An Unexpected Christmas Baby (The Daycare Chronicles 2)

Diamond Rose released another small outburst. Twenty minutes ahead of schedule. He had to get back to her. His first real duty and he was already letting her down. He’d had no time to prepare the bottle, as he’d expected to.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking from Bill to their expert and then heading to the door. “I have to get this.”

Let them think it was his phone. And that the call was more important at that moment than they were.

Just until he had things under control.

Chapter Four

She was coming down with something. Wouldn’t you know it? First day of the most important job of her life to date—because it was for her father, her family—and she was experiencing hot flashes followed by cold shivers.

That could only mean the flu.

Crap.

“So...you’re good with keeping him on?” She looked at Bill and then back to the doorway they’d both been staring at. She’d been listening for Mr. Collins’s “hello” as he took the call that was important enough for him to leave a meeting during which he’d been begging for his job. She’d wanted to hear his tone of his voice as he addressed such an important caller.

Business or pleasure?

“Your father said you’re the boss.” Bill’s words didn’t seem to have any edge to them.

“Well, he’s wrong, of course.” She was smiling, glad to know she didn’t have to worry about stepping on at least one director’s toes. “But it makes sense, from an efficiency standpoint, to keep on a broker who’s willing to sign a noncompete clause. Unless you know of some reason he should go? I heard him say he makes the company money. Is that true?”

“He’s one of our top producers.”

She knew that already, but there was no reason, as an efficiency expert who hadn’t yet seen her first file, that she should.

“You have some hesitation about him?”

She’d asked Bill twice if there was a reason Flint Collins shouldn’t stay on. Bill hadn’t replied.

He gave a half shrug as he looked at her and crossed to his desk, straightening his tie. “None tops the offer he made a few minutes ago. Still, I don’t like having guys around that I can’t trust.”

He had her total focus. “He’s given you reason to mistrust him?”

Bill shook his head. “Just the whole ‘opening his own shop’ thing.”

“It’s what my dad did—left a firm to start Owens Investments. And you helped him do it.”

“We did it the right way,” Bill said. “The first person your father told, before taking any action, was his boss. None of this finding out from a friend in the recorder’s office. Makes me wonder what else he isn’t telling us...”

Made her wonder, too.

“I’m going over all the company files. He’ll know that as soon as he reads his email. Seems like if he’s untrustworthy, he’ll have a problem with that.”

“If he’s got anything to hide, you aren’t going to find it.”

Maybe not.

Ostensibly her job was to come up with ways for Owens to make more money. “He’s a top producer and wants to sign a noncompete agreement.”

“Right when he was getting ready to go into business for himself,” Bill said, frowning. “Like I said, kind of makes you wonder why, doesn’t it?”

“Is it possible that any of his applications for the various licenses were turned down for some reason?”

“From what I heard, he’d been fully approved.”

“Could you have heard wrong?”