Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
B oone gave her time to respond to his question, not that he needed to hear it. Her body language said it all. His Little girl was miserable, and he needed to help her get rid of all the destructive emotions she had bottled up inside.
When she chose to ignore him, he removed her without a word, lifting Tildi from the tub and setting her on her feet. She shivered as she stood before him. Whether from cold, shock, or fear, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
She wrapped her arms around her waist and rocked back and forth as tears spilled over her cheeks. “Is Dutch okay? I’m so sorry. I’d never hurt him on purpose. Not ever.”
“Everyone knows you’d never hurt anyone on purpose, bluebell.” Well, except maybe herself. They needed to work on that. He made a mental note to have Maggie Maguire, a counselor specializing in PTSD and childhood trauma, come out to the ranch once they were settled.
His poor, sweet babygirl. How she still had such a tender heart after everything she’d been through the past year, he didn’t know. He just thanked God she did. She was soft and tender and so damn generous. She was everything he wasn’t. But she had to learn to control her impulses. If she was going to be with him, and that wasn’t up for debate, she had to be able to exercise some self control.
Today, her actions had terrified him. Stray bullets killed goodhearted little girls just as easily as meanspirited ones. He could have lost her so easily. He had to make sure she understood that.
But he could relieve her guilt about Dutch. “You didn’t shoot Dutch, bluebell. He was grazed by a shot fired from the helicopter.”
She stared up at him, studying his face to see if he’d told the truth. “Do you promise?” Her voice shook with emotion.
“Yes, I promise.” Had his girl ever been around anyone who loved and respected her enough to be honest with her? He put another mark beside the General’s name on his mental scorecard. Many more, and her father wouldn’t survive the conversation he planned to have with the man. “I will never lie to you, Tildi. In my line of work, there may be things I can’t tell you. When it happens, that’s what I’ll say. I will answer whenever I can. And I will never, ever lie.”
She continued to search his face but finally nodded. “Thank you. I understand now why you didn’t want me to help. I spent all that time practicing, but when the time came to use what I learned, you made me hide inside. It didn’t seem fair. Now I can see that you were right. I’m sorry I didn’t mind you, Daddy. I could have gotten you hurt or even killed. Or Grif. Or Dutch. I understand if you can’t forgive me. I was really, really bad. You’ve been so wonderful, and I keep ruining everything.”
She blinked in a furious battle to control her tears but lost. Hiding her face in her hands, she leaned forward and sobbed.
“Baby, no.” He pulled her up to face him, but she closed her eyes. With her face cupped in his hands, he wiped away her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “You could never ruin anything. Everyone is fine. We aren’t talking about what happened. We’re talking about what could have happened.” Her eyes remained closed. “Look at me, Tildi.”
She shook her head.
This girl. What kind of harsh judgment had she endured growing up? From what he’d learned, there were very few allowances made for failure. Now all he wanted to do was carry her to the bed and make her forget about everything that had happened. But that’s not what she needed. She said she understood, but Boone wasn’t convinced.
He lowered his tone and made his request a command. “Matilda Jayne. Look at Daddy.” Her gaze shot to his, lips parted in a silent gasp. “You’ve apologized, and I have forgiven you already. Do you understand?”
Her chin still quivered as she answered. “My head does, but my heart is having a hard time believing it. That’s not how it works.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “How what works, babygirl?”
“Getting past a mistake. Saying you’re sorry isn’t all it takes. That’s not enough.”
“Why isn’t that enough?”
Her brows scrunched as she considered his question. “I don’t know. It just isn’t. Anyone can say words. Words are meaningless.”
Those didn’t sound like her words. That sounded more like words her father had thrown at her when she didn’t live up to his expectations. Words that had bruised her. “If I hurt you in some way and told you I was sorry. And you believed I meant it. That wouldn’t be enough for you?”
She frowned. “Of course, it would.”
“I believe you meant what you said. Was I wrong?”
She shook her head. “No, Daddy. You weren’t wrong at all. I did mean it. I feel horrible.”
“Then why shouldn’t I believe you and forgive you?”
Her frown morphed into confusion. “I… I mean, I don’t know. I guess maybe you should. But if I’m forgiven, why don’t I feel better?”
Now they were getting somewhere. “That is a good question, little one. One we’ll talk about in a few minutes. First, I want to make sure you aren’t hurt. Turn around.”
When she hesitated, he dropped his hands to her shoulders and turned her to face the bathtub. Drawing down the zipper, he admired the smooth skin of her back. He slid her dress down, running his fingers down her thighs as he went.
Goosebumps pebbled her skin. She shivered and pressed her thighs together.
“Step out of the dress, bluebell.”
Once her dress was off, he ran his hands over every inch of her body to make sure she hadn’t been harmed. When he found no cuts or bruises, he sat down on the side of the tub and pulled her between his legs. “Now, let’s talk about those feelings.”
Tildi’s eyes softened with relief. “Um, when you say talk, do you mean talk or talk ?”
“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to, little girl. Did I or did I not tell you to go below and stay there until I came and got you?”
“You needed help, Daddy. I just wanted to help.”
“That wasn’t the question. Did I tell you to stay below until I came and got you or not?”
She snagged her bottom lip with her teeth and dropped her gaze to his thighs. He could see her trying to come up with an answer that would get her out of trouble, but she might as well give up. Nothing was keeping him from blistering her butt.
He tilted his head to one side and then the other trying to ease the tension in his neck and stem his rising tide of anger. “Do I need to get my belt?”
Her startled lavender gaze shot back to his face. “No, Daddy. You did say that, but I wanted to help.”
“I get that, Tildi. But the way you help the most is by doing what I tell you to do. Instead, you put yourself in danger, as well as everyone else on this ship.”
Her chin quivered, and he steeled his heart. “I thought I could help.”
“I understand what you thought. What you need to understand is the best way for you to help is to obey me when I tell you something. But you didn’t do that, did you?”
Tildi shifted back and forth on her feet and reluctantly shook her head.
Good. He was getting somewhere. “Grif, Dutch, and I had semi-automatic weapons, and we’ve been in situations like that gunfight more times than I can count. We needed to be able to concentrate on taking out the threat. When you disobeyed Daddy and marched yourself back up those stairs, we couldn’t do that. We had to focus on keeping you safe. So, not only did you put yourself in danger, you endangered everyone else, too.”
She wasn’t able to hold back her tears. And damn if it didn’t break his heart to see them, but she had to learn a lesson from this. Life on a ranch had all sorts of dangers, not counting the ones that were probably going to follow them there.
She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I wouldn’t ever want you or the guys to get hurt.”
There was his tenderhearted girl. “I know you wouldn’t, babygirl. But you didn’t mind Daddy, did you?”
She shook her head again. “No, Daddy. I said I’m sorry.”
“I know you are, but being sorry isn’t a good enough consequence for disobeying me and putting yourself in danger. Is it?”
She shot her hands behind her to cover her backside. “No, Daddy,” she repeated.
“No. You were a very naughty girl. And what happens to naughty girls who break two of their rules?”
“They get a spanking.”
“Yes, they do. And by the time that spanking is over, they are very sorry little girls.”
“But I’m already sorry, Daddy.”
She only thought she was sorry now. When he got finished with her, she’d know what sorry really was. If she’d caught a bullet… his gut clenched, and he couldn’t finish the thought.
“Not as sorry as you’re going to be.”
Tildi stared down at his hands. He knew exactly what she was thinking. His hands were large and bore the callouses of a man used to working on a ranch.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too.” Her voice wobbled, but firmed up when she added, “But I don’t love spankings.”
“Me either.” And that was the god’s honest truth.
He pulled her over his knees.
He didn’t pull her panties down. Not yet. That would come later. He wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her tight so she wouldn’t fall if she squirmed once he got started. And she was going to squirm.
Not making her wait, Boone spanked first one cheek then the other. He didn’t hold back. Not for this. Not when she could have died or gotten one of his men killed. He couldn’t bear the thought of her having to live with that kind of regret, so he put his whole arm into the effort of delivering that message.
“Ow. Oh. Oh! OW!” She strained against his hold. Her toes dug into the plush mat in front of the tub. “I’m sorry. Oh… owie… Daddy! Oh! I’m so sorry!”
He’d been right. She began to wiggle and squirm by the fifth swat of his hand. She was fighting by the tenth. By the fifteenth slap of his palm to her bottom her wiggles were growing frantic.
When he paused to pull her panties down to just below the curve of her cheeks, the bright, rosy pink of her normally pale ass filled him with satisfaction. “Let’s talk about obedience, naughty girl. Were you obeying Daddy when you came back up those stairs?”
“N-no!” she wailed.
“No.” Smack. “You.” Smack. “Were.” Smack. “Not.” Smack.
Boone punctuated each word with a hard swat. His Little girl would be feeling this for a day or two at least. She began to cry then, and not just a little. Loud, gasping sobs wrenched her whole body.
Boone paused again, flexing his hand. “And what are you going to do the next time I tell you to stay below deck?”
Her breathing was hitched, but she managed to get out an answer. “I-I-I’m g-going to st-stay be-below deck. P-p-promise. Ow, oh, OW!” she cried out as he gave her four more smacks, two to each cheek.
“I take obedience very seriously, little girl. Have I made that clear?”
Through her sniffling and hitched breaths, she nodded at the floor. “Y-yes, Daddy.”
“Good. Now let’s talk about you putting yourself in harm’s way.”
“C-can’t we be d-done, Daddy? Please?”
“I’m afraid not, babygirl.” He ran a finger under the elastic at the top of her panties and drew them all the way off. They would only be in the way at this point. “We’ve talked about this before, haven’t we?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
He picked up the short bath brush on the side of the tub.
There was no need to waste time with words this go around. She knew what she’d done, so he focused on making sure she didn’t want to do it again. She howled with the first smack to her already tender cheeks.
He never swatted the same place twice as he peppered every inch of her bottom. Once he had turned her ass a bright cherry red, he shifted his attention to the tops of her thighs. She kicked and thrashed, but he allowed her that. He finished up with ten smacks to the sensitive sit spots at the bottom curve of her ass.
At that point, she finally collapsed over his thighs and stopped fighting. He tossed the brush to the mat and helped her up to straddle his lap, rubbing her back and letting her cry it out.
“That’s my good girl,” he said. “I don’t ever want to have to do that again. But you are too precious to put yourself at risk like that. We have too much left to do. You’re going to love the ranch, babygirl. The mountains, the Wild River, the endless plains of grass. Buffalo and Mustangs. You’re going to love it. And my family is going to love you.”
He held her, talking softly and cuddling her until she fell asleep. Carrying her to their bed, he put her down for a nap. He lay down beside her and held her, thinking through his upcoming conversation with Sevin.
When he’d told Sev they needed to discuss Nico, Sev had insisted they have that conversation once they got to his house. Something in his friend’s voice had been off. It would be good to see him again, but their conversation was not going to be pleasant. Something was happening in the Cosa Nostra and for the sake of his bluebell, Boone needed to know what it was.
Tildi pulled him from his thoughts as she rolled over so her back was to him, Puff clutched to her chest even in sleep. Snuggling back, she pressed her backside against his dick and used his arm as her pillow. His cock responded immediately, growing painfully hard.
With a groan, he resigned himself to a long night. She sighed and nestled in tighter against him. It took some time but eventually fatigue won out and he joined her in sleep.