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“Not anyone I know,” she sassed.

No one could have convinced her she would like being on a boat, but she now thought boats were the shiitake mushroom. Well, she had been rudely instructed by Grif that it was aship,not a boat. Then she was the one who had to write lines when she justifiably stuck her tongue out at him. Lines seemed way more fun in the Little books than they were in real life.

Grif grinned when she got in trouble–smirked was more like it–but she had plans. She would be getting even before they made it to land. Then he’d learn not to mess with Big Bad Tildi. She knew he was worried because he frowned every time she gave him the “I’m watching you” gesture. It was definitely an “I’m worried” frown and not an “I’m annoyed” frown.

Then her Daddy looked at her and did that one raised eyebrow thing she couldn’t do no matter how hard she tried.

It seemed like a good moment to concede. “Well, maybe I’m a little tired.”

“Good call,” he said. Once he got her tucked in and made sure she had Puff, he lay down beside her, and once again, she drifted to sleep in her Daddy’s arms.

CHAPTER 12

In the following two weeks, Tildi grew to be quite the sailor if she did say so herself. She’d never known how relaxing it could be to sleep on a ship. The rocking motion lulled her to sleep every night, not to mention the naps Daddy insisted she take after lunch.

The time she’d been able to spend with Boone was something she would cherish for the rest of her life. They had spent almost all their time together. Even when he put calls in to the ranch. She’d met all of his brothers, and she loved them all. They treated her like a younger sister already, and they hadn’t even met her yet.

It had taken some getting used to, especially the teasing. Trace and Tanner were hilarious. They had her laughing so hard her sides ached.

“I can’t wait until you’re here,” Kenzie, Boone’s only sister, said. “There is way too much testosterone around here. You’ve got to get here and help me find a girl posse to even the odds.”

“I can’t wait to meet you, either,” Tildi told her.

She wasn’t too sure about helping Kenzie build a girl posse. She’d never had time to worry about friends in school. She’d had teammates in the various sports she’d played, but she wouldn’thave called any of them friends. The only person she’d have called her friend was her sister, Breezy.

Listening to the Daniels family tease and argue with each other made her miss her sister more than ever. When Boone finished talking to his family, she’d ask him if she could call Breezy.

“I hope you’re workin’ out on that tugboat Boone found. We’ve got a date with a pretty young mare named Starlight. You can’t be with a rancher and not ride,” Chance, another of Boone’s brothers, said.

A growl rumbled from Boone. “The only one teaching my Little girl to ride is me.”

Cold shock washed over her. She stared at her Daddy, unable to believe what he’d just said. When Boone caught her expression, he lifted one brown. “What?” he asked.

Tildi shot to her feet and raced from the salon on the upper deck straight to the stairs.

“Matilda Faith,” Boone bellowed from behind her. “Stop running!”

She ignored him and raced down the stairs. How could he have just blurted out to his entire family that she was a Little? She would never be able to face them now. She’d have to ride as far as the Rocky Mountains and then find a cave to live in for the rest of her life. Being a hermit couldn’t be any worse than being around people who had learned her deepest, darkest secret because her big mouth Daddy had blurted it out as if it were an everyday occurrence.

Thundering footsteps on the stairs behind her spurred her on. She almost lost her footing once, okay twice, but she kept going. Why did they put the freaking bedrooms at the bottom of this darned ship?

The steps got louder as Boone gained on her. She squealed when an arm of steel wrapped around her waist. The next thingshe knew, she was over his shoulder, and he was stomping the rest of the way to their stateroom.

After kicking the door open, he put her down, facing him. The day had grown cloudy while they were talking to his family, but it didn’t hold a candle to the thundercloud of his expression.

He towered over her, his scowl growing deeper and darker by the second. “Would you like to tell me what the hell you thought you were doing running on the deck like that?”

Hmm. Her tummy started a slow, insistent roll downward. Her insides began to quiver in the face of his anger, but she straightened her shoulders and reminded herself that she was the wronged party.

“I thought I was getting away from the person who just humiliated me in front of his entire family.” Her defensiveness made her tone a bit sharper than she’d intended, but who could blame her? From the look of him, you’d think she was the one in the wrong.

If his expression looked like a thundercloud before, now it bordered on typhoon level. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“You told everyone I was a Little!” she said, trying not to scream. “How could you do that? What are they going to think?”

“That’s what your reckless disregard for your safety is about? If you had slipped on the deck and gone overboard, it would have taken too long to even turn around. Did I specifically tell you not to run on the deck? I guess I need to add stairs because it didn’t occur to me you’d try to run down those. Especially when the sea is growing choppier by the minute.”

“Nothing happened,” she insisted. “And even if it had, I can take care of myself!”