Chapter 11
RAMPAGE
You make me feel like something's being handled.
He stood in the kitchen thinking about what Emily had told him on the drive back from her apartment a few days ago.
He'd heard a hundred versions of that in his life.
Usually from people who needed something tactical, something immediate, a problem solved or a threat neutralized.
He'd provided that without ceremony and moved on.
This was different, and he knew it was different, and he knew why it was different, and he was not going to pretend he didn't know.
Irish appeared. “Our contacts got back to me. There are no signs of surveillance or tampering at her building or yoga studio. If they did, they didn’t leave any evidence behind. She doing okay?"
"She's doing better than she thinks she is. Better now that Daddy showed her what will happen if she breaks the rules." Irish had been the one to see Emily walking down the road. Rampage poured himself a hot cup of coffee and offered one to his friend.
“Too late for a cup if I want to sleep tonight,” Irish declined.
"Did Phantom get back to you?" He’d asked Irish to touch base and see if there were any updates. As much as he loved having Emily here and wouldn’t mind if she never left, he knew she would have to go back to her place at some point.
"Yeah. Federal contact is running Delling's phone against two other networks. Could be two weeks before we have anything concrete."
Two weeks.
Emily in the compound for two weeks, sleeping down the hall, eating breakfast at his kitchen table, doing her invoices at night while he worked beside her. He stopped that thought, it wouldn’t be fair to her.
"Keep me updated," he said.
"Always do." Irish paused. "You know Makenzie and Nicole are planning to take her into town tomorrow. They want her to feel less like a temporary resident."
"Who approved that?"
"You're going to approve it. I'm telling you now so you have time to plan the security logistics without doing that thing where your jaw does the thing."
"My jaw doesn't do a thing."
"Rampage." Irish looked at him. "Your jaw absolutely does a thing."
He drank his coffee.
"She should go into town," he said finally. "She might be here a while. She should know it."
Irish nodded. Didn't smile, to his credit. "I'll tell Makenzie."
Emily came down a few minutes later and had changed into dark jeans and a soft shirt and she looked more settled than she had since she'd arrived. The tightness around her eyes had eased. She sat at the kitchen island and opened her kindle.
He watched her find her place in whatever she was reading, watched the expression on her face go soft and absorbed, and thought about the stack of dog-eared paperbacks the girls kept laying around.
Some of them preferred their e-readers but many seemed to enjoy paperbacks more.
He was constantly picking up and putting away books with bare chested men and Daddy in the title.
"What are you reading?" he asked.
She looked up. Pulled the kindle slightly toward her chest and then stopped. Lowered it.
"Romance," she said. Direct. Daring him to make something of it.
"What kind?"
"The specific kind, you know." Her face flushed red.
He held her gaze. "Is it a good Daddy book, baby?"
Something moved across her face. "Yes."
"Okay." He turned to see what was left, if anything, from that night’s dinner. If not, he’d make her a grilled cheese. Can’t go wrong with toasted bread and a good cheese pull.
After a moment, he glanced back and saw she’d gone back to reading. But her shoulders had dropped. The guarded thing around the book was gone.
Small things.
After dinner, he sent her away while he cleaned up. Rampage found her on the back porch.
She was in the chair at the far end with her blanket over her legs and her kindle in her lap, not reading. Just looking out at the back property, the tree line, dark against the early stars.
He pulled up the other chair. Sat.
"I was wondering,” she asked. “Is there a version of me, in your head, that sneaks off and never comes back?"
He thought about it. "There's a version of you," he said carefully, "that decides her own discomfort isn't worth mentioning. That handles things quietly rather than asking for help because asking feels like becoming too much of a hassle."
She was very still.
"That version," he continued, "might decide that getting her own things was a small enough task that the rules didn't need to apply to it."
"That's—" She stopped. "That's a very specific version."
"It's the version you showed me the first night. Sitting in that car, hands shaking, waiting until you absolutely couldn't before you called Chloe. Why, you came to Grand Ridge twice alone because you didn’t want to bother anyone. Which, you are damn lucky you weren’t mine when you did that foolishness. "
She looked out at the tree line. A long moment.
"I don't like needing things," she said. "From people."
"I know."
"It feels like handing someone something they can drop."
"I know that too."
She pulled at the edge of her blanket. "You're very calm about things that should probably get a bigger reaction."
"What kind of reaction did you want?"
"I don't know. Something. Not — this." She gestured at him. At the absolute stillness of him in the chair. "You just take it in and file it somewhere and keep going."
"Would you rather I tell you you're wrong?"
"Are you going to?"
"No," he said. "Because you're not." He shifted in the chair to face her more directly, and she turned toward him, the blanket bunched in her hands. "You've been dropping the ball on your own needs long enough that it feels normal. It's not normal. And you don't have to keep doing it."
"And if I do?"
"Then I'll notice." He held her gaze. "And we'll talk about it."
She looked at him for a long moment. "This is a lot," she said quietly. "What this is. Between us, you being my Daddy, it’s a lot, isn’t it?"
"Yes."
"You're not going to make it smaller to make me more comfortable."
"No."
She exhaled. Looked back at the sky. "Okay," she said.
He stood up. "It’s time for you to get some sleep."
"Right now?" She asked, looking a bit dejected.
"I've got patrol rotation at ten." He looked at her once more in the porch light, blanket around her legs, looking up at him with that expression he was going to stop pretending didn't do something to the inside of his chest.
“Do you want to stay out here for a while or go up to bed?”
“I don’t think I’m ready for bed yet, Daddy.”
"Then I won’t make you go up yet. But you will call me if you need anything. Doesn't matter what time."
"Okay."
"Yes, Daddy,” he corrected.
“Yes, Daddy.” She nodded. Pulled the blanket up as if trying to hide the blush crossing her cheeks. She liked saying it, good. He liked hearing it.
"Goodnight, baby."
“Goodnight, Daddy.”
He went inside.
Thirty seconds later his phone buzzed.
Emily: Does the twenty foot rule apply when you are out on patrol?
He looked at the message. Looked at the back door.
Rampage: No. Just stay in the house or on the porch. Do not go anywhere else.
Emily: Good because I don’t know when I’ll go in.
He stood in the kitchen with his phone in his hand and the back door ten feet away and the compound quiet around him.
He typed back:
Bed by eleven.
Her response came after a moment.
Emily: K. Tell Clover I said hi
He set the phone down.
In the common room, Irish looked up from the couch. Clover lifted his enormous head.
"She says hi," Rampage said.
Irish grinned.
“To the dog, not you.” He growled. Irish’s laugh followed him as Rampage went to start patrol.