Page 16 of Daddy's Girl

"After?" I echo, something cold sliding down my spine.

She shrugs, not meeting my eyes. "I can't just... stay." Then quieter, almost to herself, "This is crazy."

Three words I can't fucking unhear. Three words that make me want to tear apart anything that would take her from me. Three words that kill any chance of seeing that smile again tonight.

"Iamtired," she says finally as I sit there like a fucking burl knot on a walnut tree. Words have never been my strength and her talking about leaving has set my vocal cords into cement. My mouth sags open as she stands, "I'm going to lay down. I'm sure I'll be out until morning. Adrenaline hangovers are killer. Or, so I hear... I'm not a big extreme sports participant, but I've read things, about drop. Big ups, big downs."

She's babbling, unsure, and all I want to do is grab her, tuck her into my lap and brush her fucking hair. I barely brush my own hair, but I swear on my mother's grave, I would come in my pants if she came to me and asked me to learn to braid her hair.

Instead, I show her to the guest room like a silent lug nut. Her backpack is there, her clothes dried, her rocks in a little pile denting the mattress.

"I'll get you some water," I say, cobbling together the simplest of necessities. "Adrenaline uses up a lot of hydration."

But when I return, glass in hand, I hear the soft click of the door locking. Message received. She needs space. From me. From whatever the fuck is happening between us.

I set the water outside her door, stare at the barrier between us, then retreat. My boots carry me back to the workshop without conscious thought. The scent of her still hangs in the air—sweet panic and raw need mixed with sawdust. The half-finished cradle mocks me from the workbench. Another family. Another life I have no fucking right to want.

I try to sand the cradle. Try to lose myself in the repetitive motion. Fail.

By nightfall, I'm outside her door. Back braced against the wall, knees drawn up, my boots still reaching the opposite side of the narrow hallway. My head hangs between my hands, fingers tangled in my hair, listening. Making sure she's safe. Making sure she's still there.

Hart's face keeps flashing in my mind. The trust in his eyes when he made me promise. "Keep her safe," he said. Not "make her call you Daddy while you jerk off in front of her." Jesus. He'd fucking kill me if he knew. And he'd be right to.

She's eighteen. Eighteen.

When I was her age, I was already enlisted, learning how to kill. The fucking age gap between us is old enough to drive. Old enough to vote. Old enough to have its own fucking mortgage.

Fuck.

But every time my conscience claws at me, every time I tell myself to back the fuck off, to be what her father wanted me to be—just a protector, just a guide—I remember the way she looked at me. The way she said that word. How perfectly she fits into the broken places inside me.

I don't deserve her. But I'm not strong enough to let her go.

The shadows stretch and shrink across the hallway as the moon moves across the sky. She sleeps while my old man back aches against the wall, the mountain silence broken only by the occasional soft cough or knock of the headboard against the wall when she shifts.

Until something changes.

A rustling. Different from the soft sounds of sleep. More purposeful. Then a drawer opening. Closing. The quiet zip of a bag.

I press my face to the door where it doesn't quite meet the frame, peering through a gap barely wide enough to carry a whisper of the breeze. Moonlight spills across the floor of her room, illuminating her small form as she moves around, her fingers on her cheeks.

She looks at the ceiling like she's asking it the meaning of life, then shakes her head, then nods, then moves back to the bed where I focus one eye to the crack, watching.

Fuck. She's folding my shirt she was wearing earlier, even as the one she borrowed for a nightdress flutters around her thighs. I watch her stuff those little socks I dried on the porch rail into the corners of her bag. The toothbrush I put in the bathroom for her. Each item going into that backpack is a fucking knife between my ribs.

She's planning to leave. To leave me.

My pulse hammers in my ears, drowning out reason. The thought of her disappearing into the night, vanishing like she'd never existed—like the workshop, the river, my fucking hands on her body had never happened—rips through me like shrapnel.

No.

If she's leaving, she's not going alone.

Something red and violent floods my vision. I push away from the wall, ignoring the pins and needles in my ass, and stomp down the hall. Two can play this game. If she thinks she's sneaking away in the night, she's got another fucking thing coming.

Two minutes later, I'm back outside her door with my own hastily-packed duffel. Not much—just enough to make my point. My boots deliberately heavy on the wooden floor. I want her to hear me. Want her to know I'm here.

I knock once, hard, then push the door open without waiting for an answer.

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