Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Jaxon cut the engine. The sudden quiet wrapped around them like a blanket, leaving only the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. He shifted in the cramped seat of her tiny Goth-mobile and fixed his gaze on the woman beside him. “Do not touch your seatbelt or the door.”
Tazzy rolled her eyes in that way that always made his palm itch.
He kept his voice even. “Keep that up, and you will add to the butt-busting you already have coming.”
He meant every word. As he pushed open the driver’s door and unfolded his big frame from the car that had tortured him the entire drive, determination settled heavy in his chest. He’d tried every single day for the past week to explain why he’d ended things.
She’d cut him off each time. No matter what he tried, she slammed the door on every attempt he made.
He was done with her games and pretending he was not her Daddy.
She could fight him all she wanted, but the truth sat between them like a live wire.
She had tried to climb down the side of a two-story building on a fucking rope.
If she’d fallen… if he hadn’t reached her in time…
she could have died right there in front of him.
The image still clawed at his gut. He did not care if she hated him for what he was about to do. By the time the sun went down, she would never pull a stunt like that again. The thought of losing her scared the shit out of him.
There was no time and no place in the universe where he was not her Daddy, and deep down she knew it.
She was hurt. He understood that better than anyone.
He hoped that once she heard the full truth about why he had stayed away, why he had shut her out, she would let him back in.
Her refusal to let him back in was not an option.
He refused to give the General one more second of control over their lives.
He rounded the hood in three long strides. Through the windshield, he saw her hand hover near the seatbelt buckle, then freeze when she caught sight of his face. Smart girl. She changed her mind and left the belt clicked in place.
He opened her door with a deliberate pull.
The scent of her, that familiar mix of vanilla and something uniquely Tazzy, still made his blood run hot.
He leaned in close enough that his breath brushed the shell of her ear as he reached across her body and released the buckle with one smooth motion.
She shivered, and it ran straight through him.
Dropping his gaze for half a second, he noticed the way her nipples peaked against the thin fabric of her shirt.
Good.
At least her body still reacted to him the same way.
He took her hand in his and led her toward the house without a single word.
Tension rose with every step. He felt it in the way her fingers tightened around his, in the way her breathing grew shallow.
The porch steps creaked under their combined weight, and she jumped at the noise, but he did not slow down. This ended today. All of it.
The moment they stepped into the living room, she yanked her hand free and whirled on him. “Have I told you you’re a jerkwad today?”
He felt the corner of his mouth twitch up into a smirk before he could stop it. “We have been a little busy today, so no. At least not since we’ve been home.”
Her eyes flashed pure fire. “See, it is things like that. This is not your home. It’s mine.”
He kept his face calm even though the words landed like a punch. “My home is wherever you are, Sprite.”
“Don’t call me that.” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “Sprites are cute, mischievous creatures who trick people. I am a badass now, in case it’s escaped your notice.”
“Oh, I have noticed.” He let his voice drop lower. “Hence the spanking you’ve got coming.”
He understood how hurt she was. He could see it in every line of her body, in the way she held herself rigid, baiting him, trying to anger him. She was looking for a reason to push him away. If she would just listen to him, he could make all that hurt disappear.
But she wasn’t ready to listen yet. No, she had a quiver full of sharp arrows she wanted to shoot first.
“You wasted your time rescuing me from the roof. I’m just going to do it again.
You are not the boss of me.” She pointed a finger at him, “Because of you, I might just have to learn how to do it at Mammoth Cave. That’s a much more dangerous environment.
If something happens to me there, it’ll be your fault. ”
It was almost as if she thought the best way to punish him was to get herself hurt. And that was one step too far.
Something snapped inside his chest, sharp and hot. She was not the only one who had spent every day of the past eight years in pain. He closed the distance in one stride and wrapped his hands around her upper arms, barely restraining himself from giving her a shake.
“Do not play with me, Tazzy. Not today.” His voice came out rough. “You think my heart didn’t stop at the sight of you hanging from that damn rope twenty-five feet off the ground? You think I didn’t picture you crushed and broken on the ground if I couldn’t get to you?”
Hurt and confusion stared back at him through her eyes.
With monumental effort, he forced himself to rein in his temper.
“There are things you don’t know. Things I couldn’t tell you at the time, and you haven’t let me tell you since I’ve been home.
That stops right now. You are going to sit your ass down on that couch while you still can and listen to what I have to say. ”
When he let go of her arm, she stepped back, rubbing her wrist where he had grabbed her. He hadn’t hurt her. Her wrist wasn’t even pink, much less red.
But she looked back and forth between him and her wrist, surprise and hurt in her expression. “Fine. But it’s not going to change anything.”
She stalked to the couch and dropped onto one end, arms crossed tight over her chest and jaw set like stone. She looked away from him toward the window.
“Okay, I’m sitting. Go ahead and give me all the excuses you have for destroying me. Destroying us.”
Her voice broke on the word us and it damn near killed him. He wanted to pull her into his arms, to wrap her up and comfort her until the pain drained away. But she would not let him. There were some things even a Daddy could not force.
This was going to be hard for her to hear, but by God, she was going to hear the truth.
He took the seat at the opposite end of the couch so he could face her fully.
He kept his posture open, hands loose on his thighs, even though every muscle in his body felt coiled tight. He started slow, voice steady and low.
“Look at me, babygirl.”
She just sat there and bounced her crossed leg, something Jaxon recognized as a nervous tick she still had.
“I said, look at me, babygirl, I’m not going to ask you again.”
She gave him a scathing look, uncrossed her legs, then turned and looked in his eyes.
“Fine, I’m looking.”
She wasn’t going to give him an inch. “I want to start by telling you why I didn’t fight my conviction.
” That got her attention. She’d asked about that the one time he’d allowed her to visit him in prison.
“It wasn’t because I didn’t care about being with you or that I didn’t want to be near you with everything inside me. ”
Her eyes tightened. “Then why would you not fight for your freedom? If you wanted to be with me so bad, that makes no sense at all.”
“I didn’t fight my conviction because the General threatened to kill you.”
She jerked back, her eyes widening. But he kept going before she could interrupt.
“He made it clear that if I didn’t stay quiet in the trial and not fight the verdict, you would be the one who paid.
That’s why I couldn’t let you visit, babygirl.
Once I was inside, I couldn’t even receive your letters because the General had people on his payroll, both inmates and guards, who would report straight back to him.
I couldn’t take the chance that my reading those letters would give him a reason to come after you. ”
Her face paled, but at least that meant she was finally listening.
“In prison, especially in the beginning, there was no one on the outside I trusted enough to protect you. When Reid and all the others came home and started working to get me out, I never thought it would take eight years. But every time we got close to the truth, the General made it clear what would happen to you. He said if I did anything to try to exonerate myself, you would suffer. I couldn’t take that chance. ”
Her pupils grew as the words sank in, and her breath grew shallow. She looked crushed, like someone had reached inside her chest and squeezed until there was nothing left. Her arms fell to her sides, and her lips parted, but no sound came out. When she finally spoke, her voice was small and raw.
“If that is true, why didn’t you tell me? If you’d told me, at least I would’ve known what was going on. I would’ve had hope.”
Jaxon felt the weight of eight years press down on him all at once.
He had carried this secret alone for so long that letting it out now felt like setting down a boulder he’d forgotten how to live without.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and kept his eyes locked on hers so she could see every ounce of truth in them.
“First of all, the risk was too great, Sprite. One slip, one letter that got intercepted, and he would have made good on his threat.” There were so many ways the General could have done it that would have looked like an accident.
He took a deep breath. “My one grasp on sanity was knowing that, while I lay awake every night in that cell, at least you were safe. That was the only thing that got me through. If I could just keep you breathing, keep you untouched by this mess, then the rest of it did not matter. Knowing how much it hurt you was harder than being in prison. You thought I stopped loving you. But I never stopped. Not for one second.”
She stared at him like she was seeing him for the first time. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them back. He could see the war inside her, the desire to hate him fighting against the desire to believe every word.
He didn’t reach for her. Not yet. She needed to feel this, to let it settle in her bones the same way it had settled in his for eight long years.
“Every visit I missed,” he continued, voice rough with the memory.
“Every letter I sent back unopened tore me up worse than any prison guard ever could. But it was imperative that the General didn’t have a single thread to pull.
Sabre worked in the shadows, gathering proof, flipping witnesses, chipping away at the case until the walls finally cracked.
The day the guards walked me out of that place, I made myself one promise.
I would never let him control another minute of our lives.
And you would never be in danger again. Not by him, and not by you. Not ever."
Tazzy shook her head, slow and disbelieving. “Why couldn’t you have found a way to tell me? A code… something. Anything. Someone from Sabre came to see you every week.”
“I thought about it,” he admitted. “Every damn day, I thought about it. But the risk was never worth your life. I’d rather you hate me for the rest of our days than attend your funeral because I was selfish.
That’s the truth of it. That’s what I have been trying to tell you since the moment I came home. ”
He paused. “There’s one more thing, but it’s probably just going to make you even angrier.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“I had no way of knowing how long I’d be in prison.
If things went wrong, if the General won, I could easily have had to serve my full fifty year sentence.
As your Daddy, I had to think about more than just your safety.
I had to think about your happiness. I couldn’t ask you to wait on me in the hope that I’d get out earlier.
How selfish would I be to deny you the freedom to find a good Daddy who would take care of you?
I told myself I would be happy for you, even though even the thought of it cut like a knife. ”
The room grew quiet except for the soft tick of the clock on the mantel and the sound of her breathing.
He watched her chest rise and fall, watched the way her fingers twisted together in her lap.
She looked smaller than she had on that roof, smaller than she had in the coffee shop earlier when she had been all fire and defiance.
The fight was draining out of her, replaced by something raw and aching that made his own chest tighten.
He wanted nothing more than to close the distance between them, to pull her onto his lap and hold her until the tears came and the storm passed.
But he stayed where he was. She had to choose to come to him.
She had to choose to believe him. He could not force that part.
All he could do was sit here and wait while the truth did its work.
Her gaze lifted to his, and for the first time since they had walked through the door, he saw a flicker of the old Tazzy, the one who’d trusted him with every piece of herself. The one who had called him Daddy without hesitation. The one who’d let him be her safe place.
Then she was gone.
Old Tazzy faded away right before his eyes, replaced by New Tazzy.
The one who had walls built so high that Jaxon might never find a way to break through.
That damn glint of fear and steel was back in her eyes.
Her body hardened, stiff and straight as a wall.
If that’s how she wanted to play it, that was her choice.
But one thing he knew for sure, come hell or high water, he was getting his Little girl back.
The wall between them was coming down. Today.