The Good Father

“Jane Selwyn.”

“Jane, it’s Max Remington. The job is yours if you want it.”

Chapter Two

By eleven o’clock on Jane’s first day of work at the Remington Agency, she was terrified Max would fire her before lunch.

She hadn’t been all that strong in computer skills at school, and what little she’d learned was woefully out-of-date. Her first assignment was to lay out a simple ad for a new restaurant. Max had given her everything she needed—copy, photo and graphics. She could see the ad in her mind. But getting the computer program to do her bidding was an effort in frustration. So far she’d spent more time reading the manual than actually getting anything done.

She had finally figured out how to size her photo and adjust the color balance when Max tapped on her partially open office door and stuck his head in.

“Is the ad done yet?”

“Um, no, not quite yet. When do you need it?”

“Five o’clock today.”

“Okay.”

“Want me to pick up lunch for you?”

“Sure, that would be wonderful.” It was a cinch she wouldn’t have time to go out to eat. She would be lucky to get this sucker done before she had to leave at 2:45 to pick up Kaylee from preschool.

She had arranged for an after-school babysitter, but Mrs. Billingsly couldn’t start until next week. Jane had explained about her shortened workdays to Max, who hadn’t taken the news with a smile. He probably already regretted hiring her.

Jane reached for her purse in her desk drawer, intending to give Max some money, but he waved it away. “I’ll take care of it. But you will get the ad done, won’t you?”

“I’m doing my best.”

Max flashed a strained smile. “Great.”

Jane returned her attention to the screen and yelped in surprise. Her photo had turned green. The people looked like Martians. She must have hit the Okay button by mistake when she was adjusting the color balance.

She held her breath and hit Control-Z, the panacea for undoing mistakes, and thankfully the photo turned back to its normal colors.

Jane worked steadily, making slow progress and glancing worriedly at the clock.

By 2:45 she had everything roughed in like she wanted it—but she needed to make some refinements. Now that she was getting the hang of it, she found the graphics program to be incredibly powerful. She could certainly be finished by five—if she didn’t have to pick up Kaylee.

She grabbed her purse and attempted to slip out of the office unnoticed, but as luck would have it, Max came into the hallway just as she did.

“Oh, Jane. Are you done with the ad?”

“Um, almost. I have to pick up Kaylee. But I’m coming back, and I’ll finish up before five, for sure.” She turned away from him and headed for the exit.

“Wait. You’re bringing your daughter here?”

Jane turned back slowly. “That was the plan.”

“Jane, this is a place of business. It’s not a day-care center.”

“This is an unusual situation. Once I have my babysitter, this won’t be a problem. I did explain that to you, right?”

“Yes, but that was before I knew you would take all day to do an ad that should have taken you a couple of hours.”

“I haven’t been wasting time, really. Most of today was spent learning the program. Anyway, I only need a few more minutes to finish up, and Kaylee won’t cause any problems, I promise.” She mentally crossed her fingers. Kaylee was very well behaved most of the time. But every so often she still threw a hideous tantrum, a holdover from the Terrible Twos. Just please, don’t let it be today.

He tried again. “The office isn’t a safe place for a child.”

“She’ll be fine. I’ll keep her with me in my office. You won’t know she’s here.”

Max clearly wasn’t happy about the arrangements, but he didn’t argue further. “The ad will be done by five? And you’ll e-mail it to me?”

“Absolutely.”

Finally he relaxed his stance. “All right.”

“I really have to go or I’ll be late. They charge extra if I’m late picking up, and I can’t afford it.”

“Do you need an advance on your salary?” he asked suddenly. “’Cause if you need money for food or something—”

“That’s not necessary,” she said quickly. “I’m okay.” She hurried away, pondering the Jekyll-and-Hyde routine. First Max was Simon Legree, then he was Mother Teresa.

She was a bit surprised at his hard-nosed attitude regarding children. The corporation where Scott worked as a marketing manager featured its own day-care center and liberal policies for working parents. She knew Max’s company was tiny by comparison, but his attitude seemed antiquated.

Well, some people were simply uncomfortable around children, she reasoned. That was something to keep firmly in mind whenever her heart did its annoying little pitter-pat in his presence.

Yes, he’d done her a huge favor by hiring her. But that was no reason to feel anything but professional toward him.

Kaylee was cranky when Jane picked her up from the private Montessori school, which Jane’s mother had offered to pay for. Her mother had warned her that if she divorced Scott, she shouldn’t expect to move back home and live off her parents’ largesse, not that Jane would have considered that. But when Jane had told her mother about her new job, Wanda Selwyn had tut-tutted about young children needing their mothers, then had offered to pay tuition if Jane would enroll Kaylee in the best preschool available.

“Just because you’ve made some foolish decisions, that’s no reason your child should suffer,” Wanda had proclaimed. Wanda wasn’t so much upset about the divorce as she was about the settlement her daughter had accepted. Jane hadn’t confided her reasons for bowing to Scott’s unreasonable demands.

Jane had been willing to listen to a sermon or two if it solved some of her child-care problems. Though Max hadn’t taken her up on her offer to work for free, her starting salary wasn’t much more than she could have earned as a waitress. But he’d promised her raises would be forthcoming once she proved herself.

“I don’t like that place,” Kaylee proclaimed as Jane buckled her into her car seat.

“Really? What don’t you like?”

“Icky food.”

“Maybe you’ll like tomorrow’s lunch better. Is that all?”

“Billy took my bunny. He’s mean.”

“Oh.” Jane slid behind the steering wheel, wondering what the appropriate advice was. Should she encourage Kaylee to share? Or was this mean boy a bully, someone Kaylee should stand up to? Lord knew she wanted to teach her daughter to be independent and learn to solve her own problems.

Jane’s parents had not raised her to be independent. They had raised her to be a rich man’s wife. Looking back at her marriage with some hindsight, she now knew she had been drawn to the security Scott offered her. She had convinced herself she was in love with the handsome but overbearing man, and she had mistaken Scott’s possessiveness for love.

Truth was, she didn’t really know what love was, only that her and Scott’s relationship had been unhealthy from the start. But she had been too scared to leave him, too scared to try to make it on her own. It was only when his behavior began to border on abusive that she’d filed for divorce—before he could carry out any of his threats.

“Macaroni for dinner, Mommy?” Kaylee asked, the bunny incident apparently forgotten.

“Absolutely. But first I have to finish some work at my new job.”

“What’s a job?”

“You know. Like Daddy goes to work every day to his job. Now I have a job. I…draw pictures, and I get paid money for them.”

Kaylee frowned. Her father’s long working hours had been a continual source of friction in their family. Maybe Kaylee believed her mother would stay away all the time, too. No doubt about it, Jane’s job would require a lot of adjustments. Kaylee was used to having almost constant access to her mother.

“I’ll be going to my job every day to work,” Jane said. “But I’ll be home every night for dinner. We’ll still play together and I’ll tuck you in and read you a story every night.”

Kaylee still looked worried. She was growing so fast, getting more complex every day. Jane usually had no idea what was going on behind her daughter’s bright blue eyes. The child had taken her parents’ breakup reasonably well. Not having her father around wasn’t much different than before the divorce, as Scott had spent very little time at home. He had either been working, playing golf or dragging Jane around to this party or that while Kaylee stayed home with a sitter.

Once parked at the office building, Jane grabbed a tote bag filled with favored toys, unbuckled Kaylee from her car seat and walked with her inside the cool lobby.

Carol looked surprised to see the child, but then her face melted into a smile. “What an adorable little girl!”

“This is my daughter, Kaylee,” Jane said. “Kaylee, this is Ms. Washington.”

Kaylee held out her favorite yellow baby blanket, now tattered and faded. “This is my blankie.”

“And a very nice blankie it is, too,” Carol said.

“My after-school child care doesn’t start until next week,” Jane said, then lowered her voice. “Is Mr. Remington here?”

“No, he’s out calling on clients.”

“Oh.” She was actually relieved. Bringing her daughter to the office on her very first day was unprofessional and she knew it. But she simply didn’t have a choice in the matter.

“Did you need something?” Carol asked.

“No. I just have a tiny bit of work to finish up, and I thought he’d be here to approve it before I left for the day.”

“Oh, don’t worry. If he doesn’t like something, you’ll hear about it.”

“Really?” From what Allie had said—and what little Jane had previously observed—she thought Max was the easygoing, laid-back Remington cousin. He’d been somewhat testy with her earlier, but she’d attributed that to anxiety over his deadline.

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good boss,” Carol said. “I mean, I’ve only been working for him a short time, but he’s fair-minded and flexible. You always know exactly what he wants from you, so you aren’t expected to read his mind like with some bosses.

“But he does want things a certain way, and he’s not shy about telling you.”

“You mean he’s a perfectionist?”

“Yeah.” Carol nodded. “That’s a fair description. But not in a nitpicky way. You’ll see what I mean.”

“Mommy.” Kaylee tugged on the hem of Jane’s skirt. “Can I get a drink?” She pointed to the gurgling fountain.

Oh, Lord, she could just imagine Max returning to the office and finding Kaylee with her head in his fountain.

Carol grinned. “We have some juice in the break room. You want me to watch her while you work?”

“Oh, would you? That would be great.”

“You come with Aunt Carol,” Carol said to Kaylee, standing and holding out her hand. “We’ll see if we can find juice and a yummy snack in the break room.” Carol looked at Jane. “Is that okay?”

“Sure. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

Jane hurried to her office, listening for sounds of Kaylee’s displeasure at being abandoned. But she seemed to take to Carol, which wasn’t surprising; Kaylee wasn’t a clingy, shy child and usually was happy to meet new people.

As Jane worked on the ad, making only small adjustments now and feeling slightly more confident with her graphics program, she could hear her daughter’s happy but shrill voice and laughter coming from the break room down the hall.

When the ad was as good as Jane knew how to make it, she e-mailed it to Max as per instructions. She looked at her watch, surprised that it was nearly five o’clock. That had taken far longer than she’d expected. Time flew by so quickly when she was engrossed in something creative.

Thank God for Carol. If Jane had been forced to divide her time between her computer and entertaining Kaylee, she never would have made the deadline.

Jane found her purse and headed out of her office, grateful she had survived her first day of work. Just as she closed her door, she heard Max’s voice and froze, torn. Part of her wanted to see him and have him look at the ad. His approval was important to her on this, her first assignment. But another part of her wanted to make a clean getaway. Max was exciting to be around, but a little draining on her, too. She was ready to share mac-and-cheese with her daughter and decompress.

“Who’s that?” she heard Max ask.

Oh, no. He was in the break room with Carol and Kaylee.

“This is Jane’s daughter, Kaylee. Kaylee, can you say hi to Mr. Remington?”

If Kaylee said anything, it was too quiet for Jane to hear.

“I’m watching her while Jane finishes up some work.”

“And don’t you have work to do? What if a client arrives? Is anyone answering the phone?” He sounded decidedly grouchy.

Darn, Jane hadn’t meant to get Carol in trouble.

“I can hear the door chime and the phone from here,” Carol said, not sounding at all bothered by Max’s reprimand. Then again, she was probably a good ten years older than Max and seemed pretty sure of herself.

“Well, I hope this isn’t going to be a regular thing. Having a child running around the office isn’t the kind of image I’m trying to project.”

Carol grumbled something Jane couldn’t make out.

“Did she at least finish the ad she’s been working on?”

“I don’t know.”

Jane decided she’d done enough skulking around in the hallway, eavesdropping. She strode toward the break room and entered boldly. “Oh, hello, Max. I hadn’t realized you were back.”

“Mommy!” Kaylee, who’d been scribbling in a coloring book, flew out of her chair and attached herself to Jane’s leg.

Jane leaned down to pick up her little girl. “Have you been a good girl for Ms. Washington?”

Kaylee nodded. “We ate Goldfish and juice—”

“And some apple slices,” Carol interjected, probably so Jane would know the snack had been somewhat nutritious.

“—and we played horsey and colored in the book—”

“Excuse me,” Max said, looking more and more irritated, “but can we finish our business before you’re off in Mommy Land?”

“Yes, of course, Max. What is it?”

“Is the ad done? Please tell me it’s done.”

“Of course it’s done,” she said calmly, as if she’d finished it ages ago. “It should be in your inbox as we speak.”

He bolted out of the room.

“He’s mean, Mommy.” Mean must have been Kaylee’s new word.

Carol laughed. “Not mean. Just not into kids, I don’t think. Listen, you better hit the road before Mr. Remington looks at that ad and decides he wants changes.”

“Oh, but it’s perfect,” Jane said, alarmed to think she might have more work to do. “I’m sure he’ll be pleased with it.” The finished product had been beautiful, even if she did say so herself.

“One thing you better learn fast in this business, honey. No matter how hard you work, no matter how perfect it is when you let go of it, the boss will always want changes and the client will, too. The sooner you realize that and don’t let it bother you, the better.”

Jane nodded. “Point taken.” She quickly gathered up Kaylee’s toys and stuffed them into the tote bag. “C’mon, princess. Let’s go home and have some macaroni.”

They’d almost cleared the reception area when Jane heard her name. She considered scooting out the door and pretending she hadn’t heard. But since Max had bellowed at her loudly enough to shake the walls, she decided she better obey the summons.

She sighed. Oh, God, what if he hated the ad?

He appeared in the doorway to the reception room just as she reached to open it. “Oh, there you are. I thought I’d missed you.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Not much, really. The ad is beautiful. Really, Jane, you have such an eye for color and composition. There’s just one teeny-tiny problem.”

“What?”

“You left off the client’s logo.”

Chapter Three

Jane gasped. In the span of two heartbeats she’d gone from glowing with pride to cringing with mortification. She’d left off the client’s logo? How could that be possible?

Just then Kaylee let out an unexpected shriek—right in Jane’s ear. She strengthened her grip around Jane’s neck, putting her in a wrestler’s stranglehold.

“That man is mean!”

“What?” Max asked. “Did she just say I was mean?”

But Jane’s mind was shifting back to the ad and the final steps she’d taken, and she remembered something. “I think I know what the problem is. Give me five minutes.”

She dropped everything but Kaylee and ran back to her office. “Kaylee, honey, please be good for another couple of minutes while Mommy fixes this disaster.” How humiliating would it have been to show the client an ad with no logo?

While her computer booted up, she tried to convince Kaylee to play quietly, but the child was crabby now and wanted none of it. Jane had to work with Kaylee in her lap and Max standing in the doorway, glowering at her.

If she didn’t fix this problem in two seconds, she was fired. She knew it.

She called up the file from the graphics program. Yes, there it was! She’d made the logo transparent while she was working on the background, and she’d simply forgotten to restore it. One button click, and the problem was fixed. With a huge sigh of relief, she sent it to Max.

“It’s fine now. The corrected version should be in your inbox.”

He didn’t rush to his office, as she’d expected, but continued standing in her doorway staring at her, an inscrutable expression on his handsome face.

Oh, God. He was going to fire her anyway.

He opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it and turned away.

Jane wanted to get herself and her fussy child out of there—before the day got any worse. But she forced herself to wait until Max had okayed the ad. If he wanted her to do more work on it, she would, but she would find a babysitter first.

At least Kaylee had stopped crying. She was now flopped across Jane’s shoulder, her little body relaxing muscle by muscle as drowsiness took over. Poor thing, today had been long and confusing for her.

Still carrying her daughter, Jane tiptoed to Max’s office. He was at the computer, but he must have sensed her presence because he looked up.

“Is it okay now?” she asked.

“It’s fine. I’ve sent it to the client.”

“Do I still have a job?”

He actually smiled. “Yes, you still have a job. I shouldn’t have reacted like I did, not on your first day. I’m sure things will go smoother once you settle in.”

Jane smiled back. “Absolutely. See you tomorrow, then.” She turned to leave.

“Oh, Jane. One more thing.”

Shoot, what now?

“I’m courting a new client, a children’s clothing manufacturer from Houston. If I land the account, it will be by far my biggest.” He pointed to a folder sitting on the corner of his desk. “That’s some of the print advertising they’ve done over the past couple of years, along with some concepts I’ve brainstormed. Would you mind looking them over tonight? I’ll want you to do some mock-ups for a presentation. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“Sure, of course.” What sort of mock-up was he talking about? Sketches, or something more polished? She should ask, but she didn’t want to look any more ignorant today than she already had.

Jane grabbed the folder, which she would study after Kaylee was in bed. “Have a great evening.” Did he have a date? Oh, Lord, why did she care about that? He could have ten dates, and it was none of her concern.

As she made her way to her car, the day’s events floated around in her brain, but the one she focused on was when Max had said her ad was beautiful. Maybe his praise hadn’t been sincere, but she’d gone all tingly inside.

For a moment, she imagined how it would feel to hear him say she was beautiful. The tingly feeling returned. It was a miracle she got her car home in one piece.

OLD SALT’S BAR & GRILL was nothing like the ultra-hip clubs in SoHo and the Village Max used to frequent when he lived in New York. But it had its good points—like a big deck that looked out over the ocean, decent food and drinks that didn’t cost your whole paycheck.

Although lots of bars dotted Port Clara’s coast and downtown area, Max and his cousins had adopted Old Salt’s as their home away from home.

Max worked long hours these days trying to get the agency up and running and profitable—profitable being the point that interested him most at the moment. He had walked out on his job at Remington Industries, his family’s New York conglomerate, with a lot of big promises about how he was going to make it on his own with no help from them.

He remembered how his older brother, Eddie, had stared at him slack-jawed, and his father—vice president of marketing—had clenched his jaw in anger, then declared Max would come crawling back before six months was out.

He’d thought their reactions kind of amusing back then. Now he didn’t.

By eight o’clock Max felt worn thin, and he decided to call it a night and head for Old Salt’s for a beer and some commiseration.

He found the whole gang there—Cooper and Allie, unwinding after a full-day charter on their boat, the Dragonfly; and Reece and Sara, relaxing after a long day running their various businesses—between them they had three.

“Max!” Allie greeted him with a quick kiss to the cheek. “How goes the advertising biz?”

“A bit grueling today,” he admitted as he swiveled a chair around and straddled it. The waitress caught his eye, and he pointed to Cooper’s beer. She nodded.

“It’s not easy, running your own company,” said Sara. “The B and B isn’t so bad, since I took over an already-thriving business. But the catering…all I can say is, I’m glad Reece has some business sense or I’d be in serious trouble.” She put a hand to Max’s shoulder. “How’s the new artist working out?”

“Oh, you know about that?”

“Of course. I was there when you called her to offer the job. She’s incredible, isn’t she?”

“Incredible…yeah, that’s one word to describe her.” Slow would be another word.

“You’re not pleased with her work?” Allie asked, reading between the lines. “Oh, Max, please don’t fire her. She really needs that job. You have no idea what a financial mess Scott left her in. That boat was supposed to be hers free and clear, and now she’s discovered all kinds of debts and expenses related to the boat she knew nothing about. Of course, Scott kept her totally in the dark about their finances—”

Cooper clamped a hand over his wife’s mouth to silence her tirade. “Allie. Perhaps Jane doesn’t want her personal life bandied about in public.”

“We’re not public,” Allie objected, flipping her long red hair over one shoulder. “We’re Jane’s friends. Everybody here knows what a jerk her ex is. Max experienced it firsthand. First fist, that is.”

Max rubbed his jaw, which was even now, months later, a little tender. He couldn’t argue that Scott was a bastard, all right. Not only had the guy sucker-punched Max, but he’d used Max as leverage to take advantage of Jane in their divorce.

“The fact Jane needs a job shouldn’t be a factor in whether Max keeps her on or not,” Reece pointed out. He was the accountant in the family, the hard-nosed one who kept the rest of them financially on track.

“So he should just cast her out into the street?” Sara asked, with a look bordering on outrage.

“No, of course not,” Reece said. “But you can’t expect him to keep her on the payroll if she’s not an asset to his business.”

“Whoa, whoa.” Max decided the discussion had gotten way out of hand. “I never said she isn’t working out. Our first day was…rocky. Jane isn’t accustomed to the fast pace in advertising. But I plan to give her a decent chance to adjust.”

“I hope you’re not bombarding her with criticism,” Allie said. “She’s very sensitive.”

“But you have to give her feedback or she won’t improve,” Reece pointed out.