Page 338 of Dirty Discipline, Vol. 2

She looked at him so wearily, uttering no protests as he dropped his hands to pluck the laces of her dirty shoes loose. It was startling to see them like this. When he’d seen her yesterday, her shoes had been slightly scuffed, but clean and white. As he cupped her heel and gently lifted her foot, to him it looked like she’d been marinating in mud puddles all day.

He got the shoe off and laid it aside to remove the other as well. Her socks were even worse, muddy from long hours spent down amongst the irrigation ditches. It wasn’t until he started to remove her socks that he noticed the blood.

“Oh baby,” he said, fighting to keep the appall from his tone. “What happened?”

Her bottom lip quivered. “I was bad,” she whispered.

She was shaking. Kneeling at her feet, he was shaking too. The swell of anger washing through him, filling up every pore and nuance of his soul as she broke down, took everything he had to swallow back.

He was going to kill his brother. He had no idea who had struck her, but she was Travis’s responsibility. This had happened under his brother’s watch.

Well, it was Jeff’s turn now.

He bent enough to see the bottom of her foot, but the blisters he’d been expecting weren’t there. Instead, he saw bruises streaking the underside of her arch in welt lines, one of which had laid a painful line right across the soft pads of her toes. The tender skin there had split, and the sock was now stuck to the open wounds where it must have bled and bled, over and over again the more she was forced to walk on her injuries.

Those bastards.

Gently lowering her foot, he picked up the other and removed that sock too. No cuts, but the bruising on the tender underside was worse.

“I was bad,” she moaned, her shoulders jerking as her sorrow at last broke free. “I was so bad!”

He broke too. Dropping the lid on the toilet, he sat on it, already sweeping her into his lap and into his arms. He rocked her, hugging her fiercely tight. “No, you weren’t,” he soothed.

"Yes," she sobbed and in a rush of tears and misery, the floodgates of her past opened and her entire life came pouring out in hiccups, wails and bawled apologies. All he could do was soothe her, hold her, forgive her and try to piece it all together.

It was heart wrenching.

"I didn't know the car was stolen," she sobbed. "Please don't be mad at me anymore, Daddy. I can't take it."

He was shaking every bit as hard as she was. He hugged her tighter, murmuring constant assurances in her ear. "I'm not mad anymore, baby. I promise."

"Please talk to me… please don't walk away…"

"I won't ever walk away," he vowed, kissing her forehead as he brushed back her head, holding her that much more securely as he rocked her.

"You don't love me anymore…"

"I'll never stop loving you."

"You don't love me…"

"Daddies love their baby girls and they never stop, no matter what."

"My dad did. He walked away and he won't come back. He won't answer my letters. He won't take my calls. I didn't know the car was stolen. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

What was he even supposed to say to that?

"I know, sweetheart." He couldn't help but kiss the top of her head again. "I know."

She dissolved wordlessly into despairing sobs. "He hurt me, Daddy," she keened, the pain in her small voice punching straight through his gut, soul, and heart.

He held her tight, glad she couldn't see the dark fury he wasn't strong enough to keep off his face. "Who hurt you, baby? Tell Daddy. Was it Travis?"

She burrowed into his neck, then nodded. "I don't want to work on a pot farm. I don't want to go back to jail."

"You won't. Daddy's got you now," he vowed. "Daddy will keep you safe."

She hiccupped, the fury of her sobs gradually easing until, pushing away from him, Tabby sat up in his lap. She looked at the floor, her small voice as lost as the rest of her now seemed. She was hunched, huddled in around herself as she listlessly stated, "I don't have a Daddy."

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