that I would accept that as fact. Otherwise, I would probably embrace the challenge and try to prove that I could do whatever it was."

"Just like you did when JR said that your internet searches could be traced."

With a giggle, Rockie said, "Exactly like that!"

Patty laughed and said, "Well, we're proud of you. Now, let's go back to the conference room and see if Bobby is ready for us yet."

Patty stood and Rockie rose to join her, asking, "What do you think he has been doing?"

"Taking care of you, to begin with. After that, it's anyone's guess."

"Taking care of me?" Rockie asked in obvious confusion.

"I'll let him explain. Let's go."

They left the lunchroom and crossed back across the lobby to enter the executive area where the HR conference room was located. Patty had a visitor badge that apparently allowed her access to all parts of the BWH office building.

They saw Karen Mason entering the conference room with a few manila folders, so they waited outside until she had finished her business with Bobby and greeted her on her exit.

"Is he still on his phone?" Patty asked Karen.

Karen smiled at both women and said, "No, he's just reviewing some e-mail attachments that he asked me to print out for him. I'm sure you can go in without interrupting anything."

"Thanks, Karen," Patty said as she opened the conference room door and ushered Rockie in before her, closing the door after both had entered.

Patty walked over to Bobby, leaned down to kiss him, and then resumed her place in the chair beside him. Rockie returned to her previous location and also sat down.

Bobby smiled at Rockie and opened one of the file folders in front of him on the table, but he kept his eyes on her.

"Rockie, Rockie, Rockie," he said with a gleam of admiration in his eyes. "You have been one very busy and resourceful young lady."

Rockie just grinned and shrugged her shoulders.

Bobby continued, "Okay, so I told a little fib and informed the IT team at Brandt Consulting that I had approved a 'white hat' penetration of our servers and challenged them to detect it. Just as you said, they see no evidence of your penetration, but when I suggested that they look at the system logs for any records that might suggest modifications to the security settings were being triggered by external events, they found the same ones that you saw, even during the time period that you had mentioned."

"They couldn't find me now anyway because I am gone, and I leave no trace."

"So it appears," Bobby said, still smiling broadly at her. "Nice work."

Rockie smiled back at him and let him continue, "The IT team is in communication now with the NSA and the National Cyber Command updating them on the suspected breach of the various databases that the logs indicate were triggering the events. They are running tests on all of their systems trying to understand why the events occurred and why all of the affected database systems have mysteriously received unscheduled maintenance updates that no one had been aware of even being required. In fact, they can find nothing describing the updates documented anywhere, but they attest to the fact that it did correct an unknown vulnerability that came to light only when they examined what had changed."

Rockie reached into her purse and withdrew a small USB flash drive and slid it across the table to Bobby.

"This will update any other systems that require it," she told him. "I only dealt with the ones that presented a potential threat directly to you or your family."

"Our family," said Patty. "You're a part of our family now."

"Absolutely," agreed Bobby, "and you are about to see the lengths that I will go to in order to protect a member of my family."

He took a sheet of paper from the folder that was opened in front of him, spun it around and slid it across the table so that Rockie could read it. It was a printout from an e-mail message addressed to Bobby.

She read it briefly before looking back up at Bobby and asking, "Is this legal? I thought someone had to be charged and convicted of a crime before they could be granted a pardon for it."

"Not where the President is concerned," Bobby explained. "The Supreme Court upheld the President's authority to grant preemptive pardons decades ago. As long as you haven't violated any state laws, which it doesn't sound like you have, the Presidential pardon promised in that e-mail message wipes the slate clean for you. Now, take a look at this."

Bobby slid another document across the table for Rockie to read. This one was a bit more detailed, so it took her longer to respond.

"I understand the meaning of 'Top Secret' clearance, but what's 'SCI' and 'SAP' clearances, and why would the Department of Homeland Security grant them to me?" Rockie asked.

Bobby nodded that he understood her question and explained, "SCI stands for 'Sensitive Compartmented Information' and SAP stands for 'Special Access Program'. Rockie, you now have a security clearance as high as mine or the President's."

"But why?"

"I want you to have options," Bobby told her. "Your skills and talents are wasted at BWH, but if this is where you want to stay and keep doing what you've been doing, I'll support that. However, I believe that with the right resources at your disposal, you would want to do more. It's obvious for example that you have a passionate interest in combating child predators through technology. If that's something you want to pursue, I will make certain that you have no obstacles in your way."

"The main thing I want you to know though, is that for all intents and purposes, you are a member of my family now. You and JR need to figure out where your life together is headed, so Patty and I want you to go into those discussions without any limitations on your side. Be what you want, Rockie. Do what you want to do."

Rockie sat in her chair, openly and freely crying at Bobby's revelations. Patty came around the table, knelt, and wrapped Rockie in her arms,

Between her sobs, Rockie asked, "Do you think that JR or Katie would mind if I called you 'Mom'?"

Patty kissed Rockie's forehead and said, "Trust me, sweetie. Nothing would make either of them happier."

Bobby had come around to stand beside Rockie on the other side. He placed his hand on her shoulder and said, "There's something else I want you to know before we have to leave for our appointment with Patty's parents.

Rockie looked up at him and asked, "There's more?"

He nodded and handed her a business card, "This gentleman will be contacting you by the end of the week to discuss the patent application process for your Secret Chaperone program. Once the application is filed and the patent is pending, you will receive an exclusive distribution rights offer from the Michelle Anderson Foundation for Human Rescue. The offer is being developed right now, but from the interest expressed so far, you can expect it to be significant."

"What do you consider 'significant'?" Patty asked. "I know that you have negotiated a lot of distribution agreements for your own inventions, but you don't have a lot of experience negotiating software distribution, do you?"

"I've consulted with some experts in that field," Bobby assured her. "Would between ten and twelve million plus a percentage royalty be significant enough for you?"

Rockie gasped and said, "This foundation would pay me that much just to let them have exclusive distribution rights to Secret Chaperone? How much do they plan to sell it for?"

"They do not plan to sell it," Bobby said. "They will make it available for free to individual users, but they would charge other organizations a fee to license the rights to rebrand or distribute it within some other application suite. Anyway, I'll make our attorneys available to review the agreement with you when the time comes."

Rockie stood and threw her arms around Bobby and buried the side of her face onto his chest. It felt almost like she was in JR's arms when she said, "Thanks, Dad."

"You're very welcome, Rockie. Please check with JR when you see him to see if he can make time to have dinner with his parents tonight."

Standing straight, Rockie said, "I already know the answer. Come by the condo whenever you're ready and we'll barbeque steaks for us all tonight. I know that JR will have almost as many questions as me the next time we see you, so spending time at the condo will serve our purposes better than a restaurant."

"That sounds like a good idea," Patty said as she took Bobby's hand. "We'll be there around six if that's okay."

Rockie remembered JR's plans for them to use the hot tub tonight and decided that they could do so after dinner. She would even help him keep his books dry if he wanted to study while relaxing in the water.

"Six will be perfect," she said and then glanced down at the computer bag and badge on the table.

"Do you think there is any chance that I could buy this laptop?"

Bobby shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, but that computer is not for sale. It belongs to my girl."

He picked up the bag and handed it to her, "Let's decide on the badge once you and JR have had a chance to discuss things. It's yours if you want it, but remember that you're not limited to it."

"Thanks."

She gave Patty and Bobby each another hug before turning, picking up the documents that had been shared with her, and sticking them into the computer bag. Smiling, she waved and left them in the conference room with huge smiles upon both of their faces.

Chapter Thirty

"Are you sure that you're not upset about me having left?"

"How... can... you... even... speak... right... now?"

Rockie giggled with her head on JR's chest as his gasping words denoted his need to recover from their lovemaking.

"I let you do all the hard work and then enjoy the fruits of your labor," she teased.

She considered that her body lying on top of his chest would impede his ability to catch his breath as easily as he would with her off him, but the feeling of him inside her wasn't something that she wanted to relinquish until she had to.

She rose off his chest and smiled down at his face while maintaining their coupled state. She felt him responding to movements of her body that she hadn't realized she was making.

"Oh pooh," she said. "You feel so good, and I don't want to get up, but if I stay on you too much longer, we won't have a chance to talk before your parents get here."

"What time did you tell them to be here?"

"Six," she said.

"It's only three-thirty," JR told her.

"I'm aware of that, but you still need to get a couple of hours of studying in today, and I have plans for you after your parents leave that will prevent you from doing it later. Plus, I need to check a few things out before your dad gets here so that I can better understand the options that he mentioned. Do you think we can talk here like this for a few minutes?"

JR placed his hands on each of her hips and held her in place.

"Try to stay still and let's see how we do. It's your movements that stir things up for us. And to answer your earlier question, no, I am not upset that you left. I understood why you did, but I wish that I would have had the chance to leave with you. I would have, you know."

"I know, but that's not what I wanted. Your mom said that you left almost immediately after I did, and I feel horrible about being the cause for you to cut your time with them short, especially now that I know it was all just a misunderstanding."

"What exactly was misunderstood?" he asked.

All that Rockie had shared with him as they had hurriedly undressed each other before making love was the fact that his parents had come to her office, that the three of them had talked things over and she would explain more later.

"Your dad and I were both seeing shadows, and these influenced our judgments of each other."

Seeing the confused expression on his face, Rockie explained her hacking activities relative to what "shadows" she was referring to and watched as JR's understanding became obvious.

"For anything that I may have done to contribute to the shadows that you encountered, I truly apologize," JR told her. "But I don't understand something..."

"What don't you understand?"

"Why didn't you use your obvious skills to 'shine some light' onto the shadows you saw?"

"I did on my way back home, but only where your father was concerned. Where you are concerned, doing so wouldn't have provided me with what I wanted most," she answered.

"And what was that?"

"The thing I have wanted most since the day that I met you was for you to trust me. I wanted to earn your trust by showing you that I cared about things that mattered to you and to learn what those things were by spending time with you, observing you, and absorbing everything I witnessed. Can you reach my cell phone on the nightstand without moving us too much?"

JR turned his head to the left to locate her cell phone on the nightstand and then reached for it. His hand was about nine inches from his objective with his arm fully extended, so he returned his hands to Rockie's waist and held her in place as he bounced their coupled bodies closer to the side of the bed where he could then reach her phone.

The physical reaction of his movements made her moan softly and he had to tighten his grip on her waist to stop her involuntary responses. Once he thought that it was safe to release his hold on her, he retrieved her phone and handed it to her.

The love and passion in Rockie's eyes as she gazed down at him was a sight that JR would always treasure. He watched as she diverted her gaze for only as long as it took for her to locate what she wanted to show him and turn her phone so that he could see the screen.

"What's this?" he asked.

"It's 'My Boyfriend's Favorite Things' list. Feel free to add anything that I might have missed."

JR started perusing the list. It was broken down into categories, such as 'food and drink', 'toiletries', 'clothing', and 'entertainment' among others. While he quickly browsed through most of the categories, he took his time when he came to the one titled 'intimacies'.

"You really are amazing," he told her as he handed the phone back to her.

"I never doubted your love and devotion to me for a minute, but to see the effort that you have put into learning these things in a way that involved so much personal investment on your part, just proves to me again how blessed I am to have someone like you in my life."

"Don't even try that mumbo-jumbo on me Cutie," she said waving the phone in front of his face.

"What this doesn't show is all the things that you have done for me. Those are all filed away right here," she said, touching a spot on her chest over her heart.

With a genuine look of puzzlement on his face, JR asked, "What things?"

Rockie felt the coupling between them succumbing to gravity as JR's firmness diminished. She slid off him and stood next to the bed. Extending her hand, she said, "Come on. I'll enlighten you while we shower."

JR let her tug on his hand as he resisted her prodding for several seconds so he could gaze at her post-coital beauty in its full glory before him. He finally relented to her prodding, slowly swinging his feet over the edge of the bed and standing in front of her.

"Will getting clean be as much fun as getting dirty?" he asked before kissing her lightly.

"If we had the time right now, I would show you a very good time. However, that will have to wait. Come on."

She led him into the master bathroom, leaving him to discard the condom he was still wearing as she turned on the water in the walk-in shower and set the temperature. She tied her hair into a knot on top of her head and waited for him to join her at the open shower door before stepping inside. JR closed the door and moved around her so that she would have direct access to the warm water while he waited.

Rockie pulled him under the water with her and into an embrace as she said, "We just need to rinse off a little. We can do that together."

"Risky, but I'll play along."

Rockie giggled and said, "I am so glad that you are willing to take the chance; that we are willing to take the chance."

"You're not talking about just the shower here, are you?" he asked as he kissed her forehead.

She shook her head and tilted it back as she rose onto her toes to kiss his lips, "I'm talking about our lives together, now and in the future. And on that point, can you share with me what happened to Brad? You did arrange for him to disappear out of my life, our lives, didn't you?"