An Unexpected Christmas Baby. Tara Taylor Quinn

had to get rid of that warmth.

      Get away from the baby.

      “Your mother had a baby?” she heard herself ask, sounding only a little squeaky.

      He nodded.

      “I thought she was in prison...” She suddenly realized she might have revealed too much. She was being too invasive for a first business meeting. “Um, Bill told me. He said you’d overcome a...difficult past.”

      He nodded. “She was. And the fact that she was a convict makes the question about Diamond’s father that much harder to answer. Who’s going to admit to fathering a child illegally?”

      Her nerves were quaking. “She gave birth in prison?”

      “Three days ago.”

      She’d been right. The child was only days old...

      Days older than any of hers had lived to be.

      “And she gave her to you?” She wasn’t going to be able to keep it together much longer.

      He’d agreed to take a baby. That said something about him. He needed to take her from Tamara.

      He’d taken on a child. But then, his mother, a criminal, had agreed to take him on, too. By birthing him. Keeping him.

      “My mother died in childbirth.”

      Flint’s shocking words hit her harder than they would have if she’d been on the other side of the room. Or in another room. Speaking to him on the phone.

      Knees starting to feel weak, she knew she was out of time. “And just like that, you become a father?”

      “Just like that.”

      There were things she should say. More questions to ask. But Tamara simply stood there, staring at him.

      Unable to move.

      To speak.

      She was shaking visibly.

      And had to get rid of the bundle she held.

      Pronto.