The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The First Collection by Frost, J (great novels .txt) 📕

I hope he stops growling soon, because it’s not a nice sound. Kind of like a rusty chainsaw. I didn’t even know cats made that sort of noise. My sister had a cat when we were kids. I don’t remember it sounding like a chainsaw.

I called an Uber while Sable was getting chipped. I’m not sure how the cat will deal with the heat, but I know I’m wilting, so Emily must be, too, although she doesn’t complain. She rarely does, my little girl. Once the car arrives, I put the carrier on the seat between us while I strap Emily into her seatbelt. As I’m strapping myself in, she puts the carrier in her lap and slides her fingertips through the vents.

Just as I’m about to remind her of Britney’s many warnings about Sable’s nippiness, the growling stops, and, after a minute, a purr almost as rusty as the growl emanates from the carrier.

I chuckle and pat the top of the carrier. “Love at first sight, eh, boy? We’ve got that in common.”

Emily smiles up at me. “Really?”

Pretty much. I justified my feelings a couple of different ways on the cruise, but the effect was the same. I was infatuated by the time we finished our first scene, and planning ways to turn our two weeks on the cruise into something much more permanent before she fell asleep in my arms the first night. “Uh-huh.”

“I fell for you after our second date,” she offers shyly.

Not possible. I abused her during our second date. I’ve apologized for it, several times, and tried to find ways to make it up to her, but I’m still surprised she didn’t walk out and climb on the first flight home. “Emmy—”

“I did,” she insists. “I know what you were feeling was really ugly, and you took it out on me, but I asked you to. That you shared those feelings with me made me feel close to you. You said you’d never shared them with anyone else, and I felt like you were giving me your trust. I knew after that that you’d always be honest with me, even when your truth was ugly and hurtful.”

I finish buckling my seatbelt and stretch my arm behind her shoulders. “You told me that you’d rather have ugly truth than a pretty lie. I can’t promise our lives will always be wine and roses, little girl, but I can promise I will always be honest with you.”

I can’t think of anyone I’ve been with who values honesty as much as Emily does, nor who would see the debacle of our second date as a bonding experience rather than a reason to kick me to the curb.

She leans over and plants a big kiss in the spot she likes under my jaw. “Ta, Sir.”

I squeeze her shoulders. “You’re welcome, little wonder.”

Chapter Five Emily

I have a kitty.

Well, Sable’s a full-grown cat. Three years old according to the lady at the shelter. But he’s small and skinny, like me, so he looks more like a kitty than a cat.

My kitty.

Once he emerges from his carrier, I show Sable his food and water bowls, and his bed and his potty. He drinks out of the fountain thing Daddy bought that keeps the water fresh, but ignores the handful of dry food I put in the bowl for him and disappears under the big leather couch in the living room as soon as he’s finished his drink. I check on him a couple of times while I make lunch, and he blinks his golden eye at me but doesn’t purr even when I hold my fingers out for him to sniff, so I leave him alone to get used to the strange place.

Lunch is chicken salad with black grapes, toasted pecans, and homemade aioli. I baked the chicken last night while I was making our steaks, so all I have to do now is chop and assemble, then let it chill while the flavors blend. I leave a few leftover bits of chicken in Sable’s bowl in the hopes of coaxing him out, but he doesn’t emerge. Once the salad is in the fridge, I take one of the toys that came with the cat supplies over and sit on the couch with it dangling over the edge. It’s a long, flexible, plastic rod with a fluff of feathers on the end, and I’m a little concerned about the uses Daddy might find for it if Sable doesn’t like it.

But I don’t need to be concerned, because as soon as I draw the tuft of feathers along the bottom edge of the couch, a white-tipped paw whips out to swipe at the feathers.

I giggle and play with my kitty.

Daddy comes in while I’m teasing Sable with the feather toy. He’s frowning when he sits down in his big armchair across from me, but after watching for a minute, his frown fades and by the time the timer dings to tell me the salad’s ready, he’s smiling.

“Hungry, Daddy?”

“I am. How’s Sable doing?”

“He’s just getting used to all the newness. He’s staying in his safe place for now.”

Daddy chuckles. “Not so different from you, then, little girl.”

I set the feather toy on the coffee table while I peer skeptically at Daddy. “I never hid under the couch.”

“You didn’t emerge from my bedroom for nearly a week after we got home. Manny said he was considering a GoFundMe to raise money for your rescue.”

I like Daddy’s business partner, Manny, but he’s not as funny as he thinks he is. “You needed attention. And it was lots of people.”

Daddy smiles his patented daddy smile at me as he takes my hand and tugs me off the couch. “You did get an en masse introduction to my friends. But you feel comfortable with them now, don’t you?”

Mostly. I’ll probably never like Rick very much, and that was before what I saw on his Twitter and Instagram last week, and some of the Doms from Daddy’s