The Diaper Diaries

by Abby Gaines

If she’d been braver, or at least less prone to blushing, she would have told him to go right ahead. But with her face in flames, Bethany scrambled off the bed and almost ran from the room.

  AT THREE-THIRTY on Friday, Olivia was typing the latest batch of rejection letters Tyler had asked her to send out, when the door to her office opened. She looked up.

  And thought, Call Security.A hobo stood framed in her doorway. A giant hobo, more than six feet tall, enormous shoulders made broader by a grubby overcoat. His hair, an unkempt salt-and-pepper mix of brown and gray, grazed his collar, and Olivia judged the matching stubble on his chin to be at least three days’ growth.

  She reached for the phone.

  “I’m Silas Grant,” the hobo announced.

  Two things stayed Olivia’s hand. First, his name seemed familiar. Second, the words were uttered in a voice that was slow to the point of sleepiness, gravelly…and unquestionably educated.

  As she puzzled over that riddle, he walked toward her with a silent, purposeful tread at odds with his sleepy voice. That lithe, almost graceful gait would have worried her if she’d been walking down a darkened street, but here she couldn’t believe he posed any threat. Other than to her discriminating taste in fashion. His brown corduroy trousers were pale and worn at the knees, and over them he wore a heavy shirt in brown and green plaid, buttoned to the neck, but untucked. But while they may have been more suited to gardening, the clothes did appear clean. Unlike the overcoat.

  “I’m here to see Tyler Warrington,” he said.

  Now that he was up close, Olivia saw he had gray eyes, but they weren’t at all cold. They held the deep, dormant heat of ashes, beneath which lurked the potential, if stirred by just a hint of breeze, for fire.

  “Do you have an appointment, Mr. Grant?” She knew he didn’t—neither she nor Tyler believed in Friday-afternoon appointments. Tyler invariably had a hot date to prepare for, and, often enough, so did Olivia. Today she planned to be gone by four; she’d promised Gigi Cato she would come by to approve the floral arrangements for this evening’s soiree. It was inconvenient—she’d have to drive home from Gigi’s to change, then turn around and go straight back to the Catos’ again—but what were friends for?

  Silas Grant frowned. “How could I have an appointment,” he asked gently, “when Tyler Warrington can’t see a conservation crisis when it’s right in front of him?”

  Conservation crisis? Olivia remembered where she’d read those words.

  “You’re the man with the red-spotted tree frog,” she said, pleased with herself. She couldn’t quite remember if the spots were red or yellow.

  “Hyla punctatus,” he said sternly.

  It took Olivia a moment to realize he wasn’t uttering some dreadful curse over her, but rather was giving her the Latin—or was it Greek?—name of the frog.

  “It’s on the verge of extinction,” he said. “And Tyler Warrington just signed its death warrant.”

  He spoke slowly, even for a Georgian. The pace lent an unlikely authority to his words, went some way toward countering his oddball appearance. But not far enough.

  “I’m Olivia Payne, Mr. Warrington’s secretary. I’m afraid he’s unavailable,” she told him with the dismissive, well-bred Atlanta-belle tone that had served her through her years as a debutante, then as a single woman. Olivia was an expert at giving men their marching orders. Over the years, she’d broken off no fewer than six engagements. Possibly seven, if you counted Teddy Benson, who’d popped the question three years ago. She’d seen the light faster than normal, and broken it off even before the engagement announcement hit the newspapers.

  “Thank you so much for stopping by,” she added pleasantly to Silas. Because one should always be polite in one’s dismissal.

  He planted both hands on her desk, which might have intimidated her if he’d done it any faster than a hedgehog crossing the road. The movement put his eyes level with hers, close enough to break through the professional distance she’d set with her voice.

  She dropped her gaze, and observed that his hands were clean, his fingernails cut so neatly they might be manicured. She recalled that the tree-frog funding application had come from an address in Buckhead—could this man really live in the most expensive area of Atlanta?

  “I won’t take no for an answer,” he said, and there was a hint of steel behind the soft drawl.

  While his announcement might be tiresome—at this rate she’d be late to Gigi’s house—it was nothing Olivia couldn’t handle.

  “Mr. Grant, as you were told in the letter you received, the foundation does not enter into correspondence about its endowment decisions.” The same clean-break policy worked well with fiancés, she’d found. “I understand you’re disappointed, but I can assure you, Mr. Warrington will not see you.”

  He straightened, but only so he could reach one long arm to pull up a chair. “I’ll wait,” he said, and sank into it, legs stretched out in front of him.

  This had happened before, so she said, “As you wish,” and returned to her typing.

  Most people started to fidget within two minutes. After five minutes, they’d bluster some more. But when they saw she wouldn’t be moved, they’d leave. The longest anyone had stayed was fifteen minutes. Something about silence unnerved them.

  Today, it was Olivia who was unnerved. Silas didn’t fidget, not once, for fifteen minutes. He sat with his arms folded, quite still.

  She kept her gaze fixed on her screen and wished the phone would ring with a summons to collect something from another part of the building, so she’d have a reason to move. But for once, no one called.

  “Who else have you refused money to lately?” Silas’s abrupt question startled her, so that she mistyped a word and looked at him before she remembered not to.

  “It’s not my money to give,” she said politely. She added, “Nor is it Mr. Warrington’s.”

  “What are your views on conservation and the environment?” he asked.

  He really did have an attractive voice, one that almost made her want to say those things mattered to her. But, in this respect at least, she was always honest. Better to admit an unnatural lack of sentiment than to pretend to care.

  “I don’t have any.” She was concerned, of course, that the planet shouldn’t be flooded or burned up as a result of global warming. But that wasn’t going to happen in her lifetime, so she didn’t lose any sleep over it.

  “Hyla punctatus is a Georgia native, not found anywhere else in America.”

  “I’m aware of that. From your funding application.”

  He ran a considering gaze over Olivia. She half wished she’d had her roots done this week. She wasn’t out to impress him, she scolded herself. And if she was, her hair, worn loose today in its sculpted bob, her artfully applied makeup and the emerald-green cashmere polo-neck that made her neck look longer and slimmer would surely withstand his scrutiny.

  “You know what this world lacks?” he said.

  She pressed a hand to her mouth and gave a ladylike yawn.

  “People who care.” Sharpness tinged his words.

  Of course she knew that! She said lightly, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

  Fire sparked into life in his eyes, and his jaw jutted beneath the mouth that she now noticed was firm and well shaped behind all those whiskers.

  Olivia had the same keen appreciation for good-looking men that she did for silk lingerie and French champagne. Each of her seven fiancés had been gorgeous by anyone’s standards. So she could only look at Silas Grant and rue the waste of such a fine specimen.

  She wondered why his bizarre appearance didn’t exempt him from her appreciation. Discomfited by the thought that perhaps, now that she’d turned fifty-five, she might be desperate enough to let her standards slip, Olivia looked away.

  “It’s exactly your kind of apathy that’s sending this world to hell in a handbasket,” he growled.

  She’d obviously pressed one of Silas’s buttons, becaus
e he began to decry, albeit in an undramatic way, the parlous state of the world, the shallowness of materialism and the loss of life’s simple pleasures.

  Olivia, who collected designer handbags, liked to dine on Wagyu beef and had two real fur coats in her wardrobe that she resented being unable to wear, struggled to sympathize.

  Yet still, Silas Grant mesmerized her, whether with that unexpectedly cultured voice or with his sheer size. When she found herself wondering what he would look like with a shave and a tuxedo, she realized this had gone far enough.

  “What will it take to convince you to leave?” she said abruptly, heatedly. She’d never reacted like this before, not to any of the cranky rejectees who’d turned up here.

  “Your promise that you’ll ask Warrington to meet me.” Either Silas had the good sense to say no more, or he’d run out of steam.

  Olivia was so relieved to hear the end of that gentle diatribe that she agreed. “I’ll let you know Mr. Warrington’s response.”

  “Thank you.” The two syllables stood stark, and for one moment, Silas sounded alone, as alone as Olivia.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BETHANY PAUSED on the threshold of Olivia’s office. Tyler’s secretary was locked in a death glare with a bum in a dirty coat. Should she fetch help? She tightened her grip on Ben’s car seat in case she had to run and said, “Olivia?”

  The bum didn’t acknowledge her arrival. He said to Olivia, “I’ll be back,” with about as much menace as a low-on-batteries Terminator. He swung around, loped past Bethany with his coat flapping.Before Bethany could ask Olivia what that was about, Tyler opened the door of his office. “Olivia, have you seen my silver pen? I can’t think where I—” He stopped, distracted by the disheveled appearance of the departing visitor, now out of earshot but still visible. “Who’s that?”

  Olivia cleared her throat. “Silas Grant, the guy who’s saving the red-spotted tree frog. He wanted to see you.”

  “Was he bothering you?” Tyler took a step forward as if he might head down the corridor and grab hold of the man.

  Olivia shook her head. “He’s all right. Just…odd. I told him I’d find out if you’re willing to meet with him.”

  Tyler cast another look at the guy, then turned to Bethany. He scanned her outfit—black leggings and a taupe crochet sweater, a by-product of the stress-relief technique that had preceded knitting, worn over a black slip. A taupe cardigan completed her layered look.

  Bethany liked to think of it as Bohemian.

  “Why is it that most do-gooders dress so badly?” he demanded. “It’s like a badge of honor with some of you.” He glanced down at his own clothing, which Bethany observed was unusually casual, yet as crisp and new looking as if he had a Calvin Klein store tucked in his office. “Nope,” Tyler said complacently. “I don’t see any reason why you can’t look good and do good.”

  Bethany gaped. “You call yourself a do-gooder?”

  He rubbed his chin. “Let me see…my job involves giving millions of dollars away to people in need, I’m an acknowledged expert on philanthropy, and now I’m fostering an abandoned baby.” He nodded at Ben in his car seat but made no move to take him. “You’re right, I’m evil.”

  “You spend money,” she said, “but you don’t care.”

  He groaned. “If you mean I don’t respond emotionally to every problem, you’re right. But if you mean providing practical assistance that makes a difference…”

  “I mean,” she said, “giving something of yourself, caring in a way that changes you as well as the other person.”

  He looked mystified. “Why would I want to change, when everyone loves me the way I am?”

  Bethany was about to deliver a few choice words on that topic, when she saw laughter lurking beneath the innocent inquiry in his eyes. Tempted though she was to laugh—something she felt surprisingly often around Tyler—she chose not to indulge him. “That pen you’re looking for,” she said, referring to the question that had brought him out of his lair. “Would that be the one I borrowed the other day to write out a list of baby equipment?”

  “So you did,” he said.

  “I took it,” she admitted. “By accident.”

  He held out a hand. “May I have it back?”

  “I haven’t seen it in a couple of days.” She frowned. “I know I used it to sign a check at the supermarket. I’m not sure if I put it back in my purse…”

  “Could you think a little harder?” Tyler said. “It’s my favorite.”

  Oops. Bethany grimaced. “I think I left it in the store.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” His shock sounded out of all proportion to the loss of a pen.

  “Keep your hair on,” she said. “I’ll buy you another one.”

  He folded his arms. “You’re going to buy me another twelve-hundred-dollar Michel Perchin pen?”

  She clattered Ben’s car seat onto Olivia’s desk before she dropped it. Olivia leaned back in her chair, looking askance.

  “You didn’t say twelve hundred dollars, did you?” Bethany pleaded. “You said twelve dollars.”

  Tyler glared at her.

  She felt sick.

  “That money’s coming straight off your next research grant,” he said. “Or it would, if I had any intention of giving you more cash.”

  In an instant, her fighting spirit was resurrected.

  She planted her hands on her hips. “Twelve hundred dollars is an obscene amount to pay for a pen. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “You have an attitude problem.” Tyler’s effortless urbanity had vanished, and he spoke with the fulminating tension of a man goaded beyond endurance. “You’ve lost my handmade pen, which for all you know could be of great sentimental value, and somehow you’ve made this all about my flaws.”

  “Could be of sentimental value,” she mocked. “But it’s not, is it, because for that, you’d have to have a heart.”

  Into the seething pause, Olivia said, “What shall I tell Silas Grant? Will you see him?”

  Bethany saw Tyler grapple to regain his control as he turned to his secretary. “I’m a family guy, not a frog guy,” he said to Olivia with a passable replica of his normal ease, though Bethany’s snort had his fists clenching at his sides. “I’m not interested.”

  Olivia looked relieved. “I’ll let him know.” She pulled a file out of her drawer. “In fact, I’ll call and leave a message on his voice mail before he gets home.”

  Tyler frowned. “If you’re worried about dealing with him, I’ll do it.”

  His offer surprised Bethany. As far as she knew, Tyler didn’t do anything for other people.

  Olivia’s face flushed. “It’s no problem.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t care enough to offer,” he said, with a pointed glance at Bethany. So that’s what his sudden consideration was about. Then he said to her, “You’ll be pleased to know I’ll be caring for Ben personally tonight. I’m taking him out with me.”

  “Taking him where?” Bethany picked up Ben’s car seat again. Somewhere that didn’t involve Tyler’s usual suit and tie, obviously. He wore designer-faded jeans, a long-sleeved fine-knit polo shirt, casual shoes. He looked like…like…Bethany struggled to define the annoyingly alluring blend of preppy and rugged. She failed.

  “Babies don’t go out at night,” she told him. “You’ll have to find another drinking buddy.”

  “My drinking buddies are all female, and believe me, there’s no shortage of them.” He grasped the car seat, one hand at each end, and tried to tug it from her. She held on. She wasn’t about to pass Ben over until she was certain he wouldn’t end up at some nightclub—she’d belatedly caught up with the eBay purse scandal, and it had reinforced her view that Tyler wasn’t a suitable guardian.

  “I’m taking him to a meeting of Divorced Dads International,” he said.

  Surprise loosened her clutch on the car seat, and he seized it. Bethany pretended she’d let him have it, and folded her arms. “That would be b
ecause you’re divorced, or because you’re a dad?”

  His new look suddenly made sense. He looks like a dad.

  A million-dollar dad, sure, but Tyler definitely looked like a guy who might have been woken by a baby at five this morning, who might have heated formula, who might even have changed a diaper.

  Who knew appearances could be so deceptive?

  “I’m the guest speaker at their quarterly meeting,” he said.

  “What the heck can you talk about?”

  His gaze slid away from hers. “Motivational stuff. I figure I’m not qualified to offer actual advice.” He added, “I know that doesn’t stop some people.”

  She sent him a withering look. “What’s in it for you?”

  “Excuse me?” He put Ben’s car seat down on Olivia’s desk, which drew a resigned groan from his secretary.

  “Like you said, you prefer to sign checks. What makes you want to motivate a bunch of dads?”

  “The press will be there, it’s good publicity for the foundation. The more people know about our work, the more partners like government and other charities will want to get involved in joint ventures with us.” He spread his hands. “Which means bigger checks for all those people I love to help.”

  The challenge in his eyes dared her to object to his noble purpose. She longed to—something about this didn’t add up. But his argument was technically sound. With something approximating good grace, she handed Tyler the bag containing Ben’s diapers, bottle and other essentials. “Here’s all his stuff. He’ll need a diaper change before you go.”

  He frowned. “Can’t you do it?”

  “I would,” she said sweetly, “but it’ll help you empathize with the divorced dads.”

  “I don’t do empathy,” he said. “I do checks.”

  She smiled sunnily and headed for the door.

  “Olivia,” Tyler cajoled behind her.

  “If you ask me to change that diaper,” his secretary said, “you’ll be looking for a new assistant. There are only two certain things in this world, Tyler—you’re selfish, and I’m even more selfish.”