“No, baby. We’re not sleeping in the grass tonight.” His own hands were shaking as he wrapped the seatbelt under her arms so he could buckle her in without hurting her further.
“So sleepy…”
“I know.”
“I wetted my p-pants.”
“It’s okay. Daddy’ll take care of it. It’s okay.” He got her buckled in, his brain going a mile a minute as he plotted the fastest route to Doc’s from here, then made sure she was secure and her feet were in the car before shutting the door firmly. He glared at the distant headlights again, and it wasn’t until he was all the way around the car, wrenching the driver’s side door open and hopping up behind the wheel that it finally occurred to him what he’d said.
He’d just referred to himself as Daddy in front of her.
Was she even well enough to notice? Sucking her filthy pot-reeking thumb, she stared aimlessly out the windshield. If she’d heard him, she didn’t show any sign of being confused or offended, both of which she was entitled to be after that kind of slip up.
This was a rescue, not a relationship. He had no business calling her baby or himself Daddy, but he was triggered. Everything about her right now was triggering him, hard and fast and on every level, and he had no idea how to combat the hurricane of urges that had locked every muscle he had with the need to act. To do… something…
Whether it was his responsibility or not. She wasn’t his baby, and he wasn’t her daddy.
But he was the daddy who was here, by God, and she needed him. Starting up the truck, he glanced at the distant headlights in the rearview mirror and drove as fast as he safely could for town.
Her breath hitching around her thumb, Tabitha gasped and snuffled. “I w-want a nap!”
He’d known a few Littles in his time, but this was the first time he’d ever heard one cry to be put to bed.
“Close your eyes, baby. You can sleep on the way.” All the way into town, the other truck followed him. He kept his eye on how far back it was, keeping pace with him, speeding up when he did and slowing down when Jeff applied the brakes. His anger simmered, but he very carefully kept all trace of it out of his voice when he answered Little Tabitha’s feeble insistence that she was tired, she wanted sleep, she wanted to go home.
With every hiccup, sniffle, and half-sobbed out whine, she hit his Daddy Dom triggers remorselessly. He’d never endured anything like this. He’d never been this tense and this useless to help. He’d never wanted to stop the truck so badly, pull her into his lap, and just hug her.
The second he crossed the city line, he was on his radio. “Gideon, where are you?”
His affable deputy came crackling back a half second later. “About two feet from the coffee pot, feet up on my desk. Why?”
“I need you.”
“I live for those words. Where you at?”
“About two miles from the station and on my way toward you. I think Travis is tailing me.”
“On my way.”
Two minutes later. He was turning a corner when his deputy passed him, his patrol car completely dark. Switching on his lights, Gideon gunned it, heading straight for Travis and moving fast. The other vehicle immediately made a U-turn in the middle of the road and took off.
"Yeah," Jeff muttered, watching both cars retreat into the night. "You better run."
He took her the rest of the way to Doc's, back through town to the old man's country driveway where the sign atop an old-fashioned ranchers' archway declared the property to be The Johnsons'.
"Daddy?” she asked around her thumb when he turned down the driveway. She looked around nervously.
“It’s okay,” he said, once his shock at hearing that word fall from her lips wore off. "The doctor lives up here. We’re just going to see the doctor and make sure you’re okay."
She immediately tried to escape, wriggling to get out of the seatbelt and grabbing for the door handle.
"Whoa." He caught the buckle, forcing it to remain locked with its base until she gave up. "What are you doing?"
Her pitch wailed higher. "No-no doctor!"
He grabbed her hand to stop her struggles and if he had to, yank her back into the cab if she managed to get the door open. He instantly gentled his touch when she yelped.
Stomach sinking, he turned them over to look at her palms. They were worse than just filthy. Her nails were broken, and her fingers and palms cut and raw from more broken blisters than he cared to count.
