Page 56 of The Bodyguard and the Bombshell

“A club that is not open,” her mother replied primly.

Her cell went off again. Another text. This one from Hunter McKay.

Hey, Dais, hope to see you at play night next weekend.

Maybe her da could fix all of this before next weekend. It would be fun to show off her gorgeous Dom. It would be awesome to try to find some normalcy.

“How about we have a nice tea?” Steph said. “Daisy, tell me all about what you’ve been doing lately. It’s been so long.”

Well, mostly the last few days she’d been doing her son. But she probably shouldn’t say that.

Nate snorted and kissed her cheek, like he knew what she’d been thinking. “Be a good girl, love,” he whispered as she moved off his lap.

She could be his good girl. And his bad girl. As long as she was his girl. “Well, I’ve been thinking about my future career. I’m still not sure I gave private investigation a real chance.”

Her mother groaned and so did Nate. But they were both smiling.

Daisy let herself smile, too. She could win her da back. She just knew she could.

Chapter Eleven

By the time Saturday night rolled around again, Daisy wasn’t so sure.

“You haven’t heard from Uncle Li at all?” Devi asked, sitting back and watching the kids as they ran around the big playroom like the whirling dervishes of complete chaos they were.

Daisy always felt way more comfortable around them. Six-year-olds were her peak people. She could spend all day with a bunch of kids and come out of it feeling energized. So it was good she was on kid-care duty this evening since she was worried about her father. He’d been gone for a solid week. “Nope. Brody’s kept in touch with Nate and Steph, and I’m pretty sure Da’s been calling Mom, but she’s trying to keep it from me. Probably so I don’t feel bad. Have you heard anything?”

If her da needed backup, he would call the Taggarts, especially Erin Taggart.

“Mom’s talked to him a couple of times, but I think she’s mostly helping with research,” Devi admitted. “She asked if he needed her but he says he and Brody have it handled. If it helps at all, I know he told her he’s been rethinking his position.”

“About me? Yeah, I got that.”

Devi’s red hair shook. “I think he meant about Nate.”

Brianna walked in from the quiet room where the babies were sleeping. “I finally got Lily down. I checked the sleeping bags for when we’re brave enough to try to get the big kids to sleep. I swear, give me infants any day of the week.”

“Nah, infants don’t do all the weird things kids do.” Daisy genuinely enjoyed working with kids. Babies were cute, but they had nothing on a truly weird six- to ten-year-old. Though she had to admit Michael and Vanessa Malone’s daughter, Lily, was adorable. “They mostly sleep and eat. I find it far more interesting to watch Rand and Slater try to build a fort out of random objects they find. The girls are too smart to go in because they understand physics and stuff. But I admire the boys for their optimism.”

Rand Hawthorne and Slater Murphy were constantly pushing the envelope when it came to their architectural endeavors.

All in all, tonight they had nine kids they were watching, though it was getting late and the babies and toddlers were all in bed. Wrangling the older kids was always a fun time.

She wondered what Nate was thinking about. She also wondered if he wanted kids. It was pretty early in the relationship to even consider a family with him, but this was a part of being all in.

Was her sex drive starting to annoy him? He looked tired this afternoon, and she’d caught him yawning. Was she asking too much of him?

Devi frowned. “Maybe I should go check on them.”

Daisy shrugged. “If it’s dangerous, Rani will come and get us. Or she’ll fix it herself and pretend like the boys are doing a good job.”

“See, I tried to explain to her that’s she’s propping up the patriarchy when she lets the boys think they’re smarter than they are but then she smiles and starts talking about math and my brain goes fuzzy. Then I wonder if I’m the one propping up the patriarchy,” Brianna admitted. “Weird kid.”

Rani was on the weird side but she was also pretty much a genius. Rani was part of the Murphy clan, which consisted of two chaotic boys and Rani, who was seven going on forty-year-old college professor.

Of course the actual college professor’s kid was currently sleeping beside his cousin. Tate Hawthorne was four, and he wasn’t hard to get down at all. He was a sweet kid who wanted a bedtime story. Luckily stories worked on Diana Hawthorne, too.

Diana’s brother, however, was one of what Daisy liked to call the wild boys, two of whom were approaching.

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