The Tycoon's Cupid Surprise (a Valentine's novella) (Holiday Babies) by Tabitha Robbins Page B

too.
    “ I’m hitting the books tonight.” Ella craned to peer past Brooke’s shoulder. “Can I have a peek?”
    “I just checked. He’ s due to wake up soon though. Wanna help with some orders in the meantime?”
    “Anything that calls for daffodils? Did you guess?” Ella struck a pose. “I’m in a yellow mood today.”
    “How about tulips tied with a harvest-gold ribbon?”
    Brooke selected the flowers while Ella inched over to sneak a look at the baby. She covered her mouth to quiet a sigh.
    “ Ohmigod . He is seriously the cutest baby ever. Tiffany would be so proud.”
    A familiar lump formed in Brooke’s throat as memories flooded back...all that blood and exhaustion and, finally, those strangled pleas... She and Tiffany Bird had been friends right through school. They’d had countless sleepovers and had always been there for each other, particularly through the dark times, like when Tiffany’s parents had died in a car crash two years ago. Brooke couldn’t recall her and Tiffany ever having kept secrets.
    Except when Tiffany had fallen pregnant with Chance.
    Brooke tried to tamp down the ache. “I’ll make sure he knows how beautiful his mom was. How much he was loved.”
    “It’s sad that Tiffany felt she couldn’t say who the father is,” Ella said. “That no one else’s name is on the birth certificate but hers. But, in a way, I’m glad Chance is ours.” She sent over a grin. “I mean yours .”
    Brooke arranged the tulips, red, yellow and, her favorite, mauve. “When I have enough time and money, I’ll look into it. I don’t want to explain one day to Chance why I didn’t at least try to track down his biological dad.”
    “Even if dad is a deadbeat jerk? I mean, there must be something seriously off for Tiffany to have kept the baby a secret from him. Heck, maybe she was assaulted.”
    “Or maybe it was a romantic one night stand and she wasn’t able to find him again.”
    Brooke wished she knew. When her pregnancy had become noticeable, Tiffany had refused to divulge anything concerning her baby’s father.
    Ella cross ed back to the counter and dropped her bag on the floor. “Have you heard from lover boy lately?”
    “Lover boy being code for Jake Bentley?”
    Ella pretended to stick a finger down her throat and reach. “To think he wanted you to choose him over Chance. As if that would ever happen.”
    Jake couldn’t accept that his girlfriend’s life had changed...that her priorities were different now and a thousand times more important. Initially after she’d brought Chance home, Jake had been curious. Brooke had had faith; who couldn’t bond with that gorgeous little bundle?
    A s the weeks had wound on, however, Jake had grown distant, surly and, finally, resentful. Apparently she wasn’t spending enough time with him. With Heather usually here to help, Brooke spent her days tending shop, caring for Chance, or catching forty winks whenever she could. Two weeks ago, Jake had lain down an ultimatum: “the baby or me.”
    After that , she didn’t want Jake anywhere around. If he didn’t want to be part of it, fine by her. No more Sunday dinners with his hermit mother whose face would crack if she ever smiled. By the time the relationship fell apart, the end was a relief...even if there were times—some secret, stupid moments—when Brooke missed the idea of what she and Jake were supposed to have shared.
    As Ella sheared off a length of ribbon, her cell phone sounded. Brooke finished up the tulip bouquet as her sister replied to a text.
    “ Gotta go.” Ella scooped her bag up. “My roomie’s had a home salon disaster and the new guy’s due in an hour for their first big date.”
    Brooke mulled that over. “A date you say?”
    Slotting her phone away, Ella looked at her sister sideways. “Ah, yeah. That’s when two people share time together because they are either attracted to one another or want to see if they could be.”
    Brooke grinned. Smartass.