The Child Comes First by Elizabeth Ashtree Page A

driving a little too fast out of the parking garage. But he was a good driver, completely in control of the vehicle.
    â€œArbutus,” she said, wondering how she could turn the conversation. She didn’t really want to think about Arbutus—or her uncle—at this particular moment. Not that there was ever a good moment.
    â€œWe’re practically neighbors, then. We could have been to the same football games in high school.”
    â€œUh-huh,” she murmured. She’d never been to a high school football game. “So, I brought along the paperwork your mother needs to fill out to apply to foster Tiffany. I had to persuade Howard County Social Services to agree to the plan. They gave in eventually, but they were too busy to help much. Maybe you could give me information while we drive and I can fill in some of the sections before we arrive.”
    â€œSure,” he said, and for a while they focused on mundane information regarding the house and neighborhood, his mom’s age and health, references and criminal history—or lack thereof, in the case of Barbara Johanson, who’d raised Simon since he was six.
    â€œThere’s something I should probably warn you about before we arrive,” he said as he made the turn off Route 40 onto 29.
    Jayda waited, hoping he wasn’t about to share anything that might compromise Mrs. Johanson’s ability to take Tiffany into her home.
    â€œShe’s a bit of a matchmaker. At least where I’m concerned.”
    Jayda let out her breath surreptitiously. “And?”
    â€œWell.” He paused and appeared uncomfortable. “You’re an attractive unmarried woman about my age and…”
    A thrill ran through her, because he’d said she was attractive. When had anyone ever said that about her before? Previous boyfriends told her she was pretty, but hearing it from this dynamic man was different, somehow. “And…?” she prodded again, finding the exchange, and Simon’s discomfort, entertaining.
    â€œAnd she doesn’t much like the women I date—ambitious, professional career women.” His phone rang. He pulled it from his jacket pocket and glanced at the caller ID. “Speaking of which,” he said under his breath as he answered the call.
    Jayda’s fun hissed away like air from a balloon. Simon apparently didn’t put her in the same category with professional career women, and that stung. It wasn’t very entertaining listening to him talk to one of his professional career women on the phone, either, even though he didn’t say much.
    â€œI have to go, Megan,” he said after listening for a moment. “I’ll call you.”
    Jayda watched him hang up and then thumb the cell off. No more calls from Megan for a while, at least.
    â€œAnyway,” Simon continued, as if his love life had not just intruded on the conversation, “Mom will see you’re down-to-earth, sweet, nurturing. Normal. She might encourage us to get together socially.”
    Okay, those were all nice things. Jayda felt particularly pleased at being deemed “normal”—if he only knew. She was glad she could fake it so well.
    â€œWe just have to make it clear to her that things must remain professional between us. I’m sure we can manage that,” she said as Simon pulled to a stop along the curb of a lovely suburban street dotted with well-tended, middle-class homes.
    â€œYou don’t know my mother,” he commented grimly as he got out.
    Jayda followed him to the two-story house. They went around to the side door instead of the front one and Simon let them in without knocking. Even so, they were greeted by a blinding flash of light.
    â€œThere we go!” said a woman whom Jayda could just barely make out through her temporary state of light blindness. “Your first picture together. It can also go into Tiffany’s memory book—the beginning of her