The Baby Bargain. Wendy Warren

the commercial she’d just watched looked like a trailer for The Sound of Music.

      “Afternoon, everyone.” She raised a hand companionably. “I apologize for walking in late. I hope the cookies’ll make up for it. I stopped by the baby center to check on Liam. He’s been teething, and you know how that goes. Sleepless nights, cranky days and a nose like a lazy river—nothing ever comes of it, but it doesn’t stop running. You just can’t pay a child-care provider enough to deal with that, can you?”

      Understanding smiles popped up around the room as heads bobbed. There, that was better. Dianna and fellow board member Wayne Thorpe looked almost human again. No matter what trouble they’d suffered recently, the Children’s Connection wasn’t all about business. That was one reason she’d moved clear from Kentucky to Oregon to take this job. She hoped to heaven this place would hang on to its unique character in the face of its struggles. It was so easy to forget who you were when you were scared.

      Eden turned toward the man beside her. “Do you have children, Mr….”

      She cocked a brow even though she knew his last name was Logan. Same as the uncle and cousins who’d hired him. Still, it never hurt to let one’s adversary believe he hadn’t been worthy of much interest up to now.

      To his credit, his surprise showed only in his eyes.

      “Logan,” he supplied. “And, no, I do not have children.”

      Eden nodded and made a mental note. A very crisp “No, I do not” rather than “Not yet” or “I haven’t been so fortunate.” She colored her responding “Ahh” with gentle implication.

      “Your commercial was lovely to look at,” she said sincerely. “Almost made me want to get pregnant again. If someone could guarantee I’d be like the woman in your ad. Now, there’s a gal who looks as if she could have triplets and not lose any beauty sleep. Most of us moms with little ones are lucky if we brush our teeth before noon.”

      From her peripheral vision, Eden saw the women in the room nod and smile.

      “I hope I’m not being too personal, Ms. Carter,” LJ said, obviously realizing he could lose the ground he’d already gained if he wasn’t careful, “but you’re far more attractive than the actress who was hired for the commercial. If you have a child young enough to be teething, I think we put the wrong woman on TV.”

      Garnet Kearn beamed at him. Wayne Thorpe and Miles Remington raised their brows as if it was an option worth considering.

      Score: Logan, 1. Carter, 0.

      Eden couldn’t ignore the fact that he’d just made her look like Gladys Kravitz, butting in where she didn’t belong. When she’d first received the memo regarding the meeting, she’d considered the invitation to be little more than a courtesy. Who needed a layperson’s input with an advertising pro onboard? Now that she’d met the whiz kid, she revised her opinion.

      You need me, buddy boy. And I need you to protect my place of employment. She was determined to speak up whether he liked it or not.

      Smiling as if she thought he’d paid her a compliment, Eden cracked her knuckles under the table. He might know advertising, but Mr. New York was about to discover that mommies and babies were her areas of expertise.

      LJ relished the victory he’d just won. Before Ms. Carter had tossed in her two cents, he’d been about to tie this job into a bow pretty enough to impress his uncle. No way would he allow someone to undermine a victory that was only moments away.

      Her gripe could waste a lot of time if the board wasn’t savvy about marketing. No one on any sofa in any home in America had ever bought a product or service because it promised to make him look and feel exactly the way he looked and felt sitting in front of his TV.

      Advertising, even for services like those provided by the Children’s Connection, appealed to people’s fantasies, to their idealized versions of themselves and the lives they would like to lead. Who fantasized about being overworked, sleep deprived and covered in baby puke?

      He decided to use her objection to hammer his point home. My apologies, beauty, but this is a business meeting, not Mommy and Me.

      “I’m glad you found the commercial aesthetically pleasing.” He spoke directly to her. “We want to plant a strong, positive image in the mind of anyone looking into an adoption or fertility clinic.”

      When her pale brows gathered and it appeared she was going to rebut, he held the floor tenaciously, shifting his attention to the others.

      “It goes without saying that the Children’s Connection has suffered a number of blows to its image and that the result has been public questioning of the organization’s agenda. More crucially, this board’s basic values have come under attack. I intend to plant an image firmly in the minds of every viewer that leaves no doubt about the Children’s Connection’s first love—the creation of families. I want hopeful parents to know we are unabashedly romantic about helping to build those families and watching them grow. That we will be part of their lives far past inception or birth or an adoptive placement. The world may be cynical…the Portland Children’s Connection is not.”

      LJ always knew when he’d hooked his audience. The energy in a conference room began to hum. If he felt it, he was making his point.

      Around the table members of the board sat taller in their faux-leather chairs. LJ’s uncle Terrence and aunt Leslie linked hands atop the table. The unconsciousness of the gesture told LJ a great deal.

      Though he kept his gaze on the others, he could feel the frustration simmering in the woman seated beside him. What was her beef? So the actress in the commercial was skinny. Eden Carter’s body was made to attract men, most of whom would go nuts over her more liberal curves. The subtle Southern lilt in her voice wouldn’t hurt, either.

      He had a fleeting desire to apologize for cutting off her protest—very fleeting. He’d never been that nice in business. And since he was about to win his father’s approval for the first time in two decades, he wasn’t about to let a pretty blonde with a body image issue compete with his father-approval issue.

      Beside him, the woman cleared her throat. When LJ looked at her, she smiled.

      “That is a wonderful saying. ‘The world may be cynical. The Children’s Connection is not.’” She splayed a hand on her chest. “I’m a sucker for great sayings. I still get weepy over ‘You had me at hello.’ Still, if I understand the recent allegations, it’s our credibility that’s at question. We’re being called irresponsible. Or out-and-out liars.”

      Damage control alert. LJ’s brow furrowed so deeply he could have grown carrots. Eden Carter looked and sounded like an angel, but as she turned to address the people around the table, she was far from heavenly. She was a bad-ass thorn in his side.

      As she began speaking, he ground his teeth and felt pain stab his head. If she gave him a migraine, he was going to stop being polite.

      “In our First-Time Moms class we tell women exactly what to expect,” she said in that soothing, eminently reasonable tone she had. “We insist they be armed with real-life information so their experience won’t overwhelm their expectations. The public should know that. They should know we educate and arm our clients with knowledge before they become parents and while they’re pregnant and after their babies arrive. Our prospective clients and all those nasty people who have been so rude to us need to know we would never ever try to snow anyone. We don’t merely value honesty around here, we insist on it.”

      She thumped, actually thumped a fist on the table. He almost felt sorry for her, because she’d obviously forgotten that she was addressing a board of directors, not just a roomful of fellow employees. If this were a Frank Capra movie and Jimmy Stewart were on the board, fist-thumping idealism might work.

      “If our intentions are in question,” she continued, as earnest as could be, “then, shouldn’t we be as frank as possible now? We don’t have to sugarcoat reality to make