Reunited: A Billionaire Secret Baby Romance (Lost Love Book 2) Read online

  My phone buzzed and the screen said “unknown caller.” I sighed. “This is just going to be one of those days, isn’t it?” I answered it because I knew if I didn’t, whoever was calling me wasn’t going to go away. “Hello?”

  “Good morning, is this Sienna Ross?” I closed my eyes and stopped short of the door between the parking structure and the hospital.

  “Yes, this is she,” I replied. I knew exactly what kind of call it was going to be.

  “Ms. Ross, my name is Kerry, and I’m calling from Champion…” I half-tuned out the rest of what she had to say, because I knew exactly what it was about: the electric bill. I’d paid half of it, but the other half was past-due, and it was going to keep being past due for another week or so, until I got paid again. And then I’d have to skim some money from the water bill to make sure the electric got paid.

  “Kerry, let me go ahead and stop you there, since I’m on my way into work,” I told the woman on the other end of the line. “I understand the issue, and I will hopefully be able to pay off my balance in another week.”

  “I do have to advise you, Ms. Ross, that these late payments do affect the possibility of your electric services being disconnected.”

  “Yes, Kerry, I am fully aware of that,” I said. “Now if you will excuse me, I need to go into work so that I have a job to continue being able to pay you.” Kerry didn’t react to my tone at all, but then I supposed she was probably a very good customer service and billing representative.

  “I’ll go ahead and put in the information about your promise to pay, Ms. Ross. Have a great day,” she said.

  “That would be quite the trick, if I did,” I muttered, before telling her goodbye and hanging up. I’d gotten a text message while I was on with the electric company; Jillian, one of my coworkers, had texted to let me know she couldn’t give me her shift on Friday--something had come up.

  “Young lady, you look like you drove through every puddle on the road with the windows down,” Anton said as I went into the employee area to put my purse away in my locker.

  “My shift hasn’t even started and today is already a long-ass day,” I told him. Anton chuckled sympathetically.

  “Well in that case, you need to blow off some steam,” Anton told me. He was wearing bright purple scrubs, and I could see he’d gotten his eyebrows done on his day off. For someone who hated the fact that there were stereotypes about male nurses being gay and camp, Anton definitely didn’t seem to have any problem fulfilling some of those stereotypes himself; although I had to admit that he was one of the better-looking men in the building on any given day, especially since the doctors on staff tended to be too distracted or stressed out to do too much worrying about their physiques. Half of them didn’t shave daily, and most of them looked as if they kept their clothes in a pile in their closets. Anton somehow found the energy after his shifts to work out five days a week, and his scrubs were always pressed, even if they were usually in some bright color or another. He was always clean-shaven, his eyebrows were always done, and I was pretty sure he got regular manicures, as well. How is it that he has all that extra money to spend and I’m putting off the electric company shutting me, Tanya, and Mom off every three months or so?

  “Please do not recommend the gym to me again,” I said, grinning a bit.

  “Oh honey, you haven’t needed a gym in your life to look fly,” Anton said, shaking his head. “Or have the elderly patients stopped ‘accidentally’ dropping things for you to have to bend over and pick them up?” I snorted.

  “It isn’t just the elderly ones,” I said, opening my locker.

  “See, this is what I mean,” Anton said, leaning against the lockers. “Here you are, in the prime of your life, perfectly eligible to pick up some tasty mid-forties sugar daddy, and you’re wasting it on poor Houston-ites with renal failure from drinking too much caffeine.” I couldn’t help but laugh at that.

  “I am no man’s idea of sugar baby material,” I countered.

  “Oh but sweetie, you are,” Anton insisted. “Come out with me tonight, we’ll hit up happy hour at Poitin, find you a guy…”

  “I do not need a guy,” I said. I shoved my purse into my locker and made sure that I had everything I would need for my shift.

  “You do! Sienna, baby-girl, you have legs for days, an ass that most men would be happy to use as a dinner-table, and boobs that any drag queen would kill their drag-mother to be able to strap on for performances. You are smart, funny, and damned charming.”

  “That does not mean I need a man in my life, Anton,” I pointed out. “It might mean some guy thinks he needs me in his life, but I am pretty happy with my romantic prospects right now.”

  “Your romantic prospects are once-monthly dates with Ben and Jerry,” Anton countered. “That is not the kind of menage you need.” I couldn’t help snickering at that.

  “But it’s one that won’t get me knocked up again,” I said. Anton rolled his eyes.

  “They have made great advances in birth control since you got pregnant with Tanya,” Anton said. “Hell--didn’t you tell me you got the implant like, six months ago?”

  “I got it,” I admitted. “But it’s not foolproof, and the only way to guarantee I won’t get pregnant again is to not have sex.”

  “Okay, okay, fine,” Anton said, rolling his eyes. “But sometime, and soon, I am going to need you to come out with me. I’ll even buy drinks.”

  “I couldn’t have you buying me drinks all night,” I told him, leaning in to give him a quick kiss on the cheek before we had to clock in.

  “Oh, it would be fine, because I would be getting other people to buy my drinks, so I wouldn’t even be spending what I normally do,” Anton said. I smiled at that and we walked out of the locker room, to the front desk with the time clock. As much as I still had the issues with my car, and the electric bill, and the water bill to come still swirling around in the back of my mind, I had to admit I felt better after talking to Anton. I clocked in at the computer and looked over the cases in the system, sitting on the edge of the office chair while I confirmed the ones that were assigned to me. It was shaping up to be a busy day--but then they always seemed to be, since the hospital was running at a steady 75% staffing for support personnel.

  I got up and picked up my first batch of patient charts, and got to work.

  Chapter 3

  “How’s the head, Bobby?” I looked at Kara in the seat next to me, in the back of the limo, and I smiled in spite of myself. She had her phone in her hand, and on it I could just barely make out the digital version of one of the New York Times crosswords. She’d told me once that she was making her way backwards through the years for fun; it looked like a pretty complicated one in front of her at the moment.

  “Not bad,” I replied. The Aleve I had taken was only just starting to take the edge off of my hangover headache, but the caffeine had done its work, and I was pretty sure it was going to at least get me through the donation ceremony--such as it was--and the tour of the school. J.D. MacCallister was the school I’d chosen for the first big donation I was making to public schools in the area, part of the strings attached to the fortune my uncle had left me a few years before. Technically I could have chosen any kind of charity or community building to do--but the school system was important to me.

  “While I’m sure the kids would absolutely enjoy your usual juvenile approach to life, you’re supposed to be an adult here. And remember: no cussing.” Kara said as the driver pulled into the guest parking lot for the school. The principal of the school had been given advance notice that we were coming in, so the guards didn’t really bat an eyelash, and I hoped that I would be able to get through the whole thing quickly and without a lot of small-child screaming.

  We got out of the car and I wished I’d remembered my sunglasses; but we would only be outside for a few minutes. Kara walked at my side as I made my way into the school, and spotted the signs directing people to the administration building. It smelled
exactly like my school had growing up: floor wax, disinfectant, plasticky latex paint--all the smells of an elementary school hallway. There was a woman sitting at the reception desk in the front of the administration wing who looked like she might have been as close as possible to a carbon-copy of the secretary at my own school as a kid: curled up, teased out, bottle-blond hair, slightly askew lipstick, middle aged with a figure that was average, dressed in ever-so-slightly unflattering clothes.

  “Yes, can I help you?” the woman asked as we approached the desk.

  “Hi, I’m Robert Clawson, here to see Principal Becky Normand,” I told the woman. “I should have an appointment on the book.” The secretary nodded and opened some program on her computer, rattling at the keys.

  “Ah--yeah, I see it here. Give me just a minute to let Ms. Normand know you’ve arrived. She should be right out.” I waited off to the side of the desk with Kara, and true to the receptionist’s word, a harried-looking woman came out of one of the offices, quickly smoothing her hair as she came out. She was probably about fifty or fifty-five, and had apparently decided to let the gray come in without bothering it. She wore a tailored dress suit and low heels, and looked about as respectable and non-threatening as a woman possibly could.

  “Mr. Clawson, thank you so much for coming,” the Principal said. “When I got your email I wasn’t sure I understood what you had in mind.” Kara and I followed her through the front area and into her office, and sat down.

  “I know how hard the staff of this school works to make sure the kids here are educated,” I said, going over what I’d practiced in my head--when it wasn’t pounding--on the way over. “And I know that the Texas legislature hasn’t been all that generous with education funding for decades; they certainly weren’t when my mom was teaching.”

  “Your mother was a teacher?” I nodded.

  “She taught social studies and history,” I explained. “And brought me up with a great deal of respect for the public school system.” The principal smiled at me, and I could imagine pretty easily that the kids loved her.

  “It’s always good to hear of another public school success story,” Ms. Normand said.

  “This is more than that, actually,” I told her. “I know that J. D. MacCallister has been chronically underfunded, and I want to personally work towards rectifying that. The teachers deserve to have everything they need to make a difference in kids’ lives.” The Principal’s eyes widened.

  “That’s quite generous of you, Mr. Clawson,” she said.

  “So today, I brought this check,” I told her. Kara handed it to me. “Now I don’t know if any of it even can go to teacher pay, but maybe after you’ve taken what you need for the purposes of supplies and whatnot, you can organize a retreat, or a vacation or something for them.” I handed it to the principal, and she unfolded it, and for a minute just stared.

  “Mr. Clawson, this…”

  “Bobby, please,” I said. “People calling me ‘Mr. Clawson’ makes me feel old.” The principal laughed, but I could tell she was shocked.

  “This...this is a million dollars,” she said.

  “It is,” I agreed.

  “Are you sure this is the amount you want to donate to us?” I nodded when she looked up from my check to search my face.

  “I am absolutely sure,” I told her. “I know the school does good work, and I want to empower you all to be able to do more of it.”

  “This is truly amazing Mis--Bobby,” the principal said, shaking her head. “I can...I can honestly think of so many things that this money could be used for.”

  “That’s exactly the idea,” I said, nodding--but carefully. My head still wasn’t quite recovered from my hangover.

  “Well, I guess…” the principal looked around as if she thought she might be dreaming and I had to work hard to resist the temptation to laugh. It felt good, knowing that I was going to be helping the school, even if the basic reason I’d started in on charity work was essentially selfish. Ms. Normand gave herself a shake and rose to her feet, opening a locked drawer in her desk and putting the check into it. “I was supposed to give you a tour of the school, I think--right?”

  “Yes, I think that was on the agenda for this morning,” Kara agreed, and I caught the amusement in her eyes. She was only too thrilled at the opportunity to make me deal with screaming, excited children with my hangover barely gone.

  “Well, let’s get to it, then,” Ms. Normand said, still sounding a little out of it. I got up and followed her out of the office, and Kara trailed alongside the principal and me as the older woman led me out of the administration area and into the school proper.

  It was every bit as boring as I could have imagined, seeing the gym and the library, all the normal school stuff, but I kept my face interested, and nodded to what the principal told me she could do with the money I’d donated to make things better for the kids at the school.

  “Maybe--if it wouldn’t be too much trouble--we could see one of the classrooms?” I glanced at Kara sideways, wondering if she was deliberately trying to torture me.

  “Oh! Yes, that would be an excellent idea,” Principal Normand said, and she led us down one of the halls. “This is one of our kindergarten classes, Ms. Seller’s class.” I took a quick breath to steel my nerves against whatever was about to happen.

  It was apparently during some kind of activity time, to judge by the way the kids were scattered around the room, working on projects, while the teacher and her assistants milled around, overseeing things. “Good morning, everybody,” Principal Normand announced as things calmed down a bit.

  “Good morning, Ms. Normand,” the class chorused back, and I had to admit it was actually pretty cute.

  “I’d like you all to meet Mr. Robert Clawson, who’s a special visitor today,” Ms. Normand told the class.

  “Hello Mr. Robert Clawson,” the class chorused back, and I fought back the impulse to cringe; most of them were fine, but a few of them were practically screaming it.

  “Since we have Mr. Clawson visiting us today, why don’t we show him what our class is like?” Ms. Sellers seemed only too excited to show off her students, and I started to say that I was fine with just observing a bit, that I would need to move onto other things--but she didn’t hear me.

  “Help me,” I murmured to Kara. She shook her head quickly.

  “You’re the one who was up half the night drinking,” she countered. “You should have done what I suggested and put a reminder in your phone.” I glared at her.

  “Class, how about ‘song-of-the-day’?” I steeled myself. “Let’s let Mr. Clawson spin the wheel, shall we?” She pointed to a game show-type wheel mounted on one of the walls, each of the sections bearing the name of a song. I approached it, looking at the names. Old MacDonald. Itsy Bitsy Spider. Farmer and The Dell. Ms. Sellers and the class cheered me on as I reached out and got the wheel spinning, dreading what would come next.

  “Ah! ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’” Ms. Normand confirmed as the wheel finally came to a stop.

  “Would you like to lead us off, Mr. Clawson?” Ms. Sellers was so delighted at the idea that I knew I wasn’t going to be able to talk her out of it.

  “Please, I think the kids…” I had to try anyway.

  “Don’t be shy, Mr. Clawson! We’ll join in with you,” Ms. Sellers informed me. I took a deep breath and told myself that the sooner I did it the sooner it would be over. I wasn’t even sure I remembered all of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle,’ but I at least could manage the first part.

  After a night of partying, my voice came out like a frog’s croak as I started, “Twinkle, Twinkle, little star...how I wonder...what…”

  “You are,” the kids chimed in. I managed to muddle along, and not cringe as a few of them absolutely shrieked the words; apparently it was a few kids’ absolute favorite tune.

  “And that’s our song of the day, boys and girls,” Ms. Sellers said. “I think for now though it’s time to get back to work--don’t
you?” I was relieved; maybe I’d get out of the classroom more or less unscathed. “Mr. Clawson, why don’t you join us? It’ll be so much fun for the kids.” I looked at Kara, silently begging her to come up with an excuse for me, but she just shrugged.

  And so I found myself seated at a table with a bunch of kids, with safety scissors and glue sticks, making some kind of cut-apart-glued-together project while they chattered around me.

  “See, it’s a butterfly!”

  “Mine is a walrus!” I looked at the little boy that had proclaimed that and wondered what world he was living in that his blob of paper and glue looked anything like a walrus to him.

  “He’s just saying that,” the girl seated next to me said. “Because Tommy loves walruses.”

  “What are you making?” I looked at the scraps of paper in front of me and shrugged.

  “I have no idea,” I told the little girl who’d introduced herself to me as Chelsea.

  “Oh! It’s a magic box!” she said, glancing at my instructions. “I have one at home! I put lizards in it.”

  “I’m not sure lizards would like that,” I pointed out.

  “They like it when you feed them grasshoppers, though,” the girl countered, as if that somehow explained things. I agreed that they did and tried to follow the instructions in front of me, though I couldn’t make out what the result was supposed to be. While I was trying to look at what one of the other kids had made, I managed to snip my finger with the safety scissors; not enough to draw blood but enough to pinch.

  Then before I could make any headway with my glue, Ms. Sellers called out that it was time to change stations, and shuffled me along to the next table, where we were apparently sorting out shapes and colors, with a worksheet about which shapes were which colors and which colors were which shapes. The boy next to me, Trevor, informed me that he’d sneaked some of his mother’s coca-cola into his water thermos, and burped. And then burped again. And again. It made my stomach turn flip-flops inside of me.