Page 65 of Daddy's Unexpected Gift

I pulled up the photo of Cecelia, Georgie, and me. It had been the day I knew she belonged with me, both of them. She was all smiles, and her yellow top coordinated with Georgie’s yellow dress and hat. I hadn’t even realized I had changed to match them.

Georgie sat playing in her crib, a welcome relief from the times she woke up terrified, miserable, and screaming. When she saw me, she pulled herself up and held onto the rails and said “Dada,” a bunch of times.

As I picked her up, my phone slipped into the crib. Georgie managed to pick it up. She looked at the picture and said, “Mama, Dada,” and then slobbered all over it in her style of kiss.

My heart, what there was of it and its capacity to hold emotion other than duty and responsibility, shattered. Georgie missed Cecelia as much as I did. I had to accept that I didn’t own Cecelia. I thought of her as mine because I loved her, needed her.

The same reason I didn’t want Georgie’s father to be found. I loved her. Yes, I had a sense of guilt-driven duty to protect her. But I wanted to keep her around and see what kind of kid she became because I loved her. I picked up the little girl I wanted to be a father to and held her until she squirmed.

“Be that way.” I chuckled.

Georgie babbled her baby talk. I changed her and then carried her to the kitchen for a snack. I buckled her into her highchair before I started poking around the cupboards.

“Do you need anything, Mr. Sterling?” Wayne asked.

“A snack. Georgie needs something, and I’m kind of hungry too. And I still needed to call and have a discussion with Nanny Fletcher regarding Georgie’s safety. And I want to find Cecelia,” I said.

“I can help with the snack. What do you mean regarding Georgie’s safety?” he asked.

“The PI, and Chavez agrees, says the people at the agency are acting fishy. I’m probably being paranoid, but I need to make sure that no one shows up at the door and says they’re Georgie’s father and expects anyone here to just hand her over. If the man is found, there will be lawyers and DNA confirmations in place.”

Wayne pulled out a box of applesauce servings. He opened it and handed me two applesauces. He turned and pulled a couple of spoons out of the drawer.

“You can count on me to ensure her safety. As far as finding Miss Cecelia, why don’t you ask the private investigator who is working to locate Georgie’s father? At least with Miss Cecelia, you know her name, her whereabouts, and her employer.”

34

CECELIA

Three weeks later…

The temporary transfer to the Amarillo office was dragging out. They couldn’t seem to decide whether I was a permanent transfer or if I was simply there as a disciplinary action. And it was all the worse because, while I lived in their corporate apartment, I still paid rent in Dallas.

My life was on hold. Because I had no private time. Since I lived in their apartment, it meant I had to share when other people came to visit this branch of the office. I had my own room, but the bathroom was shared, as was the kitchen. Other people were messy, and they left the place a mess, like this was some kind of hotel. I was tired of cleaning up after people, especially after how much work it had been to get the place clean enough that I was willing to stay.

The Amarillo office was a bit better when it came to work. I wasn’t given any cases. Instead, I was given stacks of files with handwritten notes and told to do data entry. Fine. It’s actually what I thought I was going to be doing when they first hired me. I had a cubicle with walls that provided a modicum of privacy. That was an improvement over the Dallas office.

And I had a computer. Not the laptop I had originally been told I would have, but I was no longer a case manager, so it made sense. I didn’t need a laptop if all my work could be done from a desk. But I didn’t like the work, and it felt like everyone knew why I was there. I was treated like some pariah, unwanted, not trusted.

My fingers hurt, and I had started wearing wrist braces. All the transcription work was not being friendly to my wrists. Ten minutes after five, I signed off the server and shut my computer down. If I signed off the server five minutes earlier, someone would show up at my cube the next day and tell me how they really needed me to be a team player. It didn’t take long for me to figure out ‘team player’ was code speak for working longer than the time your job hours are for. Sign in five minutes early, don’t take a full hour for lunch, and stay at least ten minutes late.

Fine. I could play that game. They wanted about what looked like twenty extra minutes of work a day out of me. That added up to almost two free hours a week. Over the course of a year, that impacted my income a lot. I reclaimed my time. I didn’t sign off the server for coffee or bathroom breaks. At this point, if they fired me, I’d thank them.

After work, I headed to the local library. I didn’t have a computer to work on at the apartment, and even if I did, it would be a company machine. I didn’t want to use their equipment to look for a new job. And I didn’t want to do it while another company flunky was staying in the apartment.

So far, I was the only one who stayed more than one week in a row. I was beginning to wonder if my three roommates so far had really only been working in the local office for temporary reasons, or in town for meetings, or if they saw what was going on and left. I didn’t feel like I could leave without an escape plan.

I wanted to go back to Dallas. But I needed a job.

I got tacos from a local food truck. The food was good, and I ate there more than I cooked. There were better tacos in Dallas, but if I were going to miss anything from my time in Amarillo, it was going to be that food truck.

I ate in my car in the parking lot of the library. My stomach complained. It had been doing that more and more. I rummaged around and pulled out the bottle of Tums I'd started carrying in my tote bag. I looked at it as some kind of status symbol of what my life had become. I was so stressed, I had to carry antacids with me.

My stomach lurched again, and this time, I was out of the car and hurrying toward a garbage can. I lost my dinner. That had also been happening more and more. I needed to change something soon, or the stress was going to make me so sick, I’d have no choice.

I returned to my car, thankful everything was still there, even though I had left the door wide open. I opened the trunk and pulled out a warm bottle of water. I used it to wash my mouth out before I popped in the chalky antacids. My stomach complained, but I didn’t throw up this time.

I locked the car up and headed inside. I groaned with defeat. The bank of library computers was all full. I grabbed a romance novel from a display and found a nearby chair where I could stake out the computers. I was there for about an hour, and the book was just getting good when a computer opened up and I could sign up.

---