The Moment of Truth
Dana chuckled. She couldn’t help herself. “What did you do, read Dr. Spock?”
“I got all of that from the American Pregnancy Association website. But I downloaded Dr. Spock’s book, too. It just seemed a bit dated to me.”
The man was better than anything she could ever have dreamed up. And he might drive her crazy, too, by the time this baby was born. The best crazy.
Clearly she was going to have to help him along.
“I have a feeling you didn’t invite me here to discuss morning sickness.”
Throwing his lunch wrappings in the trash, he leaned forward to pull a file from the tray on his desk. “You’re right, I didn’t.”
Her heart beating such a rapid tattoo that she was having trouble catching a full breath, Dana waited. Her sisters were never going to believe this.
He opened his folder. Took out some pages, what appeared to be a spreadsheet. Placing a couple of pages before him, side by side, he slid two more across the desk, side by side, facing her.
Dana felt as if she’d stepped through Alice’s looking glass.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SHOW THEM THE END IN MIND. Josh was back in high school, sitting in on a deal his father was putting together. The elder Joshua Redmond spent a month of evenings in his home office prior to the big day, educating Josh on every aspect of the transaction.
That month had shaped his life. It had shown him what he wanted, what drove him. He’d hung on his father’s every word. And known, even then, that there were ways to expand upon the old man’s theories and practices.
He still remembered every step his father had delineated. He’d honed them. Improved upon them.
But number one remained the same. Start with the end first.
“Picture this,” he said now, sliding a full-color, glossy picture of the house he’d just shown Dana across the desk.
Slide number one, he’d mentally labeled the photo in the presentation.
“You’re in the kitchen, baking cookies, and you look out that window to the backyard and see Lindy Lu and, running behind her, a little three-year-old girl with your long hair, in just that creamy milk-chocolate color. Lindy Lu is barking to get the little girl’s attention, and the girl, your daughter, laughs out loud, her blue eyes twinkling just like yours do when you laugh.”
Josh looked from Dana to the photo as he spoke. Assessing client reaction, keeping his mental finger completely on the pulse of the client at all times was critical. Dana was frowning.
“What’s wrong?”
“Two things.”
“Okay, let’s tackle them one at a time.”
“First, since we have a choice in this scenario, let’s not stick her with my boring hair color. She’ll have your luscious dark brown hair.”
She was kidding, right? He was selling the deal of his life and she was quarreling about fictitious hair color?
And then, relaxing, Josh smiled.
“Your hair is beautiful and you know it,” he said. “It’s unique. Not like every other woman who gets their hair color from a bottle. Yours is much more striking. And luscious. Our daughter will be lucky if she takes after you.”
The compliments rolled off his tongue more smoothly than ever before. And he was admittedly a pro at it. Not until he heard the words aloud did he realize that, in Dana’s case, every single word was true.
The woman stared silently at him with narrowed eyes. As though she was trying to see through him.
He couldn’t afford to let her look too closely.
“What’s your second problem?” he asked.
“Where’s Little Guy?”
“He’s at home, why?”
She shook her head, meeting his gaze head-on. “No, here,” she said, pointing to the house. “You have Lindy Lu in the backyard. Where’s Little Guy?”
He didn’t mean to stare, but Josh did. Was she being deliberately difficult? They had very serious matters to discuss.
“L.G.’s with me,” he said. “Now can we get back to this?”
Leaning forward, seemingly satisfied, she nodded.
Josh pulled out what he’d dubbed slide number two: a picture of a midpriced nursery that he’d printed off the internet.
“This could be either the third or the fourth bedroom we looked at this morning,” he said. He rattled off measurements, pointing to different walls in the picture he’d printed to scale.
“This crib breaks down to an oversize twin with rails and then to a twin bed,” he said. “It’s the most cost-effective solution I found for the relatively quickly changing sleeping needs of young children.”