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“Well?”
“I had some pop tarts.”
“And . . .”
“An energy drink.”
“And . . .”
“And that was it.”
He shook his head at her. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Love me?”
“I’ll always love you, precious girl. But you need a keeper. You can’t live on sugar and caffeine. Did you get any sleep last night?”
“A bit. I, um, might have fallen asleep at my desk.”
He shook his head. Christ. “You shouldn’t have been driving today. Did you take a nap?”
“I was going to. But that’s when I realized I had to get that package to the post office.”
“So you barely had any sleep last night. And you’ve hardly eaten anything today. Then you were traumatized by that fucking asshole.”
She bit her lip, and he reached up and released it.
“You need close watching, baby.”
“Sorry, Daddy. I thought I would be all right on my own. I thought I could do it. But it was so scary.”
“It’s understandable that today was scary.”
“Well, yeah, there was that. It was terrifying. I thought . . . I thought he was going to kick Jess. He was aiming for her stomach. He could have hurt her baby.”
“What the fuck?” he whispered.
As she went through everything that had happened from the moment that asshole entered the store, his anger grew. He had to fight hard to keep from letting his fury fly free.
That fucking bastard had hurt his girl. He’d terrified her. He’d nearly hurt Jess.
“Did you get checked out?” he asked hoarsely.
“Yes, Max insisted. The paramedics checked us over. I’ve just got some bruising. But Jess’s blood pressure was pretty high, so they took her into the hospital.”
He lifted her off his lap. “Show me.”
“What?”
“Take off your pajamas. Show me.”
She was dressed in her favorite pajamas. The bottoms were red and white checked. While the top was white with a picture of a red stag’s head on the front.
“Daddy, I’m fine.”
He stood. Then he lifted her, placing her on her back on the bed before he reached for the bottom of her pajama pants and tugged them off.
April sighed, but didn’t try to stop him. He removed her top as well until she lay there in just a pair of red panties. Rolling her carefully onto her front, he studied the bruises on her back. They weren’t bad. But he detested seeing them against her pale skin. He ran his finger lightly over them.
