Daddy, Sir (Dirty Daddies 2024 Anthology #6)

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Landon

As I live and breathe, Fiona Flanagan was standing, or rather kneeling at my feet in the middle of my office.

I was still getting over the jolt of recognition at seeing hair that never failed to remind me of embers in a fire rising like flames as her head whipped around. Perhaps it was the tracks of tears on her cheeks or the dilation of her pupils telegraphing her shock a split second before she spit a mouthful of my private reserve that stopped me from tucking her under my arm and over my knee in order to swat her ass for swearing like a fishwife and pushing my buttons.

Or kiss her until she remembered who she belonged to and then fuck her until she was too boneless ever to move as much as an inch away ever again.

Okay, that was closer to the truth of what I wished to do, but just as the woman before me was no longer a teen, I was no longer that hormone-driven young man. Of course when she punched me, I quickly remembered that she might be small, but the girl had balls. Not literally of course, but being the youngest of six children, and the only girl, she’d had to grow a set simply to survive at the dinner table. I was willing to take one punch, but two was simply out of the question. She might be as mad as a wet hen, but enough was enough. When she finally ran out of steam, when a simple word was enough to have those big emerald eyes go even wider and begin to glisten again, her mouth opening and closing without another word managing to emerge, I offered her a lifeline.

“Shall we start over?”

Any other woman would most likely have simply thanked me, but Fiona wasn’t any other woman. Nope, she was Fionnuala Méabh Flanagan. Hell, after birthing five boys, her mother, evidently given free rein, had taken one look at her only daughter and pulled not one but two names straight out of Irish mythology. Not even her father could disagree for each suited the newborn and it seemed they still did. Fionnuala meant beautiful face, and Méabh meant intoxicating. All one had to do was look at the woman standing before me and know that while life would never be easy with this red-headed, green-eyed tempest, it sure as hell would never be boring either. Fiona was one of the most kind-hearted, fun-loving, free-spirited women I’d ever known. She was also the most stubborn mule when she wanted to be. I decided to take her inability to answer as a silent repeat of the “uncle” she’d offered before.

“Let’s sit,” I suggested, gesturing toward the chair she’d recently vacated. I watched, not sure if she’d stomp out of the office or accept the offer of a truce. It took another moment before her shoulders straightened and she nodded and slipped into the chair, her hands playing with the shot glass she’d emptied. When she fumbled and it headed toward the floor, I reached down and caught it before a hundred dollars’ worth of crystal shattered on the wooden planks.

“Good save. With that gray hair, I was afraid you’d lost some skills but I suppose once a quarterback, always a quarterback.”

I’d earned every single one of those strands and, most likely, more than a few could be attributed to this woman. “Still the brattiest cheerleader on the squad I see.”

That earned me the first hint of a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. I straightened and set the shot glass on the credenza, noting Audra had chosen to return the bourbon to its proper place.

Good choice.

Audra took the chair next to Fiona’s and I reclaimed mine. Five slips of paper were laid out on the desk’s surface. Though it only took me a minute to read through them, sixty seconds was long enough to know Fiona was in serious trouble. “Is this all of them?”

Fiona glanced at Audra who gave her a nod of encouragement.

“Yes… but I don’t think it’s the last.”

I didn’t either but was curious to know how she’d come to the same conclusion. “What makes you say that?”

The question was enough to have Fiona sitting forward, her fingers no longer clenched together. As she reached to tap a fingertip against one of the slips, I noticed the nail had been gnawed down to the quick. A glance revealed that every single nail of both hands was ragged, a couple of hangnails proof of the irritation her fingers had gone through. The evidence also told me that while a lot of Fiona’s sass was part of her DNA, I suspected a larger part was an attempt to deal with the terror somebody had brought into her life.

“The letters, the words are all spelled correctly, but the capitalization is wrong, and those letters are in a different font and just a little larger.” She tapped on the word “tease” on the first slip. “See, the ‘S’ is capitalized. There is a different word with a different capital in each set. If you put them together, I think they spell something. At first I thought it might be the word SAVE since the third set of lines mentions he believes he needs to save me from myself and that one came with the letter ‘V’ capitalized, but then the fourth one came and it is an ‘I’ not an ‘E’.” She paused and took a moment, her eyes scanning the desk’s surface though, from her recitation of the order and the letters, I knew she wasn’t reading them again. Instead, she was reliving those moments when she was holding each slip and attempting to figure out why someone was playing what was clearly not a juvenile joke, but a madman’s tactic to instill fear.

Fiona shook her head and looked back at me. “Anyway, the ‘O’ came next and now I think whoever this freak is, he… he’s going to claim to be my savior. I-I guess I’ll know if the next one is signed with an ‘R’.”

There it was. The strength I knew she had inside. Yes, she was frightened and had every right to be, but she wasn’t scared out of her mind. Not yet at least. “I think you’re right.”

At my affirmation, she made a sound which had me promising that when I found this asshole, and I would, I was going to make damn sure he’d never be able to make another woman utter that same sound. It was a moan but not one of pleasure. It was the sound someone made when facing a charging bull or standing on a precipice just before the ground beneath their feet began to shake. It was primal and it stirred every protective bone in my body.

I reached across the desk and took her hands in mine. “Look at me, Fee.”

Her eyes met mine, uncertainty swirling in their depths.

“You’re going to be okay. We’re going to find this guy and stop him. He’s not going to hurt you.”

Her heritage assured she had skin the color of alabaster, but the face across from me was pale enough I could see a hint of blue beneath the surface. I could also see evidence that when she ran out of fingernails, Fiona chewed on her bottom lip. It was all I could do not to reach up and trace it, to soothe the cracks at the corner.

“How?”

“How?” I repeated when I realized she’d spoken.

“How are you going to find him? How are you going to stop him? I have no idea who it is.” Her eyes dropped to the desk and the pitch of her voice rose as she pulled her hand from mine and picked up the slip with the letter “O” at the bottom. “He thinks I’ve sinned, I’m of the devil, and I must make atonement.” Her gaze returned to mine. “So yes, how are you going to keep him from hurting me?”

Because he’ll have to kill me first.

That was the promise I made, but only in my head. If I uttered it now, she’d not believe me. Too much had happened and too many years had slipped by for her to just hand me her trust. I’d have to earn it, and I would. But for now, it was my job to reassure her she was no longer alone.

“Because you don’t have just me and Audra on your side. You’ve got the entirety of my security team. From this moment forward, you won’t be alone for a single minute.”

Fiona looked to Audra who nodded and gave her another smile of encouragement. “That’s right. Your stalker might think he is in control but he isn’t. You have a team now.”

“A team,” Fiona repeated. She appeared stronger when she pulled her other hand free. Sitting back in her chair, she gave me a long look. “Though I’m still mad at you, I have to admit, the last time you were on a team, you did pretty well. Are you still that good?”

“I’m better,” I said with a grin. Normally I’d remind her that rolling her eyes was a spankable offense, but I was glad as hell to witness her rolling them. It told me her fear was receding. “I’m better because, while there is one quarterback on a high school football team, our team has nothing but quarterbacks.”

Fiona’s glance slid to Audra. “That includes you?”

“Don’t let the stilettos or the curves fool you,” Audra said with a smile. “Remember, your American football is different than the footy I grew up with. In England, we don’t use our hands to pass the ball. If our heads aren’t enough to score the win, we use our feet to kick the shit out of it.”

Her words hadn’t been shouted or even said loudly. They’d been delivered as if she was at some high-tea party and informing her granny of the choices being offered on the three-tiered tray.

“I bet every little girl who meets you wants to grow up to be like you,” Fiona said in what sounded like awe.

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” Audra reached across the space between their chairs to take Fiona’s hand. “I think we are going to be lifelong friends, Fiona.”

“I’d like nothing better,” Fiona admitted before turning to look to where I was seated, a soft smile on her lips. “Though I suppose that depends on how well your boss keeps his promises…”

She didn’t have to say anything further, but I could practically see the words she so wanted to say: He sure didn’t keep the last one.

I was saved from having to go there, at least for the time being, by Fiona’s question, “So, what happens now?”

“We start by you telling us everything that’s happened since this began.”

Fiona nodded, her eyes dropping once more to the desktop. “When I got the first paper, I wasn’t all that worried. In fact, I wasn’t even sure it was meant for me as it didn’t have my name on it.”

“But instead of tossing it in the trash, you kept it. What made you decide it was meant for you?”

“It didn’t have my name on it, but my cup did…” She looked toward Audra who had leaned forward at the news. Fiona shook her head. “It was at a Starbucks. I’d ordered coffee along with about a dozen others. It was very crowded that day. Anyway, while I waited, I went to the restroom and had to stand in line. By the time I returned, there were several orders waiting to be picked up. I got mine and left?—”

“You didn’t wonder about the paper under your cup?” Audra asked, cutting in.

“It wasn’t under the cup, it had been tucked into the cardboard thing around the cup. You know, the one they use to let you pick up hot coffee without burning your hands. Became the fashion after that lawsuit against McDonald’s?”

“So someone either working at the coffee shop or another customer put it there,” I said.

“That’s what I thought, but I still didn’t consider it was meant for me. I thought maybe someone believed it was some kind of romantic gesture and just got the name wrong. The handwriting on the cup was rather sloppy.” She paused and looked at the desktop again. “None came specifically addressed to me. They… they just appeared. I found the second slip inside a towel I’d placed in a cubby before my water aerobics class at the gym. It fell out when I unfolded the towel to dry off with. I know now that should have shot up red flags, but I was still convincing myself it was some poor soul trying poetry to gain attention of a girl.” She gave a choked laugh. “I didn’t even think that girl was me. I guess I just chose to keep telling myself they were harmless. Then the third came and it scared me. By the time I got the last, I knew it wasn’t just a joke so I went to the police.” She huffed and added, “Fat lot of good that did.”

“Why? Didn’t they want to help?” Audra asked.

Fiona’s laugh wasn’t one of amusement, but of derision. “Do you have any experience with small towns or the community of what is referred to the ‘good ‘ole boys network’?”

“My family originally came from a pretty small hamlet in the UK, and I’ve dealt with various groupings of the male population who consider themselves far more competent than females, but I’ve also worked with men who acknowledge we actually do have brains and can contribute to the conversation.”

“Let me just say the majority of the Sheriff’s staff fits in the first category. As for helping me? I’m pretty sure if I’d agreed to being dragged to confession in the church of their choice, they’d have been quite helpful. But I… well, let’s just say that while I’m not against the idea of being spread-eagled and tied to a bed, I vehemently object to having it done so that some exorcism could be performed.”