Page 7 of Daddy, Sir

He’s a Daddy Dom.

Totally distracted by that thought, she missed her turn. “Crap!”

Tatiana pulled into an abandoned gas station to turn around. A pop followed by a hiss told her she’d chosen a terrible place to stop. Hopefully, they could just patch it. Tatiana couldn’t risk damaging the tire by driving home on it. She debated her next move.

Her phone vibrated, startling her. Automatically, she fumbled for the device. “Hello?”

“Tatiana, are you home?” Captain Murphy’s voice boomed through the speaker.

“No. Um… Did you need something?” she asked, hesitating to tell him the mess she’d gotten herself into.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m on Patriot Avenue.”

“Call me when you get home. I don’t want you driving and talking,” the captain told her.

“Wait!” she blurted. “I have a flat tire. It’s going to take me a while to get home.”

“Where are you exactly?”

“I’m in the parking lot of a former gas station about a mile past the Sycamore turnoff,” she told him.

“I’ll come change your tire.”

“Um… I don’t have a spare. Don’t worry. I’ll figure something out,” she rushed to assure him.

“I’ll be there in two minutes.”

Tatiana looked at the blank phone screen. He’d disconnected. Should she call him back? Debating, she looked at her watch. He’d said two minutes. It would take her more than two minutes to figure out what to do.

Putting on her thinking cap, Tatiana went through all the scenarios. A tow truck? Too expensive. And where would she take it? Take off the tire and haul it to a shop? One, she didn’t know how to unfasten the lung nuts. They were lung nuts, weren’t they? Two, where would she go? Three, how would she get anywhere? Rideshare! That would work. Crap! She didn’t have money. She’d have to get the tire off—somehow, roll it to a shop—somewhere, and pray she had enough money to pay for it.

I am so screwed.

The sound of a car slowing on the shoulder made her look up. Instantly, she bolted out of her car, waving her arms frantically. “Don’t pull in here!”

Captain Murphy stopped on the shoulder of the road. He turned off the car and exited. “Tatiana, let’s get that tire off.”

“Do you know how to do it? I don’t. It’s something to do with the lung nuts. I thought about checking for directions on the phone, but I didn’t want to use your minutes.”

“Lung nuts? I think you better leave them to me. They can be tricky.”

She couldn’t quite tell what his expression meant. The captain was a tough man to read. Probably that military training in case they were captured and tortured for secrets. Deciding she needed to say something, Tatiana settled for a heartfelt, “Thank you for coming to help me. I’m sorry to bother you.”

“I’m glad I called. Next time, you call me. Pop the trunk.”

“Um. I can’t promise that. I don’t want to bother my boss.”

“Then you bother your Daddy.” Jack pulled a contraption out of the trunk after shaking his head at the empty spot the spare tire was supposed to go.

“My dad doesn’t really have a lot to do with me. He remarried after my folks got divorced.”

“Daddy. Capital D,” Jack told her as he squatted down to do something with whatever that was. “Jack.”

“You want me to call you by your first name?” she asked. “That’s probably not…”

The captain interrupted her. “You looked like you didn’t know what this was. It’s your jack.”

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