“Enough to open a bakery now that she’s gone,” he mused.
“Exactly. It was what she wanted me to do. She knew my dream was to own a cupcake shop, so she insisted I do so as soon as she was gone. I won’t let her down. I’m going to have the best cupcake shop in the state,” she insisted emphatically.
“I have no doubt.” He grinned as he tapped her nose again. “And the prettiest!”
“Yes!” she agreed, unconsciously wiggling slightly to nestle herself against his supporting arm.
Garrett commanded his body not to respond to the delightful woman on his lap. He didn’t want to scare her away. Fighting his usual ironclad control, his body reacted to the curvy enchantress.
Ellie tilted her head to the side to look at him closely. “I can’t get involved with a stranger. Tell me about yourself.”
“My name is Garrett Erickson. I’m thirty-eight years old. I used to be a professional football player but had to make a life change when I was injured. Now, I own commercial real estate and watch sports on TV.”
“Do you miss it?” she asked with small lines crinkling her forehead.
“I do and I don’t. With everything, there are positives and negatives. I have more free time now to visit Blaze and search for my Little.”
“Are you really a Daddy? I mean… Some Doms find Littles cute at first but don’t want to deal with our quirks.”
“You mean like skipping bedtime and making cupcakes at two in the morning?” he asked, the corners of his mouth curving up in delight.
Ellie shrugged and studied him for a few moments. “I’ve never had a Daddy. You know—a real one.”
“Have you had trouble with a pretender?” Garrett felt his protective urges spring to life. To his own surprise, he was ready to confront anyone who had messed with Ellie.
“Nothing bad,” she rushed to assure him.
“How did you know he wasn’t a Daddy?” Garrett probed.
“It was a feeling inside. I can’t really explain it, but I just knew.” She raised her hand to twirl her fingers through one pigtail as her big brown eyes seemed to lose focus.
“You called me Daddy within five minutes of meeting me,” Garrett reminded her softly. To his delight, Ellie nodded immediately. Then, her face flooded with color.
“I felt it, too,” he reassured her softly.
“Really?”
“Really.”
They sat there quietly for several long seconds. When she started to wiggle, Garrett asked, “How long have you been coming to Blaze?”
“I found Blaze a few months ago. Hanging out with the Littles is fun.”
“What do you think of the rest of the club?”
“Oh, I don’t go there,” she rushed to tell him. “I feel comfortable in the daycare, but I’m scared to explore everywhere else.”
He rubbed her back to reassure Ellie. What is it about this Little girl? “Maybe you’d like to tour with me some day?”
Ellie shrugged her shoulders and wrinkled her nose. “Maybe.”
She twirled her pigtail again before changing the subject. “Would you like to go color?”
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”
She scooted off his lap with a grin and took his hand. Tugging him back into her safe place, Ellie sat down at her spot and patted the chair next to her. After he sat down, she introduced him to the other Littles.
“This is Garrett. He’s a Daddy. He’s going to color with us, okay?”
Chapter Three
Stepping into Little Cakes the next morning, Ellie left the door unlocked. The delivery truck would be there any time with her tables and chairs. Walking through the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the bakery display shelves, she set her screwdriver and cellphone on the top of the industrial refrigerator where she wouldn’t lose them before stepping back to open the protective folder she carried.
Garrett’s picture looked up at her. “It’s just perfect. I thought it would be a joke to pick a unicorn for him to color,” she announced to the empty kitchen. Shifting around the recipes fixed with magnets on the front of the refrigerator, Ellie attached Garrett’s colorful artwork on the stainless-steel surface.
She stepped back to look at it. He hadn’t gone out of the lines once! The unicorn stood proudly in the center of the page displaying his multicolored mane and tail. His body was silver with black shoes. Ellie traced his name at the bottom. She’d made him sign it, of course.
A noise out front drew her attention away from the artwork. Ellie grabbed her screwdriver and whirled around to march back to the front of the shop. Expecting to see a man looking official with a clipboard, she stopped in her tracks to see four rough-looking men pawing through the few things scattered through the sales area.
“Hey! Are you the delivery guys?” Ellie asked, nervously. She forced herself to stand up straight as if their presence didn’t spook her.
The four men looked at each other and grinned. One stepped toward her. Ellie backed up a few paces. Why hadn’t she grabbed her phone?
“No, we’re more the pick-up type of crew. This is a cupcake store, huh? We’d be willing to take some off your hands,” a grubby man with shifting eyes suggested.
“Sorry, I’m not open yet. Just getting set up. You’ll have to come back another day,” Ellie suggested as her mind raced, trying to figure out a way to handle this situation.
The store was in a perfectly safe location. She’d never seen anything sketchy happening as she’d worked in the store late at night or during the day. What was she going to do if they threatened her? Gripping the screwdriver tightly in her hand, Ellie was determined to protect her new business.
When the obvious leader of the pack took another step toward her, Ellie bristled. She wasn’t going to let anyone take this dream from her. “Look, I don’t know who you are and I don’t care. The store isn’t open and you’ll have to leave.”
“Isn’t that cute, Ben? She wants us to leave,” one of the other three joked, talking to the guy in charge.
“Yes. You need to go now.” Ellie tried to control the warble of fright from her voice and failed.
“Just what are you going to do if we refuse?” Ben asked.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Ellie whirled to see Garrett’s muscular form filling the doorway as he struck the metal frame.
As the unwelcome visitors turned, Garrett took several photos of their surprised faces before addressing them, “You have been asked to leave the store. I’m telling you as the property owner that you need to move on. I now have your photos and will share them with my contacts at the police station.”
“They can’t pick us up for anything. The door was open. We just came in to see if anything was for sale,” Ben argued as he backed toward the other men.
Garrett walked to Ellie’s side. “You picked the wrong place to visit. Nothing will happen to this woman or her business. Do you understand?”
With nods, the men slinked through the open door. Ellie turned and threw herself against Garrett’s broad chest. “Thank you for coming!”
“You are in so much trouble, Rainbow,” Garrett lectured.