Series: Paige Michaels
Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 44898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Letting herself join in the excitement, she turned and skipped with the other Little girls over to a long table where Aria was already pouring dominos onto the surface.
When Nora glanced over to check on her Daddy again, she found him smiling broadly at her. She gave him a wave, beyond grateful that she’d been brave enough to come here tonight. She was certain this would be the start of some really good friendships.
Maybe one day she could have another Little girl over to Daddy’s house for a play date.
Maybe one day she would stop thinking of the house as her Daddy’s and admit she practically lived there now, too.
Chapter Fifteen
“How was your night, Angel?” That was Mateo’s opening question as soon as he had his Little girl buckled into the truck and was starting the engine. He didn’t get another word in edgewise again between the club and his house. And he wasn’t the least bit displeased with that fact.
All Mateo wanted was for his Little girl to be happy, and she’d obviously had the best time with her new friends. Even though she’d known several of them before tonight, she’d never spent time with them officially in Little space. Interacting with people in that headspace was not the same as seeing them at Little Cakes or—holy moly—in a police capacity.
After Mateo parked the truck and rounded to help his Little girl out, she continued talking. “It was super weird at first when I saw Avery there, but she made it less weird right away, and then I forgot she was even a police officer in real life. She was just Avery. And then,” Nora continued with the same level of animation he’d seen from her all evening, “another cop arrived. Did you know that?”
“I sure did. Nicoya. I met her Daddy, Axel.”
“Did you hear how they met?” Nora was buckling over in laughter as they reached the front porch. “Axel owns a nursery, the kind for plants, and he was planting a tree on Nicoya’s property! She was so steaming mad she stomped over to yell at him, but she didn’t take into consideration that she was headed to Blaze next, and was already dressed for a night out in her Little space.”
Mateo ushered Nora into the house. “That is pretty funny,” he admitted.
“I had the most fun ever. When can we go again, Daddy?”
“I don’t know, Angel. We’ll have to look at our schedules. Now that you’ve hired an assistant manager, I bet you’ll be able to take more evenings off.”
Mateo led her into the master bedroom and patted the edge of the bed. “Hop up, Little girl, let’s get those shoes off.”
She grabbed his shoulders as he bent down to remove her shoes and socks. Her voice changed from excited to serious when she spoke again. “Do you think it’s fair of me to leave someone else in charge of my store when there might be a bad guy on the loose who’s obviously got some sort of grudge against me? I mean what if the guy does something else to the store, and I’m not even there? What if someone gets hurt?”
Mateo stood and set his hands on his Little girl’s cheeks. “I think for now, since nothing else has occurred, we have no choice but to hope whoever called in that threat either realizes they had the wrong address or lost interest in whatever they were hoping to achieve. There hasn’t been a single indication anything is strange at your store since that day.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true,” Nora mused as Mateo released her to pull her shirt over her head.
Mateo froze as he dropped the shirt. “Little girl, what are you talking about? Please tell me nothing else has happened and you didn’t tell me.”
She shook her head. “No. Nothing like that. Nothing bad. It’s just that the store seems to get more and more organized every day, and I’m not the one doing it.”
Mateo furrowed his brow. “You have several people working for you. I assume they are competent employees who are self-starters. Have you asked them to see who is working so hard?”
“Yes. They all deny having anything to do with it. The weird thing is I feel like things are often rearranged at night when I’m not there. I know that’s silly and not possible. I’m sure I’m just so busy that I don’t notice every little detail during the day, and then I arrive in the morning and see things through a new fresh lens.”
Mateo hoped she was right, but something about the story made him nervous as he finished undressing his Little girl. He pointed toward the bathroom next. “Go potty and brush your teeth. I’ll find you some jammies.”
She shook her head as she slid off the edge of the bed. “I don’t want jammies tonight, Daddy,” she said in a sultry voice.