The Baby Bequest

This call was louder and stronger and gave Evan the impression she planned on following him forever if she needed to. Rather than take her to the door of the Brewster mansion, he stopped.

“What?” he demanded angrily.

She drew a long breath because she’d been running, and Evan tried not to notice the flush on her cheeks or the way her silky black hair accented her blue eyes.

“Car seats,” she managed to say when she’d finally gotten enough air.

He stared at her. “Car seats?”

“In Pennsylvania it’s the law that all kids under the age of four have to be in a car seat.”

Evan looked at Chas.

“She’s right,” Chas said, juggling the little boy he held in an effort to get him to stop crying.

Evan hesitated a few seconds. “I’m only going three miles up the road,” he said, and turned away from Claire. “I will drive safely and I will drive slowly. Once we get the kids settled, I’ll send Grant out for car seats.”

He felt a tug on his coat sleeve and, annoyed, stopped again. “What?”

“This is ridiculous,” she said softly, infuriatingly calm. “All we have to do is take these kids back to Arnie’s office and get their car seats from Judy’s car.”

Evan didn’t care that what she said made sense. What he felt was fresh and raw. He knew the bottom line for Arnie was probably money, and the thought that someone would use children for profit made Evan sick. Going back for those car seats was a capitulation he knew he couldn’t make. Particularly since he didn’t have any idea what Claire’s involvement was in this situation. She might be innocently drawing him back for car seats, or she might be taking them back to give Arnie another shot at getting the guardianship release signed.

He gave her a cool look. “We’ll stop at the discount store on the outskirts of town. That means we’ll be driving about a mile without car seats, but we’ll get the car seats,” he said quietly, protectively clutching his sister. He didn’t even care when she wiped her wet nose on his lapel. “If you don’t like that, call the police.”

With that he turned away again and started down Market Street toward his sport utility vehicle, which was parked by the curb. Because both Grant and Chas had ridden with him, the three men and their babies stopped when they reached Evan’s truck. He unlocked the doors.

“For pete’s sake, at least let me come to the house and help you get organized,” Claire said reasonably as Evan fumbled with his keys.

“No.”

“What are you going to do with three kids?” she asked.

Evan whirled around to face her. “How old are you?”

Her chin lifted. “Twenty-three.”

“I’m thirty-three. I have ten more years of experience than you. I think that makes me ten years more qualified to take care of kids than you.”

He got into the car and handed his sister to Grant, who arranged both kids securely on his lap. When Evan’s arms were free, Claire caught his jacket sleeve to get his attention again.

“There are seven children in my family. The youngest is six. I’d say I have oodles more experience caring for kids than you.”

Evan didn’t have to worry about closing his door because Claire slammed it in his face. Angry, yet undeniably exhilarated, he pulled his car into the street.

He’d never felt like this before. Stupid and happy. Stupid because he should have accepted Claire’s help since he knew he and his brothers really couldn’t take care of three babies. Happy because he had three kids, and maybe even a chance to make amends to his father.

As long as Attorney Arnie Garrett didn’t have a legal maneuver up his sleeve to wrestle custody away….

Chapter Two

Evan couldn’t stop thinking about Claire Wilson. His anger at Arnie Garrett was so great he felt certain it should have flooded out any other thoughts, but instead, Claire Wilson drowned out judgments of Norm Brewster’s lawyer as if he were only a secondary player instead of the primary culprit.

He kept wondering if it was naïveté that had Claire throwing in her lot with Arnie Garrett, or loyalty to his father, or just plain stupidity.

He couldn’t believe it was stupidity. His father didn’t suffer fools lightly, so he wouldn’t have hired her if she weren’t intelligent. Nor did Evan think it was loyalty, because his father’s will clearly stated that he wanted the triplets raised by his estranged sons. Norm Brewster would insist family be raised by family. If anything, his father would have demanded the boys be found and forced to raise their kin. That was just the Brewster way. So she couldn’t have been helping Arnie out of loyalty to his father, which meant it had to be naïveté.

To a degree, Evan could accept that. Claire was young. And pretty enough that she’d probably been protected from the harsh realities of life by doting parents, idealistic teachers and every man in this county.

He scowled, confused about why that twisted oddly in his gut. The girl was a looker. There was no sense pretending she didn’t have boys knocking down her door….

Furious with himself for thinking about foolish things when he had real trouble to attend to, Evan scowled again and shoved the woman out of his mind as he jogged up the steps of the circular stairway in the foyer of the Brewster mansion.

He and his brothers had accidentally discovered the nursery when they’d gone in search of the birth certificates, the will and its codicil. Eventually they found all three in their father’s safe. Everything Arnie had told them that morning had been verified—including the fact that if the Brewster sons didn’t want custody of the triplets, Arnie and Judy Garrett would be the guardians. As such, Arnie would be the trustee of their holdings in Brewster Lumber, and he would have fifty percent voting power and complete control of the triplets’ money. He’d also be paid a handsome salary. Reason enough, in Evan’s mind, for the man to try to get custody of the children.

When Evan opened the nursery door, a cacophony of crying greeted him like the noise of an off-key symphony. If he hadn’t been so frazzled trying to figure things out—like the kids’ names, how to get them to stop crying, and how to feed them—he would have taken a moment just to absorb everything. Their little faces, the reality that they were his flesh and blood kin, the fact that they were sisters and a brother were almost incomprehensible.

“Give me a damned bottle already,” Grant growled as Evan made his way into the nursery. Fading rays of late-afternoon sunshine poured into the curtainless windows at the back of the room, which was already bright and cheerful with white walls covered with radiant rainbows. Carefully neutral, the nursery had obviously been designed to keep the kids together without insulting Norm Brewster’s sensibilities about little boys being anywhere near pink.

Remembering his father, Evan held back an involuntary smile, which turned into a surge of pain and regret. How he wished he could have these last two years back again. If nothing else, he would at least try to understand why his father had married so soon after his wife’s death…and why he married someone so young…and why he had more children.

“A bottle, Evan,” Chas implored in exasperation, and Evan brought himself out of his reverie, knowing it was pointless to wish for things that couldn’t happen.

Both Grant and Chas sat in rockers, each holding a fussing baby. The third child sat in the crib, clutching the bars, sobbing as she awaited Evan’s return.

“Okay, one bottle for Taylor,” he said, and handed it to Grant. “One for Annie,” he said, using the shortened version of Antoinette. “And one bottle for Cody.”

Taylor almost grabbed the bottle from Grant’s hands and gulped the contents as if she had been on a deserted island without food for the past two days. Little Annie also drank quickly and easily, nearly directing Evan on how to handle the bottle. But Chas had the devil’s time getting Cody to drink. Chas would move one way, Cody would move the other. The nipple bumped his nose. Chas dripped liquid on Cody’s forehead. And all the while the starving baby screamed.

“This isn’t going to work,” Chas growled after he’d finally made contact with Cody’s mouth.

“Yes, it is,” Evan insisted doggedly.

“You can’t raise kids on good intentions,” Chas said as he set his rocker in motion.

“We have more than good intentions,” Evan said, beginning to rock after he was sure Annie was comfortable.

“We don’t know the first thing about babies.”

“Gentlemen,” Grant interjected. “In case you didn’t notice this morning, we had a volunteer to assist us. Unfortunately, somebody insisted we didn’t need her.”

“I don’t think we do.”

“Well, I think we do,” Grant said simply.

“And I think we do,” Chas agreed, then he bounced off his chair. “Aw, damn. He spit up on me.” Turning his head slowly, Chas speared Evan with a withering look. “I know we need help.”

“Then go ahead and call her,” Evan said, refusing to use Claire’s name because he got a fluttery sensation in the pit of his stomach when he realized he’d get to see her again. Which was insane. She was ten years younger than he was. And potentially up to her ears in Arnie Garrett’s scheme to take the triplets.