Dating a Single Dad by Kris Fletcher - Comeback Cove 01 - Dating a Single Dad Page B

determine the source of a particularly persistent leak and cutting out damaged wood, when Millie wandered over from her corner.
    “Daddy?”
    “Hmm?”
    “I’m hungry. And my movie is done.”
    Crap. They’d made a deal. He was only supposed to work for the length of one movie. If he didn’t stop now, it was going to cost him an extra story at bedtime.
    “Okay, Mills. I need three minutes to finish up and get my stuff together. You pack up your things, I’ll do mine, and—” he glanced longingly at the pipes “—we’ll head home.”
    “Okay.”
    But as he pulled himself out from beneath the sink, she lingered.
    “Daddy?”
    “Yeah, babe?”
    “When I get bigger, will I get...you know...bigger?”
    He sat up with a groan and rubbed his back. There were days when he completely understood why Uncle Lou had given up on these cabins. “Well, yeah. That’s usually the way it works. You get taller and everything gets bigger and—”
    “No, Daddy. I mean, like, here.”
    As soon as he looked, he wished to hell he hadn’t. Because Millie, his beautiful, tiny daughter, was holding her hands in front of her lab-coated chest in the approximate position of breasts.
    Hell and damnation.
    He’d always known that they would have to have these talks. They’d already discussed, many times, why Daddy stood up to go to the bathroom while she sat down, why Daddy had parts that Millie didn’t have. And he’d always managed to swallow his discomfort to tell her that when she got older, her body would change and she would have breasts like all the women around her, like her grandmother and teachers and mother.
    But none of those lessons must have carried the weight of spying a nude, generously endowed Brynn. Which made sense. Because thinking of what Millie might have seen had certainly been affecting him in powerful ways, as well.
    He had learned long ago that awkward talks were better handled while the hands were busy. So he tossed wrenches into his open toolbox and focused on keeping his voice casual. “Yep. When you get to be a teenager, your breasts will get bigger. That’s part of growing up.”
    “Oh.”
    Her silence drew his gaze. She was drawing small finger circles on the shirt pockets.
    “I only have little tiny points here.”
    “Yeah, I know. That’s what you’re supposed to have now.”
    “Brynn’s were bigger.”
    He gulped and focused on the damp rags he was pulling from beneath the sink. “That’s ’cause she’s all grown up. A woman.” All woman, all enticing, all totally off-limits, North.
    “She has boobies.”
    Holy— “Where did you learn that word?”
    She stuck her thumb in her mouth.
    “It’s not a very polite word. Try not to say it again. And take your thumb out of your mouth.”
    The thumb slipped free, but she continued to rub the shirt fabric between her fingers. “Okay. But when I grow up, I will have them.”
    He drew in a long breath. “Yeah. That’s right.”
    “What if I don’t want them?”
    He barely held back the snort as he tossed the last rag into the bucket. “Sorry, kid. You don’t get to choose. Like Grandma says, you get what you get and you like it.”
    “But they’re so weird! They were pointy and jiggly, and the ends were all brown and—”
    “Whoa, whoa, Mills, stop!” Sweet Jesus, he was doomed. “Listen, kiddo.” He grabbed the saw from beneath the sink. “You shouldn’t have gone into her cabin, and you shouldn’t have gone into her bathroom and you shouldn’t have seen her in the shower. But since you did, you really shouldn’t talk about what she looks like to other people, okay? That’s invading her privacy.” And driving your father bat-shit crazy.
    “Oh. I’m sorry.”
    Her little head bent. One finger ran slowly over the edge of the toolbox.
    Ah, crap.
    His heart ached at the sight of her, quiet and forlorn. His Millie always seemed slightly out of step with the world. Not lagging behind, as he often felt, but definitely