Page 335 of Dirty Discipline, Vol. 2

He swore again. "What happened?"

"I worked." She studied her hands with him, as if she hadn’t noticed how injured they were.

"You're definitely seeing the Doc." Letting her take back her hands, he took his foot off the brake and headed down the driveway again.

"No, Daddy!" She'd twisted on her seat, struggling with both injured hands to unbuckle herself and escape.

"Child locks are on," he told her as they bounced in and out of the next rut. It wasn't, but she immediately stopped and frowned at him.

"Police cars don’t have child locks," she challenged.

"Sure, there are. The children I deal with are just bigger than most."

"I want out!" she ordered, turning instantly combative. "I want out, Daddy, right now!"

He tightened his inner control, refusing to let himself be triggered by her combative tone. Except, it wasn't her tone that kept needling under his skin. It was everything else he could hear—the exhaustion, frustration, the lost sadness underlying her words as she bounced in her seat and smacked her hands on her thighs. She yelped again, hugging her hands to her chest and rocking. Having seen her hands, he didn’t doubt for a second how much that had hurt.

He swung around, arm braced across the back of the bench-style seat and no-nonsense in his tone as he sternly told her, "Either I take you to Doc Johnson's, young lady, or I take you home. You pick."

The look on her face as she stared back at him waffled for only a second between rapidly failing anger and the shattering he could see, feel, and hear in her cracking voice as she broke down right there on the front seat of his patrol car beside him.

"I w-want… to go ho-home.” Her voice shrank, becoming a hoarse whisper. She sucked air, wilting in on herself as she cried without tears. “I-I-I wa-want to g-go hoooome!”

The fucking gear shift was in his way. But then, he had no business pulling her onto his lap and into his arms anyway. Which didn't stop him from wanting to give her what she needed—a strong hug and a sympathetic shoulder to pour all her heartache onto.

"I d-don't want to d-do this anymore," she sobbed, weaving out of baby talk.

He stared ahead through the dark toward Doc's, but his mind was already made up.

"If I take you home, do you promise to let me take care of you and your injuries so they don't get infected?" he demanded. "I'm serious, it's either Doc or me, and if I take you home, it's me."

She caught her breath, her sobs dwindling to hiccups as right back into baby talk she went. "I getta g-go h-home? An’ have a nap?”

"Yes," he promised, feeling like an ass for lying. There was no way in hell he'd be taking her back to the old motel. He wasn't about to leave her anywhere that Travis could get her. That left one place he trusted, and that was his house.

She sniffled. "Okay."

“Okay,” he agreed. Shifting into reverse, he turned around. But as soon as he turned out of Doc's driveway, she knew something was up.

She pointed right when he went left. "We goin’ the wrong way, Daddy? Wrong way."

"Nope," he said, and kept driving. "You said you want to go home. That’s exactly what Daddy’s doing. I’m taking you to Daddy’s house."

Where he had absolutely zero jurisdiction over her, and where his brother could literally walk in with his paperwork and take her back again whenever he wanted to.

If he dared.

Because while Jeff had zero legal recourse without first making some serious career ending—his or Travis’s—allegations, he already knew he would say whatever he had to, do whatever he had to do, to keep Tabitha safe.

What true Daddy would do anything less?

Chapter Seven

She stared at the bright white garage door, lit up in the glow of the headlights as Daddy pulled up to park in front of it.

No, she thought, sucking fitfully at her thumb. He wasn’t Daddy, he was Jeff Barnes, or Sheriff Barnes, or Jeffrey. In some sectioned part of her brain, that struck her as funny. No one as big and strong as Da—the sheriff—ought to be cursed with parents who’d name him Jeffrey.

Jeffrey, her brain echoed, calling it to her in some pseudo old woman’s mockingly high falsetto. Jeeeff-REY!

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