HER KIWI DADDY - Part of the International Daddies Anthology!
Lani
“You have got to be kidding me!” I fight back tears. No way. This cannot be happening to me. Not here, not now.
“I’m sorry—”
“There must be something you can do!” I interrupt the far-too-calm-looking woman behind the information desk. There’s a literal catastrophe going on here, and she’s calm as anything, like nothing matters. I want to reach across and slap her but I have enough self-control to stop myself. Just.
The unruffled customer service lady shakes her head. “No. The snow has brought the whole airport to a halt. All the planes are grounded.”
“But you don’t understand!” I yell, far louder than I intended, but too bad. “I have to get back home to New Zealand immediately! I have to!”
The knowledge of the expensive, stolen jewelry I have hidden away inside my suitcase, carefully tucked inside my knickers, chases me ever closer to panic. Not just mild anxiety, but a full-blown, can’t-breathe, hyperventilating-to-the-point-of-near-unconsciousness, panic attack. I have to
get on a plane. Any plane. I have to leave the country before he finds out they’re missing. Before he decides they’re stolen. Before he pieces it all together and figures out that it was me. That I stole them. Me, who’s never stolen so much as a candy bar in my entire life. Now I’m a jewel thief.
“I’m sorry, ma’am...” The now-starting-to-get-slightly-flustered woman behind the information desk tries to calm me down, but I’m not having it. Rage, panic, fear, something, wells up within me. Forces its way out. I lean over the counter and scream abuse at her, hurling all the insults I can think of. As far as my panicked mind can comprehend, she’s my ticket out of here, and she’s withholding it from me.
I’m oblivious to everything going on around me. All I know is there is stolen jewelry in my suitcase. Very expensive stolen jewelry. And I have to get it out of the country before the cops catch up with me. I have to get out of the country, anyway. With or without my suitcase that was checked-in and sent off down the conveyor hours ago. I mean, I’d quite like my suitcase to come home, too. But I don’t want to get arrested and thrown in jail, more than anything else. Being stuck in the airport, at the mercy of armed police officers holding very big guns, is the last place I want to be.
From out of nowhere, a man appears beside me. I don’t even give him a second glance. Unless he can turn off the snowstorm and get the planes flying again, he’s no good to me.
“Ah, there you are, little girl! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” he says in a familiar Kiwi accent, his voice deep and rumbly.
What the hell? I’m sure I don’t know this man. He must have me confused with someone else. But before I can inform him of his error, he wraps his arm around my waist and leads me firmly away.
“Just play along, little girl,” he hisses in my ear. “I’m trying to help you here.”
But no way am I going along with his shit, no way in hell.
“I don’t need your help!” I snarl at him, struggling against him, trying to get away, but he holds me fast. For the first time, I get a brief glance at him. Maori, by the looks, an indigenous New Zealander. All tattoos and muscles. Under other circumstances, he’d be very nice to look at. But these aren’t other circumstances. This is a dire emergency.
“Let me go!” I pull away from him as hard as I can, but he doesn’t even budge. Instead, he bends and swoops me off my feet, throwing me over his shoulder, landing a hefty smack to my butt.
“Put me down!” I yell, trying to hold on to my handbag, cling on to him so I don’t fall, and reach back to rub the sting out of my assaulted rear, all at once.
“How dare you!” My voice is shrill—a mix of angry and frightened—but he’s walking away so quickly I can’t even do anything but grip my bag for dear life so I don’t drop my essentials in the middle of this busy airport. I’ll never find them again if I do. Not when he’s dodging the mass of bodies at this speed. My passport would be gone, and I and my stolen jewelry would be stuck here, in England, forever.
Just a few seconds later he slides me down and sets me on my feet, holding my shoulders and spinning me to face the corner. He pushes me right in close, my nose almost touching where the two walls intersect, and he holds me still.
“Calm down,” he says, his deep voice quiet, commanding, yet strangely comforting. “Deep breaths. In and out.”
He doesn’t say anything else, but his big hands on my shoulders let me know in no uncertain terms that he’s not going to let me turn around until I’ve followed his instructions, and I’m calm. Part of me wants to fight him. To flail and hit and kick and scream until someone comes to my rescue. But the other part of me, possibly the more sensible part, knows it’s best to do as he said and calm down. I mean, nobody has come to my aid yet, and chances are, they’re not going to. There are so many people here, more people than I’ve seen in my entire life, all in one place. Probably more people than
the entire population of Auckland, my home city, are crammed into this massive airport, and I’m just one person in a huge, bustling crowd. Aside from the annoying customer service representative at the crowded information desk, probably nobody has even noticed me. And I don’t really want to attract the attention of the local police. If they’re not looking for me yet, they will be soon, and I’d like to stay out of their clutches for as long as possible.
I breathe slowly, deeply, willing my racing heart to slow down. I need to be rational. I need to know what kind of man I’m dealing with here. Gradually, I feel the panic start to subside. The knot of anxiety that has lodged itself deep in the pit of my stomach is still there, but that’s related more to my current status as a jewel thief than as a hostage.
I take one last deep breath. “I’m calm,” I announce. I try to turn around, but he gently holds me in place.
“Nuh-uh, little girl, you’re staying right there. Do you know how close you came to getting arrested back there?”
I swallow. I don’t know. I have no idea. But still, it’s embarrassing standing here, and I don’t want to do it.
“But people will see!” I object.
His deep rumbly chuckle washes over me. “You just lost the plot, very loudly I might add, at the information desk, and you got yourself surrounded by armed police officers ready to take you away and lock you up in jail. Half the people in that part of the airport were staring at you and you didn’t care. But now you are embarrassed that people might see you standing in a corner having a quiet conversation?” He scoffed. “There are millions of people in here, little one. I doubt a single one of them is paying any attention to you at all now that you’re quiet.”
When he put it like that, it didn’t seem so bad, but still. I am an independent, grown woman. I did not want to be standing here in an airport corner, staring at the crack in the paint down the joint where the two walls intersected. I need to make a plan. I had to escape from England before
my jewelry heist was discovered and I was caught.
I was leaving.
Once again, I try to turn around, but his huge hands on my shoulders continue to hold me fast.
“No, stay there. I need you to face the corner and think about what you’ve done,” he scolds softly.
“That makes me sound like I’m a naughty little child being punished,” I point out, indignant.
His chuckle makes me want to turn around and punch him. Hard.
“Well, your temper tantrum back there rivaled that of the naughtiest toddler I’ve ever seen.”
That does it! I see red. I fight him with everything in me but, infuriatingly, he holds me so easily it’s like I’m not even trying. Overcome with rage, I lift my fist and punch the wall, putting all my strength
behind it. Blinding pain beyond any I’ve ever felt before, shoots through my hand, up my arm. I even feel it in my shoulder. It ricochets all the way through me and all I can feel, and think about, is the pain. I can’t even see straight. All I can see is stars, the pain is so intense.
I just can’t.
I can’t do this anymore.
Leaning forward, I rest my forehead against the wall and cry. Sobs wrack my body. I’m shaking so violently I can barely stay on my feet. The pain in my hand is so intense I can’t even think. I want out of this nightmare. I want to go home. I want to get on with my life. I want to forget that this dream-turned-nightmare big “overseas experience” that I’d been planning since I was ten, ever existed.
Gentle hands turn me around, lifting me up slightly so my wobbly legs no longer have to take my weight. Strong arms hold me, supporting me, wrapping around me and pulling me in close to a rock-hard chest. I feel myself being lifted up and I wrap my legs around his hips. A big hand tangles
in my hair. A forearm is under my bum.
I should be fighting him. I should be kicking and screaming and trying to get away, but I don’t. I can’t. I just don’t have the energy. Not the mental energy, nor the physical. Recent experience has proven to me that resistance against this big man is futile anyway, but it’s more that he’s offering me comfort, and even though he’s a stranger, comfort is what I crave right now, more than anything. The simple kindness of a stranger in a busy airport, even though my pain is kind of his fault, is simultaneously breaking me and putting me back together.
A myriad of emotions well up inside me, overwhelming me. Pain. Confusion. Fear. Shame. Homesickness. Desperation. More pain.
I cling to him tighter, sobbing against his shirt, wetting it with my tears. I don’t know what to do. I feel so helpless. I’m so far out of my depth here I don’t even know how to start swimming for the surface. Right now, I don’t even know which way is up and which way is down. All I can do is
cry.
The strong arm under my bum is easily supporting my weight and the body I’m clinging to, nestling against, is rock-hard. Huge. Like a mountain. I can feel the solid ridges of muscle, even with the layers of fabric between us.
“I need you to stop crying and calm down, little girl, we need to tend to that hand,” he croons, his deep voice a gentle rumble.
I’m in too much pain to object to the words he’s using, but in one way, the words little girl are strangely soothing, like he wants to take care of me. Like he’s going to take care of me, and all I have to do is calm myself down, just like he said, and let him.
I do my best to get control of my breathing, willing my rapidly pounding pulse to slow down, and I cradle my sore hand against the crook of his neck where it’s protected and safe. His strong arms around me make me feel secure. This feeling of safety, of being protected, isn’t something I have felt for a long time. Not since I first landed here in London, almost six months ago.
Over his shoulder, I see two policemen walking side by side, armed with massive semi-automatic weapons and I press my face against him, hiding, just in case they’re looking for me. This is so bizarre. I’m using a complete stranger—whom I shouldn’t be trusting—to hide from policemen—whom I should be trusting. It makes no sense. But I can only go with my instincts, and they’ve never steered me wrong before. And all my instincts are telling me that this man, even though I have no idea who he is, is a good man. A safe man. And if the sheer size of him is anything to go by, a protective man.
With my face still hidden against the side of his neck, I take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of him. He’s obviously freshly showered. The masculine, musky fragrance of his soap or deodorant or aftershave or whatever it is lingers on him, but not so strong as to be overpowering. He smells manly. Like perfection personified.
Finally, I calm myself down enough to speak. “What’s your name?” I whisper in his ear. I didn’t mean to whisper. I meant to speak properly, but after crying so much, that pitiful, hoarse whisper is all I can
manage to get out.
“You can call me Daddy,” he rumbles, his voice even deeper than it was before. It’s so deep and sexy I nearly swoon. Is it possible to fall in love with a voice?
What the hell? My sensible inner voice screams at me, but what choice have I got, really? So far, this man has proven himself to be the only trustworthy, helpful person in the entire airport. He’s the only person to actually try to help me. To calm me down. Maybe Daddy is fitting after all. Despite myself, I smile.
“Yes, Daddy,” I whisper against his neck.
I relax my hold on him, preparing for him to put me down, but he doesn’t. Instead, he picks up both my bag and his own in one hand and keeps holding me with the other, and he carries us all, weaving through the crowd, to a nearby cafe where he picks a table against the wall, out of the way. He lowers me carefully onto a chair, mindful of my swollen, bleeding knuckles, and deposits my bag under my seat, placing both my foot and the chair leg inside the handle so it can’t get stolen.
“Wait here,” he instructs. “Do you drink coffee?”
I nod. “Vanilla latte. But here—” I reach beneath my seat with my good hand to my bag, struggling with the zipper so I can pull out my purse. “Damn,” I curse under my breath. It's really, really hard to undo a bag zipper using just one hand, especially when the bag is stuck underneath me, and I can’t pull it out properly without temporarily vacating my seat.
“Fuck it all,” I mutter, cursing again in frustration. I’d forgotten that it’s not just a zipper I’m contending with, but a little miniature padlock that my safety-conscious mother insisted I install on my massively oversized handbag doubling as my carry-on. To deter pickpockets, she’d informed me proudly as she’d handed me the tiny pink combination padlock to match my pink leather tote-style handbag. It seemed like overkill to me, but to keep her happy, I’d put it on.
My mum can’t stand thieves. I wonder what she’d think of me, then? I suck in a breath, trying to deny how disappointed mum would be, in me her only daughter, nicking someone else’s expensive jewelry. It was justified, I tell myself, but I know mum wouldn’t see if that way. I wonder what the man
beside me thinks of thieves?
I shift in my seat so I can reach down with my sore hand to get the padlock undone but even that tiny movement hurts, and I wince.
The man I’ve been instructed to call Daddy stops my struggling with a gentle hand on my shoulder. “My treat,” he rumbles.
“But...” I let my voice trail off, thinking of women’s lib and equality and all that.
“If you must, you can get the next one. But I need to get some ice for your hand, so you just sit there and relax, little girl, and let me take care of you.”
This time, I smile slightly at the term of endearment he’s chosen. It isn’t insulting or condescending like I’d thought it might have been at first, but instead it’s sweet and caring. So I do as he said and I relax, cradling my injured hand on my lap, and wait for him to do his thing. It’s been a long time since anyone has taken care of me. I've been on my own and out of my depth since I left New Zealand.
This sounds like an awesome collaboration Kelly, congratulations! Love the snippet from your book :)
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Roz