I didn’t know what to think or feel but I had a little girl that I just promised I’d keep an eye on while Razor gave more bad news to my man.
My man.
The man who didn’t tell me he had a daughter.
I closed my eyes for a moment, allowing that hurt to burn through my system before I felt a little tap on my hand.
I looked down at the stunning little face. She really was a beautiful child.
“Do you have any more cookies?” she asked, swishing her skirt from side to side, one of her sneakers up on a toe that she was wiggling back and forth the way kids did when they wanted something.
Did I have any cookies? I always had cookies. I was a baker. Desserts were life. In fact, I had two different types of cookies in tubs in my apartment and a full cake on display on the counter.
“I do, but you have to answer one question and then we’ll go to my place and get some. Okay?”
Her eyes lit up and sparkled, making her even cuter as she nodded avidly.
“What’s your name, little miss?” I asked and tapped her nose.
“My name is Hope.”
Her name was Hope.
The exact name that Porter mentioned when Kyson and I went on our very first date. It wasn’t another woman he was hiding or an ex-girlfriend. It was a child. He had a daughter. And if she was in kindergarten, she had to be five or six. Kyson and I had been on four dates and spent the past two weeks working side by side and he’d never bothered to mention he had a daughter.
“Hope is a beautiful name. Do you know what it means?” I took her hand and led her toward the curtain that separated our renovation from Gypsy Soul.
She nodded and took my hand.
“Daddy says Hope is a feeling and it means good things to come.”
I swallowed the dryness in my throat and held back the emotion swirling to the surface. “He’s exactly right.” I just hoped it meant good things to come for Kyson and me, because this was a huge fork in the road. And I had no idea which way things would go.
For Kyson, or for me.
Fourteen
“You live here?” Hope spun herself around and around on my kitchen bar stool.
I pulled a plate from the cupboard and set it down on the counter. “I do.”
“But there are no walls? It’s like one big room.” She stuck her tongue in the side of her cheek as she assessed my place, clearly finding it odd.
“Yep. It’s called a studio apartment. Lots of big cities have studio apartments.”
“Why?” Her little brows came together.
I smiled at Hope and removed the lid from both the cookie tubs. Unfortunately, I didn’t have sugar cookies with frosting, but I had snickerdoodles and peanut butter.
“Have you had peanut butter before?” I asked, making sure she wasn’t allergic to peanuts. She nodded so I placed a fat one on the plate and added a snickerdoodle. “Well, cities have a lot of people in them. Which means you need to have a lot of apartments. A studio allows a person to have everything in one smaller space.”
Her lips opened into an “oh” but her gaze was glued to the two cookies as I pushed the plate toward her. She licked her lips.
“Milk?” I asked.
“Yes, please!” she chirped happily then picked up the peanut butter and took a bite that was far from kid-sized.
I chuckled and went to the fridge. “Slow down, the cookie isn’t going anywhere.”
She chewed and nodded.
I poured her a small glass of milk and set it next to her plate.
When she was finished with her first bite, she took a big gulp of milk, leaving a white mustache along her upper lip.
“You make the bestest cookies ever.”
From a child, that was a high compliment. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the counter, and focused on her pretty face. “Thank you. You know your dad is helping me and my friend renovate our bakery. Soon, I’ll have all kinds of desserts available for you to choose from.”
Her eyes got big. “I love desserts. It’s the best part of the day. Nana allows me a treat every day after school though hers are from the store. Not as yummy as this one, but don’t tell her because she’d be sad.”
I winked. “Your secret is safe with me.”
She sniffed the snickerdoodle and inspected it top and bottom. “Smells like cinnamon.”
“That’s because it’s made with sugar and cinnamon. It’s called a snickerdoodle.”
“Snickerdoodle! That’s a silly name!”
“It is but it tastes divine. Try it,” I encouraged.
She took a cautious small bite then smiled. “The doodle is good!” She chomped down on more.
“I’m glad you like it.” And I was glad. This precious girl was Kyson’s daughter and simply by sitting with her I could see was happy, well taken care of and sweet. Made me very curious about her mother since Kyson not only hadn’t mentioned Hope, he hadn’t shared about his ex, either.
“What other things can you make?” Hope asked.
“Just about anything. I’m a chef and a baker. I went to school for both. Kinda like college for cooks.”
“Oh. My daddy went to college, too. He builds and fixes things. Sometimes it’s a house, a big building and one time it was my school!” she stated with pride and awe.
“Is that right. What was broken at your school?”
She wiped her mouth off on the back of her hand and I realized I hadn’t given her a napkin. I pulled off a square from the paper towel roll. “Sorry, sweetie. Here you go.” I handed it to her and she wiped her mouth again.
“One of the classes had a ceiling that crashed in from the big rain.” Her eyes were bugging out of her head as she held her arms out wide and arched her little body backward, showing me this event was clearly a big deal.
“You mean during a storm?” I asked, and she nodded. “Was anyone hurt?”
Hope shook her head and picked up the peanut butter cookie. She seemed to be eating them both. One bite then to the next and so on. “No, it happened at night. The principal was very sad, but the class just moved to the library and then Daddy and Uncle Linc fixed it real fast.”
“That’s good to hear. And what does your mother do?” I asked nonchalantly even though I felt a wave of heat flow through my veins, making my hands and the back of my neck felt a little clammy. Digging for information from a child was a crappy thing to do, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t understand why Kyson wouldn’t just tell me about Hope from the first date when we were getting to know one another. And if not at that point, then by the fourth date at the very least, or one of the many days we saw each other while he was renovating my business.