Terry knew she needed to keep her job. In this day and age, jobs with quality health care and a good salary were in short supply. Computer and other software companies were outsourcing their jobs overseas in droves. Terry knew she had been lucky to land her current position and had worked extremely hard to keep herself there. Thanks to her recent divorce with her husband Mike, she was alone and struggling to meet her limited budget. Finding time to take care of Jessica and attend to her many needs as a young child proved quite a task - especially in the area of babysitting. Fortunately, she had recently befriended a young man named Carl Landis. He had seduced her with his charm and the two had dated steadily for the last three weeks. Terry was fearful that once he found out she had a little girl, he would dump her for another woman who was less of a burden. Much to her surprise, Carl was fond of little Jessica from the moment she introduced her to him during their second week of dating. He didn't seem to mind at all that she had a child and had volunteered his time to babysit Jessica when the time was needed.

Terry was not ready to allow Carl into her home alone with Jessica just yet. After all, she had just met him a few weeks ago and wanted to get to know him better. But now that her business firm was beckoning her to do a two week tour out on the west coast to promote the company, it seemed she was running out of options on ways to accomodate Jessica. The company had made it clear to all of it's board members that no child was permitted to accompany any employee during the business tour and that included Terry.

The young mother thought long and hard about Carl. He seemed like a positive young man. He was 34 years old and seemed to have plenty of money and spare time. He wasn't specific about what he did for a living - only to say that he worked out of his apartment in the area of photography and computer graphics design. He didn't mention his salary or with whom (or what company) he was employed with. Terry had guessed that he might be self employed, but whenever she raised the topic with Carl he seemed to shift his answers and deflect her questions. Terry didn't want to pry into his personal life too much. After all, it was of little importance in the short term. He was kind to her, bought her small gifts, and took her out whenever she had the time. After only three weeks, Terry had fallen in love with Carl. She had begun to trust him and had even taken little Jessica out with her on a few of her dates with him. Carl was delighted to have her along, and often lavished attention on the young toddler. He would smother Jessica with kisses and wipe her mouth whenever she drooled. He seemed like a natural fit for a surogate father. ......(cont)