Page 105 of Daddy’s Fortitude

Ammo glanced around her bedroom. The tray of food that he’d made her for dinner was sitting on the bedside table.

It looked like she hadn’t touched it at all.

What was she thinking? Did she not hear the doctor earlier today? She needed to start eating properly.

She couldn’t go on eating little bits here and there or she was going to get ill.

Seemed like he was going to have to stand over her and make sure she ate or feed her himself. Strangely, that idea didn’t fill him with disgust. In fact, he almost liked the idea.

Ammo noticed that the window was open and walked over to it. Had she snuck out through it? That seemed rather extreme.

This was her house. She shouldn’t be sneaking out and running away. What was he going to do with her? She was always running from her problems instead of fighting.

Well, maybe you can just fight them for her.

Yeah, he’d really like to do that. But that wasn’t going to help her in the long run.

He wanted to stand between her and every threat, to keep her safe, to keep her next to him.

And he didn’t want to think too closely about why he felt that way. It had to be due to a sense of responsibility. He couldn’t just leave her, knowing that she had no one. That she could get into trouble.

Because, let’s face it, she was always getting into trouble.

The only way he could feasibly look after her while continuing on with his life was to move her to the compound. It had nothing to do with feelings. It wasn’t like they would be in a relationship.

Because she wasn’t the sort of girl who could handle the pain he liked to dish out, the level of dominance and control that he would need over her.

And he wasn’t the kind of guy to give her any sort of softness or forever.

It would be about fulfilling his promise to Charlie.

And now that he’d settled that in his mind, he felt a lot better.

There was enough room. She could have her own space. And he could go on with his life while she remained under his protection.

He knew that Zander wouldn’t have a problem with that, and even if he did, Keira would change his mind. It had been clear to see that she and Honey liked Aimee.

Climbing out the window, he glanced around. Where would she have gone? Then he heard a noise from above, and he walked off the porch before turning to look up. The moon was bright tonight and provided plenty of light for him to see her. His heart nearly stopped as he saw her sitting there on the fricking roof.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he spat out, unable to hold his words back or change the tone.

She startled then let out a squeal when she nearly slid off the roof.

Fuck, fuck.

Something made him freeze for a moment. It wasn’t panic. Couldn’t be. He didn’t panic.

“Stay there. I’ll find a ladder and get you down,” he said. “Do you have a ladder?”

He hadn’t seen a ladder anywhere on the property. He’d need one to do the gutter cleaning at some stage.

“You nearly made me fall,” she said. “Naughty.”

He paused at her voice. She sounded like she had when they’d been in the doctor’s clinic earlier, when she called him a Silly Billy.

Was she in Little headspace? It seemed like she could be, which meant he might need to change the way he reacted to her.

Hmm. He wasn’t really certain that he was up to this, or that he knew what he was doing, but he had seen Zander in action. Mind you, holding Zander up as an example of how to behave was risky.