Page 1 of Daddy's Little Surprise

CHAPTER ONE

RAINEY

“Can I get an iced salted-vanilla cappuccino?”

“Of course. Two percent milk okay, or do you want to substitute that out?” Rainey asked.

“Two percent is fine.”

“Will that be all?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“That’ll be five dollars and twenty-five cents.”

The customer paid for their drink, and Rainey handed over their receipt before she got working on the drink.

Normally, Rainey ’didn’t take orders. She was usually making drinks or going through inventory to see if she needed to buy anything. She was the boss, but it wasn’t exactly how she imagined things would be.

Rainey knew owning a coffee shop wasn’t going to be easy. It was a lot of hard work. She was the one who had to hire people, make sure everything was running smoothly, pay her staff, and so much more. She hadn’t realized how much went into running a coffee shop.

But she wouldn’t have it any other way. Sure, she didn’t sleep well, but she also attributed that to being six months pregnant. She was more than halfway to her due date and was excited and also terrified. She going to be a single mother. She didn’t know if she had it in her, but she was going to try.

Rainey had to.

Finishing up the order, she turned around and handed the coffee to the customer. She took a step to the side and inhaled several deep breaths. There were times when it felt like she couldn’t breathe fully, and it made her panic. She tried her hardest since she knew she could breathe perfectly fine, but that was easier said than done. She was all alone on this journey.

Springfield, Missouri, was a new town to her. A fresh start. Something she needed desperately.

“Why did you open a coffee shop? You knew you wouldn’t be able to drink it.” Grace chuckled.

Rainey sighed. “It’s been a dream of mine. When the opportunity opened , I took it. Sure, it’s torture, but when was this possibility going to happen again? I had no clue, and I couldn’t take a chance on missing it.”

She hadn’t told anyone why she’d moved to this town. Not that many people asked. It was a small town, and everybody knew everyone. They probably figured she would leave after a coupleof months when the coffee shop failed.

The building was a coffee shop before, which closed a year after it opened. Rainey was determined to not have hers go the same way. She was probably one of the lucky people with enough money to rent the building while buying the equipment and everything else she needed.

Rainey wouldn’t say lucky, but other people did. She would much rather have her dad alive and with her instead of him being gone and having left her his money. Rainey hadn’t known what to do with the money when her dad died six months ago. It had just been sitting in her bank account.

She had used it all up opening this place and buying everything. But it had set her up for a little success since she was now making a profit. She only had three other employees, but they were a good group of hard-working people.

“Why did you move here all of a sudden? Why Springfield, Missouri?” Grace asked.

Nausea started to bubble in her stomach as she thought about the question. No one knew her ex-boyfriend had been both mentally and physically abusive before she left. When he found out she was pregnant, he threw money at her and told her to have an abortion. That’s when Rainey knew she needed to get out of there.

She had always wanted children and thought she had wanted them with Pete, but he started to show his true colors toward the end. It all changed when he joined a gang. When she heard him talk about it after he told her to get rid of the baby, she knew her only option was leaving. Especially when she told him she wouldn’t and he said he would give up all the rights if she had the baby.

Deep down, Rainey knew he wouldn’t give up the rights but kill her instead and keep the baby. She didn’t want Pete to bring the baby up. Not when he was abusive toward her.

“I was looking for buildings, and I saw this one had come up. I figured since I had some money, I could open and people would love it.” Rainey was being vague.

She hoped she never had to explain everything. She wanted to keep it a secret so nobody looked at her differently. When people heard someone had been physically or mentally abused, they tended to look at them weirdly and stay away. Thankfully, it had only been the last month she had lived there, so she hadn’t gotten used to it. But it still messed with her. Sometimes, she found herself flinching when a man, the same build as Pete, raised his hand. The first couple of times, she apologized but quickly realized it was a good way to get people to look at her strangely.

It was a small town, and things spread like wildfire.

“I know there’s a reason, and at some point, I’m going to get it out of you. I feel like you need to talk about it for some reason, but I don’t know why.”

“Probably because I gave you a job when you really needed it and now you feel like you owe me?” Rainey gave her a pointed look.

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