Page 72 of Daddy's Naughty List

“What if we just did it ourselves?” Taylor deliberately kept her voice low enough the grownups couldn’t hear. “Noelle and I know where Edie keeps all her Christmas decorations because we usually use them to decorate the shop. We could sneak out to the shed, grab a couple strands of lights and have them up before the grownups could stop us.”

Mischief glimmered in Carly’s eyes. “You know we’re going to getsospanked when they find out, right?”

“We’ll tell them it was all my idea. The way Ian has been acting, I can get away with murder.”

“You’d really do that for me?” Jesse asked, her tone so hopeful Taylor wouldn’t have been able to tell her no even if a spankingwason the line.

“Absolutely.”

“How the hell are we supposed to sneak out there, though?” Frowning, Noelle shook her head. “It’s impossible to sneak past all of our DaddiesandEdie.”

“We need a distraction,” Ginny said, tapping her finger on her chin. “Something to keep them all occupied for, what, an hour at least?”

Flopping back against the chair, Jesse groaned. “There’s no way any of us can keep them occupied that long.”

Silence fell as they all racked their brains for a way around the grownups. As she thought, Taylor’s mind drifted to the marathon of Christmas movies she and her Daddy had been indulging in over the past week. “What if we just… lie?”

Four heads swiveled her direction. “Lie?” Carly asked, eyes wide. “About what?”

“We tell them we want to put on a Christmas play for them. But we want to do it ourselves, like Big girls, and they can’t come outside while we’re practicing.”

Noelle’s ponytail whipped around her face as she shook her head. “No way they’re going to fall for that.”

“My Daddy might. If I ask and give him extra-big puppy-dog eyes, I bet he’ll give me whatever I want.” As long as the other grownups didn’t push too hard, anyway. “It’s worth a shot, right?”

“I think that might work,” Jesse said with a slow nod. “And a couple of us can stay right where the grownups can see us at all times and we can take turns sneaking around back to the shed one or two at a time.”

“Ladies, I think we have a plan.”

Chapter Eleven

Edie was giving him the stink-eye.

She wasn’t doing it constantly. But every so often, he would glance over to find her watching him through narrowed eyes. Every time he caught her, she simply raised a brow and shifted her attention to whatever conversation was going on around them.

But she was definitely giving him the stink-eye. He just had no cluewhy.

“Daddy!” Taylor’s excited shriek pulled his attention away from Edie’s odd behavior as his babygirl came running into the kitchen, her eyes bright with excitement.

“No running in the house,” Edie scolded, giving him another one of those looks.

“Whoops.” Skidding to a stop, Taylor blushed prettily and ducked her head. “Sorry, Edie.”

“Thank you for listening, Taylor.”

Was it his imagination or was there some kind of undercurrent in Edie’s voice? Judging by the way Grant frowned down at her, he wasn’t imagining it. He still just had no clue what he’d done to deserve it.

Forcing his attention to his babygirl, who was now hopping from foot to foot in front of him, Ian grinned. “Ants in your pants, Tayter Tot?”

“I’m too excited to stand still, Daddy!”

“Oh, yeah?” Instinct told him that whatever it was that had her so worked up, it was bound to end in some kind of mischief. But there was no harm in hearing her out, right? “What are you so excited about, baby?”

“We’re gonna put on a Christmas pageant!” Still bouncing, she clapped her hands together and squealed excitedly.

Well, that didn’t sound too bad. They couldn’t get into that much trouble planning a pageant, could they? “That sounds like fun. Do you need help?”

“Um, actually, that’s what I came to ask.” Now her smile turned sheepish, the way it did when she was gearing up to ask for something she knew she shouldn’t have. “We really, really want it to be a surprise for all of you so we were hoping we could go outside to practice without the grownups.”

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