Page 36 of Daddy's Little Librarian
“Arrest me,” Kurt said bluntly. “It’s what you’ve been hounding after me for, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“So just do it al—” Kurt stopped, blinking. “What do you mean, no?”
Slipping his hands into his pockets, the DA drew a deep breath. “I’ve been trying for the last twenty-four hours to figure out how to say this to you, and I still don’t have the words. So I’m just going to say it. Krissy Degrassi walked into the station on Philmont and Fifth yesterday and turned herself in. Claims she framed a man because she felt threatened because of his relationship with her mother. Seems that man was a cop. Seems he went to jail for two years because the overeager DA who tried his case was more interested in proving he could do his job, so he didn’t look too hard at all the little inconsistencies.”
Scotti looked down at Kurt’s hand she was holding. His fingers had tightened on hers. She wasn’t even sure he knew he was doing it.
“What are you saying to me?” Kurt asked, evenly.
Pushing his hands that much deeper into his pockets, the DA said, “I’m saying that when you come to my office tomorrow, there is a package on my desk for you. It has your reinstatement papers in it, along with your badge and a check for lost wages—all the back pay, vacation time, and sick days. I understand the City is already consulting over an appropriate settlement offer.”
“What,” Kurt asked again, slightly more perplexed now, “are you saying to me?”
Sighing, the DA hung his head a moment, and when he finally straightened up again, he said, “Call my office when you’re ready. Maybe by then, I’ll have figured out how better to apologize for my part in ruining your life. So…” Nodding, he walked away to his car, parked a short way down the street.
“I got my badge back,” Kurt said, stunned. Taking the cold pack off his head, he looked at it and then at her. “I also got hit in the head with a potful of begonias.”
“Daisies,” she said, somewhat sheepishly. “It was an accident. I was aiming for Gopher. Are you…” She rubbed his hand between hers. “Are you m-mad at me?”
He squeezed her hand. “No, I’m not mad,” he sighed.
“Because I would understand if you were,” she rushed to assure him. “I mean, I think I broke like all your rules tonight and…”
He held up his finger. “One rule.”
“The most important rule,” she pressed, even as she wondered why. She looked down at her hands, wrapped so tight around his, as if she were afraid to let him go.
Because she was afraid, she suddenly realized. She was afraid to let go of his hand because Gopher was caught now. He was going to go to prison, and she no longer needed a bodyguard.
He had no more reason to stay.
“I guess you don’t need my paycheck anymore,” she said, hearing the words and knowing they were hers, but her lips felt numb. It was like someone else saying them.
“No, I do not.” He squeezed her hand again. “Also, I got my badge back, backpay for the time I spent in prison, plus the time I spent waiting for trial. I can afford to get my own place now.”
He tipped his head, looking at her sideways. A corner of his mouth lilted into a smile that made her stomach flipflop in all the best and the worst ways. Because now she was going to lose him. She was going to lose her Daddy.
“I can buy a car,” he said, followed by, “I can go back to work at a place where operating the fry machine is not my sole and overwhelming goal for the future.”
She tried to laugh. Hating herself for being so self-absorbed that she felt worse for herself right now than she felt happy for him. A less self-absorbed person would not have picked that moment to say, “You don’t have to be my Daddy anymore now, either.”
“No, I do not,” he agreed, with a cheerfulness that stabbed her in the stomach as if with a hundred razor-sharpened knives, right up until he said, “Now I get to be your Daddy for no other reason than because we both want me to be.”
His hand squeezed hers back, two quick pulses of comfort that shot through her like lightning. Lightning that hit her in weirdly erotic places. Behind her knees, the insides of her thighs. That spot on her mons where he had stopped to kiss her just before Gopher broke into the house.
God, the tips of her nipples. They were budding so hard for him right now all she could feel was how erotic it felt just to breathe. With every in- and exhale, they scraped the inside of her pajamas like a bra made of steel wool.
“I can buy you coloring books,” he said shifting on the step to face her now. “I can buy you an ice cream cone.”
“I could have bought my own ice cream cone,” she said, her voice quavering wildly. God, was she about to cry? She was. Her eyes were swimming, filling rapidly with tears. Oh, and great, now her nose was running. She sniffled. “I can buy my own coloring books, too. I don’t need that.”
“That’s not the point.”
She shook her head, lost now because she thought she knew what he was saying, but maybe she was wrong. “What is the point?”
“Scotti…” He took both her hands in his, holding them. “Do you want me to be your Daddy, without pay and for longer than six weeks?”
