The Institute: Daddy Issues (9 page)

I went in and found a set of pa­ja­mas that were just my size hanging over the back of the over­sized rock­ing chair. The only prob­lem was that they were covered in…

“My Little Pony?” I tweezed the pjs between my thumb and fin­ger and held them up in dis­gust. “Hon­estly, where did they even
find
these in an adult size?”

“They prob­ably didn’t. You are no big­ger than a large child, you know,” Salt said, com­ing up be­hind me. His face was ser­i­ous but his pale blue eyes were dan­cing and I knew he was mak­ing fun of me.

“Ha-ha,” I said dryly. “Very, funny Salt but I’m not wear­ing these.” I dropped the pa­ja­mas covered in pas­tel ponies on the floor. “I’d rather sleep in the nude.”

“As we are sup­posed to be shar­ing a bed, I do not think that would be a good idea,” Salt growled softly. “There is only so much I can take, Andi.”

I bit my lip and looked up at him. There it was again—the veiled ad­mis­sion that he found me sexu­ally at­tract­ive. Hon­estly, see­ing him stand­ing there with his broad, bare, mus­cu­lar chest and that light in his ice blue eyes, I had to ad­mit I was feel­ing the heat too. There was no deny­ing that my part­ner was damn sexy—at­tract­ive in a way I’d never let my­self no­tice be­fore.

But I wasn’t ready to go there with Salt. Go­ing there would foul up our en­tire re­la­tion­ship, I told my­self. We were already get­ting in too deep—ad­mit­ting pains from our re­spect­ive pasts that we had long kept bur­ied. It was bet­ter to try and get things back on an even keel.

So I picked up the pa­ja­mas and waved them at him flir­ta­tiously.

“All right, Papa—
mishka
will wear her PJs,” I said in my best little girl voice. “No need to get up­set.”

Salt’s face, which had been filled with ten­sion, re­laxed and he barked a laugh.

“All right my little
mishka.
Run get dressed and Papa will read you a bed­time story and tuck you in.”

I went back to the bath­room to change, glad to have aver­ted the sexual ten­sion between us. When I came back, Salt was sit­ting on the left side of the bed closest to the door. He had turned off the over­head lights and the room was lit only by the soft, golden glow of the bed­side lamp.

He pat­ted the right side of the bed be­side him.

“Come,
mishka,”
he said softly. “Let Papa tuck you in.”

It felt a little weird that we were still do­ing the Papa/
mishka
thing but I reasoned that any­thing that helped de­fuse the ten­sion was worth a little weird­ness.

“Okay, Papa,” I chirped and went to sit be­side him.

Salt ac­tu­ally got up and pulled back the cov­ers for me. Then he tucked me in and settled back be­side me. This time I saw that he had a large, brightly colored book in his big hands.

“What’s that? Light read­ing?” I asked.

“Fairy tales,” he said simply.
“Rus­sian
fairy tales, ac­tu­ally writ­ten
in
Rus­sian. Someone was very thought­ful.”

“It’s a per­sonal touch to make you feel happy here. The hap­pier you are, the longer you’ll stay and the more money you’ll spend,” I pre­dicted. “Or else they want to be sure you really speak Rus­sian and you’re not just put­ting on an ac­cent.”

“How cyn­ical you are, my little
mishka.”
Salt made a
tsk­ing
sound and shook his head.

“Just real­istic. Read one to me.” I yawned and snuggled deeper into the cov­ers. Salt’s big body was ra­di­at­ing heat against my side and I was be­gin­ning to feel pleas­antly warm and drowsy.

His eye­brows raised in sur­prise.

“Truly? You want a bed­time story?”

“Why not…Papa?” I smiled at him. “I used to love bed­time stor­ies when I was a kid.” I frowned. “Of course, my dad was the only one who read them to me. That’s weird—I for­got about that un­til just now.”

“Will it bother you to hear one, then?” Salt asked quietly.

I thought about it and shook my head.

“No. But read it in Rus­sian first and then trans­late.”

He frowned. “You want to hear in Rus­sian?”

“Yes.” I smiled at him. “I like to hear you speak it. It’s very…strong. Very gut­tural and mas­cu­line. I don’t know…I like the sound of it.”

“Very well.” Salt looked pleased. “Then listen,
mishka.
I will read to you the story of the Frog Prin­cess.”

“Don’t you mean the Prin­cess and the Frog?” I asked drowsily.

He shook his head. “Is Rus­sian fairy tale, re­mem­ber? Now listen…”

Listen­ing to the sound of his deep bari­tone voice read­ing in his nat­ive lan­guage, I fell asleep …

*

And woke up scream­ing.

I tore my­self from the grip of the night­mare, the scream of ter­ror filling my throat.

The mon­ster! The one with long teeth and sharp claws—it’s com­ing for me! It’s go­ing to get me! No—just a night­mare. Only a bad dream…

I looked around wildly. It was the middle of the night—so black in the room I couldn’t see any­thing. Where was the night­light my daddy al­ways left on for me? Then I re­membered…

It burned out. The bulb burned out and mom never got a new one. She said I was a big girl now, that I didn’t need one.

But I
did
need a night­light. And I needed my big, strong daddy to com­fort me. To come in and chase away the mon­sters like he al­ways did when I had one of my bad dreams. But he was gone…gone for good…

My screams were re­placed by sobs. I reached for someone—reached for my daddy—but I was all alone in the big room. All alone and no one would ever come to save me again. Mom was prob­ably deep asleep like she al­ways was when she drank her spe­cial medi­cine. She wouldn’t come…no one would come. I was alone. All alone…

I drew my knees up to my chest and sobbed harder.
Daddy…Daddy, I miss you so much! Why did you leave me?

Sud­denly feet were pound­ing across the car­peted floor and the door to the bed­room swung open. I saw a big, fa­mil­iar shape sil­hou­et­ted in the door­way, lit from be­hind so his face was in shad­ows. But I knew who it was at once.

“Daddy!” I held out my arms to him and he came to me at once and gathered me close.

“Andi?” His deep voice was un­cer­tain but just hav­ing him near made me feel bet­ter.

“Daddy,” I sobbed, press­ing close to him. “I had a night­mare. I woke up and you weren’t there. I thought…thought you were gone for good.”

“Andi…” For a mo­ment he didn’t seem to know what to do. Then he gathered me into his arms and lif­ted me, cradling me like a baby against his broad, bare chest. He took me to the rock­ing chair and settled into it, still hold­ing me in his lap. Then he began to rock and stroke my hair sooth­ingly. “Is all right, little girl,” he mur­mured. “Is all right.”

“Why did you leave me?” I whispered against his chest. He smelled so good—so spicy and warm and the sound of his heart pound­ing just un­der my ear was won­der­ful. But I still had ques­tions. “What did I do wrong to make you go? Please, tell me,” I begged through my tears. “And I swear I’ll never do it again. I
swear.”

“Noth­ing. You did noth­ing. Oh, Andi…” He held me even closer and bent down to press his lips ten­derly to my wet cheeks, kiss­ing my tears away. “I’m so sorry,” he mur­mured. “So sorry you were hurt.”

“You prom­ised not to leave me and then you left any­way,” I said ac­cus­ingly. I gave a little sob. “Prom­ise not to leave me again.
Prom­ise.”

“I prom­ise,” he as­sured me, still hold­ing me close. “I will never aban­don you. This I swear, my little
mishka.
”

Mishka?
I frowned. What was that word? My daddy never called me that be­fore. He al­ways called me “sweet­heart” or “pun’kin.” In fact, the only man I knew who had called me that name was…

“Oh my God!” I sat up, the strange dream-state I had some­how fallen into com­pletely shattered.

“Andi…” Salt tried to draw me back down on his lap but I struggled out of his arms.

“Salt? What did you…why did you…?”

He switched on the bed­side lamp and in its dim, golden glow I could see that his face was troubled.

“I heard you cry out. You had a bad dream—a night­mare I think.”

“I used to have them a lot as a kid.” I ran a shak­ing hand through my tangled hair. “But I haven’t had one in
years
. And then I woke up and I thought…I thought you were…” I looked at him, un­able to fin­ish the sen­tence.

“Is all right,” he said quietly.

“It’s
not
all right,” I said an­grily, swip­ing at my wet eyes. “You should have tried harder to wake me up. You shouldn’t have played along like that. I was cry­ing like a little girl! You let me
em­bar­rass
my­self.”

He spread his hands. “Of what do you have to be em­bar­rassed? You were hurt—I held you. Why is this so bad?”

“Be­cause I’m
not
a little girl—not any­more,” I snapped.

“Part of you is, per­haps,” he said quietly. “Part is still hurt­ing. It is as Dr. Stevens said—this place is bring­ing out ‘is­sues.’”

“No, it’s not!” I denied vehe­mently. “It’s bring­ing back
memor­ies
but that is
not
the same thing. Not at all.”

“How is dif­fer­ent?” Salt asked, rais­ing an eye­brow.

“It’s…it’s…just not the same thing,” I said lamely. “Look, I just need to get back to sleep. We have a long day to­mor­row.”

“Do you want me to stay with you? Rock you some more to keep away night­mares?”

At first I thought he was teas­ing me or mak­ing fun of me. But then I looked at his face and saw that he was ab­so­lutely ser­i­ous—he was of­fer­ing to take me in his arms and rock me like a baby un­til I fell asleep again.

Just like Daddy used to do,
whispered a voice in my head. I pushed it away.

“No, thank you,” I said as coolly as I could. “I can get to sleep just fine on my own.”

“Very well.” Salt star­ted to get up. But as he was pre­par­ing to leave, I thought of ly­ing in the dark­ness again, all alone in the big room and the strange, chilly bed. The night pressed in around me, cold and lonely and
scary
and I couldn’t help shiv­er­ing.

Are you…” I cleared my throat and looked away. “Are you com­ing to bed any time soon?”

“Do you
want
me to come to bed,
mishka?”
he asked softly.

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him not to call me that but some­how I couldn’t say the words.

“Well, I mean you don’t
have
to but it
is
get­ting late,” I hedged. “And we need to be on our game to­mor­row. You should prob­ably get some rest.”

“Very well.” Salt nod­ded and went to close the bed­room door. “I will come to bed.”

He slid un­der the cov­ers and pat­ted the bed be­side him.

“Come. Little girls need their sleep.”

“I’m not a little girl,” I re­minded him. But I slid un­der the cov­ers any­way be­side him, though I took care to leave some space between us.

The bed had cooled again and the sheets were chilly against my skin. I shivered and tucked my knees up to my chest—my hands and feet were
freez­ing
.

“Come here.” I felt Salt’s long arm wrap around me and then he was pulling me close.

“Salt…” I pro­tested half­heartedly. But he was already tuck­ing me against his side, one arm wrapped pro­tect­ively around my shak­ing shoulders.

“Hush,” he mur­mured sternly. “Go to sleep.”

“But—”

“Go to sleep,” he re­peated.

There didn’t seem to be any­thing else to do. It seemed strange and wrong to be pressed from chest to thigh against my part­ner—strange and wrong but also com­fort­ing. The spicy scent of his af­ter­shave and the warmth of his bare chest against me felt won­der­ful. I could hear his heart­beat again, as I had while he held me in his lap. It was slow and steady in my ear as I pressed my cheek to his chest.
Lub-dub, lub-dub…

The soft rhythm lulled me into re­lax­ing against him. I liked the feel of the big, male body pressed against mine, liked the feel­ing of safety and se­cur­ity I felt when Salt held me close like this. I liked feel­ing pro­tec­ted…cher­ished…cared for.

These were feel­ings I hadn’t had for a very,
very
long time. Not since child­hood. I had for­got­ten how good it felt to be held in the arms of a man who would kill or die to pro­tect me, as Stevens had said. For­got­ten how much I liked feel­ing cared for and safe.

But I shouldn’t feel like this,
I ar­gued with my­self.
It’s wrong…dan­ger­ous. It feels great now but you’re not a kid any­more, Andi. This is go­ing to lead to other things if you’re not very,
very
care­ful.