should let you go back to work.”
“My day is already shot,” he admitted. “Tell me what happened.”
Tate gave him a quick rundown of her day, and when she was finished, Linc asked, “Where’s the note she left you?”
Too tired to argue, she told him where to find it and sat down with Ellie propped on her lap. Tate took her little hand in hers and thought that Ellie was amazingly docile for a child that had been dumped with a stranger.
“So, though this note is short on details it seems to imply that you now get to call the shots with regard to Ellie,” Linc said.
“Imply being the operative word,” Tate bitterly replied. “And what am I supposed to do with her? Look after her? Place her in foster care? Give her up for adoption?”
“I don’t think you have the legal right to do the last two,” Linc said, and she saw the anger burning in his eyes. “But why couldn’t she just do any of this herself? Why involve you?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t even know about Ellie until I got to the diner. I haven’t seen Kari for two years.” Tate rubbed her thumb gently over the back of Ellie’s hand. “And that meeting was tense.”
“Why?”
She started to tell him that they’d had a huge fight because Kari abandoned her son. Tate had been so incensed at her cousin’s blasé attitude toward Shaw that she’d stopped communicating with her. Tate noticed Linc’s hard eyes and knew that he wouldn’t appreciate, and didn’t need, her defending his son. Linc Ballantyne was obviously very capable at fighting his own battles.
“Family stuff.” Tate eventually pushed the short explanation out.
Linc linked his hands together and leaned back, placing his ankle on his knee and tapping the sheaf of papers balanced on his thigh. “So, what are you going to do?”
Tate forced herself to think. “Right now, I suppose I need to find us a place to stay—”
“Whoa! You’re homeless, too?”
Tate glared at him and held up her hand in an indignant gesture. “Hold on, hotshot, don’t jump to conclusions. I’m a travel presenter, out of the country for most of the year, so I live out of hotel rooms. Once a year, I get a long vacation, and I came back to New York to meet with my producers. I was planning to find a hotel for a night or two, until I decided where I wanted to spend my vacation. I might have to rethink leaving New York now, since I have Ellie with me.”
“Do you have enough cash? She needs diapers and clothes and...stuff.”
Stuff. Tate wrinkled her nose. How unhelpful.
She did have enough money. Her living and travel expenses were paid for by the production company, so her hefty salary went straight into her savings account. Kari was a flake, but she wasn’t. “Yes.”
“You don’t seem like you have much experience with babies.”
“Or any,” Tate replied self deprecatingly. “I’ll buy a book,” she added.
“God.” Linc muttered, shaking his head. “Do you know how to change a diaper at least?”
“I’m sure I can figure it out,” Tate huffed.
Linc rubbed the back of his strong neck, above the patch of tanned skin between the collar of his shirt and his hair. It was the dead of winter—why was he tan? And why did she feel the insane urge to taste his skin?
“Are you going to call Child Services and place her into foster care?”
It took Tate a moment to pull her attention back to the conversation...Ellie and what to do with her. Focus, Harper.
Tate looked at Linc and saw the wariness in his eyes and realized that this was a test, that this moment would make him form an opinion of her that wouldn’t be easy to change. Wariness and distrust would slide into contempt.
Strangely, she felt the need not to disappoint him, since she felt like Harper women had disappointed him enough already.
This wasn’t about him, she chastised herself. It was about Ellie and what was best for her, so Tate tried to imagine how she would feel watching a Child Services officer walking away with Ellie, and she shook her head. “No, I can’t do that.”
Tate saw, but ignored, the flash of relief that crossed Linc’s face.
“I’m on vacation, and I can look after Ellie as well as any foster mother could, once I figure out the basics.” She sighed. “I think I need to consult a lawyer and find out whether I can, temporarily, keep her.”
He nodded but remained silent.
“Just so you know, I intend to track Kari down and make her face the consequences of her actions. I want her to make the decision to give Ellie up for adoption, not me,” Tate added.
“That can be arranged.” Linc held her eyes, and in that instant she saw the edgy businessman, the man who made hard, complicated decisions on six continents.
“What do you mean?”
“My best friend owns a security company, but he started out as a private investigator. He tracked down Kari the last time she skipped town. I’m sure he could do it again.” Linc’s words were as hard as diamonds and twice as cold. Oh, her sister had obviously done a number on this man’s head. Dammit, Kari.
“I’ll think about hiring a PI. But right now I just need to get us settled for the night and meet with a lawyer.”
“I’ll get Amy, my assistant, to find someone who specializes in family law,” Linc said, leaning sideways to pull his ultrathin phone out of his pants pocket.
Tate started to protest but snapped her mouth closed when he issued terse instructions into the phone. God, he sure didn’t waste time and was clearly a take-charge type of guy. Would he be like that in bed? Of course he would be; he’d be all “do this” or “do that,” and any woman alive would jump to be under his command. Including her. Tate knew, instinctively, that the pleasure he’d give her would be worth any amount of bossiness...
Someone slap me, please, Tate thought. Right...well, Linc wasn’t going to take charge of her...in or out of the bedroom.
Tate waited for him to finish his conversation, intending to tell him exactly that. Okay, she might be in his house, having run to him as Kari suggested, but it wasn’t his job to fix this.
“No, I am not going to tell you why,” Linc spoke into his phone, exasperated. “Jeez, Amy, you don’t need to know everything about everybody. Concentrate on your wedding arrangements or, better yet, do some work.”
Linc snapped the phone closed and tapped it against his thigh. “I share an assistant with my brother Beck and, unfortunately, she is scary efficient, which leaves her far too much time to meddle in our lives.”
Tate nodded, thinking that his crooked smile was charming, the grudging affection she heard in his voice endearing. She should go, she really should. But it was so nice in this warm house, and looking
