Daddy Undercover (Crescent Cove Book 9) Read online

  Daddy Undercover

  Crescent Cove Book 9

  Taryn Quinn

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  They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Daddy Undercover

  © 2020 Taryn Quinn

  Rainbow Rage Publishing

  Stock Photo by Adobe

  Cover by LateNite Designs

  All Rights Are Reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First ebook edition: November 2020

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  A baby in a basket left on a doorstep is such a clichè...

  It’s also my life.

  I carry a gun and a badge and help keep order in small town Crescent Cove.

  What I don’t do?

  Change diapers.

  Sing songs about sharks.

  Or...ask for help.

  But my best friend, Gina Ramos, knows I’m in over my head. She’s the only one keeping me sane. And playing house with her is starting to feel way too real.

  And get way too hot.

  Because the biggest thing I don’t want to do?

  Is to lose my best friend...or find out my little girl isn’t really mine.

  Author’s note: This daddy isn't just undercover…he's clueless he has a baby! Daddy Undercover is a standalone romantic comedy with a HEA ending and no cliffhanger.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  CEO Daddy

  Crescent Cove World

  Taryn Quinn

  Quinn and Elliott

  About Taryn Quinn

  Acknowledgments

  In a town that is known for its baby insanity, we wanted to touch on a sore subject with some grace and humor.

  We hope we did that.

  Any mistakes we made in research are our own.

  Sometimes we make up fictional places that end up having the same names as actual places. These are our fictional interpretations only. Please grant us leeway if our creative vision isn't true to reality.

  For all the women who worry they’re not enough.

  You are. Every single one of you.

  One

  I pocketed a pencil in my apron and sent up a prayer for strength. If I had to hear “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” one more time today…

  Would anyone really notice if I unplugged Mitch’s precious jukebox?

  At the Rusty Spoon, that was a certainty. Change wasn’t appreciated much by the owner or by the townspeople of Crescent Cove. We were a small lake town, and Christmas and Halloween were two of our biggest holidays. Halloween was a new addition, thanks to our resident Halloween freak, Macy Gideon. Recently, she’d even opened up a horror-themed restaurant that brought a bunch of tourists to the area.

  The local stores excelled at pivoting. Being all independent shops meant drawing in customers was always king. In that way, the town definitely could swing with the changes. But putting up some cute Halloween decorations was one thing.

  Changing menus and traditions, not so much.

  We’d only recently recovered from Halloween. Like a switch had been flipped, we swapped out bats for bows and bells. Oh, and a few turkeys for good measure for Thanksgiving. However, we were firmly in Christmas town right now, and that meant holiday songs were piped into every store and restaurant.

  Don’t forget to get your gifts and hey, need a gift certificate?

  I heard myself saying it in my sleep.

  At least Mitch had allowed me to update a few of the songs. Now Miley Cyrus was in the rotation along with the OG holiday singer, Brenda Lee. I’d had to work three overtime hours to get him to buy the updates for a few Christmas songs from this decade.

  Mitch Cooper was forever looking for an angle before he’d give up an inch. The Rusty Spoon—his baby—was a staple in the Cove. From the red vinyl booths that had been patched approximately ninety-eight times to the black and white checkered tile floor, it was the textbook definition of a diner in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The big one that Mrs. McKenzie, the town librarian, could use as a weapon.

  Yeah, so you can imagine just how much updating happened within these walls. But that was also part of its charm as far as I was concerned. I knew exactly what I’d find when I walked through the door. First, a bell would tinkle over my head, and the door squeaked no matter how much WD-40 Mitch used to try to fix it. Now he considered it a form of security.

  Bacon grease was practically baked into my hair due to years of waitressing. When I’d started here, I’d figured the job would give me a little extra money while I looked for another, more permanent one.

  Five years later, the idea of working in an office gave me hives.

  Working at the diner gave me a pipeline into the Cove. I was privy to all the town goings-on, and the hours had given me the freedom to play with a few side hustles over the years. Between working here and bartending at my sister’s bar, I didn’t want for cash. I preferred a simple life.

  “Mija!”

  I shut my eyes. Of course my family made that nearly impossible, but there was always hope in my heart.

  I set my tray down on the counter before turning around with a bright smile. “Mami.”

  Bonnie Ramos came at me like a freight train, enveloping me in her Lily of the Valley scent and freakishly strong arms. My mom was on a health kick which included food, yoga, and essential oils. I was pretty sure she was driving my father to his backyard garden oasis more each day. I only hoped he survived the winter since upstate New York meant snow as high as the rooftops some seasons.

  She pushed me away and squeezed my upper arms. “You’re melting away to nothing, nena.”

  “I am not, Ma.”

  She tsked then turned her attention toward my very pregnant sister. “Ahh, corazoncita, come sit down.” My mother shooed me away and hauled my sister, Erica, up the aisle and toward a booth.

  “Ma, I’m fine.” Erica huffed out an exasperated breath as she waddled in our direction.

  She’d given up the pretense of closing her jacket. Instead, she used colorful scarves to keep warm. I knew because I’d crocheted three of them for her in the last two weeks. Along with a bunch of baby things she’d find out about soon enough.

  “Will you fit?” I winced. “Sorry.”

  “Hateful,” Erica muttered and slid into the booth, but no, her belly definitely didn’t fit. Rather than crying about it, she just inched back and put her feet up on the bench-style seat. “My feet are swollen anyway. Might as well put th
em up.”

  “I can’t believe Jake let you out of his sight.” I hurried around the counter for a black coffee for my mother and a large glass of iced water for my sister. Thankfully, it was just before the lunch rush was due to start.

  I skirted around the other waitress working today. “Polly, I’m going to take ten.”

  “Okey doke.” She thumbed off a Lifesaver and the familiar clack of the candy rattling in her mouth followed me as I headed back to my family.

  I set down their drinks and slid in next to my mom. “What brings you guys in?”

  “I’ve been craving gravy fries.”

  “We were shopping at Kinleigh’s and August’s for a bassinet, and she dragged me over here.” My mom pulled out a single Splenda from the small dish near the window and dumped it into her mug. “That’s too much salt for you.”

  Erica rolled her eyes at our mom. “I don’t care.”

  “Nena, your ankles are already softballs.”

  “I don’t care,” she repeated. “I want fries with extra gravy and extra salt. And ice cream.” Erica made a big mound with her hands. “Maybe some fudge and extra cherries.”

  I laughed. “Ivy’s truck is only open on weekends, but I can probably get some from the café. The kind we have here isn’t exciting.”

  She grabbed my arm. “Could you?”

  My mom pointed before she lifted her coffee to her lips. “Do not encourage her.”

  Erica collapsed back against the wall. “I am—”

  My mom’s mug snapped on the Formica table. “You are not the only woman who has been pregnant. Just look around this crazy town, mija. Jacob indulges you too much!”

  Erica shoved on her sunglasses, but not without a quick eye roll that I was pretty sure our mother didn’t see.

  Good thing. We both had a healthy fear of our mother—and for good reason. Being an amalgamation of Italian and Spanish meant she was definitely the hothead of the household. Our father could hold his own, but she viewed his behavior as similar to my brother-in-law’s.

  We also had our dad wrapped. Put a little Elvis on and sit with him in the garden and we could pretty much get what we wanted. Not that I knew that from prior experience or anything.

  Erica rested her hand on her belly. “Jake realizes that a happy wife means a happy life. That and he doesn’t like the couch.”

  “I’ll remind you of that when it takes three extra months to lose the baby weight.”

  Erica’s finger tapped on the red sweater stretched to capacity, but she didn’t bother replying. We could never win an argument, so it wasn’t worth trying. Especially this one. My sister was glowing with health, but she was indeed a bit more swollen than usual.

  I knew she’d curse my name later when she was in the bathroom about eleven times, but it would cover us both. “Drink that whole glass of water, and I’ll make you a batch of my poutine.”

  Erica’s eyes widened as she sat up straighter. “What?”

  I shrugged. “I convinced Mitch to let me do the ordering for this week. I changed up the menu a little.”

  She lifted the water glass and drained it, and then pushed it my way. “Well, hurry up.”

  I swallowed a laugh when my mother gave me a narrow-eyed look. “What is this poutine?” My mother’s accent slid out like she was saying something disgusting.

  “Heaven,” Erica said with a smile.

  My mother’s dark eyes flashed. “How would you know about it? At least Erica has her time in the city to explain how she knows about such weird food.”

  “Mami, it’s far from a weird food.”

  “I haven’t heard of it.”

  “Do you think everyone has heard about fabadas?”

  “Well, they should have,” she said with a sniff.

  I shook my head and slid out of the booth. “I sneaked in some of our seasonings too, mami. I have some chicken you’ll love. Would you like a salad?”

  Her face brightened. “That would be wonderful, nena.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  My mother made lots of traditional Spanish food that the average person wouldn’t necessarily know about. At least poutine was an internet sensation. That was how I’d heard of it anyway. I’d developed an addiction to TikTok and their cooking snippets. I’d gone down many a rabbit hole in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep.

  Besides, there were only so many cheeseburgers and fries I could serve before I needed to at least try something different. There were just enough younger people in town to allow me to play with the menu once in awhile. At least for a week or so before Mitch got all grouchy.

  As I walked into the kitchen, the acrid scent of onions made my eyes water.

  “Gina, what is this?”

  Speaking of grouchy...

  “Mitch, I told you what those are.”

  “Who would want turds of cheese?”

  “Curds, Mitch.”

  He lifted one to his nose. “Weird.”

  “Try it.”

  He curled his lip.

  “Just try it. It’s delicious.”

  He closed his eyes and popped one in his mouth, and then harrumphed.

  “Good, right?”

  “It better sell,” was all he said before turning back to his grill.

  I stifled a laugh and quickly set a basket of fries into the fryer before I gathered the fixings for my mother’s salad. The assembly line of food that was prepped for the oncoming lunch rush was stacked, waiting for plating.

  The sharp tang of peppers to go with the onions on the grill told me it was Tuesday. Without fail, we had lunch specials that would cause the world to stop turning if they weren’t cooked. Tuesday was sausage and peppers, and tomorrow was chili which meant I’d have to remember to wear black.

  It was the messiest day of the week.

  I dumped the fries into a skillet and tossed the curds in a little bit of chili powder since I knew my sister liked things spicy. I opened the oven door and pushed over a pan of sausages before shoving in the pan to melt the cheese a bit.

  Mitch gave me a side-eyed look, but he didn’t slow the clack of his wide spatulas on the football-sized grill he manned as if it was a part of him. His beard was getting woolly since he’d stopped trimming it around the end of September. In deference to the wiry brown shag it was becoming, he wore a hairnet over his beard and on the top of his head—which was decidedly less woolly these days.

  I pulled out the poutine and doused it with some extra gravy before loading it onto a plate. As an afterthought, I snagged a smaller bowl for me. My sister would chop off my fingers if I tried to steal from her plate. Erica was very much the Joey Tribbiani of our family.

  I stacked my dishes along my arm and backed my way into the dining area. I nodded and smiled automatically at the regulars stationed at their specific stools at the counter.

  Dare and Tish from the auto shop across the street were at the counter squabbling over a stack of papers. Coffee and pastry shrapnel was spread around them. Dare jammed his long, battered fingers into his hair as Tish tried to state her case for something with Ultra Tech in the name.

  Knowing Tish, it was something to make ridiculous custom car and motorcycle things that I couldn’t begin to understand. Nor did I want to. I was fine with my Toyota, thanks.

  I nodded to a few others and slid back into the booth next to my mother.

  “Dios, you are an angel.” My sister pulled the plate in front of her and hissed at the temperature of the fries. Didn’t stop her from clamping her teeth around the end of a fry as she waved her hand in front of it to cool it down.

  My mother gave me the death glare. I pushed her healthy-ish salad in front of her and pulled out her favorite dressing from my apron and set it before her. She lowered her head to take a sniff and gave me a small nod of approval.

  I slid Erica’s glass to the edge of the table as Polly came down the aisle. She stopped and refilled it with a clack of candy and a tight-lipped smile. That was about all
we got out of her for friendliness.

  Erica picked up a fry. “Mami, try it. You’ll see.”

  She sniffed and took a large bite of her salad instead.

  I held out my fry to my sister, and we lightly tapped them together. “Cheers.”

  “Girl, this is amazing. I’m going to have to make this for the bar. Those hulking eat-me-out-of-house-and-home firefighters would love it.”

  “I’ll text Kayla the name and number of my distributor.”

  “Bless you.”

  Kayla Mills—sister-in-law and chef extraordinaire—ran Sharky’s with my sister. I pitched in when she needed me to. I definitely didn’t mind the tips. They were better than the ones here. Then again, a lot of the clientele at the diner skewed toward thinking two bucks under the water glass was being generous.

  I listened to my sister and my mother chatter on about the baby and the shower we were having at the bar over the weekend. Putting together a surprise around my sister was almost impossible, so we just let her do the planning.

  I scraped a fry through the last of the gravy in my bowl. “Is Frankie coming up?”

  “If she knows what’s good for her.”