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

Miranda waves a languid hand. “Jet lag. I’m not here long enough to acclimate to this time zone. I should be asleep still, but this was the only appointment they had on short notice.” She gives an exaggerated yawn. “I’ll nap this afternoon.”

All the rest of the day, with any luck. Don’t pregnant women need a lot of sleep?

“Breakfast at the hotel all right?” I ask, just to keep from falling into an awkward silence.

“Nothing special.” She smiles and curls her fingers around my arm. Fuck, I thought I’d gotten the message across about not touching me. “Do you remember breakfast at The Rye? Those maple baked beans with Cumberland sausage. Divine.” She licks her lips. “Mmm, I must go when I get back. Honestly, Lo, don’t you miss eating real food? You were always such a foodie.”

I slide my arm out of her grasp. “I’m still a foodie and what Emily makes is real food. I wasn’t amused by the cheap shots you took at her last night, Mir.”

She scoffs softly. “Chia seeds? That’s hardly real food, darling. Please don’t tell me you’ve gone keto.”

“I’m not on any specific diet. And my cholesterol’s low enough that I can have bacon again, so don’t knock the chia seeds. Or anything else Emily makes. She’s a bloody good cook and I won’t have you belittling her efforts.”

Miranda rolls her eyes. She knows I hate that. Disrespectful gestures used to get her ten with Belphegor. I see seven months without any discipline has let her slide back into her old ways. It makes my palm itch for my paddle.

I push the itch away. I’m no longer in a position to correct Miranda, and my palm should be more than satisfied right now, between the long session last night with the floggers and this morning with the paddle. If Miranda really works me up today, I’ll make time for another session with Emily tonight.

My little girl, who gives me anything I need.

That thought allows me to smile at Miranda. “I don’t care if you and Emily like each other. Might be better if you don’t. But I won’t have you digging at her the way you did last night. If you want to come back to the house today, that’s okay, but cut the shit.”

She scoffs again. “What’s there to like? She acts like a child and has as little interesting to say.”

I look at the woman who thinks my little girl is childish and uninteresting, laugh to myself at how wrong she is, and say, “Then don’t talk to her. I’m good with that. We’re having some people from the club over tonight for a High Protocol dinner. You’re welcome to stay but it won’t be as my submissive, just so we’re clear.”

“Will Emily be serving?”

She’ll be serving me. Miranda can serve herself. “Mm-hmm.”

“That sounds like fun. I haven’t done anything in the lifestyle since I last saw you.”

“You must miss it,” I echo back to her.

“I miss you,” she says. “It was never about the lifestyle. It was always about you, Lo.”

I could tell by the way she was trolling kinky sex clubs when we met.

I shove that not-at-all-bigger-person-thought aside and am spared a response when the receptionist calls Miranda’s name.

The procedure itself is quick, professional and as far as I can tell, painless. The nurse does an ultrasound to check the baby’s position and I see what might be my daughter for the first time. A lot of fuzzy white and gray blobs on the screen, but it’s recognizably a baby, sucking her thumb. My chest tightens and I offer another quick prayer that those white and gray blobs do not contain my DNA.

Once she has the baby’s position, the nurse rubs a little numbing gel on the side of Miranda’s distended belly, plunges a small needle into the numbed spot, fills a syringe with yellowish fluid, and withdraws the needle. She blots the dot of blood away with a square of gauze, sticks a plaster over the spot, and then it’s over except for the wait.

* * *

Despite the wedge sandals she’s wearing, and her heavy belly, Miranda’s still a good walker. She doesn’t complain about the length of the walk, or the persistent drizzle. Probably reminds her of England.

My house is full of the sounds of feminine laughter when we enter. Three heads pop up over the back of the sofa. Two dark brown and one blonde and blue.

“Hello, girls,” I call to them from the hallway as I take off my shoes.

“No girls here, just us wimmin,” Daisy calls back.

“Hey, bro,” my sister, the second dark brown head, waves before going back to what looks like a glass of white wine. I see they’re having a boozy lunch.

Emily climbs over Daisy, who is sprawled on the sectional part of the couch, and slips over to me, soft-footed and adorable in a flowered playsuit and her pink-and-white striped thigh highs. I wrap an arm around her shoulders and kiss her forehead.

“All okay?” she asks, looking up at me.

“Yes, sweetheart. My sister and Daisy descend on you while I was out?”

She nods. “Lizbeth can only stay a few hours. Maisie’s having an allergic reaction to the bedding at camp, so she can’t stay overnight. Lizbeth has to leave before rush hour to pick her up. Daisy wants to go shopping after lunch, but I said we’d need to wait to see if that was okay with you.”

I kiss her again on the forehead. “Yes, baby girl. You girls enjoy your retail therapy.”

She looks up at me and for a second there’s something in her eyes. A shadow. An edge of something. I’m not sure what it is.

“Emmy?”

She smiles quickly. “I, um, heard back from Scotland. I’ve got an offer of forty-two thousand.”

I track her oblique-speak after a second. She was right saying her condo would sell fast, but forty-two thousand is a lot less than she thought it was worth.

“I don’t want you to sell cheap.