A Baby for Mommy Read online

  Dan moved close enough to search her face. “Which is what you think my kids should do.”

  “Yes—for everyone’s sake. It’s not as if they’re not suffering as it is. Ava’s studying nonstop and living on coffee, probably in an attempt to emulate her mom and so feel worthy of her attention. Tommy is channeling all his excess emotion into his physical training, which in itself isn’t bad. But he’s overexercising and eating just enough to get by to maintain his weight for wrestling, which leads me to think maybe he’s in the wrong weight class. And Kayla can’t eat whenever she misses her mommy or wants extra attention from you to make up for it, which is a lot, frankly.”

  He rubbed his jaw contemplatively. “You picked up on all that?”

  Emily exhaled in frustration. “It’s easier for me. I’m not a member of the family, so I’m able to be more objective about what’s making your mealtimes so generally miserable. And it’s not really that they can’t agree on a menu,” she said more quietly after a moment. “It’s that they miss having a mom here with them.” To the point that Emily’s own heart ached for them.

  “What do you think I should do?” Dan asked eventually, bracing his shoulder against the side of the van.

  “For starters?” Emily retorted wryly. “Tell them what you and I have been talking about all this time.”

  Dan’s brows knit together in confusion.

  “Don’t look up,” she said softly. “But there are three very inquisitive children watching us out their bedroom windows.”

  Chapter Five

  Emily was not surprised to receive an e-mail from Dan first thing the following morning. By 9:00 a.m., he was at her door, looking incredible in a dark green suit, pale olive shirt and contrasting tie.

  “Thanks for making time to see me this morning,” Dan said, his deep voice sending a thrill coursing through her.

  “No problem.” Reminding herself this meeting was strictly business, Emily ushered him into her loft and shut the door behind them. She led him to the breakfast bar in the kitchen area, where she’d set up decaffeinated coffee service for two. She stepped behind the counter and went back to whipping up a batch of apricot scones. “I’ve been curious about what you said to your kids last night.”

  Dan watched as she cut butter into a mix of flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. “For starters, I told them it’s not polite to spy on two people having a conversation, and then I talked to them one on one about what’s been going on. Ava admits she’s overdoing it on the caffeine, but says it’s the only way she can keep up the energy she needs to study.” He exhaled slowly. “Tommy acknowledges he is being careful about his weight, but says there’s no spot for him in a heavier weight class, and so at least for the rest of the season he’s just going to have to continue to maintain his current weight. And Kayla still thinks Brenda is going to call her.”

  “And you don’t.” Emily combined cream with beaten egg and then folded it into the mixing bowl with the other ingredients.

  Dan compressed his lips. “Let’s put it this way. There have been many more promises broken than kept.”

  Emily stirred in the fruit. “Maybe Brenda will come through this time.”

  “And maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll do what she always does,” he said bitterly, “and make a grand entrance and present them with ridiculously lavish gifts meant to make up for all the times she’s not been there for them.”

  Emily turned the dough out onto a floured surface. “Does that work?’

  Dan watched her roll the dough out into a circle and cut it into eight triangles. “Initially, no—the kids were so angry they refused to accept anything she gave them. After a couple of years had passed, their need to punish her faded and they slowly began to warm up to her again—albeit in a sort of emotionally distant way.”

  That sounded sad, Emily thought. She slid the baking pan into the oven and set the timer for fifteen minutes. “How old were the kids when Brenda left?”

  “Ava was thirteen, Tommy eleven and Kayla barely four. As you can imagine, Kayla had the hardest time. She just couldn’t understand why her mommy was going away like that—that she wouldn’t see her for months on end.”

  Dan drained his coffee cup and Emily reached across the counter to refill it. “It would have been one thing had Brenda been in the military and had no choice,” Dan went on, then shook his head. “But Brenda signing on full-time with ICMS was strictly voluntary.”

  “And hence hurt everyone, especially Kayla.”

  Dan nodded. “So in the future, please refer Kayla to me if she needs to contact her mother.”

  “All right.”

  Dan rested his elbows on the counter. “As for Ava…I’m not sure what to do.”

  Emily carried the dirty dishes to the sink. “You can forbid her to use caffeine.”

  Dan’s smile softened. “I’d rather she come to the right conclusion on her own.”

  “Which is where I come in,” Emily guessed dryly.

  His eyes followed the swift movements of her hands. “With her knack for science and your ability to cook…I was hoping you could convince Ava to collaborate on some research into the best way to fuel her body for studying. The same with Tommy, only his focus is optimum athletic performance.” He sighed. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but if we could come up with lists of food that would work for both of them and add those to our menus…”

  “You’d have the happy dinner hour you crave?”

  “Exactly.” Silence fell, more comfortable this time.

  “What about Kayla?” Emily asked at last.

  Dan kicked back on the stool, his expression pensive. “She takes a lot of her cues from her older siblings. If they’re happy, she’s in a much better frame of mind, too.”

  Needing to rest for a moment, Emily came around the breakfast bar and took a stool two down from Dan. She sipped her decaf. “I’ll give it my best shot, at least for the next couple weeks.”

  Dan glanced at the papers and photos spread out at the end of the breakfast bar. “What’s all that?”

  “Specs for the Stayton-Ostrander Orchard. Tex e-mailed them to me late last night. He asked me to spend some time looking at them before I make up my mind.”

  Dan frowned. “What’d you think after looking at it?”

  “He makes a good case, that together we’ll do a lot better than either of us would alone.”

  “But…?” His expression was as maddeningly inscrutable as his posture.

  “I’m still angry about the way Tex went about this, purchasing the property out from under me with a bid he had to know I couldn’t match.”

  “It does seem if had he wanted a true partner, he would have talked to you first.”

  Emily traced the rim of her coffee cup with her fingertips. “Exactly.”

  Dan studied her. “And yet you remain torn.”

  The compassion in his eyes made it easy to confide. “My father put everything he had into that orchard. It broke my heart when my mother had to let it go. I’ve felt guilty for years about what happened.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t try to intervene when I knew she was making bad business decisions.”

  Dan shook his head. “You were just a kid.”

  “I still could have helped more. Done the research, gathered information, presented it to Mom. It might have made a difference. Instead, I sat back and judged her for everything she did wrong. I should have worked by her side every chance I had to rescue the family business. Finally I have a chance to do something about it, bring it back to its former glory.”

  “But that means working closely with Tex.”

  Emily inhaled, taking in the brisk wintry scent of Dan’s aftershave. “And I’m not sure I want be in business with someone who constantly thinks he knows what’s best for me.”

  Dan inclined his head. “Signing on as Tex’s partner could mean a perpetual power struggle,” he agreed.

  “But—” Emily bit into her lower lip “
—it’s also a way to honor my father and make up for my mother’s mistakes and my inaction.”

  “So you’re tempted,” Dan concluded.

  Emily’s throat was thick with emotion. “You don’t know how much.”

  THREE HOURS LATER, DURING a pickup game of basketball at the club, Dan was still thinking about the situation. It didn’t take long for his friends to notice his distraction. Predictably, after three missed shots in a row, they called him on it.

  Reluctantly Dan explained.

  Grady dribbled past him. “I can see why you’re bummed, thinking Emily might go into a partnership with her ex-fiancé,” he said.

  “But whether or not such a move is going to be a mistake for Emily is not your problem,” Travis reminded him.

  Then why did it feel like his problem? Dan wondered. It wasn’t as if he and Emily were dating or anything. She was a temporary employee, and a remarkably independent one at that. Just because they’d once had the bad judgment to give in to the physical attraction between them, did not make him her Sir Galahad.

  Jack sped past, ambidextrously dribbling the ball. “You have to stay focused, pal. Think about the fact that you need a cook for your family.”

  “One,” Nate added, springing up and catching the rebound with his usual skill, “who gets along with your kids.”

  “So if it’s not going to be Emily, because she feels she has to pick up the banner on behalf of her family…” Grady winced with displeasure as his shot hit the backboard before falling in with a swoosh.

  “Then find someone else,” Travis concluded.

  Easier said than done, Dan thought as the day progressed.

  He’d employed enough people in his architectural firm to know that hiring a person with the right skills was one thing. Hiring someone with the right skills who was also capable of seamlessly blending right in was a rare thing indeed.

  The simple truth of the matter was that Emily meshed with his family. And although his kids weren’t wildly enthusiastic about her presence—yet—at least they hadn’t gone all out to drive her away. Which meant he had to do everything in his power to convince her to stay on as long as possible.

  His mind made up, Dan showered quickly and headed back to the office. Once there, he quickly settled into a meeting with his staff, discussing the proposed changes to the interior design of a just-sold penthouse condominium at One Trinity River Place. They were deep into a discussion of how the sun would affect the new design when Dan’s secretary stuck her head in the door. “Sorry to interrupt, boss,” Penny said, “but Dr. Kingsland is on the phone. She said she’s about to board a bus into the Changbai mountains and the connection is really bad.”

  “Keep going,” Dan instructed his staff.

  He slipped out of the conference room. Penny strode briskly beside him. “The front desk just phoned to let me know that Walt and Emily Stayton are on their way up.”

  Dan did a double take. What was that about?

  Penny motioned toward the phone on his desk, and, figuring first things first, Dan strode to the receiver. “Brenda?” he said.

  “I don’t know who this Emily person is, but honestly, Dan, don’t you think you could have consulted me before…” Crackling cut off whatever else Brenda said.

  “…I’m coming home as soon as I get done with my work in the mountains….” More static. “I know I said Christmas…but it’s going to be Thanksgiving. I’ve already told the kids…” More snapping sounds. “…an old-fashioned holiday…no restaurants this year…going to cook…”

  The line went dead just as Walt and Emily walked in.

  Emily looked as perplexed as Dan felt, but Walt’s expression was choirboy innocent.

  Another bad sign.

  “What’s the emergency?” Emily asked, still appearing slightly out of breath, like she’d hurried to get there.

  Dan speared Walt with a look that let him know this better be good. “I’d like to know that myself,” he drawled.

  Emily blinked. “You didn’t call this meeting?” she asked, suddenly ill at ease.

  “Actually, I called it,” Walt said.

  And Dan had a sinking feeling he knew why.

  EMILY WHIRLED TO FACE the older man beside her. In sport coat and tie, his cheeks ruddy with the cold winds currently blowing through the city, he looked like a TV-show cop about to escort a suspect to the interrogation room.

  “I looked into your background,” Walt told Emily. “Found out your first personal-chef job was with the Washburn family, and that you were there for over a year. I was curious why you would have left that off the résumé you gave to Dan, and so I called Stu and Sylvie Washburn to see what kind of recommendation they would give you.” He quirked a brow. “Surprisingly, they refused to talk to me at all. Said they wanted to put the whole sorry episode behind them and move on, and they hoped you had done the same. Naturally I wanted to give you a chance to explain.”

  Her face burning with embarrassment, Emily glanced at Dan. He appeared as stunned as she was by what was transpiring.

  Dan blew out an exasperated breath. “You should have talked to me first,” he told Walt in a way that made Emily feel all the worse.

  Walt refused to back down. He folded his burly arms in front of him and continued just as stubbornly, “I knew when you stopped letting a pretty face cloud your judgment and came to your senses, you’d realize these questions need to be answered before Emily sets foot in your home again.”

  The last thing Emily ever wanted to do was cause trouble within another family again. She stepped between the two men as they faced off. “It’s all right. I don’t mind explaining. It’s just I had hoped not to revisit the situation. It’s the only time in the eighteen years I’ve been working that I’ve ever been fired. And I guess it still smarts.”

  Dan looked at Emily. “What happened?” he asked gently.

  Still feeling a little like she was caught in the middle of a good cop–bad cop game, Emily set her shoulder bag on the floor beside her. Feeling way too warm, she slipped off her coat and scarf and draped them over the back of the chair. Her spine straight, she lifted her chin and continued speaking to both men.

  “I was really tired of restaurant work at that point. The stress and long hours and the bickering between all the high-strung personalities had really worn me down. The job with Stu and Sylvie seemed tailor-made for me. They were both high-powered executives. They had sophisticated palates, as did both their twin girls, who were ten. They traveled frequently, so the job was live-in. My duties were only to cook, shop and clean up after meals. They had staff for everything else.

  “And at first it was ideal. I worked seven days a week, but I had plenty of time off each and every day to do whatever I wanted. But then—I guess it was about three months into the job—their nanny quit, and I temporarily took on the job of helping the twins with their homework after school. Stu and Sylvie went through the motions of trying to find someone else, but the girls liked me—and I liked them—and so eventually it was decided that I would take an increase in pay in exchange for supervising the girls when their parents weren’t around, which ended up being all the time.”

  She looked away. “The three of us began to get close. I really loved them, and the girls came to love me. Turns out, Stu and Sylvie weren’t happy about that. They sat me down and reminded me to remember my place.” Emily winced, recalling that uncomfortable meeting.

  “That doesn’t sound particularly nice of them,” Dan said.

  “You’d think, since you were caring for their children, that they would want you to be loved and respected by their kids,” Walt agreed.

  Emily shrugged, facing the two men again. “They had a point. I might have felt like family to the girls, but I wasn’t, so I tried to step back emotionally. But that upset the girls because they didn’t understand the change in my attitude—so I was perpetually on this tightrope trying to behave in a compassionate and supportive manner and yet not love them as my own, whi
ch was tough as hell because they were great kids and I was tremendously fond of them.” Emotion filled her voice. “Anyway, I knew it was a bad situation for all of us, and I kept thinking I should leave, but then I also kept thinking what would happen to the girls if I did.”

  Dan’s eyes filled with compassion. “What an awful position to be in. So what happened next?”

  “It all blew up in our faces because Stu and Sylvie overheard the twins talking about how they wished I was their real mommy, not Sylvie. I was fired that same afternoon and told never to come back or have any contact with the girls—because if I did, I’d face legal action.”

  She cleared her throat. “And that was that. My bags were packed for me and I was escorted out without ever having a chance to say goodbye. I’ve never spoken to the twins or either parent since, and of course never used the Washburns as a reference, either. But some good did come of the situation.” She paused, looking both Dan and Walt in the eye. “It made me realize how much I wanted and needed a family of my own, so I decided to go it alone, I selected a sperm bank and, well, you know the rest….”

  “I’M SORRY,” DAN TOLD Emily after Walt had left. “I never would have permitted Walt to waylay you like that had I an inkling what he had up his sleeve.”

  More relieved now than upset, Emily shrugged. It felt good not to have this secret between them anymore. Truth be told, she didn’t want to have any secrets between them. And not just because it made life so much easier, but because she wanted Dan to understand why she was going to have to quit. Sooner, rather than later. Emily forced a smile and slipped into a chair. Although the pregnancy fatigue was beginning to let up a bit in her second trimester, at times like this she still felt physically drained.