Page 56 of Daddy's Little Farmer

Oh, Jesus. “I’ll be right there.”

“All right. Don’t make me wait.”

God, he wanted to strangle Tabitha right then.

He was so torn, but if he could spend an hour with Trowbridge, he’d be home to take care of her.

“Go, honey. I’ll be home soon.”

He tried pulling her toward the elevator, and she yanked away. She ran toward the stairs and didn’t stop when he yelled.

He called down and told Jorge she was coming. He just wanted this night over with.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Mara felt her limbs start to shake when they stepped out of the car in front of the building.

“Are you guys sure?” she asked for the hundredth time.

They giggled and started pulling her along.

The three other women talked as the elevator rose. She’d never been this nervous in all her life. The shaking got worse, and she had the urge to pee.

The door opened, and she immediately heard all the voices talking and several people in the doorway.

“Come on. I know where our daddies will be,” Larkin said.

They got inside the door. The girls walked off to the left as her eyes scanned the room.

Her gaze stopped on a couple. It didn’t sink in at first that it was Rafael with a beautiful woman wrapped around him. It was like she was frozen. She saw him headed her way.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

God, he didn’t want her anywhere around people. She could feel her world shatter, and her first instinct was to run home to the farm. When she was there, she was happy.

“I thought if you saw me like this, you wouldn’t be embarrassed by me. I didn’t know you had someone…” God, she didn’t want to say the words.

When he talked about it, he said he took the other woman to things like that, and Mara took it to mean she fit better than her.

She tried to yank her arm from his grip, only to have it tighten painfully. He released her arm but took her hand, pulling her into another room. She heard him talk to someone, but it was like her brain was shutting down, and she guessed it was to protect herself.

“I want to go home.” It was the only thing she could think of. If she made it back to the farm, she’d be okay.

“Jorge will take you.”

“No, I meant my real home. I knew I didn’t belong here. I just wish you would have said something to me about not being what you wanted because I can’t take any more hurt. I’d rather be stabbed a hundred times than feel this way. I just can’t be here. Let me go.”

He talked about fixing it, but there was nothing to fix. She couldn’t take his touching her because it was burning her. She tore away and found the stairwell. She lost a shoe halfway down and then tossed the other one.

She ignored his yelling for her and ran like her life depended on it. It did because the pain was so great that she just wanted to lie down and die. Mara got to the bottom and was headed toward the front doors when she saw Jorge waiting for her. She couldn’t let anyone see her. Not for a while.

Mara took off down another hallway and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw an exit door. She flew out and then skidded to a stop when she found herself in a dingy back alley. It was terrifying and smelled so bad.

She turned to go back into the building, and the door wouldn’t budge. “Oh, God.” She felt like a small animal trying to find a safe place so the fox wouldn’t eat her.

One alley became two and then another as she ran without a destination, and she’d never been in a city by herself, so she was terrified she’d be lost forever, or someone would hurt her. She started checking business doors to see if they were unlocked, and her crying became manic as she struggled to get somewhere that wasn’t as scary as the streets.

Finally, one opened, and she raced inside. She frantically looked around and found an elevator. The elevator door opened, and she stepped in and pushed the first button her finger was in contact with. The elevator rose and then stopped. When the door opened, she stepped out to see the dark hallways and stepped back in. She did this several times and became more frantic to find a hiding place.

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