her heart thudding, she clipped double-speed into the work area shared by all the programmers. Maybe she hadn’t been really that worried about the baby before, but darn it, Bailey was even more absentminded than Simone, and the programming office was the most dangerous place for a little one. Computers and printers and modems created an incessant nerve-racking clatter. Phones and cords and all kinds of electronic equipment were too easily reachable by small fingers.
Ralph’s cubicle was first—and he was there, ensconced in his orange throne chair that wincingly clashed with the red carpet. He was twenty-four, typically working barefoot, with a plaid shirt buttoned nerd-style to the throat, and a long, straggly blond ponytail swinging behind him. He was pounding at two keyboards—pretty much simultaneously—and since Ralph wouldn’t likely notice a tornado when he was working, there was little point in grilling him.
She pelted past his work cubicle, then past Simone’s and Darren’s—Darren was working at home today—then barreled around the comer to Bailey’s. She stopped dead, her hand pressing tight to her heaving heart.
The search was over.
Bailey was on all fours, his balding head shining under the fluorescent light. Bailey might be goofy enough to wear a “lucky bathrobe” over a pin-striped shirt, but he was a brilliant man. People skills weren’t exactly his strength, but he was inspired by impossible problems, attacked every challenge with the same dour, methodical, pedantic perseverance. Molly saw his hind end before she spotted the baby. Bailey, grave as a judge, seemed to have attacked this particular problem by cornering it under his desk. Guessing from the sea of wadded-up paper littering the floor, the two of them had been playing ball.
“Bailey, for Pete’s sake, I’ve been looking everywhere for the baby—” A breath that felt as if she must have been holding it for five solid minutes whooshed out of her lungs.
“Sheesh, it’s about time someone came in and saved me.” Bailey, sounding pitifully aggrieved, scooched away from the baby as soon as he spotted her. “I’ve been having a heart attack. It crawled in here after me and then it let out this wail loud enough to curdle milk. How was I supposed to know what it wanted? I never had any kids! Flynn ran out after that woman, and I didn’t know where you were, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do—”
“Bailey, you turkey! I don’t know anything about children, either, but I can’t believe you sat right there and let the baby eat paper!”
“Let? Let? Like I had some choice in the matter? The first thing the child did was grab some paper and start chewing. You try taking it away from him and see what happens.”
“He cries, huh?”
Bailey was more explicit. “The kid has a set of lungs like a hyena.”
Molly crouched down. The little one had a giant mouthful of paper and was extremely busy, trying to stuff in more. She obviously had to get the paper away from him, but for one stark second, she felt an emotional fist squeeze her heart tight. The scene in Flynn’s office had happened so fast and furiously that she really hadn’t caught a good look at Dylan before.
The baby had a pudgy little body and chunky legs and, oh my, a terribly homely face. The chin of a prizefighter in miniature, plain bones, a bump of a nose—Dylan just wasn’t going to be auditioning for the Gerber poster child, but Molly told herself maybe he could grow into all that character potential. That wasn’t, though, the reason her heart stopped.
The little one had exuberant bristles of auburn hair. The color of Flynn’s. Exactly the color of Flynn’s. And maybe the baby was no beauty, but the eyes... the eyes were cerulean sky blue, as bright and full of light—and mischief—as Flynn’s.
Molly’s heart just seemed to freeze. She really hadn’t wanted to believe the woman in his office. Virginie had obviously been distraught, irrational, terribly beside herself. Hardly a credible source. But the look of Dylan cast a different color on things. There was no ignoring that the likeness between the two did exist.
The baby acknowledged her closeness by lifting those heart-throbber blue eyes to her face.
“Hi there, sweetie. Dylan...”
“You’re going to take him out of here, aren’t you?” Bailey said nervously.
“If he’ll let me pick him up. But I’m not going to do anything fast and scare him. For heaven’s sake, he doesn’t know me, do you, love bug?” She kept her voice low and soft, and tried a smile. The urchin smiled back, revealing two brilliant white teeth—and a mouth chockful of drool-coated paper. “I don’t suppose you’d let me reach in there and take out that paper, would you?”
The smile vanished. The baby’s lips clamped closed faster than a vault at Fort Knox.
“Okay, okay, we’ll forget about that for a second or two. Would you like to come with me for a bit? I’ll show you my office. It’s the only normal spot in the whole place. And maybe we could come up with a cracker from the kitchen. Dylan go with Molly?”
“Dylan go with Molly,” Bailey parroted urgently.
Dylan grinned at Molly, grinned at Bailey, and then whipped his fanny in the air and took off on all fours in the opposite direction.
Molly had the fleeting thought that she only knew one other male on the planet with that kind of contrary nature.
And then she chased after the miniature redhead.
Less than a half hour passed before Molly heard knuckles rap on her office door. Sooner or later she figured Flynn would track her down—and the whereabouts of the baby. The question was just how long he was tied up talking with the child’s mother...or trying to talk with her. Molly was sitting behind her desk when Flynn turned the knob and poked his head in.
“Simone said the baby was with you?”
“Yup, safe and sound.” Or her office had seemed safe and sound until Flynn stepped in, Molly thought dryly. She’d only closed the door to keep the baby contained. Unlike all the other offices at McGannon’s, hers was a haven of normalcy. A traditional desk. File cabinets. Two sturdy chairs. Pencils sharpened to uniform points were neatly aligned in a Monet mug; a photo of her parents and two younger sisters sat on the credenza; the files on her desk were color-coded and stacked as straight as a ruler.
The orderly, tidy atmosphere changed irrevocably the instant Flynn arrived. It always did. Molly was never quite sure how he could turn a nice, quiet, peaceful day into a tornado of testosterone. The sizzle in the atmosphere was always a sudden thing, like the first crack of lightning before a storm. One instant she was a CPA, the next, she was aware of her breasts and hips, whether her hair might be messy, what she’d look like to him naked. Molly had tried to analyze the problem from a dozen different angles, but there seemed no answers—except that Flynn had the unnerving gift for making a woman feel restless. Edgy. Alive, as if someone had tickled her awake from a sound sleep.
Momentarily, though, he was the edgy one. “She’s gone,” he said. “I still can’t believe it. Nothing I said to her made any difference. She took off. Just like that.”
Molly leaned back in her office chair, watching him pace. “I was afraid she would. When she walked out of your office, she didn’t seem to be listening to anyone about anything. But I’m sure she’ll be back, Flynn. She was just terribly upset. No mother would just desert her baby like that.”
