“Careful, bug, you don’t want to hurt yourself,” he warned.
“Will you make frosted cookies?” Hope asked me while ignoring her father.
“If you want. I can also make a cake, pie, tart, donut, whatever you like.”
“I love frosted cookies but Daddy says they are too sweet. I don’t understand how. Daddy’s favorite is lemon and chocolate desserts.”
“Then I’ll make you frosted cookies and your daddy a lemon tart. And you can taste test both and decide which one is better. How’s that sound?”
She lifted her hands into the air and cried, “Hooray!”
Kyson snuggled close to my neck and laid a kiss there. “Spoiling my daughter already, I see.”
I shrugged. “She’s cute and thinks I make awesome cookies.”
He groaned under his breath. “Can I call you later tonight? I need to check in on Frank and my mother. Plus, this one needs to get home to do homework, bath, dinner and bed.”
“Aw, man. But I like it in Izzy’s one-room house. Everything’s colorful and she has treats.”
I grinned. “I’ll send you home with some cookies for you and Daddy to have after dinner. How’s that sound, little miss?”
“Awesome.” She made the word sound twenty letters long for how far she dragged it out.
“I owe you, Isa. More than just an explanation,” he admitted, his tone low and solemn, proving he knew just how much he’d hurt me.
“Yes, you do.”
“Call you tonight after I get her settled in bed?” There was an eagerness to his tone.
“I’ll be here. And if you need someone to pick her up after school tomorrow and bring her back to the bakery so you can work, I’m happy to do it. The bakery needs you far more than it needs me. Besides, I could take her to Gypsy Soul to meet the girls.”
His brows pulled together. “You barely know her and you’re willing to help us out of a bind. Are you for real?” He said it with so much wonder it made me sad that he didn’t have a person in his life to share these burdens with aside from his family. Which is also when I realized I could so easily see myself in that position.
I turned into his arms and looped mine around his waist, looking up into his exhausted and haggard face. He needed food, a good night’s sleep and a break from today. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be getting that any time soon. He had responsibilities. Mostly in the form of a small child who needed him for everything, a burgeoning business, a fallen worker and friend, and a girlfriend he had to make amends with. At least that last one I could do something about.
I lifted up onto the balls of my feet and placed a light kiss to his lips. Behind me I heard a little girl giggle and smiled against his mouth.
He smiled fully for the first time since I’d seen him enter the bakery kitchen earlier.
“Last I checked, I was as real as it gets,” I teased.
“Ain’t that the truth.” He pressed his mouth to mine hard and fast before pulling away. “Come on, bug. We gotta get you home and on to homework.”
Hope jumped off the stool, grabbed her plate and milk cup and walked it around the bar and over to the sink where she set both items.
“Excellent manners. Who taught you that?” I asked, grabbing the cookie tubs along with a new empty one. I put more than half of each kind in the extra takeaway tub so they could have a mixture of both options.
She smiled. “Nana says a lady always has good manners.”
I closed the lid, tapped her nose and crouched down to her level. “Your nana is a pretty smart woman.”
She nodded avidly.
“Do you want to come here and help me bake those frosted cookies and the lemon tart tomorrow while your daddy and uncle Linc work on my bakery? We can go to the store after I pick you up and get all the ingredients we need. What do you say?”
She lifted her arms up, spun in a circle and cried, “Yay! So fun!”
I chuckled and opened my arms.
Hope went straight into them and I hugged her tight, glorying in receiving such a reaction from Kyson’s girl. She smelled of cinnamon from the cookies and apples, which I suspected was her shampoo.
I let her go and Kyson took her hand. I held out the Tupperware filled with cookies and he took it from me.
“Call you later, yeah?” He walked his daughter over to the door and opened it. She let him go and started down the stairs while singing “The Wheels on the Bus.” Already on to her next adventure.
“Yeah,” I said to Kyson with a smile. “Bye, little miss,” I called out and waved.
Hope got to the last step and jumped to the floor and let out a peal of laughter.
Kids were awesome. Nothing but joy and innocence. If I could bottle that up and sprinkle it on a cupcake I’d be as rich as Betty Crocker.
“Isa,” Kyson called out as he was halfway down the steps. “Thank you.”
“It’s all good,” I said in response.
He shook his head. “It’s not, but it will be. I’ll make sure of it. Later, baby.”
“Bye.” I waved again, then turned around, entered my apartment and pressed my back to the door.
Kyson had a child. A beautiful little girl named Hope. No, an amazing, sweet, bright child who’d obviously not been raised with a mother in the picture. Looked as though Hope and I had more in common than caring about her daddy. I looked forward to learning more.
Fifteen
At nine that evening I’d just gotten myself cuddled into my bed, back against the headboard, legs crisscrossed and Catori’s stack of letters piled in my lap when my cell phone rang.
I took a deep breath and glanced at the phone that I’d tossed on the bed before I got comfy. The screen said, “Kyson calling.”
Once I shifted the letters to the side for later, I picked up the phone and whispered, “Hey, did Hope go down for bed okay?”
He chuckled. “You’ve spent a half hour with my child and you’re already asking about her well-being? Jesus, Isa, stop being so damn perfect.”
His comment had me laughing. “I can’t help it. She’s really sweet, has great manners and I enjoyed her company today. And I’m looking forward to tomorrow. I’m sure we’ll have a blast.”
“See? Perfect.”
I laughed harder. “No one’s perfect.”
“I definitely learned that lesson the hard way,” he grumbled.
“Sounds like you have experience. Want to be more specific?” We really did need to get his secrets out into the open so we could move past them and carry on enjoying our time together.