10. Chapter 10
" M ove!" Jeff snapped, ducking around Gideon who was digging out his cuffs even as he raced to secure Travis. His brother was still on the ground, rolling around and clutching the leg his babygirl had broken when she ran over it.
She had to be so scared. He had to get to her before something happened. Before she hurt herself or crashed his truck, or ran all the way out of his life before he had the chance to speak to her again. To calm her. Tell her he'd never hurt her the way his brother had.
To tell her how he felt, if only it was to thank her for giving him the chance to play Daddy one more time. Jumping into the patrol car, he took off after her.
She was driving fast and reckless, and his fear for her ramped as he closed the distance between them. She was all over the road. Thank goodness it was the middle of the night and everyone in Starvation had long since gone to bed. No one else was on the road.
Just her and him, racing through the dark with his lights going and hers not on at all.
They whizzed past the police station with all its lights on and the grocery store, with everything including their lot sign dark. In the next second, they’d passed the last house in town limits and she was showing no signs of slowing.
Turning on the bullhorn, he grabbed the CB.
"Stop the truck, Tabitha," he commanded, keeping his voice deliberately gentle. Or as gentle as he could be while this anxious for her safety. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this scared, not for anyone. "Baby, I mean it. Put your foot on the brake, and stop right where you are!"
She swerved, running right off the road and into the cool desert night.
He followed her, his truck handling the far bumper terrain better than the patrol car he was in.
This wasn’t his first car chase, however, and of the two of them, he had no doubts whatsoever in his driving skills.
She was all over the place, and his heart was in his throat as he tried to figure exactly where in the desert they were and, more importantly, what lay ahead of them.
He was in territory he knew well, but night-time driving was always a challenge. Had they already passed the gorge, where the flat hard-packed ground beneath their tires gave way to chasms deep enough to swallow both their vehicles? The tangles in his gut were trying to tell him they hadn’t.
"Stop the truck, baby," he commanded, desperately searching everything his headlights revealed for familiar landmarks. Jesus, they hadn't passed the gorge. They were headed right for it.
All gentleness vanished from his voice and he barked out over the horn, "Tabitha Markle! This is Daddy. Stop the truck right goddamn now!"
He slammed on his brakes the second she did, and both vehicles skidded in the loose dirt. Experience had him handling the fishtail better than she did. She spun his truck almost all the way around, but she did get it stopped.
The two vehicles faced each other, the headlights now blinding him as he yanked his seatbelt off. The truck didn't move when he got out.
"Make one move, and I will spank your bare bottom so hard you won't sit for three days straight," he vowed into the bullhorn. He waited to see if she would run again, but the truck idled where it was.
Shouldering the door open, he got out. Cautiously, not at all sure what emotional state she would be in when he finally got to her, he approached his truck. The closer he got, the better he could see her and the quicker he walked, rounding the front of the truck.
Her teeth were bared, tears pouring down her face as she watched him come. Her thumb was in her mouth. Each shaky breath she took came out in hitches and hiccups, and the broken window made it easy to hear her as she wept out, "I d-did a b-bad thing." She looked at him directly. "Ar-are you m-mad?"
"You're going to have a very ouchie bottom when we talk about this later," he promised. "But no, baby. Daddy's not mad."
"I-I-I stole your t-truck."
He gently opened the door, reaching in around her to shut off the vehicle and take the keys away. "We'll talk about it later."
"I l-lost m-my b-b-binky."
He unbuckled her seatbelt. "Daddy's going to take you home now. I'm sure we'll find it there. Come here."
He held out his arm, anxious to hold her, comfort her, comfort himself. After this scare, they both needed it.
But Tabby didn't move.
"We can't go home," she whispered, a whole new wave of misery flooding her eyes. "We have to go to jail."
"No, baby." He slipped in as close as he could, already folding his arms around her and pulling her in tight.
She let him pull her close, but even before his arms were entirely around her, she was curling into him.
Reaching up with one hand to cup the side of his neck while she cried.
“Shh,” he murmured, glad just to be able to hold her again.
"It’s all right. Daddy's going to take you home.
Everything else can wait until tomorrow. "
Daddy would work his magic and fix it all then.
He hoped.
***
The morning dawned like it always did and yet, from the moment streams of daylight poured in through the bullet-riddled curtains to wake her, the brightness seemed dull and diminished.
The only thing that helped to alleviate her sadness was waking up with Jeff's body heat branding her back and his arm still wrapped around her waist.
She was sleeping in his bed. He was on top of the blankets, fully dressed except his boots.
Warmly wrapped up under the blankets, she remained in t-shirt and diaper, something she knew she ought to feel embarrassed about.
And yet, in this room with just the two of them, she didn’t mind it.
Most of last night was a blur of activity that she didn’t want to examine too closely.
Just the important parts. Like how he’d taken such care to bathe her, and not once had he touched her inappropriately.
He could have. In the state she had been, she had no idea how she’d have reacted.
Lying here in the cold light of morning-after consequences, she wasn’t entirely convinced that she would have resisted him.
Or regret it.
Careful not to wake him, she tried to roll over in his embrace. She thought she was successful, until she got all the way onto her back, and then she noticed his eyes were open and he was watching her.
Neither said a word. What was there after all to say? Good morning? There was nothing good about having to part, and she saw no way in which they could develop any kind of happily ever after.
He was the sheriff. She was about to get slapped with her second round of felony charges.
She was an embarrassment. Not just to her father, but now also to the man who'd let her call him Daddy when she'd needed it.
She still needed it, a little voice inside her whimpered.
Maybe she always would, but she needed to let him go before the consequences of what she'd done caught up with the wrong person.
He drew a breath, his lips parting to speak and, afraid he might be about to tell her this very same thing, she kissed him.
His warm lips moved under hers, welcoming the distraction, so she kissed him again.
She touched his shoulders, cupped his face, opened to the flicking of his tongue encouraging him to roll her onto her back as his tongue swept in to deepen their kiss.
She was so sorry for all the trouble she’d caused. She was sorry for the way she’d acted. She was sorry she’d taken such a hard stand against him and she was so grateful that he had truly gone above and beyond with everything that had happened last night.
Unable to tell him with words, she told him with her body, arching her back to let the scrape of her nipples against his chest invite him closer, wrapping her legs around his hips so she could feel the heady press of him against all the tingling parts of her.
Catching her wrists, he pinned them to the bed. His lips nibbled at hers, the heat of his hungry mouth burned all the way into her soul.
He suddenly pulled back, eyes closed, his breathing heavier. "We need to stop now…"
She wasn't stopping anything. She reclaimed his mouth with hers, a desperation of a different kind now filling her up. She needed him. She needed to feel him touching her, kissing her, filling her up inside until she lost connection to everything but him.
"Daddy," she mewled. "Please…"
He tore his mouth from hers, delivering a sharp smack to the side of her bottom. "I won't take advantage of you, Tabby."
"You aren't," she softly replied.
He gazed down at her, concern outweighing the passionate need that lurked in his eyes. "I don't want to hurt you."
Regardless of who his brother was, after all they'd been through, after all he'd done for her and in the cutting morning light, she didn't think he was capable of it.
Especially not in the short time they had left.
Travis had been arrested last night; she hadn't.
They'd carted him off to jail and she knew his deputies had divided the duties of booking him in and heading out to the motel to govern over the other sleeping prisoners to his ‘probation’.
She knew this not because she'd seen it, but because she'd been in the truck with Daddy while he'd been on the phone, discussing it.
She'd been sitting there, half-naked while he'd lowered his voice and said, "No, she's with me… No, I'm taking her home… I mean my home… I'll bring her in the morning."
So, she absolutely was going to be arrested. All over again. That wasn't his fault. She was clear enough in her thinking now to know that.
Just like she was clear enough to know no matter how much she wished she could do things over again—that she'd taken that chance when they'd first to trust him, about Travis and the farm, about herself—she couldn’t.
She was never going to see him again.