LITMIR.BIZ

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      “No matter what” had lusty lungs and was in the process of sucking out every bit of oxygen within the car and turning it into noise. Evan rolled down the window, hoping the street traffic would cut into the wailing and neutralize it.

      All his adult life, Evan had gone out of his way to prove how much more responsible he was than Devin. Devin had always been the reckless one, the one who seemed to be without a serious thought. The one his parents had despaired would never amount to anything, not because he wasn’t smart enough, but because he didn’t apply himself.

      Evan’s mouth curved in a self-deprecating smile. So why was he the one who was being accused of fathering an unwanted child?

      Sometimes, the world made no sense.

      The open window didn’t help. Rachel’s cries just rose to the challenge, increasing Evan’s feeling of helplessness. The entrance to his development had never looked so good. Not that there were any ready solutions there, but at least he would be out of the crammed confines of the car. His ears were beginning to ring.

      “We’re here, we’re here,” he told Rachel, trying to calm her down.

      The wailing continued a minute longer, then, as if intrigued by the sound of his voice, Rachel stopped as abruptly as she had started. He felt like rejoicing at the temporary reprieve. It was funny how so little could suddenly mean so much.

      “Opera,” he murmured, “you should definitely consider a career in opera.”

      Evan turned into his driveway, not even bothering to use the automatic garage-door opener.

      He’d no sooner pulled up his hand brake and turned off the engine than he was laid siege to. Not by the child inside the car, but by the child outside. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her approaching at ten o’clock. A bouncy four-year-old who was bound and determined, since he’d moved in next door to her and her mother three months ago, to learn everything there was to know about him. He’d already discovered that short, one-word replies did not discourage her. They just led her to ask more questions.

      Please, not now, he thought

      “Hi!”

      Standing on her toes, Elizabeth Jean Walker hooked her fingers on his open window, all ten of them. Since she was forever eating some candy or other, Evan could just envision what her sticky prints were doing to the highly polished shine on his car.

      “You have a baby!” Libby’s eyes were huge as she looked past him to the wiggling baby in the car seat. “I didn’t know you had a baby!”

      “I don’t It’s not mine.” He put his hand on the latch, then looked at Libby expectantly. “Would you mind stepping back? I need to get out of the car.”

      Libby danced backward on the points of her toes, her eyes still riveted to the baby. She was pirouetting this week. It went along with her current choice of career—ballerina. Last week, when she had wanted to be a cowhand, she had galloped everywhere she went. “If it’s not yours, did you steal it?” There was breathless excitement in each word.

      He was glad someone was getting enjoyment out of this. “No, someone gave it to me.” Evan got out and slammed his door.

      Without a trace of self-consciousness, Libby stuck with him like a shadow as he rounded the hood to the passenger side. “You mean, like a present?”

      Where was this kid’s mother? Didn’t she know better than to let her little girl run around, harassing neighbors? “No, not exactly.”

      He stared down at Rachel. Should he take her out of the car seat, or carry her into the house in the seat? He decided on the latter. He didn’t want drool on his expensive jacket.

      Libby cocked her head, watching him think his problem through. “Whatcha gonna do with the baby?”

      “I don’t know.” He bit off the answer. Evan didn’t like feeling as if he was lost, but he still hadn’t a clue what to do. There had to be someone he could call, a baby-sitting service that dealt in emergencies. Something. He had a meeting to go to, damn it. He didn’t have time to stay home and play surrogate father to someone else’s child.

      Libby wiggled in front of him for a better view of the baby. Swallowing an oath he knew was inappropriate for Libby to hear, he placed both hands on her shoulders and firmly moved her out of his way.

      She looked up at him, a sunny expression on her pale face. “Do you need help?”

      What he needed right now was for Mary Poppins to come flying down out of the sky. “Yes, I need help.” He began working the tangled straps that he’d buckled so haphazardly before while Rachel waved her feet at him, kicking his wrist. “Lots of help. I—”

      He looked up, determined to send Libby on her way, but she was already gone.

      Well, at least that much had gone right in his life, he thought The last thing he needed was for Libby to chatter on endlessly in his ear as he struggled to deal with his very real problem.

      He should have made a more forceful attempt to talk Alma into helping, he thought, annoyed with himself for giving in so quickly. After all, she was a woman and they had a built-in knack for this sort of thing.

      Heaven knew, he didn’t.

      The baby gurgled happily when he swung her out of the car. “Yeah, you can laugh. You don’t have your career riding on a meeting this afternoon. Who are you, anyway?”

      Rachel answered him by blowing more bubbles.

      Evan carried the car seat up to his front door, then tried to do a balancing act while he fished out the keys he’d automatically shoved into his pocket when he’d gotten out of the car.

      Through with blowing bubbles, Rachel began to fuss again, trying to eat her foot. All in all, this was not turning out to be one of his better days.

      

      Claire Walker had been staring at the same design on her computer screen for the past ten minutes. Today, apparently, her creative juices had decided to take a hike. No pun intended, she mused, since she was trying to work on a logo for a prominent firm that manufactured athletic equipment.

      Nothing was going on in her brain except a mild, familiar form of panic. The kind that always overtook her when she came up empty.

      Since she’d come into the small guest bedroom that doubled as her office over an hour ago, she’d gotten up every few minutes, procrastinating. She’d even dusted the shelves.

      Dusted, for pity’s sake, something she absolutely abhorred and did only when the dust motes got large enough to put saddles on and ride. She was that desperate to get away from her work.

      Nothing was materializing in her brain.

      It was time, she decided, to take a temporary reprieve. A real one. Maybe what she needed was to take the morning off. The afternoon had to get better. The only way it would be worse was if she was suddenly possessed to clean out her refrigerator.

      Her fingers flying for the first time that day, she pressed a combination of keys and shut her computer down. Things would look different when she opened it up again later, she promised herself.

      The house reverberated as the front door was slammed shut. Hurricane Libby, she thought fondly.

      “Mama, Mama, come quick!”

      Claire smiled to herself. She was accustomed to Libby’s “come quick” calls. “Come quick” could mean anything from a call urging her to see a praying mantis, to watching a funny cartoon on television, to seeing a mother bird feeding her babies in the nest they’d discovered out front in their pine tree. Claire had learned very quickly that no matter what pitch the cry was delivered in, it wasn’t about anything earthshaking.

      Life was very exciting for a four-going-on-five-year-old.

      Claire stepped out into the hallway. “What is it this time,

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