Derek Hawkins not only owned Rawhide Ranch, but he also lived on the grounds with his wife, Sadie. She was a Little and he was her Daddy. Derek was a Dominant and a serious man when he needed to be, but his huge heart always led his decisions. He made it clear every day that he considered every charge under his care precious and took his job of keeping them safe seriously.
“She’s not there yet, at least I don’t believe she is.”
Closing my eyes, I pinched the bridge of my nose. This talking in circles garbage was not like Jacqui either. Whatever was going on with this former patient had her spooked in a big way.
“Jacqui, you’re breaking the rules. Deal with it. We all know there are times when it’s needed. Now, please for the love of all that is holy, will you tell me who this girl is? And why you think she’s in danger? Also if you know when she’ll be arriving, that’d be great. I’m not onsite at the moment, but the second we finish talking, I’ll be heading straight back to find Derek to form a plan for her protection.”
“Yeah, I know.” She blew out a breath. “Her name is Calla Lewis. I’m not sure if you remember her. She came in a few months before you moved up to Montana. A little thing, only five-foot tall, long light brown hair, hazel eyes. She’s very shy and likes to stay out of the way so you may not have seen her.”
Closing my eyes, I thought back to any women I’d seen when I’d gone into Pieces to Peace for my sessions. While her name rang a bell, I couldn’t picture anyone like Jacqui had described.
“Sorry, not that I recall. Name’s familiar though.”
“You may have heard about her on the news while you were in the hospital or rehab after your initial surgery. The news spread far and globally when she was found locked away in the attic of her father’s house in rural Louisiana. When the police went to arrest him on an assault charge, they’d discovered he’d hidden. They searched the place for him and finally found himand a daughter no one had known about. Poor girl has the most tragic story, but that’s not important right now. Calla is AuDHD, leaning more to the autistic side of the spectrum. When she first came in, she was completely non-verbal and scared of everything. By the time she left, she’d improved a lot. She was speaking a little bit with me and had started venturing out into the gardens. She’d finally felt safe enough to start exploring the world.”
Her voice cracked again, letting me know this girl had wrapped herself around Jacqui’s heart more than most patients. So why had she let her leave?
“Why the hell isn’t she still with you? Sounds like she was doing well at Pieces to Peace.”
“She was really starting to bloom, and I would have given anything to have been able to keep her here with me. Calla was barely eighteen years old when she was found. They took her to the local hospital for assessment, but since she had no physical injuries, she was quickly released into her mother, Ruth Bosman’s, care.
“Calla went from living in a small home in a quiet, secluded, bayou in Louisiana, where she rarely even left the attic let alone the house, to a busy and bright hospital. Then she was handed over to her mother and stepfather. While they were technically family, she’d never met them before. Can you imagine how scared she would have been? Especially when they fly her up to Denver to a massive mansion in the downtown area. Calla’s not ever going to be able to settle in a city, not with her auditory sensitivities.”
Of course she wouldn’t. That poor girl.
“From the moment she left the attic, she would have struggled to process everything. A loud city, on top of the sudden changes, would have had her living in a continual state of overwhelm, in a constant cycle of shutdowns and meltdowns.Please tell me her mother and stepfather were kind and gentle with her, that they at least tried to help her adjust to her new life?”
The bitter sounding scoff that came over the line had my heart clenching.
“Councilman Jack Bosman is a horrible man. He treats everyone like servants and demands to have full control over every aspect of his life, that includes anyone he considers his. Ruth won’t ever go against anything he says. Calla had only been in Denver for a few weeks before she came to Pieces to Peace. Thankfully, an old colleague of mine works at the clinic Jack and Ruth took her to and she recommended Pieces to Peace to them. Jack dropped her off telling me he couldn’t handle having aretardin his home for another moment.”
My free hand clenched into a tight fist as fury swept through me.
“What an asshole.”
I started walking again, doing laps around the rest area, trying to burn off some of my rage over the unnecessary suffering Calla had been forced to endure after surviving a traumatic childhood. I vaguely remembered hearing about her on the news, but I’d have to look her up when I got back to the Ranch to make sure I had all the facts I could find. Since Jacqui was sure she was heading my way, I needed to start planning accommodations that would help ease her into life at Rawhide. Once she was here, and Derek had permission forms signed, Jacqui would be able to send me her case notes. Those would be priceless in coming up with what Calla would require to thrive long term. I’d be doing everything within my power to make sure that happened, that she’d have a life she was happy with. Like so many other young women before her, Rawhide Ranch would become her sanctuary and home. A shield from the outside world that would always be too overwhelming for her to survivein for long. I mentally made a note to talk to Jared, the Ranch’s lawyer, about how to make sure her useless mother and piece of shit stepfather couldn’t ever get near her again.
“Yeah, he’s a real piece of work, that’s for sure. He clearly wanted nothing to do with Calla when he dropped her off, and neither he nor Ruth made any effort to contact her for three years. Then in May last year they suddenly want her to live with them in Denver again. Of course I fought them on it, but Ruth was her only remaining biological family. The law was on her side. Especially since Jack is politically connected.”
I shook my head at how stupid the courts could be in these situations. They probably didn’t even look into it much, they would have seen the biological connection and prioritized it. Especially if Jack had pulled in favors up the chain. I was equally sure Jack would have pushed Calla’s autism diagnosis, otherwise since Calla was eighteen at the time, she should have been able to decide where she wanted to live. Changing the legal and medical systems’ perceptions of neurodiverse patients was one of the main reasons I was so keen to come work at Rawhide’s research center.
Jacqui was partly responsible for my change in career direction. While working in the ER in L.A. I’d seen more than my fair share of mental health patients who never should have gotten to the point where they needed an Emergency Room. It was my time living at Pieces to Peace together with what I’d witnessed at a BSDM club I’d recently started attending prior to my capture that really showed me how misunderstood the neurodiverse were in the outside world. The club’s clientele included clearly neurodiverse men and women who were thriving as Littles under the care and protection of a Daddy or Mommy.
When I’d finally begun to accept that my right hand would most likely never heal enough for me to operate again, I’dwondered about going into research even before I’d heard about the job at Rawhide. It was more than I could have dreamed of, to end up working in a lab with someone like Derek, who was willing to put all the resources that were required into the center, backing it. It was the perfect set up: state of the art equipment, guaranteed funding, and a colleague, Cord Weston, who was as passionate as I was about helping neurodiverse people live better lives.
But Cord and I weren’t only focused on grand goals like changing how the legal system treated neurodiverse people. The bigger picture stuff ran in the background, while our main priority was working on things that would help those here at Rawhide. This included women like Cord’s Little, Bobbi, who had Oppositional Defiance Disorder, and women like Calla who hadn’t arrived yet but needed what we offered. It didn’t matter if she was a Little or not, she’d find a welcoming home at Rawhide.
“I agree that the courts definitely didn’t have Calla’s best interests at heart when they made that decision. But, Jacqui, if I’m doing the math right, that happened about eighteen months ago, meaning I doubt that is why you’re calling me. What else have you found out?”
As much as I wanted to know everything about this girl who I’d yet to meet but was already feeling overly protective of, a sense of urgency was building within me. An instinct I knew better than to ignore.
“When I checked my emails just now, I had one from Joe Marshall. I met him when he drove the Bosmans here to collect Calla. Quiet man, but he didn’t give off the evil vibe his boss does. In his email he states that ever since Jack heard about how Rawhide’s new research program would be looking into autism a few months ago, he’s been tormenting Calla with threats of sending her there. Joe detailed some of the nasty shit his bosshas been telling her, I won’t bother repeating it out loud, you can imagine that for yourself.”
Grabbing the back of my neck with my palm, I sighed, understanding why she’d rung me without stopping to think it through. I’d have done the same damn thing under the circumstances.
“And that’s why you called me in a panic like you did.”
“Yes, I didn’t think before calling you. Didn’t have the time. Not after I read that the reason he was reaching out was because Jack had just given him the order that he would be accompanying them to Rawhide Ranch in Montana today and he hoped I had some way to intervene to help Calla. I would have called earlier but I only check my emails twice a day; I didn’t see it until just now.”
