For Her Own Good by Parker Tamsen

Author:Parker, Tamsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Lowry

The shallow curve of her mouth and the way her eyes are large and luminous say no. And honestly, when I think back to Mr. Patrick…

“No. No, I doubt that you did. Was he always ‘Father’ to you?”

She nods and laughs a little. “Always. Can you picture it?”

I can. Of course, I didn’t meet Starla and her father until she was in high school, but I’ve seen pictures of her as a small child. Her eyes were even bigger then, as children’s are, but I doubt she’d ever acted all that much like a child. Father. And he was the person she was most comfortable with in the world. My God.

“Was it…was it very difficult for you, when he died?”

That is a ridiculous and insensitive question, and I’d like to suck it back between my teeth because of course it was difficult for her. It was difficult for her to make friends by the time I knew her—even if her classmates hadn’t known and gossiped about why she wasn’t in school—which they absolutely did—the fact is she was only ever there part-time. She didn’t have many friends, and while I think she enjoys spending time with some of her clients and Holden and has had some relationships, she still doesn’t seem to be a sociable, outgoing person. So, whereas it would be difficult for anyone when their father died, I doubt Starla was left with much of a support system. Probably why I couldn’t stop myself from getting on a plane and coming out here.

Thankfully, I have a stockpile of goodwill with Starla, and I seem to have only cashed some of it in by being thickskulled.

“Yes,” she says, not looking at me. She rolls her lips between her teeth and looks into the middle distance, and I hate myself more for bringing this up. I could have been pulling her over my lap, rucking her skirt up, tugging up the back of her panties until they separated her nice, plump, oh-so-spankable cheeks, and then laying my hand on her over and over until she was squirming across my thighs. I hope, anyway, though I don’t really have any experience with that. Doesn’t matter because, instead, we are talking about her dead father. Way to go, Lowry. You always did know how to muck things up.

But I’ll take it as a sign of how deeply she’s come to trust me again that she answers. The truth is I can’t imagine how devastated she must have been. My mum and dad and all three of my brothers are alive and well back in Scotland, and I never relied on them the way Starla had leaned on her father.

“Yes,” she repeats.

How bad was it? Was it so bad that she won’t say? Won’t risk me thinking less of her—I wouldn’t—or is she worried that I would end things here and now because I believe she’s literally trying to replace her father with me? I don’t.

“I’d had my depression managed really well for a long time.

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