The Baby Bargain

She cocked a brow even though she knew his last name was Logan. Same as the uncle and cousins who’d hired him. Still, it never hurt to let one’s adversary believe he hadn’t been worthy of much interest up to now.

To his credit, his surprise showed only in his eyes.

“Logan,” he supplied. “And, no, I do not have children.”

Eden nodded and made a mental note. A very crisp “No, I do not” rather than “Not yet” or “I haven’t been so fortunate.” She colored her responding “Ahh” with gentle implication.

“Your commercial was lovely to look at,” she said sincerely. “Almost made me want to get pregnant again. If someone could guarantee I’d be like the woman in your ad. Now, there’s a gal who looks as if she could have triplets and not lose any beauty sleep. Most of us moms with little ones are lucky if we brush our teeth before noon.”

From her peripheral vision, Eden saw the women in the room nod and smile.

“I hope I’m not being too personal, Ms. Carter,” LJ said, obviously realizing he could lose the ground he’d already gained if he wasn’t careful, “but you’re far more attractive than the actress who was hired for the commercial. If you have a child young enough to be teething, I think we put the wrong woman on TV.”

Garnet Kearn beamed at him. Wayne Thorpe and Miles Remington raised their brows as if it was an option worth considering.

Score: Logan, 1. Carter, 0.

Eden couldn’t ignore the fact that he’d just made her look like Gladys Kravitz, butting in where she didn’t belong. When she’d first received the memo regarding the meeting, she’d considered the invitation to be little more than a courtesy. Who needed a layperson’s input with an advertising pro onboard? Now that she’d met the whiz kid, she revised her opinion.

You need me, buddy boy. And I need you to protect my place of employment. She was determined to speak up whether he liked it or not.

Smiling as if she thought he’d paid her a compliment, Eden cracked her knuckles under the table. He might know advertising, but Mr. New York was about to discover that mommies and babies were her areas of expertise.

LJ relished the victory he’d just won. Before Ms. Carter had tossed in her two cents, he’d been about to tie this job into a bow pretty enough to impress his uncle. No way would he allow someone to undermine a victory that was only moments away.

Her gripe could waste a lot of time if the board wasn’t savvy about marketing. No one on any sofa in any home in America had ever bought a product or service because it promised to make him look and feel exactly the way he looked and felt sitting in front of his TV.

Advertising, even for services like those provided by the Children’s Connection, appealed to people’s fantasies, to their idealized versions of themselves and the lives they would like to lead. Who fantasized about being overworked, sleep deprived and covered in baby puke?

He decided to use her objection to hammer his point home. My apologies, beauty, but this is a business meeting, not Mommy and Me.

“I’m glad you found the commercial aesthetically pleasing.” He spoke directly to her. “We want to plant a strong, positive image in the mind of anyone looking into an adoption or fertility clinic.”

When her pale brows gathered and it appeared she was going to rebut, he held the floor tenaciously, shifting his attention to the others.

“It goes without saying that the Children’s Connection has suffered a number of blows to its image and that the result has been public questioning of the organization’s agenda. More crucially, this board’s basic values have come under attack. I intend to plant an image firmly in the minds of every viewer that leaves no doubt about the Children’s Connection’s first love—the creation of families. I want hopeful parents to know we are unabashedly romantic about helping to build those families and watching them grow. That we will be part of their lives far past inception or birth or an adoptive placement. The world may be cynical…the Portland Children’s Connection is not.”

LJ always knew when he’d hooked his audience. The energy in a conference room began to hum. If he felt it, he was making his point.

Around the table members of the board sat taller in their faux-leather chairs. LJ’s uncle Terrence and aunt Leslie linked hands atop the table. The unconsciousness of the gesture told LJ a great deal.

Though he kept his gaze on the others, he could feel the frustration simmering in the woman seated beside him. What was her beef? So the actress in the commercial was skinny. Eden Carter’s body was made to attract men, most of whom would go nuts over her more liberal curves. The subtle Southern lilt in her voice wouldn’t hurt, either.

He had a fleeting desire to apologize for cutting off her protest—very fleeting. He’d never been that nice in business. And since he was about to win his father’s approval for the first time in two decades, he wasn’t about to let a pretty blonde with a body image issue compete with his father-approval issue.

Beside him, the woman cleared her throat. When LJ looked at her, she smiled.

“That is a wonderful saying. ‘The world may be cynical. The Children’s Connection is not.’” She splayed a hand on her chest. “I’m a sucker for great sayings. I still get weepy over ‘You had me at hello.’ Still, if I understand the recent allegations, it’s our credibility that’s at question. We’re being called irresponsible. Or out-and-out liars.”

Damage control alert. LJ’s brow furrowed so deeply he could have grown carrots. Eden Carter looked and sounded like an angel, but as she turned to address the people around the table, she was far from heavenly. She was a bad-ass thorn in his side.

As she began speaking, he ground his teeth and felt pain stab his head. If she gave him a migraine, he was going to stop being polite.

“In our First-Time Moms class we tell women exactly what to expect,” she said in that soothing, eminently reasonable tone she had. “We insist they be armed with real-life information so their experience won’t overwhelm their expectations. The public should know that. They should know we educate and arm our clients with knowledge before they become parents and while they’re pregnant and after their babies arrive. Our prospective clients and all those nasty people who have been so rude to us need to know we would never ever try to snow anyone. We don’t merely value honesty around here, we insist on it.”

She thumped, actually thumped a fist on the table. He almost felt sorry for her, because she’d obviously forgotten that she was addressing a board of directors, not just a roomful of fellow employees. If this were a Frank Capra movie and Jimmy Stewart were on the board, fist-thumping idealism might work.

“If our intentions are in question,” she continued, as earnest as could be, “then, shouldn’t we be as frank as possible now? We don’t have to sugarcoat reality to make it palatable. The truth is good enough. The Children’s Connection is good enough.” She placed both palms on the table and sat forward in her chair. “I ought to know. I work here, and I’m a client.”

Hold the phone.

LJ’s brain, which was starting to hurt, scrambled to take in the information that she was a Children’s Connection client. By God, he loathed surprises.

How was she a client? Of which services had she availed herself? Adoption or the fertility clinic?

And what did she do here, anyway?

Racking his brain some more, he sought a polite way to remind everyone present that he was the professional here and that Little Bo Peep didn’t know advertising from a flock of sheep.

He opened his mouth, but applause came out. Huh? Frowning, he glanced around.

Every soul around the table had his or her hands in prayer position, clapping enthusiastically. Heads nodded. Broad, unmistakably proud smiles wreathed every face.

He looked to his left.

Eden Carter ducked her head humbly, adding an “Oh, pshaw” shrug before she picked up her plate of cookies and passed it around.

And he was worried about finding a polite way to discredit her?

His irritation rose and his head pounded harder with each “Ahhh” a bite of her apparently excellent baked goods inspired.

The hell with polite.

The meeting was out of his control, the first time he recalled that happening ever, and he had five feet, six inches of curving Betty Crocker to thank for it.

When the plate of cookies made it back to their end of the table, she reached in front of him and held it aloft. Unshakably pleasant, she offered, “Cookie? Only—”

“Three Weight Watchers points?” he recited along with her. “I heard.” Smiling with no humor at all, he reached for a perfectly round disk studded with chocolate chips. Examined it. “It looks good. And sweet.”

Returning the cookie to the plate, he curled his lips into something feral. “But I’m an Atkins man.” He leaned toward her, his words for her ears only. “See, I have a goal. Don’t think for one second that I’m going to let a little sugar get in my way.”

Chapter Two

“Then he looked at me with his beady eyes all scrunched up and nasty and said, ‘Don’t think for one second I’m going to be nice about this!’ Or something like that. That was the idea, anyway.”

Eden sat on an Elmo beach towel spread atop the grass in Woodstock Park and recounted the afternoon’s weirdness for her best friend and housemate, Liberty Sanchez. Eden’s accent, modulated and subtle on a typical day, sounded particularly twangy when anger became her overriding emotion. “Oh, mah Gaawwwwd, what a weasel.”

Snatching a red grape from the bag she’d brought for their dinner picnic and popping it into her mouth, Liberty shrugged with the fatalism she’d developed over her thirty years. “Sounds like a typical businessman. You get in his way, you’re dust.” Her near-black eyes narrowed. “Was it so important to make your point, Eden? I mean, I know you care about your business, but as long as what’s-his-face—”