Page 36 of Protecting Little Phoebe

“So I’ve been told,” she said solemnly.

“Do you drink coffee?” he asked as their server returned with his coffee and her apple juice.

“Nope. I’ve never drunk it. It always tasted funny to me, and my brothers claimed that I didn’t need any more energy.” She shifted around again on her seat.

“Are you all right, little girl?” he asked. “Do you need to go potty?”

She gasped, her cheeks growing red as she glanced around. “Daddy!”

“What? It’s a fact of life that all Littles need to go potty at some stage. And you look like you’re doing a potty dance.”

“I’m not! It’s just that these chairs are kind of uncomfortable.”

She glanced over longingly at a Little boy who was sitting in a high chair at the table with his Daddy. What that would be like?

“Then we might need to change your seat.” Barren held up his hand and then spoke quietly to the server who came over.

What was he asking him?

When the server returned with an adult-sized high chair, she knew that he’d caught her look of longing. She should have known. There wasn’t much he missed. Barren stood and thanked the server before pulling the top tray out and turning to her.

“Let’s get you into this high chair.”

“I’m not a baby,” she warned him. Did he want a baby? Oh no, maybe he did, and he was about to be really disappointed.

“That’s fine with me. But it’s not just babies who use high chairs. Toddlers do too.”

Well, she guessed that was true. Phoebe bit her lip and glanced around but no one was staring at them.

“If you don’t like something, little girl, then all you need to do is tell me.”

“What if I don’t like spankings?” she asked.

“Hmm, I have a good imagination. I can come up with different sorts of punishments.”

“What if I don’t like punishments?” she asked.

“Pretty sure you’re not supposed to like them,” he pointed out.

Darn it. That was far too logical.

“Okay, Daddy. I wanna try.”

“Such a brave girl,” he told her, helping her up into the chair and then putting the tray in place.

“Hmm, I think we’re going to need to get you a bib.”

A bib?

“Yes, we might need to do a bit of shopping.”

“At the shop here?” She wriggled in excitement.

“Have you been to the shop?”

“I haven’t had a chance yet, but I heard it has lots of fun stuff.”

“We’ll do that after breakfast. We also need to get your car.”

---