Page 13 of Harmonizing with Little Heaven Leigh

“The seams didn’t hold. I thought for sure they were solid when I…” He trailed off, shaking his head as he approached the round table in the center of the room with tentative steps. Even master chocolatiers made mistakes, and it did happen sometimes that pieces didn’t hold together properly, so he’d assumed it was his mistake.

And then he got a better look at the disaster. He kept hoping he was imagining things, but the closer he got, the more obvious it became that his chocolate castle had been assaulted.

The formerly pristine white tablecloth was now smeared with blobs of chocolate, fingerprints, and in one case, even a handprint. It wasn’t from him, and he was sure it hadn’t been from Heaven either. All the messy work was being done on a side table, and then moved over, to keep everything neat.

“I don’t understand. How?” He carefully righted a tiny chocolate goat as he tried to assess the damage. When he’d left the room, everything had been tidy. The castle was only half-constructed, but stable. Now one wall had fallen, flattening several villagers and it had broken into large pieces.

He drew a deep breath in and let it out. Then did it again several more times before he began to clear away the wreckage so he could see exactly what he was dealing with.

When he did the math, it became clear that a fairly hefty amount of chocolate was missing, including some of the people figures he should have found under the wall. Judging by the mess, he was going to have to assume a horde of Littles were responsible.

He turned back to Heaven. “Did you see what happened?”

She shook her head quickly. “No, Daddy.”

“No one was in here? You didn’t see anyone nearby?”

“No one was inside, but the door was cracked a little.” She bit her bottom lip, and her glance slid to the side.

One eyebrow went up as he examined her expression. She was hiding something, and she wasn’t good at it. “Did you see anyone near the door?”

She hesitated for a long moment. “There were some Littles in the hall, but they moved away fast when they heard me coming.”

He couldn’t help but notice that she was phrasing things very carefully to imply she didn’t see who they were, without actually saying it. “Who was it, Heaven Leigh?”

His Little girl shifted, looking uncomfortable. “Daddy, I don’t want to be a snitch.”

“Heaven Leigh.”

She looked up, bottom lip pouted, eyes showing a glitter of tears. “It’s not nice to tattle, and honestly, I don’t even know if they did anything. This hall is always busy.”

He had an urge to snap at her, but he bit it back. He was stressed, and understandably upset, but she hadn’t done anything wrong. Wanting to protect her friends was admirable. It wasn’t going to work, but he’d let it slide and try to do this another way.

“Fine.” He rubbed at his temples. “Head over to Master Derek’s office please. See if he’s available to come see…” Angel waved a hand vaguely at the damage.

Heaven perked up when she realized he wasn’t going to force her. “Yes, Daddy.” A second later she was gone, hurrying off as if very happy to have an excuse to get away.

While she was gone, he was going to use some old-fashioned detective work, to see if he could track down the culprits. Besides the evidence on the tablecloth, a closer inspection turned up some crumbled bits on the carpet, and another smeary brown fingerprint on the inside doorknob.

With that much mess, it was unlikely that his Little saboteurs had managed to avoid getting any evidence on themselves. And with two classrooms right across the hall, it was fairly obvious where he should start looking. He knocked once on the nursery door and then let himself in.

A few Littles were sitting on the floor building with giant foam blocks. The others were sitting at plastic craft tables. Most of them looked up curiously, and then went back to what they were doing. There was no sign of worry or guilt that he could see.

Nanny J also looked up when he came in, and started to smile, but must have noticed something was wrong in his expression, because it faltered and vanished. “Uh-oh. Did something happen?”

Angel moved over to her, leaned in and gave her a quick, condensed version of the situation in a voice too low to be heard. Behind him he could just make out the low murmur of whispering from the class.

When he straightened, she looked appalled but a quick glance around the room had her shaking her head. “No one has left this room for at least half an hour, and no chocolate to be seen. I assume you’ll be checking the other rooms?”

“That’s the plan. I’m pretty sure whoever did it has to be in one of them.”

“I would expect so…” She frowned. “I would come with you to search, but as you can see, I’m a bit shorthanded at the moment. Why don’t I try to get Miss Samantha in to take over, and then I can help you track down the guilty parties.”

Angel hesitated and then shook his head. The last thing he wanted to do was make her day more difficult. He could only imagine how much work landed on Nanny J’s shoulders on a daily basis. “Master Derek is hopefully on his way over right now, so I think we’ll be okay.”

“Well, let—” She paused, her expression turned stern as her head snapped around. “Eloise! Stop that right now, or you’re going to be spending some time in the naughty corner on a sore bottom.”

Angel followed her line of sight to see a girl with dark pigtails sitting up immediately. He had no idea what she’d done to attract attention, but whatever it was had ceased in an instant. In fact, the entire class had suddenly developed perfect posture. Nanny J really had the stern teacher voice down to a science.

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