An Unexpected Christmas Baby (The Daycare Chronicles 2)

Not considering everything he’d told her. Everything she’d seen in him over the past few weeks.

And as far as Stella went, Flint had seemed fully over her a week after they’d parted. He’d chosen Diamond Rose rather than her without looking back.

He’d changed his entire life for that baby. Because that was the kind of man he was.

And because it had been his mother’s dying wish.

Because the baby was his only flesh and blood.

But what about before that? Maybe the Flint she’d gotten to know over the past weeks wasn’t the man he’d been a month ago.

He’d had no idea his mother was pregnant, so clearly he hadn’t seen her in a while.

He’d been hell-bent on starting his own business behind her father’s back.

And what about those foreign investments he’d made on his own behalf, the risks he’d taken?

Maybe she just hadn’t been looking in the right place for information. Maybe it wasn’t information she needed.

Maybe what she needed here was a motive. Did it have something to do with Stella?

Was she the reason Flint Collins needed to steal money? Had she made him that desperate? And if not, had something else? If Tamara could find the answer to that question, she might be able to end this whole episode in her life.

Problem was, after her conversation with Mallory, Tamara wasn’t sure she wanted it to end.

Chapter Fifteen

Stella wasn’t going away. Whether she was truly frightened of him now that she knew about his past or—more likely—just incredibly pissed off, she wanted a restraining order against him. No mutual agreement, nothing that could ever come back looking negative on her. All she wanted was him signing her damned paper, agreeing to release her family from any wrongdoing in perpetuity. And an order to stay away from her.

After almost two weeks of back and forth, trying to come to an amicable agreement, Flint’s attorney called him the Friday after Thanksgiving and told him the only way to be free of the family was to fight them. In court. A date had been set for a hearing on the order for Thursday of the following week—on Diamond Rose’s first-month birthday. Standing at the window in his office, watching the bustle of Black Friday shoppers on the streets below, he listened as his attorney highly recommended that he show up.

If he didn’t, the order would automatically be put in place. Would become a matter of permanent record. In other words, if he didn’t show up, he looked guilty.

Which meant that if he hoped to have any kind of long-term relationship with Tamara, even as just the close friends that was all she seemed capable of considering at the moment, he was going to have to tell her about the order.

It might be enough to push her out of his life.

He’d have to take that chance. He was done living with lies, hiding things because he was ashamed of them.

He was tired of being ashamed of his past.

The truth hit him so hard, he had to sit down. He was ashamed of who he was.

Almost as quickly as he sat, he stood again. The second he let life knock him to the ground, he gave it a chance to keep him there.

His much younger self had had the guts to stand up to the bullies on the bus and he sure as hell wasn’t going to allow a selfish woman and her wealthy, powerful family to make him cower.

He had no reason to feel ashamed about anything. It was time to quit acting as if he did. Time to quit hiding the facts of his life.

Finishing with his attorney, agreeing to make the court date and authorizing him to go full-force ahead to have the order dismissed without cause, Flint hung up and called Tamara. She was working upstairs in her office, but she’d told him the night before, when she’d called after Thanksgiving with her folks, that she wouldn’t be at the investment firm much longer. Her work there was almost finished.

She’d had a couple of offers. One local, one out of state. The out-of-state company was larger, but she hadn’t yet confirmed either one. Hoped to be able to schedule both.

He hoped she’d be scheduling time for him, too.

“I hear there’s an old-fashioned country Christmas-tree lighting at Pioneer Park in Julian tomorrow,” he told her. “I’ve never been to a lighting, so I don’t know what we’d be in for, but I was thinking it would be good for Diamond’s first outing. Bright lights for her to focus on, and if she cries, we’re outside in a noisy atmosphere. You want to come along?” He was taking a huge chance, maybe pushing her too fast. He went with his gut and did it anyway.

“I’ve actually been to that celebration before,” she said. “Several times. It’s nice. They have a lot going on. Santa. And other Christmas things. And...have you checked the weather? Do you know if it’s going to be too cold to take her out?”