An Unexpected Christmas Baby (The Daycare Chronicles 2)

“It’s best to use a small plastic tub, or a kitchen sink, when bathing a newborn...”

Clicking to open an additional browser window, he shopped for plastic tubs. Found one at the local children’s store he’d spent bundles in that weekend. How had he missed the tub aisle? He added it to the shopping list he’d made for the following day.

And thought about Tamara Frost. Wondering what she was doing. If she had a significant other and was with him. She hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything these days.

He wondered how she’d react if he gave in to the urge that had been nagging at him most of the evening and called her.

Before he’d figured out his immediate plans. Before speaking with Howard as she’d instructed.

He’d spoken with Mallory Harris and had an arrangement to meet with her the following day, time to be determined.

First priority was Howard Owens. He’d sent off an email that afternoon, requesting an in-person meeting as soon as possible. Once he heard back, he’d schedule—or reschedule—everything else.

He checked his email again. No response yet.

Nothing from Stella, either, not that he’d expected anything. She’d made her feelings perfectly clear. The baby or her. His choice was in his arms, breathing against him.

Maybe he should be missing Stella more than he was, or at least be hurting... Maybe he would at some point. There just wasn’t room enough right now. His capacity for grief was taken up with Alana Gold.

The woman who’d taught him a long time ago that no matter how much he loved her, it wouldn’t be enough to keep her home with him. Not forever.

Having Stella in his life had been wonderful. And yet part of him had always believed it wouldn’t last.

Glancing at the clock, Flint figured he had another hour and fifteen minutes before he’d need to measure formula, heat, change, feed and burp again. Adjusting the baby so she was lying against him, propped in the curve of his body, and freeing enough of his

left arm to allow him to type, he clicked on the most used site on his browser’s favorite bar—the stock exchange.

* * *

Twelve-eleven a.m.

One-oh-six a.m.

One fifty-two a.m.

Wiping the tears from her cheeks, Tamara sat up in bed. Turning on the bedside lamp she’d purchased from an antiques mall before she’d moved east, she pulled her laptop off the nightstand and flipped it open—the third time since she’d gone to bed that she’d done it.

She’d focus. Work until she couldn’t keep her eyes open. And then she’d sleep. Until she woke up shaking again.

The nightmares weren’t the same. But they all felt identical. Sometimes she’d be holding Ryan, feeling so incredibly happy. Complete. And then she’d wake and the devastating loss would be as fresh now as though she was feeling it for the first time.

She didn’t completely hate that dream. Those moments holding her baby—they were almost worth waking up for.

That night they were the other kind. The ones where she wasn’t even around children at all. She’d be someplace—sometimes she recognized it, sometimes she didn’t—and she couldn’t get out. It could be a maze. A building. A hole in the ground.

Sometimes she’d be on a path in the dark with so many obstacles she couldn’t move.

She’d hear a cry. Someone needing her. And she could never get to whoever it was.

Or she’d reach the end of the path and there’d be a dead baby. Wrapped in a beautiful blanket. Always wrapped in that blanket.

Once there’d been an empty casket.

In the beginning she’d been inside her own womb multiple times. Trapped. Unable to get out.

She’d had that dream again tonight. Before the 1:52 a.m. wakening. Which was why she was sitting up.

She could take a sleeping pill. Knock herself out.