Asshole had disappeared but good. No contact whatsoever since their last heated conversation. Yeah, he’d thought news of the baby’s survival would bring his best friend home.
Wrong. Adamant he couldn’t take care of Ko’s baby with a bum leg and a hole in his liver, Jamie had gone an unexpected route, rejecting the little girl in favor of convalescing in parts unknown.
Sure, he’d promised to return when he had his strength back, and his melon squared away, but Jay was calling bullshit. As transparent as cling wrap, the motherfucker still planned to go after Johnson. Alone. Not a super genius move on his part for several reasons.
One, it put him on the wrong side of the CIA, who wanted Johnson left in play until they could sus out who his financial backers were. Two, it hampered the JTT’s efforts to end their former boss’s reign of terror in a calculated, best-for-all-involved manner. And three, it was a fucking suicide mission.
The baby’s cry grew louder as Adam entered through the open doors at the opposite end of the boardroom. Still in pajama pants with a barf blanket over his bare shoulder, he carried Little Miss JTT in one arm like he cradled a football.
“We need to talk.” He offered the cup of coffee he carried to Jay and sat down in the closest chair.
“What’s up?” he asked, setting the mug on his desk before sliding it back toward Adam and reaching for the baby instead. Her head cradled in his palm, he nestled her against his shoulder, and she went from caterwauling to intermittent squalling to hiccupping cries as he rocked her back and forth, his hand patting her diapered bottom non-stop.
“I want my fiancée back,” Adam said, lifting the coffee to his lips and taking a cautious sip of the hot liquid. With a low moan, he closed his eyes in deep appreciation of the restorative properties of a cup of wake the fuck up.
Jay got it. As small as she was, the baby had a huge ripple effect when it came to disrupting their normal operations, and despite their best efforts, they hadn’t been able to settle into a routine.
Nights were the worst. After spending most of the day sleeping in the arms of one uncle or another, she spent the midnight hours awake and unhappy about it. She fussed and cried for hours on end, and no one, especially Eve, got any sleep as a result.
“So what’re you saying?” Jay asked, resisting the urge to tighten his hold on the turbo squawker. She may be a loud, demanding, needy little thing, but she belonged to them, and they to her.
“Eve’s exhausted. She’s up all night and only gets a couple hours of sleep between physical therapy sessions during the day. She’s doing her best, we all are, but…” He shrugged a shoulder. “We’re running on fumes with limited resources. We can’t keep going like this.”
“I’ll find Jamie. Get him back here.”
Adam shook his head. “Even if you find him, bringing Jamie home won’t change anything. He’s not in the right place mentally or physically to take care of a baby.”
“He just needs more time,” Jay replied.
“With everything going on with Johnson, and Tak, and who the fuck knows what else, we don’t have more time. Eve and I talked things over this morning, and we think the best course of action is to—”
“No way,” Jay huffed, and startled, Little Miss JTT let out a heart-piercing wail that cut him to the bone. “We can’t give her up for adoption. She belongs to us, and—”
“Easy there, Uncle Jay.” Adam set the coffee down and took the baby back into his arms. “No one said anything about giving her up for adoption.” He shifted her to his shoulder and automatically resumed the back rub, butt pat sequence of comfort giving she seemed to prefer. “We think we need to hire some help.” He kissed the top of the baby’s head. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
Relief swamping his insides, Jay held in the oh thank fucks threatening to spew out of his mouth. “You want to hire a babysitter?”
“A nanny,” Adam corrected. “Someone with experience who’s willing to live in a remote location full-time.”
“Would have to be a person with limited social connections,” Jay added, thinking about the risks involved in bringing a stranger into the JTT’s world. “Someone who could fall off the radar without others noticing.”
“Yeah, we’d need to keep a close eye on them, but worth it if it means we can get back to normal operating procedures around here. How soon do you think we can make this happen?”
Jay leaned back in his chair, scrubbed both hands through his hair, and clasped his fingers behind his neck. “Assume you’ll want me to dig into their backgrounds before you schedule interviews with potential candidates.”
“More than dig,” Adam said. “I want a full deep dive. Every record you can find, every potential problem identified. We have too much at stake, and we can’t take any chances.”
“That could take a while,” Jay said, already thinking about the workload involved.
“Get Z to help you,” Adam replied, standing with the baby still asleep on his shoulder. “And make it a priority. I want Eve back in my bed by New Year’s Eve. Got it?”
“Got it.” It took some effort, but Jay managed to suppress the grin attempting to break out on his face. Jesus, Adam must have a nasty set of blue balls if he was willing to make finding a nanny the number-one priority of the JTT.
* * *
Huddledunder a couple of blankets in the back seat of her car, Summer stared at the Christmas Eve miracle on the cracked screen of her phone. Parked in the lot she’d scoped out after collecting her last paycheck, she reread the job posting on the Montana Works website.
Full-time nanny wanted for immediate employment.
