Maisie
“What do you want for breakfast?” I asked Razor. “I’ve got bacon, eggs, toast, and I can make pancakes.”
“Don’t go to any trouble, sweetheart. Whatever you’ve already made is good,” he said.
“Right. I’ll warm this up. Coffee’s in the pot.”
“Thanks.”
The beep of the alarm had us both on edge for a second until my daughter called out. “It’s me, Mummy.”
Poppy reset the alarm and then her beautiful face appeared before me, and I pulled her in for a hug. “Hi, lovey, what are you doing here?”
“You mentioned you were making a Costco run, so I thought I’d tag along. The kids are in school, I have a day off, so it’s a Poppy, Mummy day.”
Razor chuckled. “Translation, Sparky decided you needed to be guarded.”
Poppy snagged a piece of bacon off his plate and raised an eyebrow. “Well, that too.”
Poppy and Devon, aka Sparky, had been married for a while now and they’d given me treasures in the form of grandkids. Flash and Tate had also given me a grandbaby, so my heart was full. Now, I was just waiting for Jamie, my youngest, to find his forever love.
“Is Devon at the club?” I asked.
“Yes.” Poppy poured herself a cup of coffee and helped herself to breakfast. “He said one of the prospects is heading this way to join Razor.”
Razor waved his phone in the air. “Just got the text.”
“Devon didn’t want to come in for breakfast?” I asked.
“Something’s going on,” Poppy said, shaking her head. “What’s going on, Mummy?”
I sighed. “I don’t know, poppet.”
“Sid didn’t tell you anything?”
Hatch and I had met when Poppy was twelve. I was a widow at the time, and she’d fallen for him first, I think. When we’d gotten married, she called him her ‘stand-in-dad,’ or SID for short. Even after he adopted her officially. It was the cutest thing ever and we all loved it. Of course, she called him ‘Dad’ as well, but mostly it was Sid, which he loved most of all.
“He didn’t honey.”
“Not that you’d tell me if he did.”
I smiled gently. “Probably not.”
She wrapped her hands around her mug. “Spoken like a true old lady.”
“She’s ourfirstlady, Poppy,” Razor corrected.
Poppy grinned. “True.”
“I’m not sure I’m all that special, love.”
“You are, sweetheart,” Razor said. “You’ve earned our respect. We honor it, so you should too.”
I blushed. “Well, thank you.”
“Is Daddy going to put us on lockdown again, do you think?” Poppy asked.
“I think we should be ready for anything,” I said. “That’s part of the reason I’m doing the Costco run. I’m stocking up.”
