An Unexpected Christmas Baby

He wasn’t nervous. Flint took risks with the market. But only when his gut was at peace with them. His financial gift was about the only thing he trusted.

Glancing up, he checked his new responsibility. He could see movement as she breathed. Stared as a fist pushed its way out of the blanket. Who’d have thought hands came that small? Or that people did?

She looked far too insecure on that big table made for powerful business deals between grown men and women.

Market numbers scrolled on his screen. They were still going up. But they could take a second rapid dive; his guess was they would. And soon. They’d already climbed higher than he’d conservatively predicted, but not as high as he’d optimistically hoped.

Pushing back from his desk, he crossed the room again, lifted the carrier gently, loath to risk waking his charge. With his free hand, he pulled a chair back to his desk, positioning it next to his seat, along the wall to his left. Away from the door and any unseen drafts. Satisfied, he settled the carrier there, glanced at his computer screen and pushed the button to sell.

At a price higher than he’d hoped.

Five minutes later, the stock started to drop.

He still had his touch. And a fairly good chance of securing his job. Even Bill couldn’t argue with the kind of money he’d just made.

* * *

As was her way, Tamara studied before she went into action. She didn’t take the time she would later spend going over individual accounts, one by one, account by account, figure by figure. But when she approached Flint Collins’s office late Monday afternoon, she not only knew every piece of information in his employee file, but she was familiar with every account he’d handled in the nearly eight years he’d been working for her father.

Aside from the part about suspecting that he was stealing from them, she was impressed. And more convinced than ever that if anyone could succeed in taking money from Howard without his knowing, it could be Collins. The man was clearly brilliant.

He’d been a suspect in the drug production and distribution that had put his mother in prison; he’d also grown up with her criminal history. According to a pretty thorough background check, the only consistent influence in his life had been his mother—in between her various stints in jail.

The first of which had come when he was only six. She’d been sentenced to three months. Tamara had seen a list of his mother’s public criminal record in his file. Probably there because of Flint’s ties to her latest arrest. She’d also seen that the woman was only fifteen years older than her son. A child raising a child.

Funny how life worked. A young girl who, judging by the facts, had been ill-equipped to have the responsibility of a child and yet she’d had one. While Tamara...

No. She wasn’t going backward.

Passing Bill’s open door, she waved at the director who was on the phone but waved back. Smiled at her. And her heart lifted a notch. She’d managed to get her way and not make an enemy. It was always good to have a “friend” among the people she was studying.

A couple of steps from Flint Collins’s closed door, she stopped. That damned baby cry was going off again. She didn’t want to interrupt his call. Nor did she want to wait around while he talked on the phone.

And really, what kind of guy had a crying newborn as his ringtone?

Not one she’d ever want to associate with, that was for sure.

However she didn’t want to get on the guy’s bad side. Not yet, anyway. She needed him to like her. To trust her.

She might even need to learn about his life if she hoped to help her father. According to Bill, anyway. The director was pretty certain that Collins wouldn’t have hidden anything he was doing in files to which she’d have access.

The crying had stopped. She didn’t hear any voices. Had whoever was calling hung up?

Deciding to wait a couple of seconds, just in case he was listening to a caller on the other end, Tamara cringed as the baby cry started back up. Sounding painfully realistic. How could he stand that?

Apparently he’d let the call go to voice mail. And whoever had been at the other end was phoning back. Was Collins ignoring the call? Unless he wasn’t there? Had he left his cell in his office?

A man like Flint Collins didn’t leave his cell phone behind.

Tamara knocked. And when there was no answer, tried the door. Surprisingly the knob turned. The office was impressive. Neat. Classy. Elegant.

And had nothing on the spread of male shoulders she saw bending over something to the side of his desk. Or the backside beneath them.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” she blurted. The crying had to stop. It was making her crazy. She had business to do with him and—

The way those shoulders jerked and his glance swung in her direction clearly indicated that he hadn’t heard her enter. Making her uncomfortably aware that she should probably have knocked a second time.

How hadn’t he heard her first knock?

The thought fled as soon as she realized that the crying was coming from closer to him. There by the window. Not from the cell phone she noticed on his desk as she approached.

And then she saw it...the carrier...on the chair next to him. He’d been rocking it.

“What on earth are you doing to that baby?” she exclaimed, nothing in mind but to rescue the child in obvious distress. To stop the noise that was going to send her spiraling if she wasn’t careful.

“Damned if I know,” he said loudly enough to be heard over the noise. “I fed her, burped her, changed her. I’ve done everything they said to do, but she won’t stop crying.”

Tamara was already unbuckling the strap that held the crying infant in her seat. She was so tiny! Couldn’t have been more than a few days old. Her skin was still wrinkled and so, so red. There were no tears on her cheeks.

“There’s nothing poking her. I checked,” Collins said, not interfering as she lifted the baby from the seat, careful to support the little head.

It wasn’t until that warm weight settled against her that Tamara realized what she’d done. She was holding a baby. Something she couldn’t do.

She was going to pay. With a hellacious nightmare at the very least.

The baby’s cries had stopped as soon as Tamara picked her up.

“What did you do?” Collins was there, practically touching her, he was standing so close.

“Nothing. I picked her up.”

“There must’ve been some problem with the seat, after all...” He’d tossed the infant head support on the desk and was removing the washable cover.

“I’m guessing she just wanted to be held,” Tamara said. What the hell was she doing?

Tearless crying generally meant anger, not physical distress.

And why did Flint Collins have a baby in his office?

She had to put the child down. But couldn’t until he put the seat back together. The newborn’s eyes were closed and she hiccuped and then sighed.

Clenching her lips for a second, Tamara looked away. “Babies need to be held almost as much as they need to be fed,” she told him while she tried to understand what was going on. “The skin-to-skin contact, the cuddling, is vitally important not only to their current emotional well-being but to future emotional, developmental and social behavior.”

She was quoting books she’d memorized—long ago—in another life. He was checking the foam beneath the seat cover and the straps, too. Her initial analysis indicated that he was fairly distraught himself.

Not what she would’ve predicted from a hard-core businessman possibly stealing from her father.

“Who is she?” she asked, figuring it was best to start at the bottom and work her way up to exposing him for the thief he probably was.