An Unexpected Christmas Baby

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Which was why Alana had refused to name him as her baby’s father. She’d been protecting him from prosecution.

  At his mother’s insistence, Simon had volunteered for deployment shortly after he’d slept with Alana, to get himself as far away from temptation as possible. He’d died in Afghanistan just after Thanksgiving and his mother, honoring the love her son had said he’d felt, and knowing he could no longer be hurt by it, had tried to contact Alana. To visit her.

  Only to learn that she’d died in childbirth. That the affair could have resulted in a baby girl.

  She was requesting a DNA test to prove that her son was Diamond’s father.

  And, assuming the test was positive, would be suing for custody. She was married. To a colonel in the air force. Was a schoolteacher. Simon had been their only child.

  They had the perfect family unit in which to bring up a little girl.

  On Friday he’d received a court order to provide Diamond’s DNA.

  And as early as Monday or Tuesday, he could be faced with having to set up a time to make her available for a grandparent visit.

  He wasn’t leaving the house at all that day or the next. He and Diamond were going to lie on her blanket on the floor and watch children’s movies. He was going to rock her. Feed her. Bathe her. Take pictures and video of all of it.

  And come Monday, in spite of the fact that he had a pending restraining order against him, an ex-boss who suspected him of theft, no job and had been suspected of helping his convict mother finance the drug business that had put her in prison, he was going to fight like hell to keep Diamond and him together.

  He could be a good father. And a good brother. Both at once. He knew that now.

  No one was going to love her more than he did.

  No one but him could raise her to understand the good that came from being Alana Gold’s child. Or teach her about the good that had been in Alana herself.

  Diamond wasn’t just a convict’s daughter. She was the daughter of a woman who, though afflicted with the disease of addiction, had loved fiercely. Laughed often. Who’d listened to understand. Who’d always, always, come back.

  And who’d taught him how to live with determination, not bitterness. To stand instead of cower. To carry dignity with honor even when others tried to strip it away.

  She’d made him the man he was.

  It was up to him to teach Diamond all the value to which she’d been born.

  Because she wasn’t just going to be someone.

  She was someone.

  * * *

  On the Tuesday of that next week, fourteen days before Christmas, Tamara joined Mallory at the Bouncing Ball after work to help her friend put up Christmas decorations. Saying that putting the tree up too early made the little ones anxious, Mallory always decorated for two weeks and two weeks only. If the day after Christmas was a workday, she came in Christmas night to take down the decorations.

  Tamara had promised herself that she wasn’t going to mention Flint or Diamond Rose. Nor was she going to look for any evidence that either of them had been there.

  If Flint wanted her to know anything about them, he’d call her.

  He’d have answered his door.

  Her spying days were over.

  Which made it a bit difficult when, after they’d hauled the artificial tree out of the back of the storage closet, straightened its branches and were just starting to string lights, Mallory said, “Flint offered to stay and help do this.”

  Mallory knew Tamara wasn’t friends with Flint anymore. Knew he’d quit her father’s company. Why on earth was she...?

  And then it hit her. Flint and Mallory.

  Standing on one side of the tree, she passed the long strand of stay-cool lights over to Tamara, who wrapped the two top branches in front of her and handed them back. Mallory’s tree always had lights on every single branch to make up for the lack of ornaments that she said just tempted little ones to reach out and touch.

  Tamara had insisted that Mallory and Flint would be perfect for each other.

  Had thrown him at Mallory.

  Her pain at the thought of them together was no one’s fault but her own.

  “I figured Braden would be here,” she said, bringing up Mallory’s ex only because she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t talk about Flint behind his back. But lying to herself was really no better than lying to Flint, although the truth was that she couldn’t bear to hear Mallory talk about him.

  Mallory passed the lights back to her.

  She didn’t know what she’d do if Flint and Mallory became a couple.

  Move back to Boston probably.

  Keep in touch with Mallory for a while by phone, wish her well from the bottom of her heart, then slowly fade away from them completely.

  It was the right thing to do.

  “Braden’s always helped you in the past,” she continued just because she’d already started the conversation. Taking off the section she’d just wrapped when the lights all fell onto the same branch, she tried to rearrange them.

  “He’s out on a date tonight.”

  Oh. She passed the lights back to her friend. “Is she someone new?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t ask.” Mallory’s tone said she didn’t care. Tamara wasn’t sure she believed that. She’d never completely understood the relationship between Mallory and Braden.

  “How about that guy you were seeing at Thanksgiving? What was his name? Colton something? Is that going anywhere?”

  “No. My call. Not interested.” Mallory returned the lights to her.

  So it was Flint, then. Leaning down as they reached their way along the tree, Tamara covered a wider section of branches.

  She should be glad to know that Flint and Mallory might find each other. She loved both of them and neither deserved to be alone. And yet...what kind of woman did it make her that she couldn’t bear the thought of the two of them together?

  “Flint’s in a real bind, Tamara.”

  With the string of lights hung, Mallory plugged it in, making the room glow with the overabundance of multicolored twinkling lights. Tamara barely saw them.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. Was it Stella? His court date wasn’t until the following week. But the woman could have showed up somewhere he’d been and then called the police to report that he’d been near her.

  “Please don’t tell him I told you, but if there’s anything you or your family can do to help...” Mallory bent to the box of decorations, hauling out plastic wall hangings. Tamara recognized the long faux mantel she was unfolding, on which Mallory would hang stockings for each of the kids, with their names on them.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked again, more tension in her voice than she’d ever used with Mallory before.

  “He just doesn’t strike me as a man who’d ever ask anyone for help, at least not that he couldn’t pay for and...” Mallory was bent over the box again.

  “Mallory!”

  Her friend stood, a garland of bells in hand, facing her.

  “It goes against everything in me to talk about a client but...he might lose Diamond Rose, and if he at least had a job...”

  Heart pounding, Tamara could hardly breathe. Lose Diamond Rose?

  She hadn’t told Mallory he’d quit Owens Investments. Apparently he’d done that himself.

  “My father’s been calling him every day for a week, trying to get him to come back,” she said. “He doesn’t pick up and won’t return his calls. What’s going on?”

  Flint could lose his baby?

  Because of Stella’s order?

  “Her paternal grandparents have come forward, demanding a DNA test, and they’re suing for custody.”

  Tamara fell into the chair closest to her. A tiny, hard-backed one. Mallory told her what Flint had been going throu
gh since she’d last seen him, at least the parts he’d shared with her. And only because he’d had to give Mallory’s name to the courts, who’d be contacting her as Diamond’s caregiver.

  “Her father’s younger than Flint.” Tamara said the only thing she could focus on that didn’t make her feel like she was suffocating.

  Wow.

  Oh, God.

  “The grandparents are in their late forties, young enough to participate fully in her activities as they raise her. They’ve been married for twenty-five years, have professional jobs and not so much as a speeding ticket. Their son was a nurse and in the army reserves. His only apparent mistake in life was falling in love with Alana and having sex with her while he was working in the prison infirmary.”

  Mind speeding ahead now, Tamara stood as a list of supposed sins against Flint sprang to mind. She knew them well because she and her father had listed them as reasons to suspect him of theft.

  She knew how easily that list could convince someone against him. And she and her dad hadn’t even had the restraining order to include in the mix.

  Add to that, he’d just left his job—walking away from all the people who’d been loyal to him for almost a decade, some more than that, who would’ve been able to testify on his behalf. Including his client list.

  He had no one. No family. No girlfriend. No one to stand up and tell the court what a travesty it would be to take that baby away from him.

  “He’s a single man without a job,” Mallory said. “I was thinking, if your father took him back, at least that issue would be solved... I didn’t know he was already trying to do so.”

  And Flint hadn’t returned Howard’s calls. Because the one thing Flint had never learned was to rely on others. To allow himself to need anything he couldn’t provide for himself. Or pay for.

  Because he could never believe that anyone would help him.

  He’d probably thought, in spite of Howard’s assurances otherwise, that her father was trying to get him to talk about the missing money. He’d have no way of knowing that Bill had admitted his gambling addiction, confessed everything. Some of it was confidential and couldn’t be told, and the rest... Her father wanted to apologize to Flint in person, man to man. Eye to eye.

  “I’m sure he won’t value his pride over Diamond Rose,” she said. “He can’t. Especially once he finds out what’s been going on.” Apologizing to Mallory for abandoning her, she grabbed her bag and ran out.

  She had to get to her father. To convince him to do whatever he had to—beg at Flint’s front door if it came to that, or camp out in the Bouncing Ball parking lot until he showed up there—to give him his job back, whether he wanted it or not.

  That was for starters.

  What she could do after that, she hadn’t figured out.

  She just knew she had to focus. Get to her father.

  And figure it out.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The last thing Flint had expected to see as he was coming out of the Bouncing Ball Wednesday morning was Howard Owens standing beside his Lincoln.

  “I have nothing to say to you,” he said, getting close enough that the fob in his suit pocket unlocked the door. He rattled off the name of his attorney, telling Howard to say anything he had to say to Michael.

  He got in his vehicle and pushed the button to lock the doors behind him.

  DNA tests were expected that day or the next. They could’ve been in as early as Monday. Flint was considering every night he had with Diamond as a gift at this point.

  Living from moment to moment.

  And planning for a future with his baby girl, too. He had to, if he was going to stay sane.

  He had to, to give Michael something to present to the judge. Something that could stand up to practically perfect grandparents.

  About to put the SUV in drive, he glanced out the windshield and stopped. Howard was standing there, right in front of the vehicle. Arms crossed.

  Challenging him.

  The man was in his fifties, graying, but every inch the fit and muscular man he’d been when Flint had first met him.

  Flint couldn’t be intimidated anymore. He’d had enough. He reached for his phone to call the police and then thought about having that on his record.

  It would be his word against Howard’s regarding who’d started the confrontation. Howard would bring up the suspicions of theft against Flint...

  Leaving the vehicle running, he got out.

  Stood face-to-face with the other man, his arms crossed.

  “I’m here to help.” Howard’s gravelly voice didn’t sound helpful.

  “If she put you up to this, tell her that she can consider her conscience cleared. And while you’re at it, tell her to stay off my property.”

  With a single bow of the head, Howard acknowledged the order. But didn’t move. “You’re a smart man, Flint.”

  He refused to let the compliment distract him.

  “Too smart to risk losing your daughter without doing all you possibly could do to keep her.”

  They knew.

  Glancing at the door of the day care, he realized he should’ve known. Michael had said he had to provide Diamond’s day-care information. Tamara had recommended Mallory to him.

  They were all in it together.

  Like hanging with like.

  Sticking together.

  That was how things worked.

  “She’s my sister, not my daughter.” It was all the fight he had in that second, while he figured out what Howard was after and then did something to circumvent whatever it was.

  “She won’t know the difference until after you’re more father than brother to her.”

  Point to Howard Owens.

  The admission was like a slug to his shoulder. Nothing more.

  “Let me help you.”

  He stared at the older man. There’d been a real plea in his tone. He’d never taken Howard for an actor. Never knew he had that talent.

  Stood to reason, though, considering his wealth and the business he was in, convincing people to part with their money.

  Flint’s business, too. His one real talent.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Does it matter? You don’t want to lose that baby, you need a job.”

  “I’ll find a job.”

  “Not with almost a decade’s experience, not with a book of business large enough to impress even the most jaded of judges, not one that’s going to give you the security you’ve got at Owens.”

  “Until you fire me for fraud, you mean.”

  “We got our man,” Howard said, giving him nothing more on that.

  He wouldn’t have expected anything different. Howard would be bound by a legal agreement not to discuss the matter.

  “There’ll be a next time.”

  “Probably not before your custody hearing.” Howard didn’t even blink.

  “I don’t accept pity.”

  “Not even for your little girl?”

  He had him there, and Flint made a fast decision.

  “Thank you, sir. I appreciate the offer. I’ll move back into my office this morning. Would you like to send word to my clients that I’m back from sabbatical or should I do that?” The question was a real one, and issued with sarcasm, too. He wasn’t dishing up a load of respect to the man.

  “I’ll do it. I have a few things I’d like to say to them on your behalf. And then you do what you damned well please. You’re the best I have and I need you on board.”

  Now, that made sense to Flint.

  He nodded, got in his car and drove off.

  * * *

  Later that week Flint got a call from Howard Owens. Sitting at his desk, he picked up.

  “I misjudged you,” the older man said.

  “Yes.”


  “In the numbers business, the money business, we play percentages.”

  Flint more than Howard, and yet it was true.

  “The percentages pointed at you,” Howard noted.

  “Years’ worth of faithful and diligent service, coupled with high returns, don’t rate well with you?”

  “Most of the traders on staff have that.”

  Also true. “I’m your top earner.”

  “You were making plans to leave.”

  This conversation was going nowhere.

  Or it had already arrived there.

  He got Howard’s point in making the call.

  “Thanks for getting in touch,” he said, his tone more amenable. He’d just received an explanation from Howard Owens. A collectible to be sure. Because of its rarity.

  “I was wrong. I realize now that you were planning to do it right, Flint. I want you to know how much I appreciate that.”

  Damn. The man must’ve seen his bottom line drop significantly over the week of Flint’s absence.

  “Just glad to be back, sir,” he said, determined to get busy and earn his future job security.

  Which was all Howard had to offer.

  He didn’t kid himself about that.

  * * *

  A week before Christmas, just after Tamara had arrived at work Tuesday morning, Mallory called.

  “He asked me not to say anything, and I haven’t, but I think what you said about him is right, Tam. Flint doesn’t ask anyone to help him and I’m really afraid he’s going to lose Diamond.”

  “It’s because he doesn’t trust that anyone will help him,” she said, having reached that conclusion sometime over the past week of thinking about him. About them. About herself, too. She took for granted that there’d always be people around her who would help her out.

  Flint had never known a day in his life where he could take anything good for granted. Least of all the people around him.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” she said. She’d called him a couple of times since he’d been back at Owens Investments, almost grateful to get his voice mail so that she could just say what she had to say.

  She’d told him how sorry she was. She said she understood that the issues between them, including her aversion to motherhood, would always keep them apart, but that she wanted him to know she loved him and that if he ever needed anything, she hoped he’d call her.