Daddy, Can You Teach Me Some Naughty Night Things? novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Nod
Wayne finally lets Sage help with the breeding, and on the porch she refuses to stop calling him Daddy.
Wayne nodded at me across the breakfast table, and Hank dropped his fork.
"You mean it?" I said.
"I mean it." Wayne didn't look up from his coffee. "You can help with the breeding this season."
Hank picked his fork off the floor and grinned into his mustache.
My heart was going so hard I put my hands in my lap so nobody would see them.
I had asked him three times since my birthday.
I turned eighteen on March 21st, and every time I asked, he had said the same thing.
Next year, Sage.
It was March 28th now, and it was a week into the season, and he had nodded.
"Four a.m. tomorrow," he said. "Boots on. Don't be late."
"I won't be late, Daddy."
Wayne's jaw moved once, and he reached for the salt.
I had called him that since my mother's funeral, when I was sixteen and he was the only person left standing in the house.
He had never asked me to stop until this month.
Someone knocked on the screen door, and Dessa Kenyon came in without waiting.
"Morning, all," she said. "I come bearing Mama's banana bread and a question for the boss."
She put a foil-wrapped loaf on the counter and smiled at me.
Dessa was twenty-four, blonde and bright, and the only person from the Kenyon ranch who had ever been friendly to me.
"Wayne, Daddy wants to borrow your post-hole digger again."
"It's in the shed," Wayne said. "Tell him to bring it back with the handle on."
"I will." She laughed, then turned to me. "Sage, you look like you won the lottery."
"Wayne's letting me work the breeding."
"No way." Dessa pressed a hand to her chest. "Can I watch? I've always wanted to see how it's done on a real stud program. Daddy only runs cattle."
"Ask Wayne."
Wayne shrugged. "Ask Hank. He runs the barn."
"Come anytime," Hank said, and meant it.
Dessa beamed at all of us.
Then she pulled out her phone and asked if she could see the stud book on the counter, so she could learn the bloodlines before she showed up.
I slid it over, and she took pictures of the first three pages.
"Don't mind me," she said. "I'm a nerd."
The screen door banged again, and this time it was the mail carrier's arm through the gap.
"Gentry, Callison, Applebee," he called, and dropped a stack on the bench.
I went to get it.
On top was a thick cream envelope with my name on it, printed in black ink.
Sage Marie Gentry.
The return address was a law office in Pinedale.
I knew what it was before I touched it.
I slid it into my back pocket without opening it and sorted the rest of the mail into three piles.
When I looked up, Wayne was watching my hand.
He didn't ask what it was.
He looked at the pocket, then at my face, then went back to his coffee.
"Feed bill's on top," I said, and handed him his pile.
Dessa left at eight with her banana bread plate and a promise to bring a thermos on Thursday.
Hank went out to check the water lines.
I carried the dishes to the sink, and Wayne stood up and started to clear the table without a word.
That was how he did everything since the funeral.
He cooked, he fixed, and he drove me to school and paid my braces off in cash.
He had been the safest person I knew until about the night of my birthday.
That night he had come out onto the porch and found me sitting on the steps in my mother's denim jacket.
He had taken off his own coat and put it around me and kept his hands on my shoulders a second too long.
Then he had stepped back fast and gone inside without a word.
I had been thinking about that second for a week.
I followed him out onto the porch now.
He was standing at the rail with his hat in his hand, looking at the pasture.
Juniper was in the near field, big and slow with her foal, and Cinder was in the far paddock, black and restless, calling for her.
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't thank me yet." His voice was rough. "It's work, Sage. Four a.m., every day, until July."
"I know."
"And one more thing." He turned his head. "Call me Wayne."
"No."
"Sage."
"I called you Daddy for two years and you never asked me to stop."
"That was before," he said.
"Before what?"
He didn't answer.
I stepped up beside him and put my hand on the rail next to his.
Our fingers were an inch apart.
"No, Daddy," I said.
Wayne put his hat on, walked down the steps and across the yard to the barn, and didn't look back.
But I saw his hand as he went, and it was shaking.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend