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Jolene smiled and handed me a card. “Please call me if you have any questions. Someone from the local children’s services offices will follow up with you since I’m handing the case over to one of their social workers.”
She bent behind the desk again, then set what I assumed was a diaper bag and baby seat on the counter. Then she said goodbye and left.
I was too stunned to say anything, and Corinne’s cries picked up again. She looked so tiny and innocent against my big, tattoo-covered arms. Carefully, I shifted her to my chest and bounced her from side to side.
My eyes strayed to the clock on the wall, and I groaned. “Fuck, I have a client coming in for their second session on a full sleeve in ten minutes. What the hell am I gonna do?”
“Don’t worry, I can watch her for today,” Dahlia—my president's old lady—said as she rushed over to take Corinne out of my arms.
“And we’ve already started stocking up on baby stuff, so she can borrow some things while one of the prospects runs out to grab anything else she needs,” Molly—who belonged to my VP—added.
I glanced in her direction, and that was when I noticed a few other old ladies, Elise and Blakely, standing a few feet behind me as well.
Pulling her phone out of her pocket, Blakely offered, “I can work on a list so he’ll know what to get.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. “That’ll work for the short-term, but I guess I’m gonna need to find a fucking nanny.”
I knew my mom would offer to take care of Corinne, but even without my dad’s condition, they were on the older side, having had my sister and me late in life.
Elise clapped her hands, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Ohhhh, I know the perfect person! I met her last week at the library.”
I narrowed my eyes at her but kept my voice gentle as I said, “So you barely know this chick?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted some random woman looking after my baby girl. Whoa. My baby girl? I’d known her all of five minutes. I couldn't possibly be thinking of her as mine, right?
“I mean, I’m sure you’ll run a background check on her, but she was volunteering while she was there.” Elise beamed a smile at me. “And I already know that she loves kids because she was reading to a huge group of them. I asked how often she does it because she’s amazing, and she’s there twice a week. The librarian said they wished they could offer her a full-time job doing it because the daycare center where she’s worked since she was a sophomore in high school just shut down, and now she’s without a job right when she graduated. A whole semester early.”
“Damn, girl.” Molly let out an appreciative whistle. “You practically got her entire life story.”
Dahlia rocked the baby back and forth. “And she sounds like she’d be the perfect nanny.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” I conceded, looking at the door when the bell went off and lifting my chin at my client as he walked into the studio.
While I worked on coloring in a section of his large tattoo, I ran over what had just gone down in my head about a million times. Was I really considering becoming a single dad? To my surprise, the thought of anyone else raising Corinne made my stomach feel sour.
I told myself it was simply because my parents would be pissed if I didn’t keep and raise their grandchild. But I’d never been one to lie to myself, so I quickly admitted that I’d become attached to Corinne in the few minutes I’d held her in my arms.
In that small space of time, she’d become my baby girl, and I knew I would do anything to protect her and make sure she grew up happy and loved.
2
ELLERY
Ihad always enjoyed going to the library growing up, but it quickly became one of my favorite places when I started reading to kids for the volunteer hours I needed to graduate from high school. Seeing their eyes light up as they discovered the joy that could be found in books made me feel as though I was actually having an impact on their lives. So every time I passed through the doors, I walked into my happy place.
As I neared the front circulation desk, I beamed a smile at the head librarian. “Hey, Lilli.”
“Good afternoon, Ellery.” She tilted her head toward the reading nook area. “I hope you’re ready because you have an even bigger crowd today than usual.”
“Awesome!” My smile widened as I pulled a children’s book out of my bag. “Hopefully they’re all fans of dragons because this is what I planned to read today.”
“I’m sure they’ll love it.”
With that reassurance, I headed toward the back of the library, my eyes widening when I saw the crowd waiting for me. Normally, I had ten to fifteen kids attend my story time, but there were twenty today. But it wasn’t the number of children that surprised me—it was the adults with them. And the fact that the man with his back to me was wearing a leather vest with the Iron Rogues MC patch on the back.
Having a dad or two at my reading circle wasn't unusual, but the moms accompanied most of the children. And as far as I was aware, none of the dads who had shown up in the past had been bikers. Until now.
As my gaze skimmed over the group, I recognized the pretty blonde with blue eyes. Elise and I had chatted for a little bit when she was here last week. Judging by the arm slung around her shoulders, my guess was that the man standing next to her was her husband. He wore a vest similar to the other guy in their little group, but I couldn’t read the smaller patches on the front from this far away. I assumed he was a biker too, which was kind of surprising since she had mentioned that she was married to a doctor. I guessed it just went to show how little I knew about motorcycle clubs.
