Corporate Daddy. Arlene James

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      Two

      It was after seven o’clock when Logan let himself into the three-bedroom town house that was his private residence. As part of one of the most exclusive planned communities in San Antonio, it afforded him privacy, luxury, and a number of useful amenities such as indoor pools, gym, game rooms and sauna, all with twenty-four-hour staff. He hadn’t seen Emily’s sensible compact car in the drive, but it was not beyond possibility that she was here.

      “Emily?”

      Silence. He was unconcerned, however. Emily Applegate was nothing if not efficient and dependable. In the two years that she had been his executive assistant, his life had been sublimely simple—until now. Until Amanda Sue. Desperately, he put his young daughter out of mind, as he had done all afternoon.

      Taking the mail out of his jacket pocket, he flipped on the overhead light in the entry and began to thumb through it as he moved down the cool hallway. Bill. Bill. Solicitation. Advertisement. Advertisement. Bill. He stepped into the living room and looked up, more to get his bearings than for any other reason. What he saw there, however, brought him to an immediate halt. It looked like a baby store warehouse!

      Mouth ajar, he surveyed the bounty. He identified a crib, a high chair, a stroller and a playpen before turning to the rocking chair heaped with colorful fabrics in the center of the floor. His gold, butter-soft leather couch was piled with toys. Tiny articles of clothing covered the matching chair. The ottoman held stacks of books. Bottles, tubes and jars littered the end tables. Setting aside the mail, he picked up an unfamiliar object and examined it. The labeling proclaimed it the latest in digital fever thermometers.

      Before he could take in the rest, the door opened at the end of the foyer and a series of bangs and grunts alerted him that even more was coming. He moved in the direction of the noise. Emily was struggling to get Amanda Sue, her diaper bag and a couple of plastic sackfulls of groceries into the foyer.

      “Here, let me help,” he said, taking both bags. No sooner had he set them down in the living room than she informed him that more waited in the car.

      He hauled in jars and jars of toddler food, boxes of dry cereal, milk and diapers. “Where do you want it?”

      Emily had collapsed onto the sofa among the toys, Amanda Sue in her lap. A long lock of sandy-brown hair had pulled loose from Emily’s ubiquitous bun to lay across her shoulder and chest. He hadn’t realized that her hair was so long or shiny. As he watched, Amanda Sue reached up and absently coiled the silky lock around one little hand, rubbing her eyes with the other fist even as she wriggled in an attempt to get down. Though bedraggled and exhausted, Emily, nevertheless, held on. She stared at him for a moment, sans glasses, then sighed.

      “I assume you know where your own kitchen is.”

      “What about the diapers?”

      “Upstairs with the rest of this stuff,” she said, waving a hand wearily.

      He wondered where upstairs he was supposed to find room for a department store but wisely kept the thought to himself. After carrying the bags into the kitchen, he stowed the milk in the refrigerator and left everything else on the counter.

      When he returned to the living room, he found that Emily had kicked off her shoes and closed her eyes. The look on her face as she flexed her toes might have been pain or pleasure. He noted with unexpected interest that she wasn’t wearing stockings. Her straight, knee-length skirt had hiked slightly, giving him an excellent view of her long, slender legs. Funny, but now that she wasn’t groomed to within an inch of her life, she was surprisingly appealing. Rumpled suited her. Usually, it was the other way around with the women he knew. She seemed to sense his presence and opened her eyes.

      “You’ve certainly been busy,” he began, only to find himself being shushed.

      “Don’t wake the baby,” she whispered, tucking the escaped lock of hair behind her ear and nodding down at her lap. Amanda Sue lay sprawled across her, eyes closed, bottom lip protruding in a perpetual pout. “She can’t sleep long or she won’t sleep tonight,” Emily went on, “but if she doesn’t get a short nap she’s going to be too wound up to sleep at all. And God knows I could use a few minutes peace.”

      He lowered his voice to say, “Why don’t we put her down in another room?”

      Emily rolled her eyes. “We can’t do that. She could fall off a regular bed or wake up and climb down, in which case the room will be wrecked before we even know it, providing she doesn’t break her neck first, of course. You have to put together the crib.”

      Logan knew she was right. He’d never seen a kid who moved as fast or was as determined as this one. He took off his coat, stripped away his tie and rolled up his sleeves before reaching for the big, flat box containing the crib parts. СКАЧАТЬ