Deke (Sabre Security Daddies #4)

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

CURRENT DAY…

S uzi stared at her computer screen, and the queue of MP4 audio files Rickson Everett had emailed her and tried not to hyperventilate. She should be thrilled. He’d gifted her with the story of a lifetime— the career-making, shoot straight to the top, finally earning her mother’s attention and approval kind of story.

And she was thrilled. Sort of. If thrilled meant the need to tuck herself in a ball and hide from the world until she could figure out what to do. Yeah, if that was what thrilled meant, then she was totally there.

The files contained recorded conversations, starting almost two years ago, between District Attorney General Alexander Boucher and Everett, a former policeman in the Darling Police Department. They were her golden ticket to the big leagues.

Only, she liked the league she was in now. The big leagues were scary.

Stunned did not begin to describe her reaction to the two she had listened to so far. If the rest of them were the same, these files could put the DA away for a very, very long time.

“Holy shit!” Carly said.

Yep. That pretty much summed it up.

“Can you trace the email to get a location? When did they come in?” The eagerness in her intern’s voice was understandable. This was huge. More than huge. It was ginormous.

“Three o’clock this morning. As for tracing it, I’m not sure. But if I can’t, I know some people who can.”

Her stomach had been burning since the first second she’d realized what the emails were. Nothing would make her happier than handing them over to someone else. No doubt Sabre Security would love to get their hands on them.But an ace reporter wouldn’t do that. She could just imagine what her mother would say if she gave them away.

Rickson had given her friend Breezy nothing but grief for years, and now there were hints that Breezy’s father had set the whole thing in motion. What if there were others on the DPD who were involved? How was she supposed to take on the DA’s office and the police department?

And that probably wasn’t all. If she listened to enough recordings, she’d be willing to bet The Society showed up eventually. They always did when bad things happened. That was three major players she would need to expose.

Fire jabbed at her stomach like a world champion boxer. Everything in her wanted to call her mother and turn the files over to her. This kind of thing was right up Terri’s alley. She wrote cutthroat exposés for fun.

Suzi held back a sigh. The last thing she needed was for her mother to come to Darling. It was hard enough dealing with their quarterly phone conversations.

Carly broke into Suzi’s thoughts. “No offense, but why you? If all these files are as incriminating as the first two, why not send them to a bigger paper? Again, no offense.”

“None taken.” Carly had a valid point. Why had they been sent to her?

Had Rickson sent them to anyone else? What did he expect her to do with them?

“Is it just me or is it getting hot in here?” she asked.

“I think it’s you, but I’ll check,” Carly said.

Suzi needed time to think this through. There had to be a solution that would make everyone happy. That’s what she was good at keeping everyone happy. But how could she do that when half the people involved would want her to report what she knew, and the other half would want her to keep quiet?

One thing was certain. For the first time in her life, she understood the pull of being the first to break a huge story. No wonder her mother struggled with stabbing friends in the back. The temptation was frightening. These files could be her ticket to the one thing she always wanted. Well, to what her mother had always wanted for her anyway.

No one asked Suzi what she wanted very often. If they had, she’d tell them her life in Darling provided her with almost everything she could possibly want.

She had a cool house on her Uncle Harvey’s ranch. She had a job she loved—well, mostly loved—until her mother called to tell her everything she was doing wrong. She had friends, the Musketiaras, who loved her.

Overall, she was a happy person. She loved her life in Darling. Nowhere else could possibly suit her as well as here. Who wouldn’t be happy in a town that catered to Daddies, Mommies, and their Littles? She fit right in. That was, she ought to fit right in.

The only thing she lacked was a Daddy. Someone like Deke to help her with her own Little. She’d give anything to have a big, strong Daddy like him to love and care for her. She couldn’t expect to have that, though. Big, strong Daddies like Deke weren’t interested in girls who didn’t have a Little.

He said he was interested. He kissed you like he was interested, too.

Her conversation with Deke played in her head. Was it possible, with Deke’s help, she could find her Little and coax her to come out and play? It seemed too good to be true.

Deke was the main reason she wore a smile these days. She’d bet anything he was the best at tight hugs and long walks. He’d probably play games with his Little all day then play different games all night. Obviously, he’d lose if they played Scrabble, but he probably wouldn’t even care.

He’d already shown he was the best at long talks on the phone and kissing. If she could ever convince her heart to be satisfied with that, he would be perfect. Of course, it was understandable he wouldn’t be interested in being her real Daddy.

She was broken. He deserved a real Little who was whole and could give him everything he needed. Not just take what he had to offer without the ability to give back in return.

The fact that he was helping her learn to connect with her Little would have to be good enough. Well, that and BOB. Her battery-operated boyfriend had gotten a lot of attention over the past month and a half—like, a lot.

All in all, she led a charmed life. She needed to focus on that and not on what was missing. She had so much to be grateful for. The only things she lacked were having Deke as her Daddy and somehow gaining her mother’s approval. Neither of those things was ever going to happen.

At twenty-five, she shouldn’t need her mother’s approval. And to be honest, she didn’t. Most of the time these days, she’d settle for a bit of her attention. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen, either.

But she’d take a giant step toward having it if a major article, picked up by papers around the country, carried her byline. Her mom would have to take notice then. What would it be like to have a mother who was proud of you regardless of how important you were?

“So, what are you going to do?” Carly asked when she got back from checking the thermostat. Her eyes never left Suzi’s computer. “I mean, you have to publish them, right? It’s your duty as a member of the press. This… this is huge.”

Once again, Carly was not wrong. The reporter in Suzi knew it. The civic minded citizen knew it, too. The duty was obvious. The reward could be incredible. But what about the cost?

She wasn’t just a reporter. She was a friend. What would it do to Breezy? And Deke and the rest of the guys at Sabre Security would be less than thrilled with her. The thought of Deke being angry or disappointed in her made her stomach ache.

She stared down at her computer and tried to think. “Alexander Boucher deserves to be brought to justice. He’s a bad man who has used his power for his own gain for years. And he treats his family like dirt. But he isn’t the only one who’d be affected. This will affect some of my closest friends. And not only them, this who town would be affected. We have to handle this with care.”

Carly shook her head. “I get that, but what if your friends knew about everything that was going on? You can’t tell me the DA’s wife and daughter didn’t know. They have to have known, right? They lived in the same house.”

“You need to spend more time with Breezy. Trust me, she didn’t know. Whether her mother, Sidney, knew or not, I can’t say. From what I know, the district AG is a very secretive, very powerful, and very misogynistic man. You know he makes everyone call him the General, right? Even his family. It wouldn’t surprise me if neither of them knew.”

Carly snorted. “It would me. But that’s not even the point. The point is the people have a right to know. The guy has already served two terms, and I’ve seen signs around town saying he’s running again. He’s a snake from what I hear, and he stands a good chance of being reelected for his third term.” She nodded toward the evidence of Boucher’s corruption. “And now we know why.”

Add Carly to the list of people who would be disappointed in her if she didn’t publish an exposé. The pains in her stomach were making her nauseous.

Suzi got it. No reporter alive could have something like this land in her lap and not have her fingers itching to type the story that would bring justice. All of them were superheroes lacking the cape and the mask. They used their words to make the world a better place. Most of them, anyway.

Now, with Deke back in her life, she hadn’t spent the time she used to in investigating things. That had to stop. It was her job to be a watchdog for the people of Darling. She was letting everyone down. As idyllic as their town was, there were still villains to be vanquished.

She rubbed her stomach, trying to ease the burning pain that stretched from her chest to her belly button. Her tummy hurt all the time these days.

The top three on her list to take down were The Society, the Lawless Warriors MC, and now D.A. Alexander Boucher. They’d all been involved in so many awful things here in Darling.They were all connected somehow, and she was going to connect the dots that took them all down.

Several of those awful things had happened to her friends, so forgive her if she took it personally. If anything spurred Suzi to write and publish an article with the material she’d been given, it was them. Georgia, Winnie, and Breezy deserved justice.

But if she did publish it, she would have to call Breezy first. She owed her a heads-up. Breezy could decide whether to tell her mother or not.

Taking notes on all these conversations was going to take time, and it was already almost midday. Deke should have been here by now. He usually dropped by first thing when he was in town. Not that he usually stayed long.

Maybe Sabre had sent him on another assignment. That seemed to happen more days than not. She’d thought maybe they were headed somewhere good when he’d kissed her like that.

It was all she could think about. That kiss had rocked her to the core. She’d never been kissed like that before. She hadn’t even known a kiss like that existed.

She’d hoped it was the start of something, but it hadn’t been. And why would it? He thought of her as a kid, and compared to him, maybe she was. He’d had time to gain experience.

Her cheeks burned with humiliation at that thought. Of course, he’d stopped coming around after that. She’d probably done it all wrong. It was probably the worst kiss he’d ever had. No doubt, women were lined up to kiss him and play with him at that club he liked to visit.

Oh, she knew all about The PlayPen, the BDSM club that catered to people who liked age play. She’d heard people talk. She might be younger, but she wasn’t that much younger. Deke was probably there every night with women lined up to have him do all sorts of things to them. The kind of things she read about in her Daddy Dom romance books. She wanted to go see what it was like, but if she saw him there with all those women around him, she’d probably do something stupid like burst into tears.

There were over fifty files in her inbox, some of which were really long. She was going to have to listen to each one, transcribe it, take notes, and try to create a timeline. With a groan, she lowered her head to her desk. This was going to take forever.

It wasn’t even lunch yet, and she was exhausted. When had she last slept for more than a couple of hours? Whenever she lay down, her stomach started burning, and she felt like she was going to puke. It was better she had something important to occupy her time. It would take her all night to get through even half of these files.

If Deke knew she was planning an all-nighter, he would have a fit. He had this weird fixation with things like sleep and nutritious eating. And water. Blech. Who did that? Deke, that’s who.

He worried about all sorts of things. It was like he looked for things to worry about. Sure, after her article about Winnie ran, someone started calling the office and her cell phone all hours of the day and night and hanging up when she demanded their name. Sabre installed something on her phone after that to monitor her calls.

And yes, someone had mailed threatening letters to The Daily Nugget . But no one had actually hurt her. Still, Deke had insisted Sabre put up cameras inside and outside her building so that he could keep an eye on things.

And lately, Sabre showed up every morning to check out her office before she opened. Then again, in the evening, someone walked her to her car and made sure she got home. Every day, she hoped it would be Deke. Most days, she was disappointed.

She fussed about it and pretended to be upset. But deep down, she was glad they were there. She felt safer knowing they were looking out for her. She’d told them she’d only let them if they billed her as a regular client. They’d refused, so she had locked them out.

That was one time Deke came in person. He’d threatened to spank her bottom raw if she didn’t stop being a brat. She’d never been accused of being a brat in her life before she met Deke. To tell the truth, she was a little proud of herself. They’d talked it out, and by the time he left, they had agreed Sabre would be able to write off the expense as a type of pro bono work.

It was good they could take that tax write-off because she certainly couldn’t have paid them. The guys at Sabre were all over-protective Daddies. It probably had nothing to do with Deke at all.

When Deke was in town, he did the security. Usually, he was out of town on another case, so Lawson Young took over. He’d said to call him Law.

She liked Law well enough. He was a great guy. He took his job seriously, though it had to be boring. But he was there every morning and every evening, week after week, even though nothing ever happened.

It wasn’t the same, though. To Law, she was just another assignment. He would never think of Daddying her the way Deke had over the phone recently. He wouldn’t make sure she was drinking water, or eating her veggies, or getting plenty of sleep. But even more than that, Law would never ask about the paper or challenge her on what she was writing. He wasn’t Deke.

Deke had boundaries, coming out the wazoo. Well, boundaries for her anyway. Deke would never have let her get away with any of the things she was doing these days. He wasn’t afraid to call her out on anything.

If you’d have told her she would like that, she’d have called you a liar. But before Deke came back into her life, she always felt tired and rundown. She was still tired and rundown, but at least now she felt like someone really cared about her. She’d come to depend on Deke holding her accountable.

Not that she would ever admit that to him.

“Well?” Carly’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

Unfortunately, Suzi had no idea what she had missed. “Well, what?” she asked. Carly's sympathetic look made Suzi blush.

“Well, what are you going to do with those emails? I suggested you save them to your cloud or download a copy to a thumb drive. We don’t want anything to happen to them while you’re trying to decide what to do.”

“True. I don’t want anyone to know we even have them. If word gets out, things might happen to us, too. These are very unscrupulous people.”

Carly eyes widened as she nodded her head. “Mums the word.” She pretended to lock her lips with an invisible key and toss it over her shoulder.

It was a relief to see her taking this seriously. Suzi had plenty of friends in journalism school who’d been chomping at the bit to write the article that would put them on all the right people’s radar. They wanted the fame and fortune a big-name career could bring.

Suzi had lived on the other side of that ambition. She was the one who got left behind the first time her mother’s article hit the front page of The Tennessee Gazette . At first, Terri Daily had rented an apartment in Nashville to be closer to the action but came home every weekend. She’d hired a nanny of sorts to spend the night, so Suzi wouldn’t be alone. Suzi had been ten.

Gradually, she saw her mother less and less. Her Uncle Harvey, who wasn’t really her uncle but rather her father’s childhood best friend, brought her out to his ranch to live as part of his family when her mom hadn’t shown in Darling for over two months. Suzi was fourteen. She’d lived with them until she graduated high school, and now she rented a house on the outskirts of their ranch.

It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate what Uncle Harvey had done for her. But he wasn’t her real family. Evidently, she had no real family.

Her mom would call to check on her five or six times a year. They rarely saw each other. But Suzi always got a box full of bougie gift cards in the mail every Christmas. She wasn’t ever sure what to do with them, so she usually gave them to The Hope Center. They always needed clothes for the women and children who were trying to make a new start.

Focusing on the conversation at hand, Suzi nodded at Carly’s suggestion. “Good idea about copying the files. I’ll go through everything with a fine-tooth comb after we close. I have to work late tonight anyway. I’ll listen to them all then. Why don’t you go ahead and take an early lunch break.”

“Will do,” Carly said. “I’ll be quick.”

“No rush. I’ll take care of the front desk.”

As soon as she was alone again, Suzi returned to her desk and copied the files to her cloud. She also moved the files to a different location on her computer and renamed them so they would be hard to find. Carly was right. They couldn’t be too careful.

Deciding it would be a good idea to lock the door so as not to be interrupted, she headed that way, stumbling backward when the door swung open as she reached for it.

A large, muscular man blocked the doorway. Only Sabre Security grew men that big. She would have landed on the ground if Lawson hadn’t caught her around the waist and steadied her.

She looked up and promptly lost her breath. Deke, not Law, towered over her.

For the love of Eifel towers, just how tall was he?

“Woah there, Rosebud,” he said, grinning down at her. “And I’m six feet five inches. Last time I checked, anyway.”

Of course, she’d said that out loud because she needed to look like a bigger idiot than usual today.

“Last time you checked?” she squeaked. “You might still be growing?”

“Nope. Not taller anyway,” he said but then scowled. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

She blinked up at him. “It’s right here,” she said, patting her pockets, the back waistband of her jeans, the straps of her bra… no phone. Where was the darn thing? “I, um, I must have left it at the desk.”

“We talked about this, Suzanna. You are to always have your phone charged and with you. I’ve been calling you all morning.”

Uh oh. She could feel a lecture brewing. Deke could give a mean lecture once he got started. And long. “I did have it with me. I was sitting at the desk. I don’t know why it didn’t ring. Did you want something in particular?”

His frown deepened, but thankfully, he let it go. “I need to know what time you’ll be through tonight. I have to run to Knoxville with Law to take Breezy, Winnie, and Georgia to the craft mall.”

A pang of something that felt suspiciously like jealousy pierced her chest. She loved craft malls. Not to mention her friends all got to spend the day with Deke while she took notes on the scary plans made by a crazy man.

He was just doing his job. But after the way he’d kissed her, she’d hoped his job would focus more on her. Had he just been playing with her? A hollow pang settled in her stomach.

If that was all he wanted, there wasn’t anything she could do about it. But she wasn’t about to let him see how much it hurt. She shrugged and tried her best to look bored. She plastered on the best smile she could manage. “Don’t rush back on my account. I have a lot to do. I’ll be working late.”

His eyes narrowed at her words. Hmm, maybe her smile needed work. “How late are we talking here? Do you mean thirty minutes late or the crack of dawn late?”

Yep, definitely needed to work on her smile. “I’m not sure. I think it’s more like the ‘I’ll call you when I get ready to leave’ late.”

The scowl never left his face. “You’ve already been here since six o’clock this morning, Suzi. Whatever you don’t finish by closing time can wait until tomorrow.”

Her back stiffened. What she was doing mattered. He wasn’t the only one with an important job. Besides, he couldn’t pass off his bodyguard duties to Lawson and then step in and play Daddy when he was in the mood. She didn’t have much experience, but she did know the Daddy thing was a full-time gig.

“For your information, it can’t wait. I have a lot to do, and it’s time sensitive.” She eased past him and opened the door. “You have fun at the craft mall. Tell all the girls I said hi.”

She would call Georgia as soon as Deke left and tell them to take their time and draw things out as long as possible. It would serve Deke right.

Deke’s mother must have never told him not to make scowly faces because his face could freeze that way.

Maybe it already had. Maybe he was cursed to wander the earth with a permanent frown scrunching up his face. Maybe women and children would run from him, and men would be mean. But not her. She would be his sole means of comfort and joy. She’d welcome him into her home. Then he would reward her by pinning her to the wall and kissing her every day like he had before. She would kiss him back and then he’d?—

Snap.

Suzi jerked back into reality as Deke snapped his fingers again. “I need you with me, Rosebud. Nothing about this trip is going to be fun. Don’t think I don’t know you’re trying to change the subject. Now, get your phone.”

She had to figure out a way to stop slipping into her head like that! At least now he wasn’t scowling.

Spinning on her heel, she scurried to the desk she’d been sitting out most recently. “I haven’t left the office, so it must be here somewhere. But it ring didn’t ring. Are you sure you called me and not somebody else?”

Ha! She had him. The office wasn’t that big. She would have heard it ring.

“I have you on speed dial, little girl. So, no, I didn’t call somebody else. But now that you mention it, I’d like to know why it didn’t ring, too. Let’s go find your phone and see what the problem is.”

Uh oh. That sounded like a terrible idea. But before she could think of a good reason for not hearing the stupid ring, he took her hand and led her into her office.

As soon as they entered the room, Deke took out his phone and hit her number on speed dial.

No ringing. Nada. Nothing.

He glowered at her, then crossed to her desk and picked up her phone. As he brought the phone to her, he made a huge production of turning the ringer back on. Show off.

“Oh, that’s right,” she said and nibbled her bottom lip.

She’d gotten another of those harassing phone calls, and it had scared her. She couldn’t very well tell him that, but she was terrible at thinking up lies. But she had to say something the way he was glaring at her.

“I was working on something important this morning. I had to concentrate and the phone constantly ringing was irritating. I had to turn it off so I could concentrate. If you really think about it, it’s totally your fault.”

The missed calls log showed she’d missed thirteen calls and more texts than she could count. All from Deke. She held up her phone to show him, but the deep red of his cheeks changed her mind.

And did he just growl at her? Yikes!

He took her phone back away from her and led her by the hand, first to her office door, which he locked, and then toward the far corner of the room. “I may not be your Daddy, but I am a Daddy Dom. Therefore, I need to make sure you understand how important it is that you have your phone charged with the ring on at all times. Here’s how a Daddy, well, this Daddy, would respond the first time my Little girl broke a rule as important as having her phone where it was supposed to be. Do you want to know what that would feel like?”

She shouldn’t. Punishments were for real Littles. Suzi didn’t have a Little inside her. She’d never know what being Little was like. But he was offering her the chance to have a tiny taste of what it could be. And she wanted it with everything in her.

She couldn’t believe she was about to voluntarily concede to being punished like a child, but she found herself nodding her head. Butterflies swarmed her stomach, but that didn’t explain the tingles between her thighs.

“I’m going to need you to use your words, Rosebud. Would you like to see what would happen if you were my Little and you disobeyed me about keeping your phone with you?”

Her throat was too dry to speak, but swallowing was pointless because her mouth was in the same condition. “Yes,” she said, her voice a whisper.

“When my Little is talking to me, she says, ‘Yes, Daddy’,” he told her.

Oh god! At his words, her thighs trembled as the tingles grew stronger, and her panties were suddenly damp. “Y-yes, D-daddy,” she repeated.

His smile at her response calmed her nerves and settled her. He was pleased, and that filled her with warmth.

“That’s my good girl,” he said. “We haven’t talked about consequences, but this is something that concerns your safety. You will find I have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to that. How many times did Daddy try to call you today?”

Her cheeks burned from the disapproval in his tone. She had known he wanted her to have her phone on and with her, but it hadn’t seemed like a big deal. It seemed huge now.

“Thirteen, I think, Daddy,” she said.

“Do you know how worried Daddy was when he couldn’t get you?”

“Um, very?”

“That’s right. I was very worried something might be wrong. And what about texts? Do you know how many times Daddy texted you?”

She shook her head, sniffling. Counting the texts would have made her feel worse, so she hadn’t done it.

Her chest tightened. The ache of regret from disappointing him was worse than anything she’d ever felt before. Her eyes burned with tears, and she blinked desperately to keep them at bay.

“But it was a lot, wasn’t it, little girl?”

Her lip began to tremble as she nodded her head.

She needed him to help her make this feeling go away. The weight of it was too heavy to bear. What if she had to walk around with this guilt forever?

Despite all her efforts, the tears escaped and spilled down her cheeks. When he saw them, he cupped her face in his hands and caressed the tears away.

“Do you need Daddy to help you with the yucky feelings inside you, little one?”

She nodded again. “Yes, Sir. I’m sorry I didn’t have my phone. I won’t ever forget again. I promise.”

“I appreciate that, Rosebud. But no good Daddy expects his Little to be perfect. It’s okay to make a mistake. Even if it’s the same one, we’ll deal with it when and if it happens. Now, you’re going to stand with your nose in the corner for ten minutes, then everything will be forgiven. We will never talk about it again. Are you ready to do that?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she said.

Deke helped her place her feet where he wanted them, slightly back from the corner, so she had to bend forward to put her nose where he said. He showed her how to place her hands behind her back like he wanted.

“I’m going to lift your skirt just like I would if you were my Little, but I’m not going to pull down your panties. Is that all right with you? If you were mine, your panties would be around your knees.”

She only thought her cheeks were flaming before. The idea of Deke seeing her bottom, even covered in panties, was humiliating. But it was a good thing he wasn’t pulling them down because just the thought made her so wet she wanted to press her thighs together. Her panties were soaked.

“Yes, Daddy,” she said, her voice almost a squeak.

“Good girl. Daddy is going to sit at the table and keep watch of the time. I will stay right here. You won’t be alone. If it becomes too uncomfortable, you are to let me know so I can help you.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Good girl. Now, I want you to think about what you should have done with your phone and what you are going to do from now on. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“All right. Your ten minutes start now.”

The tread of his heavy boots as he crossed to the table made her breath quicken. Was he really going to sit down and watch her stand there with her bottom sticking out and her nose in the corner the whole time? The scrape of a heavy chair being pulled from the table answered her question.

Why had she turned her phone to silent? The ringing would have reminded her to have it with her. If she’d only done what he told her to, she wouldn’t be standing here with her nose wedged into the corner and her bottom on display.

Had he really been worried that something had happened? He must care about her at least a tiny bit to be worried, right? At that thought, a warmth began to burn away the yucky feeling.

How much longer would she be standing there? Ten minutes was an eternity. She wasn’t sure how long it took the universe to form, but she was pretty sure it was ten minutes. Just when she thought she would disappoint him by asking to leave the corner, an alarm sounded.

“Time’s up, little one,” Deke’s deep voice rumbled.

She pulled her nose from the corner and turned to face him, unsure of what she would see. The pride shining in his eyes almost stole her breath. Had anyone ever looked at her like that? If they had, it had been so long ago she couldn’t remember.

She didn’t know the protocol for what happened next. Could she leave the corner without permission? Was there a certain way to ask or phrase to say?

And then Deke held his arms wide open and smiled at her. She was running to him before she consciously decided to move. She leaped at him when she got close enough, never considering the possibility of his not catching her.

He wrapped his arms around her, and the warmth and acceptance of his embrace were absolute. This was like what coming home must feel like, although she wouldn’t know. Her mother had kept a perfect house, but it had never felt like home. And no one waited there, ready to give her a hug. It never felt like this.

And that’s when the tears really started. She cried for the loss of family she never realized she’d been denied. Not really. You can’t know the loss of something you’ve never experienced.

When her tears slowed to hitched breaths and sniffles, Deke spoke. “I’m so proud of you, Rosebud. You did such a good job accepting your punishment. Did you think about what you could have done differently with your phone?”

His shoulder muffled her voice, but she still answered. “I should have kept my ringer on and kept my phone with me so I could answer when you call or text.”

“That’s right. You will do that from now on, won’t you?”

“Yes, I promise.”

“That’s my good girl. What did you think about your first punishment? Was it what you thought it would be?”

“Not at all,” she told him. It made no sense that she’d gotten so upset from standing in the corner. “It was excruciating. I never knew ten minutes was that long. Are you sure you kept the time, right?”

“I’m sure, babygirl. Did you feel anything else? That was a lot of tears for ten minutes in the corner thinking up better choices.”

It wasn’t the time in the corner that made her so emotional. It wasn’t even the reality of how messed up her childhood had been. The tears were also tears of relief. She’d thought the punishment would prove once and for all she was definitely not Little. But when he’d lectured her, something inside her changed. Did that mean she might have a Little inside her after all?

Her heart tripped against her ribs at the thought. Then she dismissed it. It was too good to be true. She wasn’t setting herself up for that kind of disappointment. It would kill her.

Time to move on. She’d think about her time out when she was alone. “Don’t you have Musketiaras to escort to the craft mall?”

Deke groaned. “Don’t remind me. I don’t think we finished discussing the time you’re leaving for the day.”

“I told you I still have a lot to do today.”

“What is so important it can’t wait until tomorrow if you aren’t finished by six?”

Shoot. She couldn’t tell him that. Not yet. Would he be angry if she didn’t answer him?

She squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to face his disappointment in her twice in one day. “I’m not at liberty to say. Look, I’m going to be working late, but I’ll call you before I leave if you aren’t already back.”

“I better be back,” he muttered, then added, “I don’t like the idea of you being here by yourself at night. It’s not safe.”

She steeled herself against the idea that Deke really cared about her, specifically. He’d just more than proved he was all Daddy. That Daddy in him couldn’t hold back his disapproval of any woman being by herself in an office after closing. It wasn’t about her. He’d say the same thing to anyone. She wasn’t special.

Hating the spark of hope that flared to life at his words, she snuffed it out before it led to thoughts about him caring for her in particular. No, holding on to thoughts like that led to nothing but heartache.

“Are you kidding me right now?” she asked. “With all the cameras and alarms you guys put in, I’m safer than anyone else in the state. It’ll be fine. I’ll lock the door and man the alarms, just like they showed me. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“What about lunch? Don’t you need to at least take a break? Let’s go grab something to eat.”

“I thought you had to leave now to go crafting. Besides, I put my leftovers from dinner last night in the refrigerator.”

She crossed her fingers under the counter in case that qualified as a fib. She had put three-fourths of her lunch in the refrigerator, but it wasn’t there now. Reggie, one of the teenagers from The Hope Center, had started helping out around the office, and he’d come to work hungry. Again. There was no doubt he’d eaten today, maybe more than once. But the boy was like a bottomless pit of hunger. Chalking it up to the caloric needs of a growing teenage boy, she’d given her plate to him.

Doing her best to hold Deke’s gaze, she hoped her poker face still worked. After the longest pause of her life, he nodded.

“When you’re done, call me. Don’t you dare open this door after closing time, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” she answered with a salute. “I’ll call. I promise. But you’re going to be back by then.”

It was clear from the scowl on his face Deke didn’t like her plan. With one more pointed glare, he left.

Whew! Suzi glanced at the clock. Six hours of keeping the office running, and then her real work would begin.