Jax’s child?
She huffed out a breath and left the kitchen, returning to the foyer where she’d left her boots. The artificial Christmas tree that her sister Ali bought was sitting in its enormous box, blocking half the room. None of them were thrilled with having an artificial tree instead of a fresh-cut one, but Ali’s overdeveloped sense of safety had prevailed. She was a police officer and had just dealt with a family home burning down from a tree that went up in flames. Neither Greer nor Maddie had had the heart to argue with her. They’d both promised Ali they’d help put it up this weekend.
Maddie sat down on the box, pulled on her leather boots and zipped them up to her knees.
Despite the weatherman’s dire predictions, it still hadn’t snowed yet, but the temperatures were already cold and bitter. She wrapped a scarf around her neck on top of her coat before she let herself back out into the night. Her car was parked in the driveway; both engine and interior were still warm from the drive back from Weaver.
At least she wouldn’t have to go so far to get to the old Swift mansion. It used to sit on the eastern edge of Braden, but due to progress, the town limits had been creeping past it for years. Now it was more like a crown jewel in the center of town.
When she arrived, the ornate iron gate guarding the long drive to the house was open, just as Linc had promised.
She drove through it, and memories of climbing on the thing pulled at her. The first time, Maddie’s mother had been horrified. But Ernestine—seeming old even then—had merely laughed and waved it off. How could Maddie be expected to not climb on it when her grandsons were doing the same thing?
Maddie rubbed her forehead, trying and failing to block out the images of her, Jax and Linc running around that first summer. She and Jax had been six, Linc a much older and wiser eleven.
By the time she and Jax were eleven, Meredith was no longer cleaning the mansion for Ernestine. But Maddie’s friendship with Jax—and her fascination with Linc, who’d totally lost interest in them by that point—had lived on. For a few more years, anyway. Until he’d made so very plain what he thought of her.
Her headlights swept over the stone wall that ran alongside the narrow driveway as it curved its way to the mansion sitting atop the hill.
Her mouth felt dry.
Which was just plain stupid.
The drive swelled out into a circle in front of the house before narrowing again as it continued off into the darkness. She hadn’t been out there in more than a decade, but she assumed there was still an enormous detached garage next to the gardener’s shack.
She parked in the circle and took a deep breath before getting out of the car and reluctantly climbing the brick steps. As soon as she reached the door, she could hear the wailing from inside and her gloved hand paused on the lion-shaped door knocker.
It was the distinct wail of a baby.
She started when the door opened, the door knocker yanked out of her lax fingers before she could even properly use it.
“Took you long enough,” Linc greeted her as he shoved the infant car seat he was holding into her arms.
She rapidly adjusted her hold on it when he let go and backed away. Like he couldn’t get away fast enough.
From the baby? Or from Maddie?
She averted her gaze, but not fast enough to keep from noticing that his disheveled blondish-brown hair showed a sprinkle of gray on the sides that hadn’t been there three years ago, and the faint lines arrowing out from the corners of his hazel eyes weren’t quite so faint anymore.
And he looked better than ever.
Dammit.
She channeled Greer’s dulcet tones again. “Good to see you, too, Linc.” She smiled insincerely and looked down at the wailing baby. A girl, if the pink blanket was anything to go by. “Where’s her mom?”
“Who the hell knows?” He shoved his long fingers through his hair. “I came home and that—” he waved at the infant seat “—was sitting all alone on the doorstep.”
She stepped inside and set the carrier on the old-fashioned table in the middle of the spacious foyer. After dumping her purse on the table, too, she delved beneath the pink blanket, relieved to feel warmth coming off the crying baby. “How long ago?”
“You’re not shocked?”
She deftly released the harness strapping the baby into the seat and picked her up. “By a baby being left somewhere or by you calling me about it?” She didn’t wait for his answer as she tried to soothe the baby. “Unfortunately, I can’t say this is my first experience with an abandoned baby. How long ago did you get home?”
He was wearing a dark blazer over a white shirt and blue jeans. Date wear.
She hated the fact that she’d even noticed. Or that she cared.
The baby was still wailing, so hard that she was hiccupping. “It’s okay, sweetheart.” Maddie jiggled the baby and blindly swept her hand inside the car seat, finally finding a pacifier wedged under a corner of the fabric lining. She touched it to the baby’s lips and she latched onto it greedily.
“Silence,” Linc muttered. “Thank God.”
Maddie refrained from telling him that he could have found the pacifier, too, if he’d tried. Through the fleecy polka-dot sleeper the baby was wearing, she could feel the diaper was heavy. “So? How long ago?”
“Less than an hour ago.” Linc raked his fingers through his hair again and paced on the other side of the foyer table. “A few minutes before I called you the first time. It took three tries before you bothered to answer.”
“Don’t make it sound like I’ve done something wrong,” she said. “I was out, too. It is allowed, you know. Even for social workers.”
And those too lowly to consort with the vaunted Swift family.
She pressed her lips against the child’s temple, banishing the thought.
The baby’s forehead felt sweaty, but that could have just been from all her crying. “Is there a diaper bag or something?”
“Or something.” He set a small plastic garbage bag on the table next to the car seat.
Maddie quickly reached for it and their hands accidentally brushed. She ignored the heat that immediately ran under her skin and tipped the bag over. A half-dozen diapers and a thin container of baby wipes scattered across the table. A small can of powdered baby formula and an empty, capped baby bottle rolled out.
She grabbed a diaper and the wipes and marched around the table, heading into the house. “Go make a bottle with the formula,” she told him. “I’ll get her diaper changed, and then I’ll call my uncle.”
* * *
Linc stared after Maddie’s departing form. Her hair was as dark as it had always been, but it was longer now than she’d used to wear it, tumbling well past the bright red scarf wrapped around the collar of her short black coat.
