Page 225 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection

“I know.” We all felt more than a little abandoned when Logan turned his role as Master of Training over to Ryan andpulled away from the club for the better part of six months. I understand now why he did it, and it was probably the right decision because he was not in a good place to be topping anyone, but it still hurt. “He’s back and he’s not going anywhere. He promised and you know he doesn’t break promises. So, we’ll deal with this and then we’ll find good Doms for both of us, huh?”

“Yeah, okay. What about Master Theo? Emily said you guys slept together over the weekend.”

That little girl and I are going to have to have a talk. She didn’t tell me about Lucy but she tells Cappa about Theo?

“We slept in the same place,” I say. “Not really together. And that’s never going anywhere, either.”

Because I can’t trust Theo. Not completely. He and I will always be on opposite sides of an invisible line.

And because Theo’s never once, in any of the scenes we’ve done, made me feel like Mac did in our very first scene.

“Go to sleep, man. You need to get better so we can start the Great Dom Hunt.”

Cappa snorts softly but he doesn’t answer and a few minutes later, he lets out a cute little snore.

Leaving me staring at the shadowed ceiling again, looking for answers it doesn’t have.

six

MAC

I watch Naomi sleep.

I’ve watched her angelic face in her sleep for nearly twenty-two years. In her cradle. In her first “big girl” bed. In her dorm rooms, first at private school and then at college. In four different hospital beds.

The first hospital bed was when she was four and a doctor thought she had heart arrhythmia, which turned out to be nothing but a fear of her second MMR vaccine, but they kept her overnight until a pediatric specialist could see her in the morning. I remember lying on a cot the nurse made up next to Naomi’s bed and watching her little face in the dim ward lights. Thinking that my heart was lying outside my chest, curled between white-on-white sheets, and so very vulnerable.

Not much has changed. Her baby fat’s melted away and left her cheeks gaunt, her eyes sunken, her jaw and nose too sharp. But the sooty lashes lying on her cheeks are the same. The shape of her bow mouth. The sweep of pin-straight, jet-black hair she gets from her mother across her forehead. She still looks like mylittle girl. My heart’s still lying outside my chest, in a white-on-white bed, and so very vulnerable.

All of the other hospital beds she’s been in have been the result of overdoses. This time the doctors say its speed. Her heart’s arrhythmic again, only the machine pinging away in the pre-dawn silence keeping it beating regularly, from the damage the drugs have done.

I’ve never even tried pot, but my daughter’s heart, my heart beating outside my chest, is damaged because of the drugs she’s taken to stay awake, to keep up with her classes, to keep her body model skinny.

The room lights up and I glance down at the phone in my lap. Another text from Amy. She’s been calling or texting me every hour since I called to tell her Naomi was missing, a little over forty hours ago. I’ve had maybe ten hours of sleep during those two days, but as far as I can tell, Amy hasn’t had any. Which means she’s probably on the same drugs that have damaged her daughter’s heart.

I text her back.

No change. She’s resting. Please get some sleep.

She sends me another link. Another residential rehab clinic she wants me to look at, because the one I’ve already found and booked Naomi into isn’t good enough.

I tip my head back and rest it against the back of the chair. Closing my eyes, I let my mind drift back forty-eight hours. Brenna was curled around my back. She probably thought I was asleep, but I lay awake a lot of that night, enjoying the sensations of her body against mine. It’s been a long, long time since I slept with a woman. Now that the divorce is behind me and I don’t feel like I’m cheating on Amy anymore, I’m eager to have a woman in my bed again.

Not any woman. A smart-mouthed woman with blue hair and shadows in her eyes.

I lift my head and thumb on my phone. It’s much too late to call her, but I can send her a text she’ll see in the morning. I was so preoccupied finding Naomi and getting her treatment that I barely acknowledged Brenna’s kind words. And although she encouraged me to go, I still feel like an ass for abandoning her the morning after our first scene.

I type and retype the message a couple of times before I send it. I want to check in with her and make sure she’s not sore about the way I left, but more, I really want to see her again now that I’ve got Naomi squared away. The boys in the platoon would rip me for being too eager, but I’ve never been one for playing games, and Brenna feels much too important for that.

My daughter’s taken care of. I should be back in the City tonight. Any chance of that rain check?

Horrifyingly, the three gray dots start bouncing. I check the time in case I fell asleep and it’s closer to morning than I thought. No, still two-thirty. What the hell is she doing awake?

Sorry, Master Mac, working tonight. Maybe another time.

I run my free hand through my hair. Maybe another time? I don’t like the sound of that.

Working at your shop or working at the club? And why are you awake?