Daddy's Boy (24 page)

Freeing.

And even more than that, I found
myself wondering where Dodger was. If he was thinking about me.
Missing me. Wanting me as much as I was wanting him.

I knew I wasn’t ready for him. Not
yet. I was still too broken. Too damaged and fragile. There
remained a very large part of me that thought, if I wanted to be
with him, I would have to use sex in order to be equal, to be an
asset. I had yet to see my own worth. And until I could do that, we
could not be together. Brandi had told me that.

It sucked, but I
understood.

Until then, however, I would spend
time with my daughter. I would take the money I had and move to a
new city. Find a new way of life—whatever that would be—and then
once I was whole, I would find Dodger and tell him I was ready for
him.

I could only hope he would wait for
me.

“
Daddy? Are we done?”
Stella asked, looking up at me.

I looked down into her upturned face
and smiled. Kneeling down, I wrapped my arms around her, holding
her tightly in my arms before lifting her against me. I carried her
down the stairs and walked with her out the front door. It was time
to move on. To start the next chapter of our lives.

“
Yes, Stella, baby. We’re
all done here. Let’s go home.”

Chapter
Sixteen

Six Months
Later

“
Stella! Stop running up
the stairs,” I called out from my office, looking up from the
screen of my laptop as the sound of my daughter’s footsteps
hurrying up the staircase reached my ears. “You just left the
hospital three weeks ago. I am
not
taking you back. Do you understand me, young
lady?”

Loud stomping, coming back down the
stairs and toward me, made me smile. Stella was a very happy, and
usually, a very obedient child, but she hated the fact her illness
prevented her from letting all of her internal exuberant energy
out. I was still searching for ways that would allow her to express
herself externally, but so far, painting, dollhouses, and Legos had
all served to not only make her angrier, but had fanned the flames
of the patented Timson wrath in her frustration. Amanda said it was
a good thing Stella was showing her displeasure. She even said it
was good that Stella felt comfortable enough with me to tell me
when she hated something I’d gotten for her to do. It showed
growth, and she was comfortable, and she felt safe with
me.

That always made me smile.

So Stella’s stomping, as she
approached my office, did nothing but make me chuckle since I knew
she hated me reprimanding her for running in the house. I knew she
was bored. I knew she wanted to run and scream and be like all of
her friends, but she couldn’t. I also knew she was worried. I
hadn’t been myself the past few days. It wasn’t Stella’s fault. It
wasn’t even my fault. I’d been much better due to the therapy. More
in touch with my emotions. The darkness that had consumed me had
receded, now just a distant memory. A brief flicker when something
triggered a nightmare or a flashback. But I knew what my triggers
were, and I tried to avoid them.

No, the fault lay
with
him
: Dodger
Vanderbrook. I’d seen him the other day when I’d gone to pick up
Stella from school. He’d been coming out of the convenience store
across the street, and though he hadn’t seen me, my eyes had locked
on him. He’d been gorgeous, walking to his car in a light-blue polo
shirt, khaki pants, and a pair of loafers, his thick, glossy, black
hair blowing in the wind. Though he was wearing sunglasses, I could
remember his blue eyes, and I shivered as I imagined his gaze
roving over my body. I glanced down at his large, strong hands and
barely swallowed back a moan, and I longed to have them holding me
once again, gripping me as he plunged his long, hard cock deep
inside me.

It was only Stella’s confused voice,
as she called my name over and over again, that pulled me out of my
lust-filled stupor. I was sure there was drool on my chin. I looked
down at her and apologized, helping her into the car before
strapping her into the car seat in the back. When I looked back
across the street, however, Dodger was gone. It was as if he’d
never been there. He’d just vanished. Like a ghost.

I’d been completely out of sorts ever
since.

My psychologist told me my
subconscious was telling me I was ready to call him—my heart was
ready to accept and embrace him. I was finally secure enough in my
own skin to love him and knew I could be an asset to him. However,
while Brandi said that—and Amanda and Tim agreed with her, I still
wasn’t so sure. Hadn’t too much time passed? It seemed Dodger and I
had been dancing around this subject—the idea of us being
together—for too long for it to ever be a reality, and now it was
just too late. First as Pierce and Tiffany, when he was a gay
adult, working undercover for ICE, and I was an abused, confused,
transgender, minor whom he befriended mistakenly and helped out of
the goodness of his heart. And then as Dodger and Tyler, when he
was a billionaire, and I was a high-priced whore who only wanted
him for his money so I could pay off my pimp and take care of my
daughter. He only wanted to reconnect with, and maybe fall in love
with, the young
man
he’d known years before.

Present day Dodger and Tyler kept
missing each other. Now, I was a father who worked as a fundraising
consultant for nonprofit organizations and was also working on
going to college. I had enough money to last Stella and me for a
while if we didn’t try to live the high-rise lifestyle I’d been
living before. I’d purchased a house that was available for short
sale, around the block from Amanda and Tim so we were close to
family. It worked for us. And while things were working out well
for Stella and me, I missed Dodger something fierce. Seeing him—or
thinking I saw him—made it worse, so I either needed to close the
book on him and me, or I needed to find someone new. It was just as
simple as that.

“
Daaaaddddy,” Stella
whined, as she appeared in the doorway of the room I’d claimed as
my office, and then leaned against the doorway.

“
Steeeellllla,” I mocked
her.

She narrowed her eyes at me and folded
her arms. “Don’t make fun of me.”

I coughed to cover up my laugh and
waved my hand in the air. “I’m sorry, Stella-bear. What’s
up?”

She gestured over her shoulder at the
front door with her thumb. “There’s a man at the front door looking
for you.”

My heart thundered in my chest as it
always did whenever someone knocked at the door, looking for me.
Old fears arising. Was it a former client who had found me? Were
they trying to resurrect my former career? Not everyone was happy
with me when I’d told them I was quitting the world’s oldest
profession. Perhaps it was KuJoe. Had he somehow come back from the
dead? I had nightmares about that happening all the time. Not as
much now, as I did when it first happened, but every so often, I
heard his voice in my sleep or felt his breath on my
neck.

Getting up slowly from my chair, I
headed toward the front door, pushing Stella behind me. I’d gone
through too much, risked too much, for me to lose her now. I would
kill anyone who dared think they could take her from me. When I
reached the entranceway, my breath caught in my lungs.

“
Hello, Tyler.”

“
Dodger?” I gasped
out.

“
I was trying to give you
time to come to me,” he said with a sheepish grin, running the
fingers of one hand through his hair. “Especially after we saw each
other the other day across from Stella’s school. But when almost a
week went by, and you didn’t call, e-mail, text, or drop by, I knew
it was up to me to be the hunter and make you my prey.”

I blinked at him stupidly. “Wait. You
saw me?” I shook my head.

“
Of course, I saw you.”
Dodger smiled at me. “I’ve been watching over you for months.
Between me and Detective Coleman, you haven’t gone a day without
protection. KuJoe may be dead, but he had friends, and until we
know there will be no retaliation, we want to make sure you will be
safe.”

I tilted my head to the side. “But why
would you do that?”

Dodger sighed. “Don’t you get it yet,
Tyler? It’s because I care about you.”

I looked down when I felt a weight
settle against my left leg, and I noticed Stella leaning on me.
Glancing back up at Dodger, I gave him a small smile. “Would you
like to come in? I think it’s time you and Stella met each
other.”

“
I would love to,” he
replied instantly.

I nodded and stepped back, letting him
enter. I watched him, as he stepped through the door, my eyes
moving over his form as he followed Stella to the living room. I
closed my eyes and exhaled, saying my relaxation chant quickly
before I trailed after them. I found Dodger and Stella sitting in
the living room, staring at each other warily, neither of them
speaking. I cleared my throat.

“
Um… Dodger Vanderbrook,
this is my daughter Stella Timson. Stella? This is Mr. Dodger
Vanderbrook. He’s a very old friend of Daddy’s.”

Stella smiled shyly before rising from
her seat and walking over to Dodger and holding out her hand to
him. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Vanderbeak.”

Dodger chuckled softly. “It’s
Vanderbrook, and it’s very nice to meet you as well, Stella. I’ve
seen lots of pictures of you, Stella. Your daddy loves you very
much.”

Stella blushed and glanced up at me. I
placed my hand on the top of her head and nodded. She returned her
gaze to Dodger and pressed up tightly against me. “I know he does.
Daddy had a very dangerous job for a long time so he could help
take care of me, because I’m sick, but he stopped doing it after he
got out of the hospital.”

I put my hand over Stella’s mouth and
laughed. “Okay, baby girl. That’s enough. Dodger doesn’t need to
know all of our business, hmm?”

Dodger smiled fondly at Stella before
lifting his eyes to me. “It’s okay, Stella. I know all about your
daddy’s job, and I think he was very brave to do what he did to
help take care of you. You are a very lucky girl to have someone
love you so much.”

Stella nodded. “Do you have someone
who loves you like that?” she asked, tilting her head to the
side.

My mouth fell open in surprise, and I
looked down at Stella before swinging my gaze over to Dodger. I
couldn’t believe she had asked him such a thing. I started to
apologize to Dodger, part of me wanting to know if Dodger had moved
on since we’d last seen each other, but another part of me
desperately yearned to run from the answer.

Dodger raised his hand toward me and
shook his head. “Honestly, Stella? I don’t know if I do. I want to
have someone who loves me like that, but the last time I saw him,
he told me that he was too damaged and hurt, and he needed time to
heal. So I tried to give him time, but I need him too much, and I
love him too much to wait too long, so I decided to fight for
him.”

Stella shook her head even
as my heart pounded in my chest. Dodger was talking about me. How
was that possible? How could he
really
still want me after
everything? He knew my past, my history. He knew everything that
had happened to me. Everything I’d done. Everything I used to be,
and he still wanted to be with me? Still…
loved
me? What sort of parallel
universe was I living in?

“
Daddy said it’s bad to
fight,” Stella said, pointing at Dodger and looking up at me. I
nodded back at her before returning my gaze to Dodger.

“
That’s right, I did,
honey, but Dodger’s not talking about fighting someone—he’s talking
about fighting
for
someone.”

Stella stared at me in confusion, and
Dodger snorted in amusement. I sighed in exasperation. Ah, the
perils of parenthood.

Dodger raised his hand. I glanced at
him. “If I may?” he asked.

I waved my hand. “By all
means.”

Dodger sat forward. “Stella, what I
meant was I am going to do whatever I can to make this person see
we belong together. To make sure he knows how much I love him, and
there’s nothing he has done, is doing, or can do that will make me
stop loving and caring about him. And nothing he was before can
change that.”

“
Ohhh.” Stella’s mouth
dropped open. “That’s so romantic. Like
Beauty and the Beast,
right, Daddy?”
Her eyes were twinkling when she smiled up at me, tugging on the
bottom of my shirt. “You know how Belle fell in love with the
prince when he was still the beast and all angry and hairy and sad
and mean? And then she helped him to become a good guy again, and
then he got hurt fighting off the bad guy who was in love with her
and trying to kill the beast, and then they kissed, and the beast
turned back into the prince, and they lived happily ever
after?”

My eyes burned with unshed tears as my
daughter so innocently pinpointed exactly my love story with
Dodger, with KuJoe starring as the bad guy. When I shifted my gaze
to Dodger’s face, I saw tears rolling down his cheeks and realized
he was just as affected as I was. I pushed my glasses, which I had
started to wear around the house while I was working, up onto the
top of my head and squatted down in front of Stella. I pulled her
into my arms and squeezed her tightly.