Mary Anne Wilson - Regarding The Tycoon's Toddler...

When the dream came that night, it was the same, except that when the light came, she had a flashing vision of someone—a shadow backed by the brilliance. She reached out, but there was nothing. She was wakened suddenly, cut off again, isolated. And it hurt. It was a dream, but she woke breathing hard, thinking that if she had just been able to keep the dream going, she would have seen who was there.

But she couldn’t. She woke suddenly, violently, and she bolted upright in bed, the sounds of her gasping breaths echoing in the high-ceilinged bedroom area of her loft. Moonlight filtered in through the high, transit windows, and she could make out the dark outlines of the furniture. There was the opening in the partial walls that led out to the living area. She was alone.

She scrambled out of bed, padded barefoot across the floor to the bathroom, and fumbled for the light switch by the door. The illumination from an old-fashioned tulip fixture over a pedestal sink and mirror made her blink at first. It exposed the claw-footed tub, the old-fashioned shower stall and the tank-topped toilet. And it exposed her.

She saw herself in the mirror, and gripped the sides of the sink. Her cap of blond hair was mussed around a decidedly pale face. The only color she had was from her eyes, a deep amber hue with smudges under them. Quickly, she turned on cold water, splashed her face with it, and was unnerved that her hands were shaking.

This was stupid. She had that dream so often, it was in some ways like an old friend to her. But she never got used to the end. And now that was changing. She was certain she’d caught a glimpse of someone. She shook her head, then grabbed a white towel and pressed it to her face.

She wasn’t six years old anymore, locking herself in a closet because that was the only place she felt safe. And she wasn’t a teenager anymore, dreaming of a knight in shining armor rescuing her and whisking her away with him. She was an adult who was making her own life, doing her own rescuing by working hard, getting an education and trying to make a difference in the world.

She’d fought so long to find the stability she now had. She had a good life. She loved her job, and being alone was okay. It was fine. It was what she wanted. She tossed the towel to one side and went back into the bedroom area of the loft, but instead of going back to bed, she crossed to an old-fashioned desk by the far windows. She snapped on the lamp on the scarred wooden surface, sank down in the padded office chair and raked both hands through her short hair.

She wasn’t going to sleep again tonight, so she’d get something done. The first thing she saw was the request forms for funding. She reached for the yellow sheets of paper, found a pen, then started to fill in the fourth form she’d completed in the past month. The other three forms asking for more money for programs in the day care center at LynTech had all brought rejections from the new powers-that-be—the last one just hours old. But she wasn’t giving up.

She methodically filled out all the spaces again, almost knowing by heart what to put in each place. Mr. Lewis had loved the program. He’d brought her to LynTech to build it and fine-tune it, and he’d been behind her a hundred percent. But he was retired now, and the company had been bartered off to the highest bidder.

The head man, a person called Zane Holden, didn’t love anything but money. He didn’t care about anything but the bottom line, and the word was that a lot of jobs and programs were going to be eliminated. She hesitated, then, on a line that said, Reasons for Request, she printed, The well-being of the children of the employees of LynTech Corporation.

Well-being? She could have put safety, happiness, security and helping them not have horrible dreams. So many reasons. She sat back. “To keep the boogeyman away,” she whispered. But a man like Zane Holden wouldn’t know about boogeymen, or children who lived with the fear of being alone. No, he wouldn’t understand that. Not many people did.

And improved work performance for the parents, she added, knowing she was trying to appeal to the only thing Holden seemed to care about. Then she scrawled, L. Atherton, Project Director on the bottom and dated it.

Number four. Maybe that would be the charm. She put the papers in her folder, set them by her purse, then went back across the space, avoiding the bed and heading for the bathroom again. A hot shower, a book to read. She could get through the night. Then, first thing in the morning, she was going to submit the request again. But this time she was going to do it in person. No more company mail and waiting days to find out.

She stripped off her sleep shirt, turned on the shower and stepped under the hot water. As she turned, the light from the bathroom seemed to stream into the shower stall, cutting through the shadows, like in the dream. She shook her head, then lifted her face to the spray and closed her eyes.

She needed to concentrate on life, and what she had to do. As the water streamed around her, she went over and over what she was going to say to Zane Holden when she finally met with him. The rumor was that he didn’t have a heart, but she didn’t buy into that. He just didn’t understand.

If she said the right thing, if she put things in the right way, she knew that he’d understand the importance of what she was doing. She’d talk until he saw her point of view. And after all, it was for the children. Even a heartless man had to care about the children.

Wednesday

Lindsey found out it was easier said than done to get a face-to-face appointment with Zane Holden. She persevered through frustrating phone calls to his office, and being told he was “unavailable.” But she refused to take no for an answer. Stubbornness. That had always been one of her saving qualities. A quality that had helped her survive everything she’d gone through. What she had, she’d fought for—and the funding for the center was something she’d fight for.

Finally, she got some satisfaction when Zane Holden’s secretary capitulated slightly with “I’ll see if there’s any way to work you in.”

Lindsey tasted a degree of victory when the woman came back on the line. “Mr. Holden can see you for a brief meeting tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”

A brief meeting? She’d take anything she could get. “Thank you. I’ll be there,” she said, hung up the phone in her office at the center and let out a cheer. “Yes!” she yelled and raised both hands, curling them into fists over her head.

“Shhhh, keep it down.”

She turned and found Amy Blake, her coordinator, at the open door of the small office. The tiny woman, dressed in jeans and a pink sweater, her long dark hair pulled back from a fine-featured face in a single braid, had her arms full of stuffed animals.

“Oh, sorry. I thought you were gone,” Lindsey said.

“Taylor’s still in the nap room, and I’m letting her sleep while I pick up a bit. What’s going on?” She came farther into the room as a smile grew on her face. “Come on, tell me. That sounded like a victory yell. We’ve got funding? We can get a new van? Start the Mommy and Me program?”

“No, we don’t have any of that—at least, not yet. But I have a meeting with Mr. Zane Holden, head of LynTech, tomorrow at nine in the morning.”

“That’s great,” Amy said, but the smile wasn’t as big now. Lindsey knew that Amy had more to lose than she did if the center had to make drastic cuts. She barely made enough now to support herself and her daughter. But being employed here was the only way Amy could be with her tiny daughter and still work.

“At least I can talk to the man face-to-face instead of through notes. It took me forever to convince his secretary, ‘the human iceberg,’ that I needed to see him in person.” Her sense of victory was starting to fade under nervous anticipation of the meeting. “I’ve got prep to do before the meeting.”