He frowned. “I’ve sent Allan to stay with his son. I’m not sure what was going on with him. I’ve known him for most of my life and I’ve never seen him act that way. Not that there are any excuses for his behavior.”
“He-he’s gone? You sent him away?” He wouldn’t do that. Not for her. “Why?”
“Because his treatment of you was unacceptable. He yelled at you, terrified you, pushed you.” His scowl was fierce, his eyes filled with fury.
“I’m not sure he meant to make me fall.” But he had bruised her arm the other night. Unthinkingly she reached up to touch the bruise.
Clint’s gaze missed nothing. “Did he give you that bruise? Why didn’t you tell me? What else has happened?”
“I…I…” She could feel her heartbeat racing. Nausea bubbled.
“Easy, baby. I’m not angry at you. I’m upset you didn’t tell me, but I’m not angry.”
“You won’t yell at me?” she whispered.
“I’ll never yell at you,” he promised. “Ever. Tell me what’s been going on.”
“You won’t make me leave?”
“Never,” he swore to her. “Tell me.”
“I’m not s-sure what I did to make him h-hate me.”
He leaned forward. “Baby, you could never do anything that would make someone hate you. There is something going on with him. It has nothing to do with you.”
“He never liked me, though. Seemed to resent my presence. I’m not s-sure how he found out that I was…that I had been…”
“Taking food back to your cabin?” he said in a calm voice.
“Y-yes.” She peered up at him to make certain he hadn’t decided to be angry about that, but he just stared calmly back at her.
“How did he give you that bruise on your arm?”
“A few nights ago, that same night you walked me back to my cabin, he pressed me up against a counter, he told me he knew what I had done. I told him to back off. Told him I’d tell you.” Her stomach rolled sickeningly at the memory. Panic threatened to pull her under.
“Take deep breaths, baby. In then out. That’s it. And again. In and out. Can I touch you?”
“Not yet,” she whispered. “I need to get this out first. He…he told me that you wouldn’t believe me over him.”
“That’s why you didn’t tell me? Because you thought I’d believe him over you?”
“I thought you didn’t even like me. Why would you believe me? And besides, I was stealing from you.”
He made a low, rumbling noise of displeasure. “This is my fault. I promised you a safe place to live and I was too busy avoiding you to see what was happening. I should have pressed you to tell me what was going on the other night when you said everything was fine. Damn it, did you really think that I would condone his abuse of you?”
“It wasn’t abuse.”
“Baby girl, I heard you scream. When I came into the kitchen, you were curled up in a protective ball. Like you are right now. And you were absolutely terrified. Ellie told me you’d been having trouble with him.”
“I never told her that!”
“No, but she must have picked up on it. It doesn’t matter that he was my friend, I won’t condone any man hurting a woman on this ranch, including verbally. This should never have happened.”
She couldn’t stand the self-recrimination in his voice. “Clint, this isn’t your fault. I’m the fuck-up. I’m the mess—”
“All right, enough. I’m going to touch you now.” He reached over and pulled her onto his lap before she could even protest. “Hush. This is for me. I need to hold you. I also need you to stop talking about yourself like that. You are not a mess. You had a panic attack. I think it’s entirely understandable with everything that happened. So, you hoard food. We talk about it; we deal with it and we move on. But I won’t sit here while you denigrate yourself. And you don’t have to deal with this on your own. That’s not what you do when you’re in a relationship.”
“You still…you still want a relationship with me?”
Clint hated that she was so upset. That she really thought he would let her go. That she didn’t realize her worth.
“Yes. You are stuck with me. I think I’m going to get that tattooed on you somewhere. Or maybe, property of Daddy. Yeah, that sounds good.”
“So, what are you going to do? Will you spank me?” Instead of looking scared at that, she appeared almost resigned. “Yes, that’s what you’ll do. You need to spank me for stealing.”
“Spank you?” Was she crazy?
“No, it’s the only way. It’s the thing that will make it right. That’s what happens right? I get a spanking and everything is forgiven.”
“Baby, there’s nothing to forgive—”
But she was trying to wrestle her way off his lap. What was she doing? He finally let her go, worried she was going to hurt herself. She stood and then flung herself onto his lap. By now she was sobbing.
What the fuck?
“Do it. Please. Do it.”
“Charlotte. Please get up.” His stomach was a tight knot as he listened to her sob like he’d taken a switch to her. “Charlotte, please.”
“Spank me. Spank me. Spank me.”
There was a hysterical note in her voice and worry bit at him. She fought his hold but he held her against him.
“Please. Please, Clint.”
“I am not spanking you,” he told her firmly. “Not for taking the food. Settle down. Now.”
She continued to fight and he worried about her arm. About her health.
“Charlotte, settle down. Right now. Or I’m going to have Doc come and give you a sedative.”
She took in a sobbing breath. She couldn’t stop her cries, but she did stop fighting him. Instead, she buried her face in his chest.
Worry ate at him as he held her as she cried. He stood and carried her out of the bedroom and into the room next to his. She didn’t say anything as he walked inside and moved to the wardrobe, where he picked out a warm, soft blanket.
Then he strode over to the rocking chair in the corner of the room and sat, settling her on his lap with the blanket around her. He just rocked them in silence. She lay so still against him that he wondered if she’d gone to sleep. But after a few minutes of rocking, she stirred and glanced around.
“What is this room?” she asked in a hoarse voice.
He glanced around at the room. It was smaller than his bedroom, but far cozier. There was a large, wooden cot in one corner. A changing table sat close by. In the corner opposite him was some book shelving and a toy box. The walls were coated in a soft yellow. A big rug sat on the floor in front of the book shelving.
“This is the nursery. My mom used it for each of us kids. It’s sat empty since then.”
“Doesn’t smell musty.”
“No, I think Eden comes in and opens up the windows every so often.”
“Why did you bring me in here?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I thought you might find it soothing to be rocked and I remembered this chair in here.”
“It’s a nice chair.” She fell silent. “Sorry I kind of lost it in there.”
He rubbed her back. “Will you tell me about the nightmare?”
She ran her hand over her face. “It started off with Allan yelling at me about stealing. And then Allan b-became Brian. He was screaming at me. It was the night he kicked me out.”
“Why did he kick you out?”
“He got sick of me.”
No wonder her default setting was to believe everyone would reject her.
“I wasn’t what he needed. I was never good at socializing. I tend to spend a lot of time in my own head. He wanted someone who was driven and ambitious and I just wanted to stay at home and play house.”
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, you hear me? And he is very much at fault for making you feel less for your needs.”
“He slept in another room, because it drove him nuts that I needed th
e light on. I tried to sleep in the dark, but it was scary. It was dark when my parents died. It was dark in the closet where my aunt used to lock me when I annoyed her. It was dark when Brian kicked me out. Bad things happen in the dark.”
Fuck. She was totally killing him. And if he ever got hold of her bitch of an aunt or her ex…well, they’d wish they’d never put a foot wrong with his little darling.
He gently grasped hold of her chin and raised her face so she was gazing up at him. “You don’t ever have to be in the dark again, understand? There will always be light. And I will make sure that no bad things can hurt you.”
She nodded a little uncertainly.
“So, Brian kicked you out and that’s how you ended up living in your car?” he asked, working hard not to let his anger filter through into his voice.
“He handled all the money. I had a job, I tried to pull my weight. I was cooking in a diner. It was long hours and I’d get tired and when I get tired I…”
“You’re more likely to slip into Little space,” he guessed.
“Little space? Yeah, I guess that’s right. And he hated that. Can’t blame him, he wanted a girlfriend. Someone who he could be proud of. Not a little girl.”
He frowned. “How did you get involved with him? Surely he knew about your Little side before you moved in together?”
She shook her head. “I hid that part of me. It’s my fault. I thought I could keep that part of myself hidden from him, but instead I found it harder to keep it suppressed when we were living together. He was a regular in the diner and one day he asked me out. We dated for a couple of months then my lease came up for renewal and he said there was no point in paying for two places to live. I guess…I thought that sounded good. I’d never had someone who wanted me before.”
He clenched his free hand into a fist but didn’t say anything. “But when I moved in, things were different. He started to get impatient with me. He was embarrassed by me,” she whispered, sounding so ashamed it broke his heart. “I tried to be what he wanted, but I’m not very good at socializing. I’m clumsy and I often say the wrong thing and he just continued to grow angrier and angrier at me.”
“Did he ever hit you?” he asked tightly. If he had, he’d kill the bastard.
“No.” She shook her head. “He’d just yell at me about how childish I was and how I needed to grow up and that I needed to make more of an effort to be a real girlfriend.”
“Oh, baby.” He cupped the side of her head against his chest, rocking her slowly. “He didn’t understand your needs but he should never have belittled you because of them. What happened when he kicked you out? What about your job?”
“I’d lost my job,” she whispered. “Things were tough in our town and everyone tightened their belts. I was looking for another one, but I couldn’t find anything. He said he was sick of supporting me and that we were out of money and that I had to leave so he could get a roommate who could pay their share of the bills. I think he had another girlfriend and he wanted to move her in.”
“Mother-fucking son-of-a-bitch!”
“Daddy, you need your mouth washed out!”
He was gratified by the teasing note in her voice.
“Daddies don’t get their mouths washed out. But I should watch my language in front of you. If I ever come across that asshole…”
She placed a hand over his mouth. “It’s okay. I’m away from him now. I never intend to see him again.”
“I hate that you have nightmares about him. About the way he treated you.”
“Me too.” She sighed. “Those aren’t my only nightmares. I have bad dreams about my aunt. She was in the nightmare tonight too, yelling at me that I should be grateful to her for taking me in. That I should have been the one to die, not my mom.”
He kissed the top of her head. “She was an old bitch who didn’t realize the treasure she had.”
“I think she might be the reason that I…that I hoard food. When I moved in with Brian, I tried to stop, really, I did. For a while I managed. But as things started to go bad with our relationship then I started to hide things. It got easier to hide them once he moved into a different bedroom. He found them that same night he kicked me out. By then he was just sick of me. I told you I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”
“That just got added to your tally, little one,” he told her.
She froze then glanced up at him. He wiped at a stray tear that dripped down her face. He reached for a tissue and held it up to her nose. “Blow.”
Her cheeks grew red. “Clint.”
“Blow. Now.”
She blew her nose and he wiped her nose clean then threw the tissue on the floor.
“Clint, that needs to go in the garbage.”
“I’ll pick it up soon. I have more important things to do right now. You may continue.”
She rolled her eyes at him and he was grateful to see a bit of her sass return.
“When I got here, I told myself I couldn’t keep doing it. That it was stealing. But no matter how hard I tried; I couldn’t stop myself. So…so I worked out an exchange.”
He stilled in his rocking for a minute then resumed. “What does that mean?” He made certain his voice was non-judgmental. Calm.
“I-I stopped eating.”
Shit. No wonder she’d lost so much weight.
“I mean, not entirely because I still tasted everything as I cooked. But I figured that if I didn’t eat proper meals then I wasn’t really stealing, just taking my share. But it’s stealing, I know that. I’m so sorry.” She sniffled.
“Okay, listen to me. Listen. This is the last time I say this.” He grabbed hold of her chin, raising her face up. “I am not mad you took the food, nor I am not going to punish you for taking it.” She opened her mouth to say something and he shook his head. “No, I don’t want any arguments about that. You’ve already got a tally for not telling me about Allan, for lying to me and for putting yourself down. You don’t want to add to it for something I don’t consider an offense that deserves punishment. When did the hoarding start?”
“After I moved in with my aunt,” she whispered. “She used to withhold food from me. When I would come home from school, she’d usually still be at work. She used to send food with me for lunch because she didn’t want anyone coming around and asking questions. She told me if I told anyone about my life at home that I’d be sent to a home for naughty girls where they locked you in a closet every night. I hated being locked in the closet.”
“I cannot believe she locked you in a fucking closet.” His voice was cold, dark and she trembled against him. He kissed the top of her head. “Sorry, baby. Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
My God, it was amazing she had turned out as sweet and loving as she was after living in that hell. That she could put her trust in him was a fucking miracle.
“She didn’t do it all the time. But I didn’t like the dark and she knew that…she only did it when I was really bad.”
“You listen to me, little girl. You were never bad, understand me?” he told her firmly.
“But I was whiny and sometimes I answered back and—”
“You were never bad,” he interrupted her. “Say it for me. I was never bad.”
“I was never bad,” she whispered.
“My aunt was an evil, old bitch.”
“Daddy, I’m not allowed to swear.” There was a ghost of a smile on her face.
He snorted. “I’ll make an exception when it comes to her. Say it.”
“My aunt was an evil, old bitch.”
“And she didn’t deserve someone sweet and lovely like me.”
She gave him a shy look. “And she didn’t deserve someone sweet and lovely like me.”
He kissed her forehead. “That’s my good girl.”
She snuggled in. “I like being your good girl.”
“Now tell me the rest.”
She sighed. “Like I said, she’d give me lunch to take to school, but I wasn’t
allowed to just help myself to food from the kitchen. Only sometimes she would have a date or something would come up after work and she wouldn’t come home until late and I’d get hungry…”
“Oh God, baby, she’d punish you for eating?” He was so appalled he was shaking.
“Yeah. But it wasn’t all the time. When she had a boyfriend, she was happier. When they moved in, it was even better because she played the part of a doting aunt, but when they left…”
“It got a whole lot worse.”
“And I think that’s why I…why I hoard food. There’s a part of me that worries about a time when I won’t have anything. Living in my car hasn’t helped.”
“Only this time, you damn near starved yourself so that you weren’t taking more than your due,” he said roughly.
She nodded. “Do you think I’m a freak?”
He tilted her chin up. “Is that what he said to you?”
She closed her eyes briefly then opened them with a nod. “Yes.”
Leaning in, he kissed her. It was a gentle kiss but he couldn’t stop himself. He needed to give her comfort however he could. “You are not a freak. And you will not be saying that about yourself again.”
She sighed. “Gonna need a list of all these rules.”
“There aren’t that many. And it’s really very simple. Honesty. Respect. No talking down about yourself. Tell Daddy everything. Don’t do anything that might put you in harm’s way. No walking around at night alone or in parts of the ranch that are off-limits. Don’t leave the ranch without telling me. See, simple.”
She gave him a skeptical look.
He kissed her nose. “And most importantly, don’t disobey Daddy. But you must stay with him forever.”
She smiled. Then that smile dimmed a little. “What are we going to do? What if I can’t stop?”
“We’ll figure it out, baby. But I can tell you that there will be no more skipping meals or snacks. That is a big rule.”
“See, you just added another one,” she pointed out.
“Brat,” he said affectionately. Then he grew serious. “I can’t be with you for every meal, unfortunately.”
“I don’t need you to keep constant watch over me. I can still be an adult.”
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