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She drove through it, and memories of climbing on the thing pulled at her. The first time, Maddie’s mother had been horrified. But Ernestine—seeming old even then—had merely laughed and waved it off. How could Maddie be expected to not climb on it when her grandsons were doing the same thing?
Maddie rubbed her forehead, trying and failing to block out the images of her, Jax and Linc running around that first summer. She and Jax had been six, Linc a much older and wiser eleven.
By the time she and Jax were eleven, Meredith was no longer cleaning the mansion for Ernestine. But Maddie’s friendship with Jax—and her fascination with Linc, who’d totally lost interest in them by that point—had lived on. For a few more years, anyway. Until he’d made so very plain what he thought of her.
Her headlights swept over the stone wall that ran alongside the narrow driveway as it curved its way to the mansion sitting atop the hill.
Her mouth felt dry.
Which was just plain stupid.
The drive swelled out into a circle in front of the house before narrowing again as it continued off into the darkness. She hadn’t been out there in more than a decade, but she assumed there was still an enormous detached garage next to the gardener’s shack.
She parked in the circle and took a deep breath before getting out of the car and reluctantly climbing the brick steps. As soon as she reached the door, she could hear the wailing from inside and her gloved hand paused on the lion-shaped door knocker.
It was the distinct wail of a baby.
She started when the door opened, the door knocker yanked out of her lax fingers before she could even properly use it.
“Took you long enough,” Linc greeted her as he shoved the infant car seat he was holding into her arms.
She rapidly adjusted her hold on it when he let go and backed away. Like he couldn’t get away fast enough.
From the baby? Or from Maddie?
She averted her gaze, but not fast enough to keep from noticing that his disheveled blondish-brown hair showed a sprinkle of gray on the sides that hadn’t been there three years ago, and the faint lines arrowing out from the corners of his hazel eyes weren’t quite so faint anymore.
And he looked better than ever.
Dammit.
She channeled Greer’s dulcet tones again. “Good to see you, too, Linc.” She smiled insincerely and looked down at the wailing baby. A girl, if the pink blanket was anything to go by. “Where’s her mom?”
“Who the hell knows?” He shoved his long fingers through his hair. “I came home and that—” he waved at the infant seat “—was sitting all alone on the doorstep.”
She stepped inside and set the carrier on the old-fashioned table in the middle of the spacious foyer. After dumping her purse on the table, too, she delved beneath the pink blanket, relieved to feel warmth coming off the crying baby. “How long ago?”
“You’re not shocked?”
She deftly released the harness strapping the baby into the seat and picked her up. “By a baby being left somewhere or by you calling me about it?” She didn’t wait for his answer as she tried to soothe the baby. “Unfortunately, I can’t say this is my first experience with an abandoned baby. How long ago did you get home?”
He was wearing a dark blazer over a white shirt and blue jeans. Date wear.
She hated the fact that she’d even noticed. Or that she cared.
The baby was still wailing, so hard that she was hiccupping. “It’s okay, sweetheart.” Maddie jiggled the baby and blindly swept her hand inside the car seat, finally finding a pacifier wedged under a corner of the fabric lining. She touched it to the baby’s lips and she latched onto it greedily.
“Silence,” Linc muttered. “Thank God.”
Maddie refrained from telling him that he could have found the pacifier, too, if he’d tried. Through the fleecy polka-dot sleeper the baby was wearing, she could feel the diaper was heavy. “So? How long ago?”
“Less than an hour ago.” Linc raked his fingers through his hair again and paced on the other side of the foyer table. “A few minutes before I called you the first time. It took three tries before you bothered to answer.”
“Don’t make it sound like I’ve done something wrong,” she said. “I was out, too. It is allowed, you know. Even for social workers.”
And those too lowly to consort with the vaunted Swift family.
She pressed her lips against the child’s temple, banishing the thought.
The baby’s forehead felt sweaty, but that could have just been from all her crying. “Is there a diaper bag or something?”
“Or something.” He set a small plastic garbage bag on the table next to the car seat.
Maddie quickly reached for it and their hands accidentally brushed. She ignored the heat that immediately ran under her skin and tipped the bag over. A half-dozen diapers and a thin container of baby wipes scattered across the table. A small can of powdered baby formula and an empty, capped baby bottle rolled out.
She grabbed a diaper and the wipes and marched around the table, heading into the house. “Go make a bottle with the formula,” she told him. “I’ll get her diaper changed, and then I’ll call my uncle.”
* * *
Linc stared after Maddie’s departing form. Her hair was as dark as it had always been, but it was longer now than she’d used to wear it, tumbling well past the bright red scarf wrapped around the collar of her short black coat. Below the coat, her hips—trim as ever—were outlined in black denim jeans tucked into her flat-heeled brown boots.
She always had liked wearing boots. Not the cowboy kind, either.
He grabbed the container of formula and the bottle. Not that he knew what to do with them. “Why do you want to call your uncle?”
“He’s a pediatrician,” she answered as if it should be obvious. She’d laid the baby on the antique bench situated against one wall of the living room. Even though the baby’s legs and arms were waving around, Maddie competently peeled back the neck-to-toe outfit, revealing a tiny white T-shirt that didn’t reach past the baby’s rosy belly and a fat-looking disposable diaper. “Poor thing is soaked.” She sent him a chastising look as she slipped a fresh diaper under the existing one.
“Save that look for the person who dumped off the kid on my front porch.”
She pulled out a wet wipe from the plastic container. “How long do you think she’d been there before you got home?”
“God only knows.” His first reaction when he’d realized what was on his porch had been to call the police. He’d had his phone in his hands when he’d spotted the note tucked next to the kid’s head.
After reading it, he’d learned that the little girl’s name was Layla and that she belonged to Jax. Supposedly. Which meant there was no way he could call the police.
And there was no way to reach Jax, either, since he’d found his brother’s cell phone sitting dead in the kitchen where Jax had forgotten it.
He’d found the phone a week ago.
But his brother had been gone longer than that.
He focused on the top of Maddie’s head while she undid the wet diaper.
He knew she still hated him. And why. But even if he’d had to do things over again, he would still choose the same path.
“I was busy all day at the office. Worked there until about seven, then went straight on to a dinner engagement.” It was as good a way as any to describe the irritating evening spent with his parents. They’d thrown a party, celebrating their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.
Linc might have celebrated it, too, if he didn’t know what a joke their marriage really was. If Blake Swift wasn’t cheating on Jolene, then Jolene was cheating on Blake. Except for the delight they took in making each other miserable, Linc still couldn’t understand why they remained together. He also would have accused Jax of making a getaway before the party, except Linc knew perfectly well that his brother couldn’t care less what their parents did.
“There was nobody here at the house to notice anything?”
“No.”
She’d finished diapering the baby. She kept her palm on the baby’s chest as she glanced up at him. “No?”
He frowned. Her pretty eyes were as dark as chocolate and yet the doubt in them was as clear as a spotlight. Another thing that hadn’t changed over the years. Everything going on inside Maddie’s head was broadcast through those expressive eyes. Her two sisters had the exact same eyes—the exact same looks, in fact, since they were identical triplets—but he’d never thought their emotions were as transparent as Maddie’s.
And he’d never looked at Greer or Ali and felt a slow burn inside.
“Who do you think should have been here?”
She looked back at the baby. “I figured you’d have a housekeeper or something.” She slipped the baby’s kicking legs back into her stretchy clothes. “At least she seems to have been warm enough. I don’t see any signs of frostbite. She still needs an exam, though.” She folded the used diaper and wipe into a ball, secured it with the sticky diaper tapes and held it out.
He was glad his hands were full. He lifted them—formula can in one, empty bottle in the other.
She rolled her eyes and picked up the baby, nestling her in one arm as she stood. “Kitchen still in the same place?” Not waiting for an answer, she walked past him and around the staircase.
He followed. “Where would it have gone?”
She ignored the question. When she reached the kitchen, she tossed the diaper into the trash bin located in the walk-in pantry, then returned to stop in front of him. She took the can from his fingers and set it on the wide soapstone-topped island. Then she took the bottle and before he knew it, she was holding out the baby.
Layla watched him with wide blue eyes. She was going at the pacifier as if it might actually produce milk.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Linc!” Maddie sounded exasperated. “Just take her. She won’t break.”
He wasn’t so sure. He gingerly placed his hands near Maddie’s, underneath the baby’s arms. As soon as he did, Maddie moved hers away. She went to the sink and turned on the water to wash her hands.
The baby was a lot lighter than he expected, considering how heavy she’d been when strapped inside the car seat.
She opened her mouth, the pacifier dropped out and she let out an ear-piercing wail. For such a tiny thing, she made a helluva racket.
He wasn’t a man who panicked easily, yet that was all he’d done since he’d realized there was a baby on his doorstep.
“Nope.” He pushed the kid back at Maddie. “No way.”
“Oh, for the love of Pete.” She took the baby back. “Get me the pacifier.”
It had rolled under the scrolled wooden edge of the island. He grabbed it, handing it to her.
“Wash it, would you please?” She handed him the bottle. “And this, too.”
He joined her at the sink. “Aren’t they supposed to be sterilized or something?”
“In a perfect world, probably. But who knows what other conditions this baby has endured. For now, hot water and a good wash with soap will have to do.” Without waiting for him to finish washing the pacifier and bottle, she tucked one wet finger into the baby’s mouth.
The crying stopped.
But that was the only bit of relief he got.
“Now that my hands are busy, you can make her a bottle,” Maddie ordered. “Directions are on the side of the can.”
He peered at the small print on the can. He’d left his reading glasses in his jacket and it was impossible to read.
Maddie was pacing around the island, bouncing the baby a little with each step. “How do you know for sure she’s Jax’s baby, anyway? Do you know her name?”
“Layla. And of course she’s Jax’s.”
“He told you?”
“He didn’t have to.” Glad for the excuse, he left the can on the counter and went back out to the foyer. When he returned, he had his reading glasses as well as the note. He unfolded it and spread it on the counter so she could see. “This was stuck in the car seat with her.”
Maddie pursed her lips as she studied the single line of looping handwriting. “Jaxie, please take care of Layla for me,” she read. Her eyes lifted to his for a moment. “Jaxie?”
“You know how women are with Jax.” Even Maddie had been susceptible to his brother, once. Until Linc set her straight.
“The note isn’t signed.”
He gave her a look. “Presumably, Jaxie knows who the mother of his own child is.”
“But he obviously didn’t tell you about her.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t really talk to each other a lot anymore.”
“How long has he been out of town?”
He shrugged. “Little over a week.”
“He still lives here, doesn’t he?”
“Yes. So?”
“So how can you live in the same house and not talk to each other?”
He wished he hadn’t said anything. “It’s not germane.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Oh. Well, if it’s not germane.” She gave him a wide-eyed stare and grabbed the washed pacifier, trading it for the tip of her index finger in the baby’s mouth. Then she took the baby bottle and filled it part way with tap water, added a few scoops from the can of formula without so much as a glance at the tiny print, and screwed on the nipple. She shook the bottle vigorously and held it under running hot water. “While you’re feeding her, I’ll call my uncle and check in with my boss to let him know what’s going on. I have enough autonomy to set up the emergency placement, but Ray’s still going to want to know about it. He’s a stickler that way. But no matter where the placement ends up being, Layla still needs an exam first, particularly considering the way she was left. Just because I didn’t see any signs of injury, it’s not a medical assessment. And Uncle David’s qualified to make one, which means maybe we can avoid having to involve the hospital, too. Are you sure you don’t know who her mother might be?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t have needed to call you.” He tossed his reading glasses onto the island alongside the note. “And what the hell is ‘emergency placement’ supposed to mean?”
Chapter Two (#uf078ba68-6042-5ccd-9461-528bac324d69)
Ignoring Linc’s annoyed tone, Maddie turned off the water and dried the bottle with a towel she pulled from the drawer next to the sink, all with one hand. The white cloth was clean and crisp, just like the towels that Ernestine had kept there when Maddie was a child. She wondered if Linc had changed anything at all around the house since his grandmother died.
The black-framed glasses were definitely a new addition for him, though—and an unwelcome, unexpectedly sexy one.
“Emergency placement,” she repeated smoothly. “It’s what it sounds like.” Layla’s eyes were fastened on the bottle and she wrapped her little starfish hands around it as soon as Maddie put the nipple near her lips.
The baby’s eyes nearly rolled back in her head as she guzzled the lukewarm formula. “Poor baby. You’re so hungry.” Anger threatened to boil inside her over the baby’s neglect, but she knew better than to let it get the best of her. She couldn’t be effective in her job if she let herself be consumed by anger or horror over the situations she saw.
