One Sexy Daddy by Vivian Leiber

he was surrounded by cupcakes. Every time he brought one to his lips, it became Stacy’s mouth that he devoured.
    He awoke to a 6:00 a.m. alarm. He was a strong man, used to pushing himself to his limits. Although he ached to hit the snooze button, he got up right away and put on jeans and a work shirt.
    On the way downstairs, he considered the items necessary for the production of homemade cupcakes. Flour, butter, sugar, eggs, baking powder and those funny little paper cups—and wasn’t there a special kind of pan? To say nothing of icing.
    He went out to the front porch to get the paper. There on the stoop was a clear-wrapped plate with thirty-two cupcakes frosted with chocolate icing and white confetti sprinkles. He picked up the plate and wondered how she knew.
    He looked up, noticing the newspaper boy rocking on his bike seat at the end of the drive. Washe imagining things or did the boy have a particularly sly look in his eye?
    He waved and the paperboy slammed his foot down on his pedal, riding off without a backward glance. Adam put the plate on the kitchen counter and went upstairs to his study.
    A fax had just come in from Lasser. Its tone was urgent and not a little whiny. “Meeting—this afternoon. This project has got to be finished up but soon.”
    He groaned as he read it, then crumpled it up and scored a three-point basket in the trash.
    He waited until eight o’clock before calling Stacy.
    â€œLet’s go dancing,” he said. “As soon as I walk Karen to school. Oh, and thanks for the cupcakes. How’d you know about Snack Day?”
    â€œKaren told me.”

Chapter Nine
    â€œI can hardly believe this!” Marion shrieked. Stacy held the phone away from her ear. “The fact that I have to hear it from Nancy Tigerman when I picked up the newspaper outside my door is simply too humiliating. I pretended I knew all about it while inside I was crying. My own big sister wouldn’t tell me herself! Stacy, I’m not so young that I wouldn’t understand if you have needs—I’m a married woman, after all.”
    Stacy sat on the living room couch, wearing a freshly ironed white cotton blouse and an olive-green cotton gabardine skirt. She was as jumpy as she would have been had she chugged seven cups of coffee—which she hadn’t. And not just because Marion was having a hissy fit.
    Item #23—Dance.
    Did that mean they were going to dance? Right in her own home? And in the morning, which sounded particularly indulgent?
    Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to see him again?Would she have trouble looking him in the eye? Would she blush—in her not-at-all-delicate, lobster-red way?
    She decided that the most wonderful thing about Adam Tyler was that he was leaving in two months.
    What if he talked?
    What if he had already talked? And to Nancy Tigerman, of all people. How’d he know Deerhorn’s only beautician?
    â€œUh, was Nancy shocked?”
    â€œAbsolutely! You’ve never done anything like this before. Stacy, people rely on you to be stable and unchanging—especially me. Not running around with the first man who comes into Deerhorn…”
    â€œHe’s not the first man to come to Deerhorn.”
    â€œAll right, the first drop-dead handsome one.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œLast week at the Village Hall when I was getting Jim’s new business permit. He’s a looker. So this morning Nancy told me—the whole story.”
    The whole story?
    â€œSo you’re upset.”
    â€œOf course I am.”
    â€œAnd how many other people know?”
    â€œIf Nancy Tigerman knows, you can best believe that every man, woman, child and dog in Deerhorn knows.”
    Stacy took a deep breath. How could she explainto her little sister that she was sometimes, if only occasionally, more than a caretaker? That she wanted to experience lovemaking if only so she could understand what all of the