4. Declan Foster
4
DECLAN FOSTER
Monday morning arrived with a shock.
I’d been in the office for less than an hour when a knock on my door drew my eyes away from the computer screen. Anyone visiting me felt like a surprise. The only person who usually stopped by was Sebastian, and he rarely knocked. He just started talking the second he walked through the door as a way of announcing his arrival. Everyone else in the company called or emailed.
No. There was one exception—Parker Cain.
But the Parker Cain currently standing in my office wasn’t the man I’d last seen in my office a week ago. My stomach knotted at the sight of him. Last week, I’d found him sitting on the floor outside my office, sobbing as he shook his phone in his fist. He’d said something about the death of a friend before staggering to his feet and leaving. Something in my gut had told me I shouldn’t have let him leave the office alone that day, but we knew so little about each other. It had felt wrong to interject myself into such a painful, private moment.
It was reassuring to hear that he’d called in sick for the following week because of the loss of his friend. At least then I knew he was still alive .
But alive seemed something of an exaggeration.
While his suit was tidy as usual and hair perfectly styled, he appeared off to me. His tan complexion appeared sallow, and heavy shadows had settled under his eyes as if he’d not slept once in the past week.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir. May I come in?” Parker inquired in a low voice.
My eyebrows jumped, and I sat mute. Sir? He’d never once called me that.
“Yes. What…I…” I stammered and stopped to clear my throat. What was wrong with me? Why was I rattled? “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine, sir. Thank you for asking,” Parker murmured, keeping his eyes lowered as he crossed my office to my desk. “And thank you for allowing me to take that time off last week.”
My frown returned. He didn’t look fine at all, and I didn’t want to be thanked for allowing him to take his PTO. It was wrong that he’d needed to take sick time to attend to this person’s funerary needs in the first place, but as a contract worker, he didn’t have the same flexibility as our regular employees.
“What can I do for you?” It seemed better to move away from that bit completely and head to safer territory.
“Here are the projections you requested for the leisure line. I’ve begun working on the report regarding raw materials and supply costs for the same division. It should be ready by the end of the week, unless you need it sooner.”
I shook my head, still feeling like I was in some weird nightmare. Any second now, an ax-wielding madman or a ghost was going to fly into the room. “Friday should be fine.”
Parker stepped forward and laid the thick document on my desk. I was grateful for the physical copy. My employees had long gotten used to my preference for reviewing reports on paper, giving me the chance to make notes right on the document as I read it. “The file is also in the usual folder on the network if you need to access the digital copy.”
Without another word, he turned and walked out of my office. My mouth hung open, a knot of words lodged in my throat, but I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I should ask about this person he’d lost or check to see if he needed more time off. But how could I offer him more time? Under his contract, he had only five days of PTO. After that, any time he took was unpaid. Not to mention, this was his last week with Courtland under contract.
Should I have asked him about the dead person? Would he find that comforting or too invasive? Would I be tearing open wounds that had just begun to heal? My goal wasn’t to cause him more pain.
But I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing to his retreating form with the slightly slumped shoulders and lowered head. Parker Cain was a complicated creature. In our private moments, he was a reckless, mischievous gremlin who loved to drive me crazy. In the office, he was friendly to all the employees, even if his gremlin side peeked out during the times we were alone.
This was the best example of why Sebastian Courtland was the most important thing to ever happen to me. Sebastian showed me how to interact with people, reassured me when I was trapped and didn’t know what to say. Part of me still wished he could stand beside me every day and act as my interpreter, smoothing every awkward incident and picking up on every social cue that I missed.
Maybe it was best to leave Parker alone. Let him deal with this loss in his own time. He wouldn’t want his boss butting into his private business. Besides, he was finally acting appropriately in the office. Why should I go messing that up by acting any differently than I usually did?
Except his “appropriate” behavior didn’t sit well with me. It wasn’t him. After three months of his silliness and flirting, he seemed beaten down and hurting. How could that ever be better?
A sigh slipped past my lips and my eyes dropped to the report he’d left on the edge of my desk. I snatched it up and set it off to my right to examine later. There were emails to answer first. Maybe I would try to catch Sebastian for lunch and get his opinion on the matter. He could help me find that line that allowed me to be his supervisor and a human being.
I rubbed my eyes and fell into work, losing myself for a couple of hours. I didn’t even notice when I grabbed Parker’s report, intending to skim some of the highlights. Except entire sections of the report were missing. There was one page where he’d left himself a note to pull the data from another report. It was incomplete.
What was he thinking, giving this to me? He’d never handed in shoddy work in the past. He was clearly not ready to be back in the office.
I shoved out of my chair and left my office in search of his. As I walked, I ignored all the employees who glanced up and quickly ducked their heads again, pretending to not see me. They were probably all praying that I wasn’t coming to see them. It didn’t matter. I was already running through ways to confront him about the report. I couldn’t just blurt out that this work was subpar and riddled with errors. My approach needed to be gentle and considerate.
The words were forming in my mind, only to have them fly out as I stepped into his tiny office. A baby was crying softly in one of those chair things with the handle, and there was no Parker. Why was there a baby in the office? Why did Parker have a baby?
Had…the person who’d died been his ex-wife?
No, Parker had said she was his best friend.
But didn’t a lot of people consider their wife to be their best friend?
No, that made no sense. I’d been over to Parker’s apartment dozens of times and there was zero hint that he’d ever been married or dating someone. Besides, he’d stated that he was gay. Not bi. Gay . So, where had the baby come from?
My head was spinning as I stood there staring at the small child, whose round chubby face was becoming more scrunched up and red with each passing second. Her cries weren’t ear-splitting wails yet, but they promised to reach that point if someone didn’t comply with her wishes soon.
What was I supposed to do? I knew nothing about babies. I was pretty sure that I’d never held one in my life, and I had no plans to start with this strange one.
Where the devil was Parker? Or anyone? I needed to find someone to help this baby.
“ Shh , little baby,” I said in a soft voice. “This is an office. You shouldn’t be crying.”
The child quieted and blinked at me. She pursed lips and watched me, possibly trying to figure out who I was. That worked?
No, it didn’t. I must have confused her because she began crying in earnest.
“Please, tiny baby. I will find your…daddy? Uncle? I’ll be right back.”
I edged toward the door and poked my head out into the hallway, searching for any sign of Parker. Maybe she thought I was leaving, because her cries grew louder the moment my head popped out of the office.
“Hey, hey! I’m still here,” I coaxed as I darted into the office. The sound of my voice seemed to calm her, and the edge of panic left her cries. “I’m going to find someone to go look for Mr. Cain. You just relax.”
She did not relax. She began crying even louder.
Thankfully, as I reached the door, Parker came rushing in and slammed straight into me. He bounced off my chest and stumbled a step. For a heartbeat, he appeared as if he were going to shout at me, but his expression switched to shock and then horror .
“Mr. Foster,” he gasped.
I nearly rolled my eyes. That sounded almost as bad as when he’s called me “sir,” but now wasn’t the time to deal with that.
I stepped out of the doorway and motioned for him to enter. He inched inside, his wide gray eyes locked on my face. It was only as he was a few steps from the baby that he finally turned all his attention to the source of all the noise. He scooped up the crying child with a practiced ease and cuddled her to his chest, rocking her while rubbing her back.
“What’s all this about, Miss Fussbritches? I left you for a couple of seconds.” I could attest that it was longer than that, and I felt aggrieved for myself and the baby. “Did the big, grumpy man scare you?”
“I did no such thing,” I argued, but regretted those words as a small smile flash across Parker’s lips. He was teasing. It was the first hint of his old personality all day, and it gave me hope that the Parker I knew was not lost completely. However, that grin was gone again, falling away to worry and horror.
“Sir, I can explain. I?—”
I held up one hand, stopping his words. “Soon. That is not the most important thing right now.” He didn’t need to explain that he’d felt trapped because he was out of sick days and for whatever reason, his daycare for the child had fallen through. The baby was stuck here with him for the duration of the day.
As I glanced around the room, my eyes fell on the chair with the handle and a large bag stuck in the corner with a cartoon elephant on it. Probably what he was using to carry what the child needed for the day. That couldn’t possibly be adequate for her needs. How could she be comfortable stuck in that chair all day? No, that wouldn’t do at all.
Stepping past Parker, I picked up the chair and grabbed the bag. “Do you have any other things for her?”
“N-no.” Parker stammered .
“Come with me.” I marched out of his office, leading him through our department to my office, stopping only for a second at Mrs. Eleanor Turner’s desk. I’d lucked into finding her as an assistant a few weeks ago, and she was proving to be an excellent fit. She didn’t appear to be put off by my brusque manner. In fact, she was an older woman who’d handled many executives in the past and had adopted the same no-nonsense manner. I hoped that she had children and could understand what I needed.
“Mr. Cain?” She rose to her feet and stared at Parker in shock for a heartbeat before snapping her wide gaze to me. “Mr. Foster!”
“I need your assistance, Mrs. Turner. Could you come into my office?” I gave Parker a nudge to his shoulder, getting him moving. Our little train of flustered and confused people ended in my office. At least the baby had stopped crying, possibly distracted by the walk through the building.
I placed the chair and bag on the floor in the center of the room and turned my attention to my assistant. “Mrs. Turner, I have a request that is outside your usual job description. I hope you can help me.”
The older woman with the short steel-gray hair and sharp brown eyes dragged her attention from the baby to me. “I would be happy to, sir.”
“Do…you have children?”
“Two grown sons and five grandchildren,” she answered readily.
Good. This was going to be easy.
“Mr. Cain will have…” I lost my momentum almost immediately, as I wasn’t sure how to refer to the child.
“My daughter. Joy. This is Joy.”
It was a handy thing that my stiff and gruff assistant melted for the child in that instant because all words left my brain for a moment. He had a daughter. Parker was young, and he always struck me as a very careful, gay man. But he had a child. How?
“Oh, and she is precious. How old is she?” Eleanor cooed.
“Six months.”
“She’s a little thing for six months. My boys were enormous by comparison.”
I cleared my throat, and Parker and Eleanor snapped to attention. Even Joy turned wide blue eyes to me. “Mr. Cain will work in my office for the rest of the day. I’ll take over his office. Right now, he has only a small chair for her to occupy for the duration of the day. Can you find something…more comfortable for her? They make something like that, right? And toys to keep her entertained.”
“Declan! You don’t need to do that,” Parker blurted out, seeming to forget about his efforts to be proper. Hearing my name explode off his tongue made the world settle into its right place again.
“Yes, I think I have an idea in mind,” Eleanor interjected, not allowing Parker to stop me.
“Could you also take Mr. Cain’s jacket to my dry cleaner? Put it under my name. I will pick it up when I get my suits.”
“What?” Parker squawked.
I motioned to him with one hand. “Allow Mrs. Turner to hold the baby while you take off the jacket. What you’ve done to clean the stain isn’t sufficient. If you don’t have it taken care of by a cleaner, the stain will permanently set.”
Parker glared at me, but he still handed Joy over to a thrilled Mrs. Turner, who cuddled the child close while Parker slipped out of his suit jacket. They swapped, and I escorted my assistant to the door. As I stepped into the hallway, I pulled out my wallet and handed her one of my credit cards.
“Put all the baby needs on this. Soft things. And toys, but not too noisy to distract Mr. Cain. Also, there’s an elephant on that bag. Maybe she likes elephants? And a blanket or two. Do you think the air conditioning is making it too cold in here for her?”
“I don’t think so, sir, but I will get a nice soft blanket just in case.” She paused, looking like there was something else she wanted to ask.
“Yes?”
She leaned slightly closer to me and lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s my understanding that Mr. Cain was out last week because of a…death in the family. Do you think this is related?”
“I intend to find out. Either way, Mr. Cain and his daughter will be cared for properly, I promise that.”
Mrs. Turner straightened, and she seemed to have a subtle smile on her thin lips. “Very good, sir. I’ll get this taken care of immediately.”
“Get her the best, Mrs. Turner. The very best you can find. And when you return, call Kaylan and ask to borrow Mr. Courtland’s bodyguard to help you carry everything up.”
“Yes, sir!” Her steps were brisk as she snatched up her purse from her desk drawer and hurried out of the office.
At least that was settled. Now, on to other matters.
I returned to my office and closed the door behind me. Parker stood in the middle of the room, rocking Joy in his arms while watching me with an expression I struggled to read. I couldn’t decide if he was angry at me or fearful.
“Sir. Mr. Foster, please call her back. This is unnecessary,” Parker began as soon as I crossed the room. I didn’t answer until I sat behind my desk.
“Now, Parker, please tell me what has happened. Starting with that phone call a week ago.”