Daddy’s Wild Girl (Montana Daddies #16)

Chapter 40

40

B ebe nearly slammed her phone down on the table.

Except she didn’t want to crack the cover.

She’d been on Sanctuary Ranch for five days now, and she still hadn’t heard back from her parents.

What. The. Hell.

With a groan, she rested her head on the table. She was in a small meeting room at JSI headquarters. Corbin wouldn’t hear of leaving her alone still.

And she was getting so bored. Yesterday, she’d had an MRI and a session with her new physio.

Wow. What a gorgeous guy he was.

Corbin hadn’t been very pleased after meeting him for the first time. She’d had to reassure him after that she only wanted him.

With her mouth on his dick . . . yum.

But it felt like things were at a standstill with this stalker. Nothing was happening and she couldn’t continue to live like this.

A sudden scuffling noise at the door had her raising her head and looking over with a frown. Getting up, she opened the door and was nearly bowled over by an enthusiastic dog, who raced in with an excited bark.

Digger.

“Whoa, Digger. Down. Sit down,” she told him firmly.

To her surprise, he sat and looked up at her, panting heavily.

“Oh my God! How did you get Digger to sit!” Abby said as she ran up to them with her toddler on her hip. “He never sits for me. All he does is run away.” Asher squirmed, wanting down.

Abby set the boy down and he ran for Digger, throwing his arms around him. Digger licked his face.

“Ick. Who knows where his tongue has been? But I can’t seem to stop him doing that, either,” Abby complained.

Poor Abby looked disheveled and tired.

Her chestnut-colored hair was secured precariously in a messy bun and her beige sweatshirt had a few stains on it.

Bebe wanted to ask her if she was all right, but she didn’t feel she knew her well enough, having only met her once.

But she couldn’t just let her leave without trying, either.

“Um, Abby, do you want to sit? There’s, um, chocolate milk in the fridge.”

“Chocolate?” Asher asked, pulling away from Digger.

“Oops. Sorry.”

“It’s all right. Um, you know, I should probably . . .” Abby trailed off, puffing out a breath of air. “Actually, that sounds good. I could do with some adult company today.”

“Hard day?” Bebe commiserated, shutting the door to keep both Digger and Asher from escaping. She then handed out cartons of chocolate milk.

Asher climbed onto the chair next to Abby, with his mom’s help. Then, to her shock, Digger hopped up on a chair, looking around as though he expected to be handed a chocolate milk as well.

“Choccy milk. Digger.” Asher pointed to the dog.

“No, baby,” Abby said. “Dogs can’t have chocolate. It makes them sick. Also, dogs shouldn’t sit at the table. Digger. Down.”

Digger’s tongue slipped out as he started panting.

And didn’t move.

Oh, dear.

“Digger, down,” Bebe said firmly.

The dog hopped down immediately and she took his seat with a grimace at Abby. “Sorry.”

Abby groaned. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault I’m a terrible doggy mama.”

“You’re not a terrible doggy mama!” Bebe protested.

“He doesn’t listen to a word I say. He just runs off. And often, Asher is with him. Actually, to be fair, usually Asher leads the charge.”

“You’re doing an amazing job.”

“You don’t know that. I’m pretty sure I’m holding on by a thread.”

“I think most moms of toddlers would say the same,” Bebe told her earnestly.

“Yes, but would they be running around with weird stains on their clothes, unwashed hair, and desperately chugging down chocolate milk like it’s whiskey?”

“Yep!” Bebe told her.

Abby laughed, shaking her head. “Thanks for the support, but I still don’t feel like I’ve cracked this mom stuff.”

“Well, I can tell you’re a great mom. They’re both so happy. Look at them.”

Asher had climbed back down and was lying on the floor. Digger had his head on Asher’s belly, and both of them had their eyes closed.

“Dear Lord, they’re asleep. I try to put Asher down for a nap, but he won’t have a bar of it, yet he’ll fall asleep on the floor. Maybe that’s where I’m going wrong.”

“You’re not doing anything wrong, Abby. Trust me, I have first-hand knowledge of what a bad mom looks like, and you’re so far from it that it’s not even funny.”

Abby sniffled. “Aww, thanks, Bebe.” Reaching over, she grasped Bebe’s hand. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Thanks.”

They chatted for fifteen minutes until Abby picked Asher up. She waved off Bebe’s offers to help, pausing at the door to look back at her. “I’m glad Corbin found you, Bebe. But I’m even more glad you found him. Because I think you needed a home and you have one here.”

Bebe was still rocking from those words when Corbin walked in a few minutes later to find her sitting in a chair.

“You okay, baby?”

He crouched down beside her. He brushed his hands down her arms, then enveloped her hands in his.

“Yeah. I just saw Abby.” She told him what the other woman had said.

“I’m glad you’re here too,” he told her, leaning in to kiss her lightly. “Otherwise, are you doing all right here? Bit bored?

“Yeah, a bit.”

“Are you doing your exercises?”

She groaned. She hated her exercises.

His face grew stern. “Darling girl, you know you’ve got to do your exercises.” He leaned in. “Do I have to start spanking you to get you to remember?”

Maybe. A shiver ran through her. He’d given her a few slaps while they were having sex, and it only heightened her pleasure.

“You like that idea? I know you’ve enjoyed the smacks I’ve given you so far, but you might not like a punishment spanking. So I want those exercises done before we leave here in an hour, or someone is going over my lap when we get home.”

Home.

She liked the sound of that. But it didn’t quite feel like home yet. Maybe because she couldn’t settle in with everything hanging over her.

The stalker.

Her home in San Francisco.

Her parents and the TV ad for The Benner Life . She’d dipped into her public email and seen so many messages to her about it. The panic had made her pull back out immediately.

When she’d told Corbin, he’d forbidden her from checking that email again or any social media unless he was with her.

Pretty high-handed of him, but he hadn’t been thrilled with how upset she’d gotten, so she’d agreed.

“What’s wrong?” Corbin asked.

“Tried to call my dad again. Left another message.” She rubbed her forehead. “I can’t believe they’re ghosting me. I’m not calling again. Screw them. They’ll return and find I’m not there in a few days. If they even care to contact me.”

“I’m sorry they’re such shitheads, baby.”

She gave a humorless laugh. “Yeah, shitheads is right. I wonder if they’ll even care that I was attacked. That you were hurt.”

His knife wound was healed, although it still looked red. Doc had checked it a few times and was happy with it.

But she still felt awful when she saw it.

“Hey, what happened wasn’t your fault.”

“Maybe not.”

“Definitely not,” he said firmly, reaching out to grasp hold of her chin. “My job is to protect you. And I’m not talking about the job where I get paid, understand? I can take look after myself and you.”

Bebe nodded. “I know you can. You’d think my parents might want an update, though.”

“Hmm, well, Kent is pretty damn angry that they aren’t answering his calls. I have to go to a meeting, and then I thought I’d cook us spaghetti bolognaise for dinner.”

She sighed happily. “A man who knows the key to my heart.”

“What? Pasta?” he asked, grinning.

“You got it.”

Corbin lost his grin as he walked into the meeting room where Hayes and Kent were sitting already.

He sighed as he sat, setting a folder down.

“This doesn’t seem like it’s going to be good news,” Kent said.

“It is and it isn’t. I think I’ve worked out who the stalker is.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Hayes said.

“Yeah, well, but wait until you find out who it is first. I tracked the IP address to the San Francisco Public Library, as you know.” He’d managed that a while ago. “They don’t keep their camera footage for longer than seventy-two hours, so I couldn’t get hold of that to find who might have used their computer. I tried to look into records of who had signed into their library accounts on the day the threats were made. That took a long time and ended up fruitless because when people didn’t have their details, the librarians would use a generic sign-in.”

“Right. So what did you find?” Hayes asked impatiently.

“When I looked at all the messages, I noticed something. All of them had spelling mistakes.”

“How does that help?” Kent asked.

“Well, they’re not spelling mistakes exactly. They’re how words are spelled in the UK rather than how we spell them here. Like pretence and licence .” He showed them the print-outs. “There aren’t many so it wasn’t immediately obvious.”

“Jesus,” Hayes muttered. “English? You think it really is her mother?”

“Barb hasn’t lived in the UK for years,” Kent said. “You really think she’d make a mistake like this?”

“I don’t know. But I think it’s enough to question her.”

They all shared a look.

“If we could get hold of her,” Kent said with a scowl. “I’ve had enough of this. We need to do something.”

“What about the person that attacked you,” Hayes said to Corbin. “You’re thinking she hired him?”

“Maybe.” It made him sick to think that she’d hire someone to attack her own daughter. But perhaps he wasn’t supposed to harm Bebe. “Or perhaps it wasn’t related to the threats. Maybe just some crazy asshole. I could be wrong about this. But I thought I better bring it up.”

Kent nodded grimly. “The only issue is how do we know for sure? We need to make her confess.”

“You going to tell Bebe about this?” Hayes asked.

He winced. “I’d rather not until we have proof.”

“We might need to tell her in order to get that proof,” Kent said. “Because I am out of ideas about how to get them to take my calls. It seems like I need to send up a fucking flare.”

“I can think of one way to get their attention,” Hayes said grimly. “We tell the press about the attack on Bebe.”

“We can’t do that! Bebe will hate that.” It could send her into doing something crazy.”

“Hear me out.” Hayes held up a hand. “We don’t actually do it. We just send a heads up to their publicist or assistant or whoever.”

Kent looked thoughtful as he nodded. “That could work. If we have Bebe’s permission.”

Corbin sighed. “Fine. I’ll . . . talk to her tomorrow about it. She’s been sleeping better, and I want her to have another good night before I bring her world crashing down on her.”

And he had a few surprises for her this afternoon that he didn’t want to ruin with this fucking bullshit.