The Lyon's Cub Caitlin (Lyon The Next Generation 1)

“Don’t forget to spend some time with your dad today.” I whispered to her, as the others were busy arguing back and forth about the game. She gave me one of her smiles with the fork halfway to her lips, a twinkle in her eye and I swallowed.

“I didn’t forget, I know just the thing.”

“Oh Todd I’ve called the cleaning service and they won’t be able to get to you until M0nday so I guess you’ll have to spend the weekend with us.” Her mom dropped that little bombshell.

Caitlin pinched my thigh under the table and when I looked over at her that smile had added some heat. She was positively vibrating in her seat.

“Don’t smile at me like that baby.”

“Like what?” Now she was playing innocent. I cleared my throat and looked around the table to make sure no one had caught that little byplay and collided with Mr. Lyon’s stare.

“I don’t think he likes the bed in the guestroom. He might as well…”

“That’s enough Colton Lyon. Why don’t you take Hank out to the garage and show him that new bike you’re working on?”

“Come on Mancini, we’ve been dismissed.” He got up from the table and grabbed Cody from his highchair. “You coming?” You could’ve blown me over with a feather when he posed that question to me.

“Uh, sure, yeah.”

I kissed Caitie’s cheek and got up from the table. I didn’t miss his growl of complaint as he left the room. I was at the door before I heard Catalina break into song. “Todd and Caitie sitting in a tree, Kissing…” I hoofed it out of there before she got me into any more trouble.

Todd

Now as much as I wanted to spend time with my soon to be father in law, I knew it was more important that she did, so my job was to get Mancini and I out of there. I wasn’t sure what she had planned but figured she needed him to be alone when she did it.

So we weren’t in the garage five minutes before I made my move. “Mr. Mancini, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure!”

“I’ll take him Mr. Lyon get him out of your hair.” I grabbed the kid and headed for the door leading out onto the driveway.

“Here hold him.” I passed the kid to Mr. Mancini and went through the front door to find her. “Your dad’s alone in the garage.”

“Great, I’ll be right there.”

I went back outside to find hard ass Mancini making baby noises to Cody.

“What is it that you wanted kid?”

“Well, you said that I’d be in the thick of it when I came home what did you mean by that? Were you talking about the thing with Caitlin?”

“Not necessarily no. I was going to tell you later but since you asked. There’s an outfit that works out of these parts. They’re well off the beaten path so no one of note has picked up their scent as yet, but I have.”

“I don’t understand, what do you mean?”

“These guys do pretty much the same thing the others you went after were doing, but since they’re away from any major cities they tend to be a little bit more dangerous. Some of the girls never make it out.”

I wasn’t expecting anything this heavy when I asked, I was just looking for a way to distract him, but now that he’d said it, knowing that something like that was this close to her had all my attention.

CAITLIN

“Hi daddy!”

“Oh hi Bear what’s up?” He looked behind me as if expecting to see Todd. “Your shad…I mean, Todd’s not here he went somewhere with Mancini.” Oh did he now?

“I’m not looking for Todd daddy.” I came down the last step into the garage and walked over to crouch down beside him.

“Whatcha doing? Oh I remember this.” I picked up the tool and turned it around in my hand. “It’s a socket wrench.” I looked around at the rest of the tools he had assembled. “And this is an open end wrench.”

The look on his face was priceless. I didn’t know that such a small thing could bring my father such joy. His eyes were wet and I think he got choked up when I knelt down beside him and finished working on the bolt he’d been working on.

“Daddy, do you remember when mom used to get so mad when you’d let me get all dirty after she dressed me in one of my pretty dresses?”

“Yeah I remember.”

“I was about three; then I started dressing myself and refused to wear them anymore because I wanted to dress like my daddy. Jeans and tees, with boots.”

“Drove your mother nuts.” We reminisced as we worked together, well I mostly passed him the tools as he asked and was pleased that I remembered all of them, and so was he.