Daddy in Disguise (Crescent Cove 7)

“It’s our first date. Can we wait to slay him until I at least get a steak out of the deal?”

Rylee yanked me off the bed and pushed me into the bathroom. “I make no promises.”

Eight

“You’re going on like a real date? With kissing and stuff?”

I pulled on my jacket and narrowed my eyes at Dani. “Not all dates have kissing, young lady.”

“Boy, he sounds like a proper fuddy-duddy, doesn’t he, Ginger Snap?” My dad didn’t even look up from his newspaper.

I wasn’t sure where he still found them, because the local paper had ceased daily operations. Probably some national paper. Leave it to my dad to want to stay informed.

My own life was insane enough.

“Be glad you’re even allowed out, Danielle.” I was more than a little salty that apparently I was the only one in the known universe who didn’t have a cool nickname for my daughter. “After that stunt you pulled—”

“But you’re going on a real date. And you kissed Macy on TV. Toby was almost sure you used tongue.” The expression on her face revealed the depth of her disgust. In case I didn’t fully grasp it, she crossed her eyes and mimed gagging. “That’s totally gross.”

“You like Macy,” I reminded her. Which really didn’t address the whole kissing thing.

I kind of hoped that her mother would have the birds and the bees chat with her, ideally when she was eighteen or so. Okay, no, I knew I couldn’t wait that long, and I also knew I couldn’t depend on her mother to handle such an important task. Especially since I had no way of guessing what she might say to her.

Then again, I had no clue what to say either. Thank God she was just eight. I still had a little while to think of the best way to describe flat-out lust, the kind that Macy seemed to inspire in me on a daily basis lately.

“She knows basically every horror movie. Is she your girlfriend now?” Before I could answer that, Dani stopped coloring in the book her grandfather had given her and frowned. “If you get married, will she adopt me?”

I didn’t know why I laughed. It was tinged with more than a small amount of hysteria. “Macy isn’t the marrying kind.”

“Oh.”

It was my turn to frown. She wasn’t, was she? If anyone had asked me that question a month ago, I would’ve said Macy was the only person in town less likely to get married than I was. I’d done it once, and that was plenty. More than. I’d let impulse and desire and the fact we were having a kid push me to the altar. When my dad had questioned my good sense, I’d insisted that I loved her. I had, but probably not enough. When you love someone, protecting that love should be worth any fight. It should be more important than any risk.

Jessica had cheated on me, and she’d asked for forgiveness. I’d shut her down and requested a divorce and that had been that. Throughout, I’d only felt sadness and a terrible sense of relief that I could never tell anyone. Our getting married might’ve been a mistake, but the daughter we’d made was a gift. She was still one, even as she gazed up at me with her eyes asking far too many questions.

Then her mouth joined in.

“Does Macy like you? I mean, besides kissing you.”

That was the question of the hour, wasn’t it? Although I’d just thought of another question, and that one had my response sticking in my throat.

Had Dani heard about what I’d said about her mother cheating on me? Or worse, had she seen the actual clip? I had to hope that maybe Toby had just described it to her and the idea of kissing was so abhorrent she wouldn’t go looking for the evidence herself.

Not that I wouldn’t deserve it if she did go looking. But she didn’t deserve to be confronted with my stupid off-the-cuff remark. True or not, she would never hear anything bad about her mother from me—even if it killed me. Some days, I was nearly certain it might.

“I think you should let your dad get ready to go,” my father said, peering out from behind his newspaper.

I looked down at myself. I wore my standard uniform of jeans, white T-shirt, and boots, with the addition of a jacket because it was a cool late August night. Autumn would be here soon, which was why I’d managed to pull off this particular date in the first place. “I thought I was ready to go.”

“You look like you’re headed to work.”

“This is what I wear, Dad.” It was almost impossible to keep the impatience out of my voice. “We’re headed to a hayride—”

“What, noooooo.” Dani threw down her crayon and crossed her arms. “You always go on the first hayride with me.”

It wasn’t a lie. Guilt attacked me with fists and claws as it so often did. “Not with that ankle. Next time, squirt,” I promised as she screwed up her face. “You wanted me to have a date, right?”

It was probably cheating to use that against her—and I still needed to give her a stern talking to about why what she had done was wrong, no matter how good her intentions had been—but I was a desperate man.