is when she’s partying with more than me.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. Which is no big deal. We didn’t have a serious thing going. And I sure didn’t move down here to Grandma’s house because of Marietta. I moved to give everyone more space in the big house.”
“Oh, I thought you moved because you were tired of everybody treating you like the baby of the family. That you wanted to prove you can take care of yourself.”
Acton slanted him a perceptive glance. “Maybe that, too, big brother.”
Stephanie softly hummed a lullaby as she gently rocked Linus and watched the last of the formula in the bottle drain away. In spite of the baby being born a bit early, he was thriving. This past month his cheeks had rounded and his arms and legs had grown fleshier. She’d even noticed that his gaze was trying more and more to focus on her face.
Incredibly, Stephanie had ended up being Linus’s foster mother by sheer happenstance. When Laurel had staggered into the ribbon-cutting ceremony in the throes of labor and shouted for help, Stephanie’s sister-in-law, Becky, who happened to be a nurse, and Dr. Green both rushed to the frantic woman’s aid. The next day, after the news had spread that she and the baby were safely settled in a hospital in San Antonio, everyone had believed that was the last they’d ever hear of the incident.
But a couple weeks later, Laurel had walked into the pediatric center, handed over the baby to a nurse and declared she couldn’t handle being a parent. Later, they’d found a note on the baby stating his rightful home would be found at Fortune’s Foundling Hospital.
Neither Laurel’s behavior nor the note had made any sense. And to make matters worse, none of the local foster families had been able to take in the infant they’d initially called Baby L. Stephanie, however, had.
Her brothers, Callum, Dillon and Steven, had been surprised. They’d always known she was a nurturer with a soft heart. However, they had been stunned to learn that she’d already gone through the process of being fingerprinted and background-checked in hopes of adopting one day.
They had all wondered why their lovely sister needed to adopt a child when she could give birth to one of her own. Stephanie hadn’t bothered to explain her reasons. They might not want to admit it, but all three brothers knew the answer to that question. Over the past few years they’d watched her suffer through several short-lived relationships, none of which had even gotten close to true love or an engagement ring. She didn’t want to wait to start a family at the end of her childbearing years. She wanted to have children while she was still young. And hopefully, later on, she might be fortunate enough to find a man who would truly love her.
“Linus, you might be the only baby I’ll ever have a chance to hold and cherish,” she whispered down to the sleeping boy.
His lips had gone slack around the nipple, and as Stephanie carefully eased the bottle from his mouth, emotional tears stung her eyes. She’d been told that in a year’s time if neither parent showed up to claim the boy, she might have a chance to adopt him. But a year was a long time. Anything could happen between now and then.
She rose from the cushioned rocker, then carried Linus over to a hooded bassinet and was tucking a warm blanket around him when a knock sounded on the door of her suite at the Fame and Fortune Ranch.
After crossing the large space that served as a living room, she opened the door to find Steven, her oldest brother, holding a large covered tray.
“Room service,” he said cheerily. “Hungry?”
She pulled the door wide and gestured for him to come in. “I was about to come down to the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat. What’s all that?” she asked, gesturing to the tray. “I thought Manny was taking the night off.”
He carried the loaded tray over to a green leather couch and placed it on a glass-and-wood coffee table. As Stephanie followed her brother, she thought she caught a whiff of pizza.
“Callum treated the construction crew this evening and there was so much food left over I brought some home.”
“This is nice, Steven. Thanks for thinking of me.”
“When you didn’t come down to dinner, I thought I’d better check on you. Is everything okay?”
For a long while in their family, Stephanie had been the only girl and her four older brothers had been very protective of their little sister. And even though a set of triplet girls had been born into the family four years after Stephanie, the guys still went out of their way to shield and care for her. Maybe because they thought that, due to her bad luck at love, she might never have a husband to love and protect her.
She smiled at Steven, while hoping that the tears that had stung her eyes a few moments ago were no longer visible. “Sure. Everything is fine. We had a hectic day at the clinic and it was later than usual when I finally picked up Linus from day care. So I’ve been playing catch-up. By the time I took care of my pets, Linus was yelling that he was hungry. So I put supper on hold.”
Steven chuckled. “I’d be flat on the floor if I’d been that busy today.”
She gave a wry laugh, then took a seat on the couch. “Join me?”
“I’ll sit for a minute. But I can’t stay for long. Callum is on a conference call and wants to talk with me afterward.”
“Callum is really excited about his projects. I think even more so now that Becky and the children are in his life.” She was happy for her brother; he’d found a wonderful single mother of twins who’d given him an instant family. She glanced slyly at her brother. “Is seeing him so happy giving you any ideas to become a family man?”
Steven shrugged. “It’ll take more than Callum’s grinning face to get me to the altar.”
Stephanie pulled the linen cloth from the tray to expose a wide array of food, ranging from hot wings and pizza, to macaroni and cheese and chocolate cake.
“No salad?” she asked teasingly.
Steven chuckled. “Sorry. The guys ate all the salad. There wasn’t a drop of it left.”
“I’d be willing to bet there wasn’t a drop of it to begin with,” she said drily.
He laughed. “Construction workers need more than rabbit food for their dinner.” He glanced around him. “Speaking of rabbits, where is Orville?”
“Look behind you. He finally managed to charm Violet and Daisy into sharing their bed.”
Steven glanced behind the couch to see Stephanie’s Siamese cat and yellow tabby snuggled in a large basket. Wedged between the two felines, a brown-and-white domestic rabbit snoozed contentedly.
“Ha! They must have decided Orville was just a strange-looking cat. I’ll say one thing—he’s one lucky rabbit to have you adopt him. Did you ever find out how he happened to be roaming around the clinic parking lot?”
Stephanie shook her head as she placed a pair of hot wings on a small paper plate. “No. We figure someone just didn’t want him anymore and put him there
