A Daddy For Christmas: Yuletide Baby Surprise / Maybe This Christmas...? / The Sheriff's Doorstep Baby

She glanced at the door, then sat gingerly on the arm of the leather sofa. “Royal watchers have been trailing me with their phones to take photos and videos for their five seconds of fame. A group of them followed me out the back exit after my last seminar.”

Protective instincts flamed to life inside him. “Doesn’t your father provide you with bodyguards?”

“I choose not to use them,” she said without explanation, her chin tipping regally in a way that shouted the subject wasn’t open for discussion. “My attempt to slip away wasn’t going well. The lady pushing this room-service cart was distracted by a phone call. I saw my chance to go incognito and I took it.”

The thought of her alone out there had him biting back the urge to chew out someone—namely her father. So what if she rejected guards? Her dad should have insisted.

Mari continued, “I know I should probably just grin for the camera and move on, but the images they capture aren’t...professional. I have serious work to do, a reputation to maintain.” She tipped her head back, her mouth pursed tight in frustration for a telling moment before she rambled on with a weary shake of her head. “I didn’t sign on for this.”

Her exhaustion pulled at him, made him want to rest his hands on her drooping shoulders and ease those tense muscles. Except she would likely clobber him with the silver chafing dish on the serving cart. He opted for the surefire way to take her mind off the stress.

Shoving away from the bar, he strode past the cart toward her again. “Poor little rich princess.”

Mari’s cat eyes narrowed. “You’re not very nice.”

“You’re the only one who seems to think so.” He stopped twelve inches shy of touching her.

Slowly, she stood, facing him. “Well, pardon me for not being a member of your fan club.”

“You genuinely didn’t know this was my room?” he asked again, even though he could see the truth in her eyes.

“No. I didn’t.” She shook her head, the heartbeat throbbing faster in her elegant neck. “The cart only had your room number. Not your name.”

“If you’d realized ahead of time that this was my room, my meal—” he scooped up the hotel jacket and Santa hat “—would you have surrendered yourself to the camera-toting brigade out there rather than ask me for help?”

Her lips quivered with the first hint of a smile. “I guess we’ll never know the answer to that, will we?” She tugged at the jacket. “Enjoy your supper.”

He didn’t let go. “There’s plenty of food here. You could join me, hide out for a while longer.”

“Did you just invite me to dinner?” The light of humor in her eyes animated her face until the air damn near crackled between them. “Or are you secretly trying to poison me?”

She nibbled her bottom lip and he could have sworn she swayed toward him. If he hooked a finger in the vee of her shirt and pulled, she would be in his arms.

Instead, he simply reached out and skimmed back the stray lock of sleek black hair curving just under her chin. “Mari, there are a lot of things I would like to do to you, but I can assure you that poisoning you is nowhere on that list.”

Confusion chased across her face, but she wasn’t running from the room or laughing. In fact, he could swear he saw reluctant interest. Enough to make him wonder what might happen if...

A whimper snapped him out of his passion fog.

The sound wasn’t coming from Mari. She looked over his shoulder and he turned toward the sound. The cry swelled louder, into a full-out wail, swelling from across the room.

From under the room-service cart?

He glanced at Mari. “What the hell?”

She shook her head, her hands up. “Don’t look at me.”

He charged across the room, sweeping aside the linen cloth covering the service cart to reveal a squalling infant.

Two (#ua6dbc09c-95e4-5d9c-9465-2418d338e34f)

The infant’s wail echoed in the hotel suite. Shock resounded just as loudly inside of Mari as she stared at the screaming baby in a plastic carrier wedged inside the room-service trolley. No wonder the cart had felt heavier than normal. If only she’d investigated she might have found the baby right away. Her brain had been tapping her with the logic that something was off, and she’d been too caught up in her own selfish fears about a few photos to notice.

To think that poor little one had been under there all this time. So tiny. So defenseless. The child, maybe two or three months old, wore a diaper and a plain white T-shirt, a green blanket tangled around its tiny, kicking feet.

Mari swallowed hard, her brain not making connections as she was too dumbstruck to think. “Oh, my God, is that a baby?”

“It’s not a puppy.” Rowan washed his hands at the wet-bar sink then knelt beside the lower rack holding the infant seat. He visibly went into doctor mode as he checked the squalling tyke over, sliding his hands under and scooping the child up in his large, confident hands. Chubby little mocha-brown arms and legs flailed before the baby settled against Rowan’s chest with a hiccupping sigh.

“What in the world is it doing under there?” She stepped away, clearing a path for him to walk over to the sofa.

“I’m not the one who brought the room service in,” he countered offhandedly, sliding a finger into the baby’s tiny bow mouth. Checking for a cleft palate perhaps?

“Well, I didn’t put the baby there.”

A boy or girl? She couldn’t tell. The wriggling bundle wore no distinguishing pink or blue. There wasn’t even a hair bow in the cap of black curls.

Rowan elbowed aside an animal-print throw pillow and sat on the leather couch, resting the baby on his knees while he continued assessing.

She tucked her hands behind her back. “Is it okay? He or she?”

“Her,” he said, closing the cloth diaper. “She’s a girl, approximately three months old, but that’s just a guess.”

“We should call the authorities. What if whoever abandoned her is still in the building?” Unlikely given how long she’d hung out in here flirting with Rowan. “There was a woman walking away from the cart earlier. I assumed she was just taking a cell phone call, but maybe that was the baby’s mother?”

“Definitely something to investigate. Hopefully there will be security footage of her. You need to think through what you’re going to tell the authorities, review every detail in your mind while it’s fresh.” He sounded more like a detective than a doctor. “Did you see anyone else around the cart before you took it?”

“Are you blaming this on me?”

“Of course not.”

Still, she couldn’t help but feel guilty. “What if this is my fault for taking that cart? Maybe the baby wasn’t abandoned at all. What if some mother was just trying to bring her child to work? She must be frantic looking for her daughter.”

“Or frantic she’s going to be in trouble,” he replied dryly.

“Or he. The parent could be a father.” She reached for the phone on the marble bar. “I really need to ring the front desk now.”

“Before you call, could you pass over her seat? It may hold some clues to her family. Or at least some supplies to take care of her while we settle this.”

“Sure, hold on.”

She eased the battered plastic seat from under the cart, winging a quick prayer of thankfulness that the child hadn’t come to some harm out there alone in the hall. The thought that someone would so recklessly care for a precious life made her grind her teeth in frustration. She set the gray carrier beside Rowan on the sofa, the green blanket trailing off the side.

Finally, she could call for help. Without taking her eyes off Rowan and the baby, she dialed the front desk.

The phone rang four times before someone picked up. “Could you hold, please? Thank you,” a harried-sounding hotel operator said without giving Mari a chance to shout “No!” The line went straight to Christmas carols, “O Holy Night” lulling in her ear.

Sighing, she sagged a hip against the garland-draped wet bar. “They put me on hold.”