Page 80 of Santa Daddies

Ialmostmanaged to stop the giggle that threatened to escape at the image of my Daddy’s forehead sprouting with golden sheaves of wheat.Almostbeing the operative word.

“You find this amusing?”

“Um, nooo…”

Okay, even I could admit that sounded like more of a question than an answer.

Daddy’s brow smoothed as he shook his head, looking around again. It wasn’t like I could even attempt to deny the boxes’ contents. Not when a smiling pig’s face emblazoned each side of every box. Seeing one porky little pig’s smiling face was undeniably cute, but when a zillion pairs of piggie eyes were staring at you, even the cutest piglet became a bit unnerving.

“I’m waiting.”

“Huh?” I was struggling to tear my eyes off the boxes and back to my Daddy. He didn’t look any happier with my inability to keep up. “I’m sorry, Daddy, I’m not ignoring you. I-I was just thinking.”

“Perfect, because I simply can’t wait to hear why this room has been turned from a state-of-the-art chef’s kitchen to a… a pig sty.”

I rolled my eyes. “Daddeeee, thatissilly. A pig sty is all mud and yuckiness. As you can see, all these little piggies are sweet pink perfection. Not a speck of ick on them. They’re brand spanking new.”

Was it my imagination or had his eyes just dropped south about three feet?

Perhaps using a different descriptive might have kept his attention on your face and not your butt.

Didn’t you just love it when your inner voice spoke upafteryou made some situation worse? Fat lot of good that would do me now.

Daddy had this way of lifting his right eyebrow that had magic powers. It always made my heart skip a beat and my thigh muscles tighten in an attempt to keep the arousal from dripping down them. Of course, my verbalizing the “S” word also had my buttocks clenching as the skin across them crawled. It was like he spoke volumes without uttering a single syllable. Definitely time to switch gears.

“It wasn’t my fault…”

His eyebrow rose higher.

“Okay, I guess it’s a little bit my fault, but only because I wanted to make the Christmas party special.”

“Did our guest list expand to include the entire city…” The eyebrow that had lowered shot right back to the stratosphere when what had to be the millionth tower of boxes appeared in the doorway. “Make that the whole state.”

“No!” I moaned. “There can’t be more!”

“This is the last of them.” This came from Daniel who stuck his head around the tower to shoot a glance around the room. “Um, where do you want these?”

“Back in your van!” I practically shouted.

He chuckled. “Sorry, I’m not in charge of returns, just deliveries.”

Despite his immense load, he easily dodged around me where I’d planted myself in front of the kitchen island, my feet spread apart and my arms straight out at my sides as if I were some massive barrier keeping the invading forces at bay. Dan managed to balance the boxes in one arm while carefully nudging an exact replica pile of boxes a few inches over to the left, its neighboring tower a few inches to the right, and then smoothly slid the newest platoon of piggies into the space.

For some inexplicable reason, I saw a giant wooden horse at the gates of ancient Troy instead of yet another tower of cardboard in a modern-day kitchen.

A sharp clap jerked me back to the twenty-first century to see Daniel dusting his hands off in some sort of victorious salute.

“See, there’s always room for one more.”

“One?” I huffed. “If it were only one, I’d kiss you. But obviously one of us can’t count.”

Dan chuckled again. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. But I do need your signature, if you don’t mind.” He pulled a clipboard out of the back waistband of his jeans and presented it with a flourish. The clip securely held the order form and an invoice for my catastrophic goof up.

“Seriously, are pigs the only item Celeste carries?” I huffed when he tapped the paper on the line where I was to sign. As if the pig-shaped sticky flag waving its stupidly cute curly little tail wasn’t enough to grab one’s attention. Granted, it was a teensy bit adorable, but I needed to keep my attention on the problem at hand. The next salvo in my battle came to me and I whipped my hands behind me. “What if I don’t sign? Then you’ll have to take them back, right?”

“Afraid not. And, hey, it’s not like you didn’t get quite a deal. If you’ll check your receipt, I believe you received a pretty hefty discount in appreciation for the size of the order. Which I’m pretty sure came with an all-sales-final stamp.” And in case I couldn’t see those exact words emblazoned in red ink right below that piggy flag’s hooves, he made sure to point it out. “Yep, it’s right here. Though, I can say this is the first time I’ve delivered this many piglets at one time and to a single place.”

“There’s got to be a mistake somewhere. I mean, I love all things pink and that includes pigs, but seriously, there’s got to be a zillion here!”