by March, Daisy
“Here,” he said after she spat into the sink. “You can wear these.”
She beamed at them. “So soft,” she said. “And with horses on them, my favorite!” She climbed into the shorts, yanking the top over her head.
Her nipples poked through the fabric and he had to fight to make eye contact with her, wanting to feel her body again. “Now you can go to bed,” he said.
“With you?”
“With both of us?”
For a moment she looked scared but when he held up Terry the stuffed tiger she grinned even more broadly. “Terry!” she said, grabbing the stuffie and hugging it tightly. “I’d forgotten about him.”
He led her through to the bedroom, getting her settled into bed before switching off the light, leaving only the weak glow of the lamp by the bedside to undress by.
He thought she was falling asleep but as he undressed, he glanced her way and saw her watching him in the half-dark. “You’re meant to be going to sleep,” he said, pulling off his shirt.
“Wanna see,” she replied with a grin. “If that’s okay?”
“Of course it is, sweetie.” He kicked off his pants and socks, walking naked over to the bed. “Reckon you can handle me like this.”
“I just did, didn’t I?” she said with a laugh.
He slipped in beside her, wrapping his body around hers, holding her tight, marveling at how perfectly she slotted into his arms. Her breathing changed within moments.
He remained awake for a while, hardly able to believe she was really there. He had a Little to look after. It was like a dream come true. Holly was his Little. He was her Daddy. Nothing else mattered.
The next morning he woke up first. For a moment he had forgotten who was in the bed beside him but as he looked across at the still form of her in the pajamas he’d given her, he sighed happily. It was real.
He crept out of bed, not wanting to wake her. Let her sleep for as long as she wanted. She deserved it.
He got dressed as quietly as he could, washing in the bathroom before buttoning his shirt and then heading downstairs. Once he’d eaten he headed outside, watching the sun as the first slivers of light appeared on the horizon.
All of a sudden bringing the ranch back to life didn’t feel like an insurmountable task. It felt possible. It felt more than that. It felt like it had to be done.
A ranch for a Little, he thought to himself with a smile. It would be a safe place for her, somewhere she could be herself. Hell, there were enough square miles for about ten families.
He amused himself for a moment imagining it as a ranch full of Littles and Daddies, all of them working together with the animals, the crops, the day to day life of a farm. It was a fun thought but not a realistic one. He had spent all his life assuming he was the only person who wanted to be a Daddy.
None of his army buddies had ever mentioned it so he’d kept his desires to himself. As for Littles, the few women he’d hinted at it with had only looked back at him with confusion at best and disgust at worst.
To think the Little he’d been waiting for had lived next door to him for all those years and he had no idea what she would become, or that he would become her Daddy once she was all grown up.
He fed the horses while thinking about her, his mind wandering to what she might be up to. Would she make her own breakfast? Or would she wait for him to check in on her first and give her permission?
He realized he needed to have a proper conversation with her about what she wanted out of this. If it was going to work properly, like he wanted it to, then he had to thrash out the boundaries. Not to mention the safe word.
A lot to talk about. What games she wanted to play, how far he could go with her punishments, all the things that needed to be negotiated before this became a proper thing.
He made a mental note to put his head back through the door once he was done with the morning chores. He might not have time for a full conversation until the evening but he could let her know that there were no pressures on her.
She could take it easy for as long as she wanted. She looked like she needed the rest. No wonder, after everything that had happened to her the previous day.
He got the horses out, checked in on the sheep, and then fed the chickens. Once that was done, he rode Rex out through the snow to the boundary fence to check there was no damage, Skip running along by their side, barking happily, glad to be out of his kennel and in the fresh air.
He rode back over to the house, calling her name as he walked inside. There was no answer. He walked upstairs, planning to introduce her to his border collie.
She wasn’t there either. She’d disappeared without a trace.
9
Holly
* * *
Holly woke up to an empty house. She stretched out in the bed, feeling the aftermath of the night before. She was sore but sore in a good way. Laying back with her eyes tightly closed, she thought about what had happened.
It wasn’t a dream. That was the important thing. How many times had she dreamed of seeing inside Jack’s room? So many times she couldn’t count.
She had no idea what the inside of his farmhouse was like and now she hadn’t just seen it, she’d been naked inside it. And he’d been inside her.
She thought of how he’d looked when he’d undressed the previous evening. He was ripped. His body a sculpture in muscle. And that cock of his.
She exhaled slowly. She’d had him inside her. They had made love together. She boy she’d had a crush on for what felt like her entire life had slept next to her.
She wasn’t too worried that he wasn’t there. She knew that farm life started early in the morning. Climbing out of bed she headed through to the bathroom, peed, brushed her teeth, and then found her dress.
She decided to tease him, justifying it by telling herself that the clean underwear was in her car. Going without panties felt deliciously naughty.
She wouldn’t bring her stuff inside yet. That was a bit presumptuous. Just the decorations had come in to brighten the house for Christmas.
He might have talked about her staying on the farm but they needed to talk about things properly. She didn’t want to put any pressure on him.
There was a chance that if she said what she wanted, he might feel a teeny bit of pressure. “Let’s get married and have lots of babies, Daddy.” Maybe give it a bit of time before saying that.
She had worried that her obsession with him might fade if it was ever fulfilled. It hadn’t. It had simply turned into a love that was nothing like she’d ever felt for anyone else.
It was pure and dirty at the same time, making her smile as she climbed into her Dorothy Gale dress, tying her hair into pigtails and skipping her way onto the landing and down to the kitchen.
She had a plan. Make herself some breakfast and then go find him, see if he was free to talk. She had so many questions for him. Could she be his Little all the time?
Was this just a game to play in the bedroom and the rest of the time she needed to be one more boring ordinary person? Could she stay forever? What kind of wedding dress should she wear?
Hmm, maybe she’d leave that last question for a while. They had slept together once and although she hoped with all her heart it was the start of a lifetime’s relationship, she should probably make sure before she started putting together a playlist for walking down the aisle.
Jack, she thought, smiling to herself as she sliced bread for toasting. Jack was her Daddy. He had treated her exactly the way she had always wanted to be treated.
No boy had ever been capable of being what he was. A Daddy. A man. A real man. He had spanked her and she had loved him for it.
She buttered the toast when it was done, pouring herself a glass of orange juice and looking out the window at the green pastures outside. Where might he be? The horses in the stables maybe? That seemed most likely. Maybe they could go riding together sometime.
A noise from her handbag made her jump. She looked over, realizing
it was her cellphone. Digging it out, she answered. “Hello? Jack?”
“Holly, it’s Mr. Fraser. We need you back, like right now.”
“Sorry? What?”
“We need you back. We’ve been swamped since you went and Veronica just burned her arm really badly on the coffee machine. How soon can you come in?”
“You do remember that you fired me, right?”
“Forget about that. I’ll double your pay if you can be here in an hour.”
“Mr. Fraser, it’s not as easy as that. I’m not sure I want to come back.”
“Great, great. See you as fast as you can. Thanks, Holly, you’ve saved my life.”
The line went dead. She bit into a piece of toast, thinking hard. Double pay to go back to her job. But Jack had offered to let her stay and work on the farm with him. Which should she pick?
She needed to talk to Jack. He would know what she should do. It felt pretty good having a Daddy she knew she could turn to for advice.
She finished breakfast and rummaged out her shoes and socks, making her way out the back door, heading across to the stables and hoping she wasn’t about to get rejected. Her worst fear was that he’d tell her, “That was fun doll but only a one night stand. You didn’t really think I was into you, did you?”
She wouldn’t be able to bear that. She almost turned back, afraid she might make her fear come true by thinking about it too much. She forced herself on, getting to the stables only to find them empty. The horses were all out in the paddock, all except the one she’d seen the day before.
Rex was gone. That meant Jack was riding somewhere. But where?
She had no idea how far his land went. She’d only seen a portion of it from her parents' property and that wasn’t much. She walked until her feet burned from the cold and she was still on half frozen pasture. Drifts of snow were piled up in places but a swath had been cut through. Had he done that?
Passing through a gate, she found herself at the edge of a crisp white field. Looking back, she couldn’t see the farm anymore. She made a mental note of where she was, heading down a gentle slope along the edge of the field toward the woods at the far side.
She could just make out a figure through the thin line of trees but it was too far away to see who it was. Maybe Jack riding a horse. Maybe not.
She pushed through the trees, noticing too late the steep scree in front of her, overhung with snow that collapsed as she walked over it.
She scrambled back but too slow. The snow fell and then she was falling too, sliding down a rocky slope down toward the river that ran through the ravine below.
The river approached far too fast.
She hit the bottom of the slope, the air shoved from her lungs. Momentum kept her rolling into the river. She scrabbled with her fingers to get hold of anything but she was moving too fast, the ground too icy to find any handhold.
At the edge of the riverbank was a jagged rock which she thudded into headfirst. The day turned to darkness and the last thing she heard was the splash of water as she rolled straight into the rapidly flowing river, passing out at once.
10
Jack
* * *
There was no note, nothing. Her shoes were gone, so was the dress he’d bought for her. Panties crumpled in a pile on the floor.
Her toothbrush had been used and she’d had toast with butter for breakfast, the knife and plate sitting by the sink. Where was she?
He wondered if she was somewhere on the ranch, wandering about looking for him. That was a better thought than the idea that she’d left.
He checked the drive. Her car was still there. She wouldn’t have left on foot, would she? No footprints he could see.
Walking back inside, he heard a noise in the kitchen. He walked through and found the source of the noise. Her cellphone was ringing in her handbag. Picking it out, he held the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Holly, where are you? I told you to be here in an hour and I’m still waiting.”
“Who is this?” Jack asked.
“Who’s this? Where’s Holly?”
“I was going to ask you the same question.”
“She should be on her way into work by now.”
“Work? I thought she was fired.”
“Fired? No, she’s not fired. I just doubled her pay but only if she can be here in time for the lunchtime rush. She better be here or there’ll be trouble. She always was a lazy one.”
Jack gripped the phone tighter. “If you talk about my little girl like that again, I’ll be forced to come and see you in person.”
Your little girl? Is that her father?”
“No, this is her Daddy and I don’t know who you are and frankly I don’t care. If she gets there, you tell her to call me. Here’s the number.” He read it out and then checked the guy on the other end had it right. “You just get her to call me if she arrives there, understand?”
“Yeah, sure. Listen, I didn’t mean to call her lazy.”
Jack hung up. So she wasn’t fired. Had she lied about anything else? Maybe she hadn’t even lost her apartment? Was it all just an elaborate ploy to get to spend the night with him?
He shook his head. No, he couldn’t believe that. Crossed wires had happened somewhere but he was sure talking to her would resolve things. If he could find her.
He looked down at Skip who was scratching at the back door, something he never did. “What is it, boy?” he asked.
Skip spun in a circle, barking loudly. Jack opened the back door and Skip darted out, stopping a few yards outside and barking again.
“Do you know where she is?” he asked, following Skip outside.
Jack climbed onto Rex’s back and began to follow his dog who kept running ahead and then back again as if urging him to hurry up. “Take me to her,” he said. “Good boy. Where is she?”
Skip made his way to the stables, heading inside but coming out a second later, nose to the ground. He crossed the paddock and then the pasture to the wheat fields.
At the edge of the first one, he paused as if losing the scent but then moved on, heading for the woods. Suddenly Jack had a cold feeling in his gut. The ravine. Even if you knew it was there, it was hard to spot.
That was why his father had planted the trees along the edge, an early warning that it was there, carved out by the river centuries, the lowest point on the ranch.
The river ran all the way into Cypress Creek and in town it was lazy and wide but here it was narrow and fast flowing, even during drought season.
Skip was at the edge of the ravine, barking loudly. “Down there?” Jack asked, tying up Rex before sliding his way down to the valley floor.
Skip made his own way down, getting ahead of Jack, stopping at the riverbank, barking at the top of his voice.
Jack ran over to him, looking down at the river and spotting something in the undergrowth. A shoe. Holly’s shoe. The cold feeling inside him turned to ice. She’d fallen in the river.
He ran along the bank, looking in to see if he could spot her. Nothing. Wait. What was that there?
On the far side was a figure on its back. He kicked off his boots, jumping straight in while Skip continued to bark on the shore.
It was hard to swim across, the current pushing him downstream past the stricken figure.
With all the effort he could muster, he pushed with his arms, making it to the far shore at last. He pulled himself out, ignoring the cold, running over to the figure. It was her, laid on her back, not moving.
“Holly,” he said, sinking to his knees beside her. She was breathing. That was something. He shook her shoulders. “Holly, can you hear me?”
She muttered something, too quiet for him to hear. He lowered his ear to her mouth. “What are you saying?” he asked. “Are you all right?”
“Help me, Daddy,” she whispered faintly.
He lifted her into his arms, hating how cold she felt. He wanted to wrap his clothes around her but they were as soaked as she was. A
cut on her forehead was bleeding but not too heavily. Skip continued to bark.
“Good boy,” he shouted across. “You found her.”
Skip spun in a circle as Jack made his way out of the ravine. A half a mile upstream were stepping stones and he tried to resist running for them, not wanting to slip in the mud and send Holly flying.
At last the stepping stones came into view and he was hopping over them to a waiting Skip. “Come on,” he said. “We need to get her warm.”
It took an eternity to scramble up the ravine with her but with Skip shoving his butt, he made it at last, climbing out on top and then draping her over Rex’s back. He climbed on behind her, riding hard for the farm. Skip fell behind but he knew the clever little dog would catch up in no time.
“Just hold on,” he said to Holly, his heart in his mouth. “Nearly there now. Just hold on, sweetie.”
Holly didn’t reply.
11
Holly
* * *
Hnurgghh.
That was the first sound she heard. Hurnhhhhhmmm. What was that?
She blinked, blinded by the bright light above her head. The noise changed in pitch. It was the humming of the light. That was it.
She shifted herself. She was in a single bed, wearing a plain white gown. Where was she? Who was she?
“You’re awake,” a voice said. “Take it easy.”
She blinked again, the room coming into focus. A hospital room. A nurse talking to her. Why was she in hospital? Was she hurt?
She winced as pain ran through her head. She touched her scalp. It was swollen and sore. She’d cut her head. How?
On a rock.
The thought came out of nowhere but as it did, something else came back. A man standing over her.
Daddy.
It all came back at once. Rolling down the edge of the ravine, hitting her head on the rock. Falling into the water. Then nothing. Then on her back and he was there. How had he found her?