Page 109 of Daddy’s Fortitude

“I have to tell you when I’m leaving the house?” she asked.

“I believe I told you that earlier.” He’d also told her that she’d get her butt spanked if she didn’t follow the rules.

He wondered if she’d remember that part.

Maybe it was over the top, but he was getting tired of her disappearing on him. That stopped now.

He wanted to know where she was at all times. How was he meant to do his job otherwise?

It was simple, really.

And it had nothing to do with this burning indigestion in his chest.

“I don’t think you can make rules like that for me.”

“I can. I can enforce them as well.”

“Enforce?” she said in a high-pitched voice and then she slid again.

Okay, shit. He shouldn’t be talking about this when she was sitting on the roof of the house.

They could speak about that part when she was safely down on the ground.

“It’s part of my job to take care of you. That means I have to know where you are. If I don’t know where you are, then I can’t take care of you.”

“Yeah, that actually seems to make a lot of sense. That’s weird. Most of the time you don’t really make sense to me.”

“I don’t?” he asked, startled. If anyone didn’t make sense here, it was her. Half the time, the things she did just didn’t seem rational, or like something he would do.

But they were very different people.

“So how did you get up there without a ladder?” he asked.

“I stood on the railing, of course,” she said.

He glanced at the railing. It was old and rickety. It looked like it hadn’t been updated since the house was built fifty years ago.

Ammo let out a deep sigh. This wasn’t good. Now he was starting to feel sick as well as having that burning indigestion. “You stood on this railing?”

“Yeah, of course. I always stand on the railing.”

“This railing isn’t safe. Look at it.” He took hold and rattled it back and forth. “It moves.”

“Hmm, so it does. I’ve never really noticed it before.”

“You’ve never noticed it before? You didn’t notice it moving when you were standing on it to propel yourself up onto the roof?” he asked incredulously.

“No, I really didn’t. I guess it has to be replaced, huh?”

“Yeah, it has to be replaced. The whole porch has to be replaced.”

“That sounds expensive. That sounds like something I can’t afford. I might have to sell the house as is.”

He didn’t like her chances of getting much for this place if they didn’t make some improvements. He’d seen the mortgage payments. She was mortgaged to the max, probably all due to Charlie. He worried she wouldn’t even get enough to pay the mortgage, and he wasn’t sure how the bank had approved the second mortgage.

That might need some investigating.

“We’ll see,” he told her. “But you definitely cannot use this railing to climb up and down onto the roof anymore. No more going on the roof.”