Sheriff Needs a Nanny by Teresa Carpenter

Daddy!” Finished with his snack, Mickey banged his empty bowl on the highchair tray and called out for his father.
    “Shh.” Nikki shushed the boy again, and quickly snagged the bowl away from him. “Daddy is sleeping. And it’s time for you to take a nap, too.” She wiped his hands and face. “That’ll give me time to figure out an activity for the both of you for tonight.”
    “Night-night?” he said, a scowl forming on his tiny features.
    “It’s daytime, so just a nap.”
    “No,” he protested, even while a little fist rubbed his eyes.
    “Yes, Mickey is a sleepy boy.”
    “Boo?” He asked after his favorite stuffed animal.
    “Yep, it’s Boo’s naptime, too.” Nikki settled Mickey and his stuffed giraffe, Boo, down, and then put in a load of laundry. While she puttered and cleaned, she plotted.
    A barbecue might be just the thing. The boys could cook the meat while she put together a salad or dessert. Humming, she took out a couple of steaks to thaw.
     
    Something soft and damp landed on Trace’s cheek, then slid toward the corner of his mouth. He opened one eye and found Mickey in his walker, right next to the couch.
    “Hey, buddy.” Trace yawned. The kid was cute, but the curls had to go. He made a mental note for Nikki to schedule a trip to the barbershop.
    Mickey flashed his four-toothed grin and patted Trace’s cheek again. “Daddy night-night?”
    Trace stretched and glanced at the window. He hadn’t slept that late, had he? No, the sun still shone, but the shadows indicated he’d slept longer than he’d intended.
    “Nope just a nap.” He sat up and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Now Daddy has to go back to work.”
    “No, no.” Mickey jumped up and down in the walker, stood still, and then jumped some more. “No, no.”
    “Good boy, work those muscles.” Some of the anxiety Trace had held on to since the visit to the doctor’s office eased. In the past couple of weeks the boy had grown visibly stronger.
    Trace glanced at his watch and groaned. “Great. I missed my appointment with the principal.”
    “No, Lydia rescheduled you for tomorrow,” Nikki said from behind him.
    Frowning, he turned so he saw her. She stood at the kitchen table. She pulled one of his T-shirts from a laundry basket, folded it, and set the shirt in a pile on a clean towel she had laid out on the table.
    “How do you know that?”
    “You were dead to the world when we got back. I didn’t want to wake you unless you had somethingscheduled so I called Lydia. She said it had been quiet today and to let you sleep, and that you shouldn’t bother coming in unless she called you. She was going to get some of the guys to cover for you.”
    “Huh, the woman thinks she runs the station. Late nights come with the territory. I can handle it.”
    “The point is you don’t have to. Lydia juggled the schedule.” She hit him with a knowing look. “You’re just afraid the guys will think you’re weak because you came home for a nap.”
    “I didn’t come for a nap. I brought home a file last night to go through before my meeting today and I forgot it this morning.”
    The corner of her mouth twitched. “Which means you came in, sat down and conked out. I think that says something.”
    Picking up a couple of plastic blocks from the floor, he placed them on the tray of Mickey’s walker. The boy immediately grabbed one in each hand and clapped them together.
    When she was right, she was right. Deciding to drop an argument he couldn’t win, Trace addressed a new issue. “I told you not to bother doing my laundry.”
    “I’m not doing your laundry. I’m doing Mickey’s laundry,” she said, as she shook out another extra-large T-shirt, crisply folded it and set it on top of two others.
    “Either those are my shirts, or you’re dating a man named Mickey.”
    She grinned. “They are your shirts. But I only threwthem in because I needed to fill up the load. You wouldn’t want me to waste important