The Baby Truce. Jeannie Watt

dropped the keys on the carpet between his feet. “We…used protection.”

      “I haven’t slept with anyone but you.”

      “We…used protection,” Tom repeated. He pressed the heel of his palm into the solid wood door. Blood hammered in his temples, making it damned hard to think.

      “Like I said…” She hesitated. “I thought you should know, but…I don’t need anything from you.”

      “Well, aren’t you brave?” he snapped.

      “Yes. I am. I lived with you for a year.” The phone went dead.

      Tom stood for a moment without moving, then reached down and picked up his keys. It took him two tries to get the right one into the lock, mainly because his hands were shaking.

      Pregnant?

      Call her back, you jerk.

      Not yet. Soon, but not yet.

      He needed time in the worst way.

      Once inside, he dropped the keys on the table, set the bag of produce beside them.

      He was going to be a father.

      Out of a job. Living on savings. About to be a dad. This was not the way his life was supposed to work out.

      Tom rubbed his temples with his fingertips. Then he went to the cupboard and pulled out a bottle, the first one he touched. He didn’t even look to see what it was. He poured a healthy amount into a glass and downed it in one swallow.

      Bourbon.

      He poured another, then went to the window and stared out at the building behind his, swirling the amber liquid in the glass. This time he sipped, allowing the alcohol to warm his throat slowly. The tension started to ease out of the muscles of his neck and shoulders, but his mind was still whirling.

      If Reggie was two months pregnant, then he had seven months to figure this all out. He’d be employed by then. Have a new business manager, be able to set up a college fund, or do whatever dads did. His father had done two things—hauled him around the world with him when he could, or sent him off to boarding school when he couldn’t. Not the most normal of upbringings. His dad had been more like a friend than a father…when they’d been together.

      So what the hell did Tom know about fatherhood?

      “Damn.” He tossed the bourbon back, then reached for the bottle and poured another shot.

      TWO INTERVIEWS DOWN AND ONE TO go. So far, not so good.

      Eden and Reggie exchanged glances as the second of their three candidates walked out the door. Reggie’s stomach was in a tight knot, but this time it had little to do with morning sickness.

      The first candidate hadn’t known how to hold a knife and, when shown, had preferred to do it her way. That was fine. She could do the wrong thing in her own kitchen, but not the Tremont kitchen. Oh, and she couldn’t work on weekends.

      The second candidate had skills, but also had a schedule Tremont would have to work around. That kind of defeated the purpose of having a prep cook, who had to be able to prep when they needed her, not when she was free from her other job.

      If these were the top candidates, Reggie didn’t hold out much hope for numbers four, five and six.

      “If this person can breathe and work our schedule, I say we hire her,” Eden whispered to Reggie as a roundish woman in her mid-forties, with short brown hair and a no-nonsense expression—candidate number three—walked in the door exactly five minutes before her interview.

      She approached the desk where Eden and Reggie were sitting and set a bound résumé before them.

      “I’m Patty Lloyd. How do you do?” she said. “I’m here for the interview. I realize that I have large gaps in my employment history, but I assure you, I can cook.”

      Eden met Reggie’s gaze with raised eyebrows as Patty took her seat on the other side of the desk.

      The interview went well. Despite her somewhat arrogant, take-charge attitude, she’d been employed at a private care facility kitchen for the past two years and proved to be slow yet meticulous. And part time was fine with her for now. What the woman didn’t know they could teach her.

      The only problem was that Patty was very, very serious, in her speech, in her dress, in her attitude, which made Reggie wonder if the woman could handle Justin. Justin, when not dealing with pregnant sisters, tended toward irreverence.

      Eden obviously had the same concern. She smiled up at Patty and said, “I want you to meet my brother for a second interview tomorrow, and then we’ll have you make a couple standard dishes on our menu. Would that work for you?”

      “Certainly. Let’s say ten?” Patty stood, extending her hand.

      “She scares me a little,” Eden said after the door shut behind her. They watched through the front window as she got into a small blue Ford that had to be twenty years old, yet appeared almost new.

      “That,” Reggie said, carefully setting down her pen, “makes two of us. But if we keep her in the kitchen and away from clients, I think she’ll do fine.”

      “We’ll have to tell Justin to behave.”

      “That goes without saying. I’ll get going on the tapenade,” she added, because Eden had that touch-base-to-see-how-you’re-feeling look, and Reggie wasn’t in the mood.

      She was still recovering from her phone conversation with Tom, would most probably have to have another in the near future, and wanted time to stew. Alone.

      TOM WENT TO THE WINDOW OF HIS apartment and leaned his forehead against the cool glass, watching the people on the sidewalk five stories below. A lot of them were probably going to work. The bastards.

      It was hard to believe, but Montrose appeared to have him by the short hairs. As near as he could tell, he was blacklisted.

      But for how fricking long?

      Tom left the window and stepped over the clothes he hadn’t bothered to pick up during the past few days. It was time to call Lowell, admit that he needed his help.

      “You’re totally screwed,” Lowell said shortly, after hello. “I’ve been keeping tabs.”

      “I don’t buy ‘totally screwed.’” Maybe he was temporarily screwed, and for the zillionth time Tom wondered how getting fired for stuff that had nothing to do with his cooking ability could interfere with his ability to get a job cooking. “What do you suggest I do about that?” he asked with more patience than he was feeling.

      “Keep out of trouble for, say, a day or two and let this blow over.”

      “It’s been a goddamn day or two.”

      “Calm. Down.”

      “This is your advice? Calm down and what? Helpful, Lowell. Really helpful. At least tell me if you hear of anything…”

      “Yeah…but like I said. Right now? Screwed. Hope you have some savings.”

      Tom hung up so he didn’t have to tell Lowell what he could do with his bloody useless advice. One thing about Lowell—you might not know what he was going to do next, but you knew where you stood with him.

      Staring at the phone, Tom became increasingly aware of an unfamiliar feeling unfurling inside him. Desperation. Coupled with fear.

      He grabbed the phone and threw it across the room, where it smashed into the wall. That felt satisfying. He refused to give in to fear.

      He had to plan for this baby.

      Tom had no idea how to handle fatherhood, but regardless of Reggie’s glib assurance that she would handle everything by herself—or maybe because of it—he’d have some say in his kid’s life. Even if that kid didn’t seem real. Yet. Seven more months and he’d be real. A new Gerard