Yuletide Baby Bargain Read online

  “The itching better?”

  She shook her head and a lock of long brown hair slid over her shoulder. “Starting to want a nap. Stuff always makes me sleepy. That’s why I hate taking it.”

  Layla had one little dimpled hand spread against the side of the bottle, looking as if nothing else on earth existed but that bottle. But the second she spotted Maddie’s hair, she wound her other hand around it. Her eyelids finally drooped to half-mast.

  “You’re not the only one wanting a nap.”

  Maddie looked down at the baby. The pink was fading from her face and her expression turned tender. She tugged the bottle away and dabbed a drop of formula from the baby’s chin. “Looks like milk coma to me.” She set aside the bottle before pushing to her feet. Then she carried Layla over to the play area and gingerly lowered her down into it. Layla gurgled a few times and threw her hands out wide, then gave a soft snore.

  Maddie straightened and pressed her hands to the small of her back, arching.

  “That’s why you need to use a crib,” Linc pointed out. “Saves your back. You don’t have to reach so far down for the baby.”

  Her lips twitched. “Nice try.” She started to scratch her chest, but curled her fingers into a fist and headed toward the door instead. She yawned before she even got it open.

  “Who’s going to watch the baby while you sleep? You’re the only one here.”

  “You’re joking, right? Moms have been sneaking naps along with their babies since the dawn of time. I may not be a mom, but I figure it’s still a good plan.”

  She swung the door open even wider and the cold air was almost a relief. Because it was still way too warm in the house.

  “I’d better stay.”

  She handed him his jacket, then shoved at his shoulders. “You’d be a lot more useful tracking down Jax.” She seemed to realize that he hadn’t progressed an inch out the door, and snatched her hands back. “Go to Magic Jax. Talk to Jax’s waitresses in person. See if they know anything.”

  She was right. He’d planned to do all of that. But plans seemed to have a way of changing whenever Maddie was around. “Don’t forget to put some of that pink stuff on your rash.”

  She pressed her palm against her belly and dropped it immediately.

  Considering how she’d had her T-shirt tied up underneath her breasts when she’d been hanging half in, half out of the Christmas tree, he could only imagine how irritated the rest of her torso was. “I’d offer to help with the hard-to-reach spots, but you’d probably take it the wrong way. Wouldn’t want to be accused of bribery again.”

  “Wouldn’t matter anyway, since we’re out of calamine. And you can joke if you want about bribery, but there have been attempts. More than once and not just with me.” She leaned against the door. Her eyes were looking drowsier by the second. “Generally the situations that land families in my office are the kind of situations that cause desperation. And desperation is a powerful motivator for people to do the kind of unreasonable things they’d never ordinarily consider.”

  “I’m not desperate enough to do anything stupid.”

  Her smooth brow wrinkled. “You were desperate enough to call me last night for help.”

  “Yes, but that wasn’t stupid.” Not for any of the reasons she seemed to think, at least. “Go take your nap with Layla. I’ll be in touch.”

  She nodded, but stood in the open doorway watching him until he got in his truck. Only then did she finally close the door, and he drove away.

  Since he was in the area, he stopped first at Magic Jax. It wasn’t quite time for the bar to open but there were a few cars parked in the lot, so he went around back and pounded on the locked service door until it opened.

  Even though it had been years since Linc stepped foot in the place, he still recognized Sal Romano’s face. The bouncer had been with Jax longer than anyone else his brother had ever hired. Maybe because they were friends from way back.

  The burly man grinned, showing off his two front teeth capped in gold. His long hair had more gray than red and was held back in a scraggly ponytail. “Damn! Hell must have frozen over.” He stuck out a beefy hand. “How you doing, Linc?”

  Linc’s palm was swallowed in the other man’s handshake. “It’s been a while.”

  Sal chuckled. “Long enough for both of us to be looking grayer, anyway.” He stepped back so Linc could enter the building. “What brings you by? Finally checking up on your investment?”

  There weren’t too many people who knew that Linc had staked his brother enough to start up the bar nearly seven years ago. And nobody but Linc knew that he’d stupidly done so at the behest of his then-wife. The only solace to that was knowing that Dana had been faithless to Jax, too.

  “Checking up on my brother, more like.” He followed the bouncer around the crates waiting to be unpacked in the stockroom and into the small business office. “Don’t suppose you’ve heard from him lately?”

  “Nah.” Sal sat on the edge of a scarred, metal desk. “But you know Jax. He gets a wild hair about something and off he goes. Chasing snow. Chasing waves.” Sal scratched the rattlesnake tattoo climbing up his forearm. “You’re not worried about him, are you?”

  Worried? No. Furious? Yes. Still, Linc shook his head. “Just have some stuff we need to deal with.”

  “Swifty stuff.” Sal nodded sagely. “I’ll bet.”

  Linc didn’t bother to correct him. Aside from Jax’s shares in the family business, his brother had little interest in the running of it. And that was fine, until recently, when Linc needed Jax to vote with him against their father’s proposal to sell the company outright to an outfit based in Oklahoma.

  But Jax had left town first, leaving Linc on his own to try to talk reason into his dad. Typically, Blake was more concerned with lining his own pockets than he was with the fact that selling their company to OKF meant they’d also be selling out their employees.

  As a result, Linc had been forced to go straight to OKF to kill the deal.

  He still wasn’t entirely sure he’d succeeded.

  “Jax talk to you a lot about the company?”

  Sal laughed again and shook his head. He picked up a clipboard that was thick with papers curling up at the edges and flipped through them. “Just enough so that I know he enjoys the perks that come with it. Telling the ladies he owns a bar is one thing. Telling them he’s one of the owners of an independent oil company? Well, you know how that is. Tends to net him a whole different class of lady.”

  “Any ladies in particular?”

  Sal stopped flipping pages and signed the top sheet, then dropped the clipboard back onto the desk. His smile faded. “You wanting to know if he had a particular woman when he went off this time?”

  If Jax did have a woman with him, it wouldn’t have been Layla’s mother. What would have been the point of leaving Layla the way she had? Why would the note be meant for him, when he wasn’t even there? Still, any information was better than no information. “Did he?”

  Sal’s expression turned sober. “I don’t know for sure. But I know who was coming around before he left. You’re not going to like who it was.”

  Linc exhaled, knowing instinctively what the other man was going to say. He’d successfully escaped his ex-wife. But Jax had never seemed able to do the same. “Dana, I suppose.”

  He nodded. “Sorry, man. Gotta suck knowing your own brother’s—uh, seeing your ex-wife.”

  All things being relative, Linc could name a few other things that ranked just as high on the suck-o-meter. “Any women come in here yesterday specifically looking for him?”

  “Hell, Linc.” The bouncer’s expression turned wry. “Half o’ Jax’s customers are women coming in here specifically trying to meet him. Think it’s one of the reasons why he’s hardly ever here anymore. There’s such a
thing as too much of a good thing.”

  “What about the last year? Anyone seem particularly involved with him besides Dana?” He knew his ex-wife couldn’t be Layla’s mother. He’d have recognized her handwriting on the note, for one thing. And for another, he’d run into her about six months ago when he’d been in Cheyenne on business. She definitely had not been pregnant.

  “No more than usual.” Sal’s eyes narrowed. “What’re you really trying to find out?”

  Linc sighed. Word was going to get out soon enough about the baby, he supposed. “Someone left a baby with me last night.”

  The bouncer looked stunned. “Jax’s baby?”

  Even though he had a sudden image of Maddie shaking her head and cautioning him about his conclusion, Linc nodded. “That’s my thinking, anyway.”

  “Well, damn.” The other man spread his palms. “Sorry I’m not more help.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” At least Sal had been more enlightening about Jax than the bar manager. “You need to be the one managing this place.”

  Sal just shook his head. “Then I’d have to do all that hiring and firing. Those cocktail waitresses we’ve got? Constantly coming and going. Don’t have a single one who has been here more than half a year. But look. If I hear anything about your brother, I’ll let you know.” He shrugged. “He never stays gone more than two or three weeks at a stretch. Christmas coming? He’ll be back in time for that. Always busy here at the bar during the holidays.”

  “Thanks, Sal.”

  “You bet. A couple of the girls ought to be coming on shift by now. Maybe they know more than I do.”

  Linc wasn’t going to hold his breath. Still, he went out through the front where a skinny girl was twining silver and red garland around a Christmas tree that looked very similar to the one Maddie and her sisters had put up. Not surprisingly, neither she nor her coworker gave him any useful information and he left.

  Before finally heading to his office, though, he stopped at a drugstore and bought a couple large bottles of calamine lotion. Then he drove back to Maddie’s house. The front door wasn’t propped open this time, but it was nevertheless unlocked.

  Annoyed, he silently pushed it open.

  In the living room, Layla was still sleeping flat on her back. Maddie had moved all the stuff off the couch and was sprawled on it, also flat on her back. It was a toss-up as to who was sleeping more soundly.

  He stood there, watching both of them.

  After a few minutes, though, he made himself move.

  He carried the containers of formula into the kitchen, shaking his head over its deplorable state. It was obvious that she and her sisters were trying to renovate the room, but equally obvious that they were nowhere near completion.

  He was tempted to explore the rest of the house and see if it was in an equally unfinished state. The living room hadn’t been so bad. Besides the serviceable furniture that he’d bet they’d gotten secondhand, the wood floor had shown signs of its age. But the fireplace looked sound enough. At least from the outside.

  If she was going to insist on staying there—and needing to use the thing—he’d make sure the chimney was cleaned.

  The packing materials from the infant swing were still on the floor, so he gathered it all up, stuffing it back in the oversize box and leaving it in the screened-in porch at the back of the house. He’d haul it away later if she wanted.

  He set the bottles of calamine lotion on the coffee table where Maddie was sure to see them when she woke and, on the back of the swing’s instructions, wrote a note that he propped against the bottles.

  Then he crouched next to the net siding of the play yard. He watched the baby’s little chest rise and fall. “See you soon, Layla,” he whispered.

  She slept on.

  He pushed to his feet and left.

  * * *

  Stop leaving your doors unlocked.

  Maddie sighed and folded the paper until Linc’s note no longer showed. She ran her fingers along the edges as she looked at the bottles of calamine.

  It was entirely unnerving to know that he’d come into the house while she slept.

  “He could have been anyone coming inside,” she said to Greer. It was only her sister returning to the house that had woken up Maddie. Layla had already been awake, gurgling nonsense to herself as she played with her plastic cereal bowls.

  “In Braden?” Greer raised her eyebrows. “I sort of doubt it.”

  “Crime happens here, too. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have a job as a public defender. Ali wouldn’t have a job as a police officer.”

  “Point taken. But we don’t have home invasions,” Greer amended.

  “What if he’d taken Layla?”

  “He didn’t.” Her sister gestured toward the calamine. “He didn’t take away. He delivered. I think it was pretty sweet of him, actually.”

  Maddie made a humming sound. She wanted to disagree. But couldn’t.

  “In fact, I’m definitely getting the sense that Lincoln Swift doesn’t disapprove of you quite as much as you always said.”

  Maddie pushed her disheveled hair behind her ears. “I never said he disapproved of me. He just didn’t think I was good enough to date Jax.”

  “Well.” Greer still didn’t look convinced. “Linc definitely has a protective streak. I mean, look around.”

  Maddie chewed the inside of her cheek. “He says he only warned me away from Jax for my own protection.”

  “Hmm.” Greer nodded slowly. “I could see that, considering the family history. Blake Swift is notorious for cheating on his wife.”

  “Jax and I were kids! We weren’t destined for marriage. We weren’t destined for anything. He was just fun to be around.”

  “True. Although, I always thought Linc was more interesting than Jax.”

  He was.

  He is.

  Maddie rubbed her finger against the dull throb behind her forehead. Darned antihistamines. “Really? I never thought about it,” she lied. Then she ruined it all. “Did you know that he’d been married?”

  Greer looked surprised. “Should I have? You’re the one who had a crush on him.”

  “I did not!”

  “How’d you find out?” Greer leaned forward, her eyes sly. “Tender confidences?”

  “You read too many romance novels.”

  Her sister snorted. “I read legal briefs and professional journals. And I think you’re being evasive.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Maddie said defensively. “It just came up in conversation.”

  Greer gave her a knowing look. “Must have been some conversation.”

  She wished she’d kept her mouth shut and changed the subject entirely. “Did you finish all your lawyerly homework?”

  “Almost. A few hours tomorrow and I should be set for court on Monday.”

  “Good. The tree still needs decorating. And I’m not going to do it.”

  “Since you still have a rash on your face, I suppose that’s fair.” Greer nudged one of the calamine bottles closer to Maddie. “He clearly bought it for you to use.”

  Maddie hesitated. She didn’t know why she was so reluctant. But she’d spent so many years thinking the worst about Lincoln Swift. Seeing him this way—so intent on Layla, who may or may not be his niece—was messing with her mind.

  Obviously.

  “Come on, Maude,” Greer chided. “No time like the present.”

  “I should check Layla’s diaper.” The baby was trying to fit her entire fist into her mouth. The fact that she was also holding on to one of the plastic cereal bowls at the same time only added to the challenge.

  “Yeah, she looks positively miserable.” Greer handed Maddie one of the bottles of lotion.

  “Oh, fine.” Maddie s
natched it out of her sister’s hand. “But only if you change Layla’s diaper.”

  “I don’t do diapers and all that baby stuff, remember?”

  Maddie made a face at her. But since that face still felt distinctly itchy—along with half of the rest of her body—she took the calamine lotion upstairs to her room and happily threw off her clothes. She didn’t bathe in the soothing lotion, but by the time she was done dabbing it all over her rashy parts, she almost looked like she had.

  Once the liquid was dry, she pulled on loose pajama pants and a camisole and went back downstairs.

  Greer was holding Layla, singing softly.

  Greer always claimed to be “all about” her career. After watching her with the baby, though, Maddie considered the claim laughable.

  Leaving her sister with Layla, she went to the hall closet and dragged out the storage tub containing their Christmas decorations. She set it on the coffee table and worked off the lid. “Don’t do all that baby stuff, huh?”

  Greer wasn’t fazed. “Look, Layla. It’s the pink-painted lady.”

  Maddie spread her arms and twirled once. “Ever fashionable. If Martin could only see me now.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy who stood me up last night.”

  “I thought his name was Morton.”

  “Oh. Right.” She lifted the baby out of her sister’s arms and gestured at the storage bin. “Get to work.”

  “I will.” Greer rubbed her arms. “Do we still have a window open somewhere? It’s finally starting to get a little cool in here.”

  “I don’t know. I’ll check in a minute.” She grabbed a diaper from the box and laid Layla out on the couch. She peeled her out of the sleeper and changed her. “Then I’m taking this little girl upstairs for a bath.”

  “In other words, you’re using my bathroom.”

  “It’s the only one with a decent tub.” When she and her sisters had purchased the house, they’d agreed to be responsible for the renovations of their own bedrooms, but to pool their efforts for the rest of the house. This meant that they could work at their own speed for their own space as they saw fit.