Page 95 of Their Forever Daddy

Rex ran a hand over his face, and Jesse was left with the distinct impression he was trying his damndest not to laugh. But when he pulled his hand away, his expression was as stern as ever. “You know this was very naughty, right princess?”

Ginny just grinned and gave a careless shrug of her shoulders. “Fashion is never naughty, Daddy.”

“Wait a minute.” Dom moved forward, pulling a very reluctant-looking Noelle along behind him. “Is that what the fight with Taylor was all about? Were you two the distraction?”

“That depends,” Noelle said, her expression set in mutinous lines.

“On what?”

“On if I’m going to be in more trouble for fighting with Taylor, or more trouble for creating a distraction.”

Rex turned his head to the side and coughed, but Jesse caught the hint of a smile on his lips. Unfortunately for all of them, he seemed to be the only one at all amused by what had happened.

Dom, on the other hand, looked absolutely stunned. “Little girl, do you really think this is the best time to be playing games with me? Because I have to tell you, I am about this close to taking my belt to your bare bottom, and that’s before I turn you over to Edie for whatever punishment she has in mind.”

A collective gasp went up in the barn and Jesse’s stomach sank to her knees. She really hadn’t meant to get her new friends in trouble, especially when they were finally starting to like her.

“What?” Noelle’s voice went shrill. “You can’t let Edie spank us!”

“I absolutely can, and will, Little girl. And I have a feeling everyone else in this barn will agree with me that if anyone has earned the right to teach you all a lesson today, it’s Edie.”

Rex and Ian both voiced their agreement as Edie looked on, a smug smile on her face. “Thank you, boys. As it happens, I have just the punishment in mind. Come on, girls. It’s time you all finally learned how to cut a switch.”

Chapter 34

Edie

* * *

Now that they had the poor not-a-llama calmed down, Edie was starting to see some of the humor in the situation.

She was still going to make sitting comfortably a fond memory for all of them, especially her own babygirl, but she was going to be fighting back laughter the entire time.

A rainbow alpaca. Jesus. The thing was, it wasn’t even a bad idea. While she couldn’t say she would have jumped right on it, she probably could have been easily swayed to their side. Which made her think they were, on some level, hoping to get caught being naughty.

Little brats.

“Here.” Grant looped a spare bit of rope through the ring on the alpaca’s harness. “I’ll get her hosed down and put back up, then join you all in the house.”

“Thanks.” Rising up on her toes, she pressed a kiss to his cheek. “We’ll have to talk about what to do with our naughty girl after the others leave. Especially since it sounds a bit like she was the ringleader of this whole operation.”

“I have some ideas. We can talk more when everyone else goes home.”

“It’s a date.”

Humming happily under her breath, she made her way up to the house, where five Little girls in various stages of remorse and defiance were standing in front of four stern Daddies in various stages of annoyance and amusement.

The latter was mostly Rex, who looked like he was about to lose the battle with his laughter at any moment. After shooting him a hard look that had the smile dying on his lips, she folded her arms over her chest and turned to face her naughty little group.

“Carly, since you are standing here, I assume you’re feeling all right?”

The Little girl in question peeked up at her Daddy, who gave a single sharp nod. “Yes, Ma’am,” she answered meekly.

“Good. So, the story as I’ve heard is that you all decided my alpaca needed a makeover so she could get adopted, and in order to give her this makeover two of you staged a physical altercation while the others snuck into…” She paused. “Where did you get the dye from, actually?”

Five nervous Littles shifted from foot to foot as they exchanged glances. “The kitchen,” Jesse said at length. “It’s just cornstarch and food coloring, Edie, it wouldn’t have hurt her. I promise we checked to make sure it was safe first.”

Her poor Little girl looked so worried, it was a struggle to keep the stern expression on her face. “I appreciate that. It still doesn’t answer why you went through all the trouble of sneaking around when you could have simply asked me for permission.”

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