Daddy's Little Liar - Maren Smith Page 0,23

couldn’t see. For the minute or two it took each time to get her bearings, that light was a beacon reminder—telling her where she was, who she was with—and that weird calm she’d felt after he’d spanked her returned. Then she would relax again.

Invariably, she took another aspirin from the bottle he’d left on the coffee table in case she woke up sore in the night. Her ankle never stopped throbbing. Once her interview was over, she would count out her pennies and stop by the nearest walk-in clinic. Or maybe not. Although no longer sure she hadn’t broken something, she was still positive she couldn’t pay for a doctor. Either way, it was a problem more easily ignored if only it would stop hurting.

Then came that magical moment when she startled awake to find it wasn’t the middle of the night anymore but the middle of the morning. Sometime after four a.m., exhaustion and all the aspirin must have kicked in. The next time she opened her eyes, the clock on the wall read 10:39, and it was broad daylight. She glimpsed blue sky and sunshine through the living room’s drawn blackout drapes. Someone was also knocking at the front door.

Georgia sat up blearily, wincing when her sore ankle dragged a scant inch across the couch cushions. Slinging an arm over the back of the couch to help keep her upright, she was still trying to figure out where the front door was when, somewhere down the short hall, daylight spilled in to light up the shadows, and a man’s voice called.

“Good morning, Miss Georgia. It’s Doc Johnson. I’ve been told you had a little fall. Is it all right to come in?”

Damn it, Daddy.

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Georgia groaned and gave in. It helped to be sitting a little tenderly. She wasn’t about to go stomping out to the garage—where she could just make out the muffled whirring of a mechanic’s drill—to give him a piece of her mind. She couldn’t stomp if she wanted to.

“I don’t have any money,” she called back, granting permission via lack of refusal. “I can’t pay you.”

“Oh,” the doctor said as he came down the hallway. A good-natured wave of his hand slapped that objection aside. “We don’t need to worry about that. Which leg is it?”

She pulled up the blankets to show him, and over the next few minutes, did her best not to shout as he gently examined the bruising and swelling. He had nice hands, gentle, slender, softer than Daddy’s. Definitely not the hands of a spanker, but that was probably a good thing, considering the look he leveled on her over the top of the glasses he wore.

“You, young lady, should have come to see me last night.”

“I couldn’t pay you last night any more than I can pay you today.”

His look didn’t soften. How he glared that sternly and still be half-smiling, she didn’t know. Regardless, it made her bottom crawl in all the spots that were still a little tender from Daddy’s ministrations the night before.

“Well, do you want the good or the bad news?” he finally asked, just before taking his hands from her ankle and covering it over with the blanket again.

“If it’s another blown head gasket, I definitely can’t pay you,” she tried to joke. Apparently, he wasn’t a joking kind of doctor. “Good news,” she tried again when he just waited. She’d had enough of the other kind to last a lifetime, anyway.

“I don’t think it’s broken. In fact, I’m certain enough, I won’t insist on taking you for x-rays.”

Georgia startled. That really was good news. She hadn’t been expecting that.

“Okay,” she said cautiously, “what’s the bad, then?”

“You won’t be wearing those for at least a few weeks.” He nodded to her high heels, sitting on the coffee table where Daddy had left them the night before, close to the aspirin—or from her discarded panties. Georgia’s face flamed. The only thing that kept her from snatching her panties off the table and tucking them under the blanket out of sight was the slim hope Doc Johnson hadn’t noticed them.

“You’ve strained the ligament,” he diagnosed. “That means weight off your foot as much as possible, and you’ll be wearing a boot. I have one at the clinic I can give you. I’ll also prescribe some pretty decent painkillers to get you through the week. Take only as needed, and not while you’re driving. I’m sure you know the spiel.”

Her shoulders sagged.