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?”
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.
When she looked at Linc again, his brows were pulled even closer together above his long, narrow nose.
She definitely shouldn’t take any pleasure in antagonizing him. Not under these circumstances.
“Emergency placement is a temporary measure while the authorities have a chance to investigate the whole situation,” she explained calmly. “Once that’s done, our office will make the report to the prosecutor’s office. If there are criminal charges involved, he’ll probably handle the case. If there aren’t, he’ll likely leave it in our department’s hands to make a recommendation to the judge—”
“Judge! Who said anything about a judge?”
She watched him for a moment. Linc had always been much harder to read than Jax. But the fact that he was more alarmed than ever was obvious. She just wasn’t entirely certain why. Despite the past, he’d called her to take care of the situation, and that was what she was doing. “No matter what led to Layla being left on your doorstep, this situation is going to involve the family court,” she said a little more gently. “Judge Stokes is a good guy—”
“I don’t care how good a guy he is. There’s no need for a judge. No need for your boss, for that matter.”
“If you didn’t ask me here to do my job, then what is it that you expect me to do?”
He gestured, encompassing her and the baby in his short, impatient wave. “What you’re doing. Taking care of the kid.”
“I’m not a babysitter, Linc! And this kid is an infant. Two, three months old, tops, if I had to guess.” She flicked the fingers of her free hand against the note still lying on the island. “And assuming that can be trusted, she also has a name. Layla. Aside from that, we know nothing for certain.”
“Jax—”
“Jax isn’t here. So I’ll tell you the same thing Judge Stokes is going to tell you. This child appears to have been abandoned and—”
“No.” He crossed the room in two strides and took the baby out of her arms.
The bottle fell out of Maddie’s grasp and rolled across the table. Layla’s eyes rounded and she opened her mouth to protest loudly, but he caught it before it rolled onto the floor and shoved the nipple quickly back into her mouth. The baby subsided, blissfully guzzling once again, even though Linc was essentially holding her like a football under his arm. “You’re not sticking her with a bunch of strangers.”
“I don’t even know how to respond to that.” Layla was kicking her legs so enthusiastically, Maddie was afraid the infant would squirt out from Linc’s grasp like a wet bar of soap. “She’s going to spit up everything she drinks. Give her to me.”
“No.”
She lifted her eyebrows. She wasn’t a seventeen-year-old girl who could be easily brushed off by him anymore. She’d cut her teeth in adult probation before transferring into family services. “No?”
“If you’re not going to help, then just go home.” He turned away from her, walking out of the room. Layla’s legs bounced.
Maddie followed after him, skipping twice to dart around him and block his momentum. “You don’t get it!”
He frowned down at her. “I get that you’re in my way.”
“You can’t unring the bell here. I can’t pretend you didn’t call me.” She tried to slide Layla out of his grip.
He caught one of her hands in his, holding it away.
“Linc! I have a legal obligation to rep—” She broke off when he squeezed her fingers. Not enough to hurt, but enough to express himself. His hazel eyes were hard and his jaw was so tight, it looked white.
“To do nothing,” he ground out. “She’s my niece.”
Maddie exhaled, feeling a sudden wave of sympathy that she hoped was more from exhaustion and goodwill toward his brother than because of tender feelings for Linc himself. “You think she’s your niece,” she corrected in an even tone. Based on a note that said nothing of substance.
“She was left in my care.”
“Jax’s care, actually. And you’re saying he’s out of town. Have you tried calling him? To see what he has to say about the baby?”
“He’ll be home soon.” Linc’s tone was flat.
She didn’t believe him.
“Do you even know where he is?”
His expression turned darker, his jawline whiter. “No.”
She sighed.
There was no earthly reason why she should want to help him. Yet that was exactly what she realized she was going to do. Or try to do. It would involve an end-run around her boss, but he was already going to be annoyed with her anyway, so she supposed she might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
“I’ll call Archer.” Her brother, though personally
