Page 31 of Butch

“Daddy also thinks that, from now on, we’ll stay close to each other. I don’t know if I want to be far away from you. I know I won’t be able to take you with me if I have to go on a club run, but I will be leaving you in good hands, so neither one of us has to worry a ton. I’m never not going to worry about you, but maybe it’ll get easier to have somebody look after you if I have to go somewhere.”

Tears glistened in her eyes as she thought of Daddy leaving her. She didn’t want to be away from him. She didn’t want him to get into trouble. What if something happened to him and she didn’t find out for a while, or he was in a different state and she couldn’t come to him before he died?

“Little Fairy. We are not thinking about that. We’re going to think about what you want to do when you get used to hearing all these sounds again. Do you want to go visit the clubhouse? Do you want to go get ice cream? Do you want to go to a zoo?” Daddy asked. “I think when you’re comfortable, it will take three or four days to be able to do everything you want. I’m thinking we could go to the zoo and get all the food you want there, and then get ice cream the following day, and we can both get a stomachache. Well, that wouldn’t make me a good Daddy if I allowed that.”

Rae listened to Daddy as he talked to her about anything and everything. It soothed her, knowing that Daddy was there and paying attention to her.

“It’s okay, Little Fairy. Daddy is going to swaddle you and keep you close,” Daddy said as she whined when he sat up from the rocking chair.

He held her one-handed as he did something on the ground. Before she knew it, she was being placed on top of a blanket.

“If at any point you need to get out, you can tell me, but if you don’t want to speak, how about you bat your eyelashes at me a bajillion times? That way I know it’s serious and will get you out of this as soon as possible,” Daddy said as he started to wrap the blanket around her. “Can you nod or blink twice to let me know you understand?”

Rae blinked twice, and a smile blossomed across Daddy’s face. She wanted to keep that smile on his face forever. It lit him up in a way she hadn’t seen since their high-school days, when he didn’t know he was leaving and everything was perfectly fine and safe.

“Such a good Little Fairy. My good Little girl. You and I are going to rock in the rocking chair until one of us gets tired of it,” he said as he picked her up.

Daddy didn’t know that she was willing to do anything if it meant she got to be close to him forever. He was everything to her, and she was happy just being near him.

“Daddy is going to tell you a story about a man who had to leave his Little behind and how he went searching for her every single day after a year,” Daddy said. “Hmm, but I think maybe I should tell you a different story. A story about a girl taking her chance with a Daddy. One Daddy who didn’t deem himself worthy of anybody, especially not taking care of that Little girl.”

Rae listened to him, letting his soothing voice lull her into a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER 14

BUTCH

Butch looked over at Raelynn, who was sleeping peacefully in her little cot. He had moved it from the room closet to the living room, where he was working on several things. He needed to make different meals so that he could spend as much time with her as he needed. Meals that were going to be easy on her stomach, but also allow her to have a variety of things.

His goal was to make her gain some weight. Weight she desperately needed to regain. He didn’t like how small she had gotten since he last saw her eight years ago. He didn’t like a lot of things that had changed with her since he last saw her, but it was out of his control. But he had wished that he had searched harder for her, so she didn’t have to go through those things alone.

He shouldn’t be dwelling on the past, though. He couldn’t go back in time to change anything, and there was no point in playing it through his head and asking what-if questions.

Butch pulled out his phone and called Reaper.

“How’s Little Miss Rae doing?” Reaper asked.

“I see how it is. You only care about her now, but she’s my woman,” Butch said. “So, don’t you be getting any ideas about taking her away from me.”

“And as I’ve said before, Butch, I see her as a sister and nothing else. I know she is yours. I would never dream of taking her away from you,” Reaper replied, chuckling. “Now, how is she doing? Don’t make me come over there to see for myself if you don’t answer my questions. And trust me, I will come over even though you told us that no one was allowed to visit for over a week. If you don’t give us updates, then one of us will visit to make sure that she is alive.”

Butch rolled his eyes, and he looked over at Raelynn, who was suckling on a pacifier while she slept so soundly.

“She’s doing fine, and no one needs to come and visit. She’s already having a hard time being overwhelmed with all the sounds, and having another person here will only make things worse. So no one should be coming to visit, no matter what. Not until I give the okay,” Butch said, giving no room for arguments.

“None of us will come as long as you give us updates about her and how she’s doing. Even though none of us talked to her much while she was here before, she has already made her way into everybody’s hearts. She’s part of this family, and everybody’s already worried about her. We all want to know how she’s doing and to see her for themselves. But Deccan has kept everyone in line,” Reaper explained. “Now, why did you call? I know you didn’t call just for me to ask how Rae is.”

“Have you and Ace found anything else?” Butch asked. “Anything about the people on the first and last pages?”

Reaper sighed. “We’ve been digging into everything, looking into everyone on those pages, but we haven’t been able to find anything. Everyone is squeaky clean.”

Butch growled and pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy to figure everything out. He wanted to pay his father and stepmother a visit, but he didn’t want to leave Raelynn alone. He knew she would worry, and he didn’t want to leave her in a vulnerable state without him. He had just found her. There was no way she was going to be out of his sight.

“On those pages, where is there no one you suspect? Even just a little inkling of suspicion, and we’ll dig further into them, but everything so far, everyone is clean,” Reaper continued. “We’ve even looked into other people who have changed their name. But there have been no hits or any luck.”

“None of them could possibly do it. They are either too old, or they didn’t have a mean bone in their body,” Butch explained. “But if one of them gives you a bad vibe, then you look into them as much as you want.”

“Have you ever thought that maybe the person who had her could have just told her that his name was Ed?” Reaper asked.