Page 1 of Daddy’s Little Duckling (Ivory Mountain Daddies #1)
CHAPTER ONE
RAELYN
R aelyn spent the twenty-minute drive to work thinking about where she was at in life. A college dropout who suffered from a sensory processing disorder, Rae felt like a shell of the person she once was.
She used to be so full of life and loved to do all sorts of things, but life had a way of kicking her when she was already knocked down.
When she arrived at work, she sat in her car postponing going inside. Rae loved her job most of the time, but being a caregiver to dementia residents at a nursing home was harder than most people realized.
Ivory Mountain Nursing Home was a great place to work and the residents were some of the sweetest people she knew, but sometimes the upper management and fellow caregivers left much to be desired.
None of that mattered, though. She couldn’t complain about the job because she would be in more debt than she already was without it .
Thinking about her empty fridge and bare cabinets motivated her to get out of the car, even though her body and mental state demanded she turn around and go home.
As Raelyn gathered the things she needed to take care of her assigned residents, her mind wandered to what she planned to do when she got home.
Not paying attention to where she was walking, she bumped right into something large, warm, and hard that smelled fantastic.
Bending down to pick up the linens that she dropped she blurted out “I am so sorry. I was off in outer space and wasn’t watching where I was walking!”
Looking up she was met by the most handsome man she had ever seen. “Little one, you should pay more attention when walking or you are going to fall and get hurt,” gruffed the man.
As he walked around her, he gave her one more lingering glance and continued down the hall.
Raelyn’s heart raced as she continued about her tasks. She couldn’t stop thinking about what the man said to her. There was no way he could know her secret.
She was careful to keep that part of her hidden, especially at work. The only person she had ever told from work was her best friend Olivia. There was no way he could have known.
She reasoned that he must have said that because she looked more like a nineteen-year-old rather than her real age of twenty-one.
She knew that most people confused her for being younger, so this man was probably no different. He looked to be older than her anyway, closer to forty if she had to guess.
Rae kept zoning out while trying to complete her daily tasks. All she kept picturing was the handsome man. Those dark caramel colored eyes, neatly trimmed facial hair, and muscles that made her melt, kept flashing through her mind.
As the day continued, Raelyn found herself looking around for another glimpse of the man, but she never saw him. By the time the end of her shift came, the memory of what he had said to her had long passed.
All she wanted to do now was go home, cuddle up with Bruce, her stuffed duckie, and watch her favorite movie, The Little Mermaid. She had the next day off and she couldn’t wait to spend some much-needed time in Littlespace.
Rae slept in the next morning. It was a rare luxury for her to sleep past five in the morning. Her body was too used to waking up early for her shifts at the nursing home.
She figured that her body needed the extra rest, though she didn’t believe the dark circles under her eyes would be fading anytime soon.
Getting up, Raelyn decided to put on her favorite Little outfit. It was made of the softest jersey material that she could find. Most other fabrics felt like razor blades across her skin.
It was a pretty soft yellow color and had Daddy’s Little Duckling written across the front. She longed to have a Daddy to make that statement true.
She paired it with her favorite baby blue tutu that she had modified to fit her sensory issues and some white knee-high socks that had light blue bows on the back.
Skipping into the bathroom, Rae braided her hair into pigtails and tied them up with white sparkly bows.
She loved finding bows wherever she could and that was the one thing she allowed herself to splurge on. Finally ready for a day in Littlespace she skipped into the bedroom to grab Bruce so he could help make breakfast.
“What should we have for breakfast, Bruce?” She asked her companion as she opened the fridge.
Raelyn sighed and knew that today would be another day of oatmeal. She knew she should be grateful that oatmeal wasn’t an icky food for her, but she couldn’t help wishing she had some bacon and eggs or pancakes to eat instead.
Payday was in a few days, so hopefully after her bills she would be able to splurge a little on her favorite foods.
She was very mindful of her sensitivities with food, so when she found things she could handle, it usually quickly became a favorite for her. The list wasn’t a very long one, but she tried to add to it when she could.
Having SPD, Rae had struggled her whole life with food aversions. Something would be fine for a while, and then it could quickly flip and she would be back to square one with it. She had learned a long time ago to try and keep her safe foods list small.
Gathering her oatmeal and Bruce, Rae moved into the living room to build her fort that she would spend most of her day in.
This was one of her favorite things to do in Littlespace. She also planned on having a tea party later with her dolls, if they could behave and play nice together, while watching a movie.
She pulled out all the spare blankets she kept under her bed and dragged the furniture around to help structure her fort. Every single piece of fabric that Rae owned was fabric that her sensitivities could handle or she took the time to modify them to fit her needs.
This included the blankets she used for the forts since she had to touch them to build it and there was always the chance that once in Littlespace she would brush against them.
Rae learned that her SPD usually was worse when she was deep in Littlespace than it was when she wasn’t. She was sure that if she talked to her old therapist about it, they would give her a long explanation of why that was the case, but she tried not to think about it too much.
After she had the fort set like she wanted it, Rae went and set up the T.V. and put the movie in that she wanted to watch today.
She often looked over the movie aisle at the consignment shops for different DVDs of movies and shows she used to watch growing up.
Rae had managed to find a DVD player one weekend at a second-hand store, so she went without dinner one night to make up for buying it.
She couldn’t resist purchasing it since she knew that she would probably never be able to afford a new one and this one was such a good deal.
As lunchtime approached Raelyn's phone started to play the special ringtone she had set for when her job was calling her. She giggled for a moment at the sound of the Imperial March playing out of the speakers.
It always brought a small smile to her face before she remembered who was calling her. Grudgingly she picked up and tried to sound cheerful as she spoke to her scheduler, Amanda, on the other side.
“Raelyn, we had a call out tonight and we need you to come in,” stated Amanda before Rae could even say hello.
“But I work tomorrow morning.” she tried to explain.
Nevertheless, the voice on the other side of the line bulldozed right over her words and took her response as a yes. After hanging up, Rae grabbed Bruce and hugged him tight.
“It will be okay. I can handle working tonight and then going in tomorrow morning.”
Bruce didn’t look convinced and honestly, Raelyn wasn’t too convinced herself.
Cleaning up her mess from earlier she got dressed in her favorite hunter-green scrubs, pulled her hair back into one long braid and left the white sparkly bow from earlier in it and headed in for her shift trying to remember that this would be an extra day on her paycheck and that it was worth it.