Best Laid Plans by Elizabeth Palmer

obvious he wouldn’t be able to calm her down. Although Violet wasn’t proud of it, she was glad. This time when she stood and held her arms out, he surrendered the baby without protest.
    Daisy, relieved to see her mother’s face, stopped crying almost at once.
    “Then it’s true? Rayburn’s the guy?”
    Violet almost wished the baby would start to cry again so she could delay her response. She patted her back and the baby let out a loud burp — no reprieve. Telling herself the lie was necessary, she mentally crossed her fingers. “Yes. I’m going to marry Richard Rayburn.”

Chapter Four
    “When?” A vein jumped on Jake’s right temple.
    Violet shrugged. “We haven’t set a date.” At least that wasn’t a lie. But she needed to change the subject before his temper flared again. “I think Daisy’s ready for some playtime now that she’s calmed down.”
    She pulled the play mat from behind and end table and arranged the baby on her back beneath its hanging toys. Daisy gurgled and kicked her feet, setting the toys into motion. As Violet hoped, this distracted Jake from the subject of Richard. He got down on the floor with them and watched, enraptured, as Daisy flailed at the dangling objects.
    “I’m probably biased, but she seems advanced for a three-month-old.”
    “Oh, she is.” She knew every mother thought her child was above-average, but the well-thumbed book on child development she kept on the coffee table verified it.
    “Does the nanny know she should interact with her like this?”
    Violet hesitated. “I tell her, but …”
    “Where did you find her, anyway? Did you check into her background before you hired her?”
    Her first impulse was to ask him if he thought she was a complete idiot, but she bit back the words and took a deep breath before she spoke. After all, he didn’t really know much about her, did he? Other than what she looked and felt like naked, and how uninhibited she became when she had too much to drink. She reddened at the thought.
    “The agency I used does background checks, of course. But I admit I’m concerned about Carrie.”
    Daisy had her hand curled around Jake’s index finger, and she was gazing into his eyes and vocalizing. It took a minute for what Violet said to penetrate, but then she had his full attention.
    “What do you mean?” Daisy responded to the withdrawal of eye contact by dropping his finger and shifting her attention to a bouncing teddy bear.
    Violet shrugged. Her intuition was screaming that something was wrong, but she’d always lived her life according to what she knew , not what she sensed, and she had no facts to back up her feeling. Would Jake understand, or dismiss her concerns the way Seth and Richard had? Her brother said she was projecting her desire to stay home with the baby into the situation, and maybe he was right.
    “It’s nothing tangible. Daisy doesn’t seem very happy when she’s with her, but it could just be that she prefers me.”
    Jake frowned. “Try to describe how Daisy acts,” he said, surprising her.
    “A minute ago she reached for your finger and held it. She’s trying to make eye contact with you, and she never saw you before today. She doesn’t do that with Carrie.”
    “Does she hold her body rigid when Carrie picks her up?”
    “Yes!” Although she hadn’t been conscious of it, Daisy’s body language was probably the source of her intuition. “But that isn’t enough reason to fire someone, is it? Beside, it would take time to interview and hire someone else, and I can’t miss more work.”
    “Have you heard of a nanny-cam?”
    “I did a story on them once. They’re legal, but it didn’t seem ethical to me to spy on someone who works for you. But that was before I had Daisy. I’d do anything to protect her.” She smiled at the baby, and the smile she gave in response contorted her whole body. Had she ever seen Daisy smile at Carrie? She’d never heard her laugh when the two were