“I do.”
He rolled her over and then settled her on his lap so she was facing him, her legs straddling his thighs. She buried her face into his chest, and he ran his hand up and down her back soothingly.
She wiped her tears on his shirt as she started to calm down. Duke rocked her slowly back and forth. “I love you, my Sunshine.”
“Love you too, Daddy.”
“Daddy,are you ready to go yet?” Sunny asked impatiently.
“I’m nearly ready,” Duke replied. “Why are you in such a rush? We have plenty of time to get to Ink’s house.”
“I want to get there before the Fox does,” she told him. “I want to make sure that he knows how much we want him to be there.”
Duke drew her in against his chest. “The Fox knows we want him there.”
“Are you sure? Because some people haven’t always been that nice to him.” She gave him a pointed look.
“I might have had a few . . . issues with him to begin with. He did buy you a pink motorbike and a pink Maserati. But I’ve come around, now.”
“All he’s ever done is help.”
“Not sure I’d say that exactly,” he said. “But I appreciate the things he has done to help.”
“Good. I want to make sure that Autumn has a good time too. Since she can’t always come to these social things.”
“That’s my baby. Always worried about everyone else.” Duke tilted her head back and kissed her gently. “Such a good girl, aren’t you?”
“Definitely always a good girl. That’s why I can’t understand why you’re always spanking me.” She pouted as she rubbed her bottom.
It was still stinging. She definitely wouldn’t be sitting comfortably this afternoon.
She still couldn’t believe that Hatter had tracked red footprints through the house.
“Hmm, well if you didn’t disobey me, then you wouldn’t get spanked, would you?”
“Well, that would make your life easier, huh?”
“It sure would. But it would probably be a lot more boring, too.” Duke winked at her. “Have you got your cupcakes, baby?”
“Yep, they’re all packed up and ready to roll.” She skipped over to the container and opened it to show him the undecorated cupcakes inside. “I’m going to set up a cupcake decorating station. I checked with Betsy, and she thought it was a good idea. So I’ve got all the icing already made up in separate containers, a bunch of piping bags and then these little decorations that I bought. Oh, and sprinkles and edible glitter. You have to have sprinkles and edible glitter, right?”
“Everything is better with sprinkles and glitter,” he agreed as he put the lid on. “I know that we had a lot of fun that time you were covered in sprinkles.”
“Duke!” Sunny went red as she playfully smacked him on the chest. “It was fun, though. Even if cleaning up all those sprinkles the next day wasn’t. I found those for weeks afterward.”
Sprinkles hid away in the most unusual places, the sneaky little things.
“Worth it,” he said, picking up the container of cupcakes to carry them out to his truck. He set them down carefully in thebackseat before opening the front passenger door and lifting Sunny up to set her down inside.
“Ouch, don’t put me down so hard,” she complained as her bottom let out a protest. “I really think you could have waited until later to spank me.”
“But this is going to mean that the memory will stay in your mind for a lot longer,” he said. “And maybe you’ll stay out of trouble for a while.”
“I’m never in trouble,” she told him.
He just snorted, which she thought was very rude.
Doing up her seatbelt, he checked it, then kissed her. “All safe and ready to go.”
