AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hey! I can bring Reagan with me to the bakery, put her to work.”
His eyes crinkled in that way I adored. “Yeah? I think she’d enjoy that.”
“Hell yeah. The more hands the better. I’ll just go see if she wants to and get my ass moving.”
“Honey.”
I’d booked it up three steps then looked back. “Yeah?”
“No matter what, I know we can figure it all out. It won’t be easy and we’ll have some growing pains. But no one will ever respect you more than I do. I just worry.”
“You don’t say.” I grinned and blew him a kiss before heading in to see if I could get some free teenage labor for the morning. Bacon and egg scone payment optional.
And hey, it’d be my first experience with a bring-your-daughter-to-work day. Pretty damn cool.
TWENTY
“That frigging perpyou staked out the other day was just picked up downstate with a van full of fenced artwork. Ripped off a museum in Albany. But he was caught with the goods so no matter what kind of slick lawyer he gets, he’s not getting out of this one.” Mav chewed on the end of the toothpick he’d yanked out of his turkey club as he planted his ass on the corner of my desk. “Good job staking him out, ace.”
Ace? Had I been given a new nickname for some unknown reason?
I supposed it was better than Jimmy’s nickname for me of prune face. Speaking of slick, that word fit our newest officer all too well. He was always ready with a grin and a joke and a flash of his many tattoos at whomever was around, particularly those of the female variety.
“I didn’t catch him. Brady and I were staking out an empty motel room.”
“Can’t win ‘em all, ace. So are you looking to marry my sister?”
I looked up from the report I was typing up with two fingers. It involved a fender bender that had occurred two hours ago. A senior citizen drove into the bank after accidentally hitting the gas instead of the brake. Worst of all, Arlo had wandered into the bank’s parking lot and nearly was involved in a car-duck collision.
Luckily, he escaped with no harm. He also got some oats and rice when a dedicated public servant—that would be me—took an early lunch to make sure he had something to eat after all his stress.
I also managed to snag a warm croissant from my sweet, sexy girlfriend who allowed me to try her prototype Nutella croissant, made by none other than my daughter. I predicted it would be a huge seller, and I wasn’t sure which of them had smiled wider.
Even though the day had not gone as I’d hoped so far, it was still not half bad.
“Hey, earth to Christian. You zoning out or what?”
“Late night with your sister.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I can’t say I like this twist on the ‘your mama’ joke.”
“Best of all, it’s all true.” I gave him a sunny smile and returned to my report.
“I think I liked you better pre-snark. The surliness was less personally offensive.”
“Sorry. Trying to lose the prune face.”
“Better not mention my sister again, ass face.”
“From ace to ass face. And the balance of the universe has been restored.” I tapped a pen against my cheek. “As for the marriage question, I floated it this morning.”
“You asked her to marry you this morning?”
“Well, no. I just said she was working too much so anytime she wanted to be a housewife I was ready.”
Mav stared at me for a long minute. “Okay, so how little time have you spent with Honey if you really thought that line would get you somewhere other than kicked to the curb?” He held up a hand. “I’d advise you not to mention anything about bedroom activities not needing conversation.”
“Oh, we always talk a lot in bed.” I shrugged. “You’re the one who keeps bringing it up, not me.”
