by Mia Ford
“You said that an hour ago!”
“Then I guess it’s obvious that asking me that question over and over again will get you the same reply,” I shot back.
I caught her in the rearview mirror, rolling her eyes and folding her arms across her chest. “Walking would probably be faster than this.”
“I can always pull over and put that to the test,” I said.
“Or you could step on it, grandpa,” Kelly said.
Whoever said that being a single dad was hard had no fucking idea what he was talking about. Hard didn’t even scratch the surface. No, it was not cute when random women came up to me in the street and oohed and aahed at me after I had spent a night cleaning up baby barf. It was never easy being called into the school because my daughter had punched a classmate, only to get that condescending nod of understanding when I told them that Kelly’s mother was no longer with us. Nothing about raising a little girl alone was easy. And with my job, it only made things more difficult.
You should stop blaming her. It’s not her fault that she had to grow up quickly.
I’d come to hear my wife’s voice more and more over the years, somewhere in the back of my mind, consoling me and telling me that everything was going to be just fine. Deep down, I knew it was only my subconscious trying to let me know that I wasn’t fucking this up too much. But it made it a lot more believable when I used Janice’s voice for these little pep talks. She was the voice of reason to my instinctual desire to shoot first and ask questions later.
You can’t shoot your daughter.
“I know,” I replied to no one in particular.
“What?”
I looked at Kelly and shrugged. “I know I can step on it,” I said. “My leg’s acting up again. Sorry.”
“I can take over if you want,” Kelly said enthusiastically, leaning in between the seats as if I wouldn’t object to her suggestion of letting a twelve-year-old drive.
“Nice try, chipmunk,” I said, giving her a quick look. “I’ll be fine.”
Kelly slumped back into her seat and huffed.
One hour. Just one hour.
I leaned back in my seat, feeling my muscles scream at me, wondering what Kelly would do to me if I stopped for a few minutes to stretch. My leg really was starting to give me hell, the right thigh clenching around my healing bullet wound. Most days I could go a good twenty-four hours without it giving me much stress, but driving for almost two days was not the kind of stress it would let me endure without protest.
I let go of the wheel and rubbed at my thigh, willing the pain to stay at a tolerable level without the need to reach for my pain killers or stop the car. The doctors had told me it would get easier, back when I would wake up screaming from the pain and Kelly would have to help me with the meds because I was in too much agony to do anything for myself.
I looked up at the freckled face of my daughter, her brown hair falling to her shoulders in waves, and her green eyes locked on the phone’s screen. She really had grown too fast. It always surprised me when I thought about it.
And she’s turning into you.
Stubborn, mischievous, and always ready for a fight.
Unfortunately, all true. And being a DEA agent, constantly in the line of fire, didn’t help. My partner, Raul, had always told me to take it easy, to cut back on the workload, to not take the risks I was prone to taking.
“You have a little girl at home, man,” he would always say. “I’m not ready to tell her that her father’s dead because he was being a reckless asshole.”
It was the only way I knew how to do my job, though. I would be lying if I said I didn’t care what happened to me. Being a father changes you, in more ways than one, and I would have gladly given my life for Kelly if I had to. Dammit, I’d kill for her. But sometimes, instinct just kicked in, and for a few seconds, a few stupid seconds, I’d forget that I had a little girl waiting in the neighbor’s apartment for me to come home safe.
Which was probably why the captain had asked me to take a leave.
Or the fact that you had survived four bullets and no one on the force wanted to be the bearer of bad news if things had gone south.
That, too.
I could still remember my conversation with the captain a week ago, when I was finally able to walk on my own two feet again and could trudge into the precinct. I had tried to assure him that I was fine enough to come back to work, maybe even take a desk job for a while. But I wasn’t very convincing, and I doubt the cane I was using to help me get around made it any better. He had literally kicked me out of the office, told me to take a break, stay with family, heal first, then talk about coming back to work.
“And for fuck’s sake, Alex, look after your goddamn daughter!”
It seemed like everyone was always chastising me to be a better dad, telling me what I was doing wrong and what I should be doing right. I appreciated their concern and tolerated their words. What they didn’t seem to understand was that no one chastised me more than myself. I started asking myself what would my dad do?
That’s when I started thinking about going home for a while.
Not home to the house Kelly and I shared on Beaker Street, but home to Connecticut, where I grew up. I had called my father a few days after I took leave and told him we were coming home to visit.
Kelly was great company, usually, but with the start of summer holidays and both of us in each other’s faces all day, the house was quickly turning into a warzone. I blamed it on puberty, she blamed it on the fact that I wasn’t taking enough meds. Or that I was just being an asshole intent on ruining her life.
It’s like I’m married all over again.
“We could’ve taken a plane, you know,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“You don’t say,” I replied. “Jeez, I should’ve thought of that.”
Kelly leaned in again. “You know, sometimes I wonder which one of us is the adult in this relationship.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll pretend to be the father whose credit card pays for all the stuff you have, and you pretend to be the daughter who is always grateful that her father loves her so much to spoil her in every possible way.”
She huffed at me. “Spoils me so much that he’s trapped us in a car for two days?”
“So much that he hasn’t stopped two states back and told the closest trucker to drive you back to Miami,” I replied. “Do you know what happens to little girls whose parents don’t keep their eyes on them all the time?” I looked at her in the rearview and frowned. “Do you know?”
“I’m twelve,” she replied. “I’m not living under a stone.”
“I’m going to have to rethink giving you your own phone,” I said, shaking my head.
Kelly threw her hands up. “Sure, take it,” she said, slumping back. “Just what I need to make my life even more miserable.”
“Your life is not miserable,” I countered.
“I’m in a car for two days,” Kelly shot. “What’s your definition of miserable?”
This conversation for starters, I wanted to reply, but just smiled and shook my head.
We passed a road sign that read “Kent 30 Miles” and I let out a sigh of relief. Kelly had noticed it to, because she let out her own frustrated “finally” before shifting closer to the window to get a look at the world around us. I think it was the first time she had peeled her eyes away from that damn phone in two days.
Connecticut was beautiful in the fall, peaceful, the complete opposite of Miami with its year-round flow of tourists, bumper-to-bumper traffic, and the scorching tropical heat. I had grown up in Kent, my parents’ house a constant reminder of the youth I had spent scraping my knees and bruising my elbows.
Moving to Miami had never been an easy decision, especially since leaving my dad alone was pretty much like giving a child a gun and asking him not to pull the trigger. Ever since my mother’s death back when I was in middle school, I had come close to losing a finger, breaking bones, and
literally running a man over because my dad had thought it would be funny to let me drive his truck.
The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, eh buddy?
I looked at Kelly again in the rearview and wondered just how much of my dad was in me, how much of me was in her, how close I had come to ruining both of our lives, and shuddered. She definitely had a guardian angel watching over her, because more times than not, I wasn’t.
“Looking forward to seeing your grandfather again?” I asked.
The last time Kelly had been around my dad, the two had hit it off quite nicely. Well enough to the point where they had ganged up on me on numerous occasions. Sometimes I felt like he understood her a lot better than I did, and I usually wrote it off to the fact that he had been through the whole ‘single dad’ phase and had enough experience to handle situations I literally sucked at. Needless to say, he was thrilled when I told him we’d be spending a couple of months with him at home in Connecticut, a place I had not been back to in years.
“At least I’ll have someone to talk to that might actually care about what I have to say,” Kelly said, a hint of spite and accusation in her voice, like always. “And might actually listen to me once in a while.”
“What are you talking about? I care about what you have to say,” I said in a hurt tone. “And I always listen.”
“It would just be nice to have a conversation with someone who won’t end up yelling at me or think that talking about bad guys with guns is appropriate conversation for a kid my age.”
“You just told me that you know what happens to little girls who get left at truck stops,” I scoffed.
“Sure, dad. Whatever.” Kelly rolled her eyes at me again. “Your father of the year trophy is waiting for you to pick it up.”
“You know, sometimes I wonder if maybe I talk to you a little too much,” I said, frowning at her sarcasm, but on the inside secretly proud of her strength and guts.
I hated how much she took after me, but there were some things I was grateful she had picked up. Including having the balls to not let anyone take advantage of her, even her pain in the ass old man.
“Kent, next exit,” she said, nodding toward the exit sign.
“I see it,” I said. “I’m not blind.”
“No, you’re just deaf and dumb,” she said. I frowned at her in the rearview and caught her smiling without looking at me.
“Fine, I’ll take that one,” I said, shaking my head without letting her see the grin on my face. “Now play with your phone and let me drive.”
“Sure. No problem.”
I turned off the Interstate and cruised toward the town I had left behind almost twenty-five years ago. My leg protested a little more, but I quickly pushed the pain away.
In a few minutes, I’d be back home.
Chapter 2: Jenni Beale
There were certain things I had always promised myself I would never do, and sleeping with a man on the first date had been one of them. The day I broke that rule was the day I let Garth Liston into my life forever. It was a day I would always regret.
I had known Garth since high school, the class jock that every girl was drooling over, and the one boy I knew was way out of my league. Then again, back then I was a little late to the party, always sitting in the back, my face covered with my black hair, wearing clothes that were always a size or two bigger than what I should have been wearing. I hated the spotlight. I hated the attention. And quite frankly, I hated Kent fucking Connecticut, my puny little home town that was probably the most boring place on the planet. Garth Liston was the most exciting guy in town; dark, mysterious, even a little dangerous. I guess that’s what drew me to him initially, but now scares the hell out of me.
“Garth, seriously, this is the wrong place and time,” I said, trying to push him away. It was like trying to push over a brick wall. Garth was all hard muscle beneath my hands. Despite my efforts to resist, I felt dampness pooling between my legs.
We were in the storage room at the back of the diner where we both worked with the door closed, Garth pressed up against me and practically pushing me into the wall. He was very much the hunk of a man people guessed he would grow up to be, and just as much of a letdown as every other jock who had thought the world would be his oyster. A busted knee had screwed his chances at a football scholarship. Since then he’d been running his father’s tire business and a few other private ventures that were helping him make a lot more money than his father ever could selling tires.
“Come on, Jenni, I’ve missed you,” he whispered in my ear, pressing his cock against my thigh as one hand grabbed my breast over the dark blue t-shirt I usually wore to work.
He kissed my neck, then my ear, and I couldn’t help but shudder under his touch.
“Hank is going to come in here and see us,” I said. “Then what? Do you want me to get fired?”
Garth held me by the waist and pulled me closer, his dark brown eyes boring into mine. The lust in them scared me and excited me at the same time, and he knew it. The smile on his face said it all.
“Let him see us,” Garth said. “I’d like to see your father fire the best manager this piece of shit diner has ever had.”
He pushed harder against me, and the bulge in his jeans nestled comfortably between my thighs, forcing me to gasp despite myself. I tried to push him back a bit, but my efforts weren’t convincing enough and only made him grip me harder.
“Seriously, Garth, stop it,” I said, unable to contain my smile as he kissed my neck again. I was heating up, and my efforts to get out of his lock quickly died out when his hand found its way under my shirt and into my pants.
“You’re saying it,” Garth growled, his hand snaking into my panties and cupping my mound, “but I just don’t believe it.”
My body was giving me away, and I knew that finding me as wet as I was would only push him on. His fingers were quick to find their way into my pussy, spreading it wide as he pressed the heel of his hand against my clit. I gasped again, this time wrapping my arms around his neck as he fingered me, pushing my hips against his hand.
They were things like this that turned him on the most. Taking me in places where he knew we could get caught. Out in the open, for everyone to see just what he could do to me. The fact that my father Hank was just one door away from it all must have made him even hornier, because his breathing had quickened and his kisses were quickly turning into soft bites as he ravished me.
“Garth, please, stop,” I gasped. “He’s right outside.”
“I know,” Garth replied, his speed intensifying as he finger-fucked me up to the knuckle, pressing me further against the wall, grinding his cock against my thigh. “That’s the point, baby.”
He turned me around and pushed against me, his hands fumbling with the zipper on my jeans as his cock pressed hard against my ass. Within seconds he had my pants and panties down around my ankles, and I grinded against him while the sound of his belt unbuckling echoed in the room. He pushed me down, bending me at enough of an angle for him to quickly slide inside me, and I had to cover my mouth to stop my moans from alerting everyone outside of what was happening behind the closed door.
I closed my eyes, my mind torn between how wrong this was and how good it felt at the same time. The first time he had taken me in public, we were in the parking lot behind the diner. It had probably been our fourth or fifth date, but it was definitely the first time our relationship turned from ‘seeing each other’ to full on fuck bunnies. I remembered him dropping me off at home, my panties torn and in the bushes somewhere behind the restaurant, and the heel of one of my shoes broken. The hungry good night kiss had turned into some more sex in the backseat, and even though it felt incredible, I couldn’t help but watch the front door, praying my father wouldn’t come out to see what was going on in his driveway.
“Come on, baby, work with me,” Garth urged as he pushed his cock deeper inside me, grabbing me by the hair with one hand and my t-shirt with the other
. I pushed back against him, his cock stretching me out even more, and this time my moan did escape me before I could stop it.
That only turned him on even more.
Before I knew what was happening, he was thrusting in and out like a jackhammer, ramming me with everything he had. “Yes…don’t…stop!” I tried not to scream, and quickly covered my mouth. His thrusts only intensified. He reached around and grabbed my breasts, squeezing them hard, and it only made me push harder against him.
I turned around, grabbing his cock and pumping it while I stared in his eyes. The hunger in them was intoxicating, and I could tell that he wanted to do so much more to me if only I would give him the chance. And I wanted to. A voice in the back of my head was telling me to stop, to end this while I still had the power to, but the way he was holding me, the look in his eyes, made me quickly push that voice back to the deepest recesses of my mind.
He grabbed my ass, lifting me up against the wall. Quickly, he slipped his cock back inside me, and I quickly wrapped my legs around his waist. “You want this as much as I do, don’t you?”
I swirled my hips around his cock, squeezing him, silently letting my body tell him what I wanted him to do. He smiled at me, the smug grin I could never get used to, and I squeezed his cock again.
“Come on,” I begged. “Faster… harder… oh… god…”
He pulled back and then slammed inside me, hard enough to make me cry out loud. I wrapped my arms around his neck as I rode him, feeling his cock move faster against me, pummeling me.