An Unexpected Christmas Baby (The Daycare Chronicles 2)

Maybe find out where he was working, so she’d know that he and Diamond were secure.

She’d already called Mallory, knew that Diamond Rose was still coming to day care on her regular schedule. Had been there the day before.

She knocked again.

Flint didn’t answer any of her knocks.

With the garage door closed, she couldn’t tell if he was home or not.

One thing was clear, though. If he was inside, he’d seen who was on his porch and definitely didn’t want anything to do with her.

She had to honor that choice.

She just hadn’t expected it to hurt so much and couldn’t contain the sobs that broke out as she turned and walked away.

* * *

Flint heard from Howard Owens every day that first week after his last meeting with Tamara. He didn’t pick up, leaving them with one-way conversations via voice mail. One way—from Howard to him. He didn’t return any of the calls. Howard was requesting an in-person sit-down. He wanted Flint to stay on at Owens Investments. He never mentioned the theft, or his suspicions, not even on the first call Monday morning, when it had become known that Flint had cleared out. By midweek, his messages changed only to add that he’d put out the word to Flint’s clients that, due to having just become a father, he was taking a week or two off. Howard was personally handling Flint’s entire book of business.

Flint might have called him back to tell him to go to hell. If he’d been a bitter man.

Even when Owens implored him, he ignored the summons.

And when he sent his spy daughter to Flint’s home to plead his case? Especially then. He was fighting for his very life. Something neither of them would know anything about.

It was possible he would’ve capitulated after a full week’s worth of calls, but on the Tuesday after the truth about Tamara had come out, while Flint was home alone researching his next career path, he’d received another court notice.

Not from Stella this time.

Much worse than Stella.

Lucille Redding, Diamond’s paternal grandmother, a woman no older than Diamond’s mother, was petitioning for custody of his little girl. No one had told him Diamond’s paternity had been discovered, let alone that there was a paternal family.

He’d called Michael Armstrong, his attorney, immediately. Faxed the petition over to h

im. Asked about the repercussions of taking his baby sister and disappearing from the country. Hadn’t liked that answer at all.

Michael had told him to sit tight and let him do some investigating.

Flint had cashed in some of his more lucrative personal investments, moving the money to his offshore account.

He called his attorney again, filling him in on the news Tamara had given him on Sunday, assuring him that he absolutely had not taken any money from anyone in any kind of illegal capacity. Michael told Flint he believed him.

He wouldn’t blame the guy for having doubts. But he was paying him to keep them to himself.

Instructed once again to sit tight, Flint packed a couple of emergency suitcases, one for him, one for Diamond Rose, just in case, storing them in the trunk compartment in the back of his Lincoln.

For the rest of that day he’d researched career options and tried not to hear Tamara’s voice in the back of his mind. He played music. Turned it up louder. Left the news on in the background, watching the stock channel on cable.

She didn’t love him. Truth was, she’d been so hurt, she was probably incapable of truly loving anyone, other than maybe her parents.

He’d put Diamond to bed in her carrier that night, keeping it on the bed with him, a hand on her, on it, at all times. If he hadn’t read that it was unsafe to have the baby sleeping right beside him—read about the danger of rolling over in his sleep and suffocating her—he’d have snuggled her little self right up against his heart, where he intended to keep her forever. Safe from a world that would judge her just because of who she’d been born to. And where she’d been born.

As if she’d had a choice about any of that!

Michael called Wednesday morning just as Flint was pulling out of the Bouncing Ball Daycare.

Turned out that Alana Gold had had an affair with a twenty-eight-year-old male nurse, Simon Redding, an army reservist working in the prison infirmary. Simon had fallen in love with her and, according to what he’d told his mother, Alana had loved him, too.