An Unexpected Christmas Baby

Having a caseworker was a part of his legacy that he wasn’t going to pass on to his sister.

Reaching the new blue Lincoln Navigator he’d purchased five months before and hadn’t visited the prison in even once, he felt a sharp pang of guilt as he realized once again that he’d let almost half a year pass since seeing his mother.

Before he’d met Stella Wainwright—a lawyer in her father’s high-powered firm, whose advice he’d come to rely on as he’d made preparations to open his own investment firm—he’d seen Alana at least twice a month. But once he and Stella had hooked up on a personal level, he’d been distracted. Incredibly busy. And...

He’d been loath to lie to Stella about where he’d been—in the event he’d visited the prison—but had been equally unsure about telling her about his convict mother.

As it turned out, his reticence hadn’t been off the mark. As soon as he’d told Stella about his mother’s death, and the child who’d been bequeathed to him, she’d balked. She’d assumed he’d give the baby up for adoption. And had made it clear that if he didn’t, she was moving on. She’d said from the beginning that she didn’t want children, at least not for a while, but he’d also seen the extreme distaste in her expression when he’d mentioned where his mother had been when she died, and why he’d never introduced them.

Her reaction hadn’t surprised him.

Eight years had passed since he’d been under investigation and nearly lost his career, but the effects were long-lasting. He’d done nothing more than provide his destitute mother with a place to live, but when his name came up as owner of a drug factory, the truth hadn’t mattered.

Stella had done a little research and he’d been cooked.

Opening the back passenger door of the vehicle, he gently laid his sleeping bundle in the car seat, unprepared when the bundle slumped forward. Repositioning her, he pulled her slightly forward, allowing her body weight to lean back—and slouch over to the side of the seat.

Who the hell had thought the design of that seat appropriate?

“This might help.”

Straightening, he saw the caseworker holding out a brightly covered, U-shaped piece of foam. He took it from her and arranged it at the top of the car seat as instructed. He was pleased with the result. Until he realized he’d placed the sleeping bundle on top of the straps that were supposed to hold the baby in place.

Expecting Ms. Bailey to interrupt, to push him aside to show him how it was done—half hoping she would so she wasn’t standing there watching his big fumbling fingers—he set to righting his mistake. The caseworker must be thinking he was incapable of handling the responsibility. However, she didn’t butt in and he managed, after a long minute, to get the baby harnessed. He’d practiced that, too. The hooking and unhooking of those straps. Plastic pieces that slid over metal for the shoulder part, metal into metal over the bottom half.

He stood. Waited for a critique of his first task as a...guardian.

Handing him her card, reminding him of legalities he’d have to complete, Ms. Bailey took one last look at the baby and told him to call her if he had any questions or problems.

He took the card, assuring her he’d call if the need arose. Pretty certain he wouldn’t. He’d be like any normal...guardian; he’d call the pediatrician. As soon as he had one. Another item he had to add to the list of immediate things to do.

“And for what it’s worth...” Ms. Bailey stood there, looking between him and the little sister he was suddenly starting to feel quite proprietary about. “I think she’s a very lucky little girl.”

Wow. He hadn’t seen that coming. Wasn’t sure the words were true. But they rang loudly in his ears as the woman walked away.

Standing in the open space of the back passenger door, he glanced down at the sleeping baby, only her face visible to him, and didn’t want to shut the door. Didn’t want to leave her in the big back seat all alone.

Which was ridiculous.

He had to get to work. And hope to God he could mend whatever damage had been done by his previous plans to leave. He had some ideas there—a way to redeem himself, to rebuild trust. But he had to be at the office to present them.

Closing the door as softly as he could, he hurried to the driver’s seat, adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see enough of the baby to know she was there and started the engine. Not ready to go anywhere. To begin this new life.

He glanced in the mirror again. Sitting forward so he could see the child more clearly. Other than the little chest rising and falling with each breath, she hadn’t moved.

But was moving him to the point of panic. And tears, too. He wasn’t alone anymore.

“Welcome home, Diamond Rose,” he whispered.

And put the car in Drive.

Chapter Two (#u99e7ecb3-ada3-5b20-ba0d-9c5bf96e2100)

“Dad, seriously, tell me what’s going on.” Tamara Owens faced her father, not the least bit intimidated by the massive cherry desk separating him from her. Or the elegantly imposing décor throughout her father’s office.

She’d seen him at home, unshaved, walking around their equally elegant five-thousand-square-foot home in boxers and a T-shirt. In a bathrobe, sick with the flu. And, also in a bathrobe, holding her hair while she’d thrown up, sick with the same flu. Her mom, the doctor in the family, had been at the hospital that night.

“You didn’t put pressure on me to move home just because you and Mom are getting older and I’m your only child.” It was the story they’d given her when they’d bombarded her with their “do what you need to do, but at least think about it” requests. Then her father, in a conversation alone with her, had given Tamara a second choice, an “at least take a month off and stay for a real visit” that had made the final decision for her. She’d gotten the feeling that he needed her home. She’d already been contemplating leaving the East Coast, where she’d fled two years earlier after having lived in San Diego her entire life. Her reputation as an efficiency consultant was solid enough to allow her to branch out independently, rather than work through a firm without fear of going backward. Truth be told, in those two years, she’d missed her folks as much as they’d missed her, in spite of their frequent trips across the country to see each other.

She’d lived by the ocean in Boston, but she missed Southern California. The sunshine and year-round warmth. The two-year lease renting out her place by the beach, not far from the home she’d grown up in, had ended and the time seemed right to make the move back home.

“And you didn’t ask me down here to have lunch with you just to catch up, either,” she told him. Though his thick hair was mostly gray, her father, at six-two, with football shoulders that had absolutely no slump to them, was a commanding figure. She respected him. But he’d never, ever, made her feel afraid of him.

Or afraid to speak up to him, either.

Her parents, both remarkably successful, independent career people, had raised her to be just as independent.

“I wanted to check in—you know, just the two of us—to see how you’re really doing.”

Watching him, she tried to decide whether she could take him at face value. There’d been times, during her growing-up years, when she’d asked him for private conversations because her mother’s ability to jump too completely into her skin had bothered her. And times when he’d wanted the same. This didn’t feel like one of those times.

But...

“I’m totally over Steve, if that’s what you want to know,” she told him. “We’ve been talking for about six months now. Ever since he called to tell me he was getting married. I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago to tell him I was moving home. I care about him as a friend, but there are truly no regrets about our decision to divorce.”

The passion between them had died long before the marriage had.

“I was wondering more about the...other areas of your life.”

Some of those were permanently broken. She had an “inhospitable” uterus. Nothing anyone could do about that.

“I’ve come to terms with never having a baby, if that’s what you mean.” After she’d lost the fourth one, she’d known she couldn’t let herself try again. What she’d felt for those babies, even when they’d been little more than blips in an ultrasound, had been the most incredible thing ever. But the devastation when she’d lost them...that had almost killed her. Every single time.

She couldn’t do that again.

“There are other ways, Tam.”

She shook her head.

“Adoption, for instance.”

Another vigorous shake of her head was meant to stop his words.

“Down the road, I mean. When you meet someone, want to have a family...”

She was still shaking her head.

“Just give it some time.”