Yuletide Baby Bargain

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.