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“Still French, right?”
She gave me a gap-toothed grin. “I guess so.” She hooked her hand around her dad’s wrist. “Is my name French?”
He smiled warmly down at her and swiped his big hand over her shiny strawberry hair. She had uneven ponytails on either side of her head that she’d probably done on her own. “I do believe it’s a French name. But your mom just liked it, I think.”
“Oh.” Dani shrugged, her attention already jumping from names to my large box of decorations. “Holy crap.”
“Dani,” he warned.
“I mean, wow.”
He rolled his eyes. “My babysitter came down with something, either the flu or something far worse. She can’t watch Dani today.”
Dani pulled a skull out of the box. “Is this real?”
At a loss, and not really able to tell Gideon to fuck off in front of his kid, I cleared my throat. “Actually, it is.” I winced as my gaze shot to Gideon. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.”
“So cool!” Dani carefully set it back into the bubble wrap.
“You’ll find that my daughter is about as into Halloween as you are.”
“I doubt that.”
The crutch clattered to the floor as she dropped to her knees and dug in.
“Hey, be careful—”
Huge green eyes that matched her father’s bugged out as she lifted out a book. I resisted the urge to snatch it out of her hands. “Is this the Necronomicon?”
Huh. I tilted my head. “What would you know about it?”
“Only that it was the coolest thing in Army of Darkness. Well, next to the chainsaw. I mean, Ash’s chainsaw was fairly amazing if improbable because of the weight of it.” She sounded so matter of fact, I laughed despite myself.
“Well, don’t pull an Ash and screw with the book.” I gave her gimme fingers.
She laughed. “Can’t have that. Wouldn’t want to get the words wrong like he did.” She handed it over then picked up the skeleton head. “Then we’d be in real trouble.” She held the head up to her father and stabbed the air with the mandible. “So much trouble.”
Gideon hung his head. “Put that down, please.”
Dani turned it back to face her. “Give me some sugar, baby.”
He swiped his hand over his face. “I found her watching the movie at two in the morning.”
I grinned. “I’m sure she’s seen worse.”
“Oh, I have,” Dani said. “It wasn’t even scary.”
Gideon’s jaw muscle ticked. “When she was seven. I wouldn’t have let her watch it if I’d known.”
I pressed my lips together against a huge smile. “Probably about how old I was when I found the movie. Now about this babysitting deal?”
“I’m in a jam. Karen, my usual sitter, is a college kid. She’s great, but sick as a dog. With Dani’s ankle, I can’t really send her to the usual daycare.”
“Dad. Daycare? Really? I’m eight.”
“I know, kiddo. That’s just what they call it.”
I sighed. “Still have a lame nickname for her.”
