LITMIR.BIZ

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does not reward poor behavior.”

      “No. Of course not. I mean…”

      What in hell did he mean? Suddenly, Linc plunged back in time. He remembered coming home from football practice, finding Kath sobbing her heart out in the corner of the kitchen that had been her bedroom. He’d been maybe seventeen, so she’d have been seven. She’d been crying because some kid had made fun of her, the way she’d looked in the too-big winter coat he’d gotten her at the Salvation Army, and she hadn’t stopped weeping until he’d scooped her up, rocked her, told her everything would be all right.

      Linc walked slowly to the crib. Looked in. Hesitated. Then he reached down and picked up the baby. It was the first time he’d held her since the day a social worker had placed her in his arms.

      This is your sister’s daughter, she’d said.

      Those simple words, the unfamiliar feel of the kid in his arms, and he’d finally had to accept that Kath was gone.

      Now, he stared at the red, unhappy face of Kath’s child. His niece. Funny how he never thought of her that way. Awkwardly, he cupped her head with one hand, her bottom with the other, and rocked her back and forth.

      A little bubble of spit appeared in the corner of her mouth.

      The kid was cute, he thought grudgingly. He hadn’t really noticed before, but she was.

      “Mr. Aldridge, I must protest. You are undermining my authority in front of the child.”

      He looked at the baby, then at Nanny Crispin. The look on her face said he was committing a capitol offense.

      “She has a name,” he heard himself say.

      “What has that to do with anything?”

      “She has a name. Jennifer. I’ve never heard you use it.”

      “Her name is irrelevant.”

      It wasn’t irrelevant, nor was the fact that he never used the baby’s name, either. He knew that, deep where it counted.

      “Mr. Aldridge. The child needs to be taught a lesson. Either you put her back in her crib or I’m afraid I will have to tender my resignation.”

      Linc looked down at his niece. Her sobs had stopped. She was staring up at him, her expression solemn.

      “Did you hear me, sir? I said—”

      “I heard you. Consider your resignation accepted.”

      Nanny Crispin gasped. Linc almost did, too. What in hell had he done?

      “Wait a minute,” he started to say, but his cell phone, still in his trouser pocket, beeped. He shifted the baby to the crook of one arm and dug out the phone.

      It was his attorney. At—what was it now?—at six in the damned a.m.?

      “I couldn’t reach you last night, Lincoln.”

      “Well, you’ve reached me now, Charles. This better be good.”

      Kath’s mother-in-law had filed for custody. Linc wondered whether he felt relief or maybe something else.

      “Yeah, well, we kind of figured—”

      “What we didn’t figure,” his lawyer said briskly, “was that the lady basically abandoned her own son—Kathryn’s husband—when he was three. Now she’s claiming to have been a devoted mother who had problems.”

      “Do you buy her story?”

      “What I buy is that she just found out about the trust fund you set up for your sister, and that the money in it now transfers to the baby.”

      Linc’s mouth thinned. “Great.”

      “Indeed.”

      They made an appointment to meet later in the day. Oh, the lawyer added, the social worker wanted a meeting, too. This afternoon, with him and Linc and the baby.

      “She wants to see how the child is doing.”

      “Sir?”

      Linc turned and saw Nanny Crispin, dressed and with her suitcase in her hand.

      “I’ll see you later, Charles,” he said, and ended the call.

      “I phoned for a taxi, Mr. Aldridge. Unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind?”

      Two meetings this morning. Two meetings this afternoon. Linc had always been a logical man. There was still time for a logical man to say he’d changed his mind.

      “I will reconsider my departure if you are prepared to acknowledge my authority.”

      Linc’s jaw tightened. “Send me the bill for the cab.”

      He waited as Nanny Crispin stalked from the room. Then he looked down at his niece.

      “Well, kid, it looks like it’s just you and me.”

      Jennifer gave a huge yawn. Her eyelids drooped. A second later, she was asleep.

      An excellent idea, Linc thought, but there wasn’t much point in going back to bed, not anymore.

      Okay, then. Time for a plan. When his housekeeper showed up, he’d ask her to do him a favor and watch the baby for the day. He’d go to his office, hold his meetings, contact the nanny agency—again. This time tomorrow he’d have nanny number six and life could return to whatever level of normalcy was possible.

      Carefully, he lowered the sleeping baby into the crib.

      “Waaaah!”

      Linc hoisted her up. She screamed. He rocked her. She roared. Finally, gingerly, he brought her against his chest. Hot drool fell against his naked flesh. The baby gave a shuddering sigh and promptly fell asleep.

      Linc waited. Then, very slowly, he sank into the straight-backed chair Nanny Crispin had vacated.

      The baby slept on.

      Half an hour later, he heard his housekeeper in the kitchen. He rose stiffly from a chair that had surely been designed by a sadist, lowered the baby inch by slow inch into her crib, hobbled to the shower and stepped gratefully under a blast of hot water.

      * * *

      Mrs. Hollowell couldn’t babysit.

      Her daughter was in the city for the day and she was taking the afternoon off to spend with her. Had Mr. Aldridge forgotten?

      Mr. Aldridge had. He’d come close to forgetting his own name. Three hours of sleep could do that to a man.

      He told her not to worry.

      At eight, he strode into his office. His PA’s eyes widened at the sight of Jennifer in his arms.

      “I fired the nanny,” he said brusquely. “Phone the agency, please. And take care of the kid for the next hour.”

      Another nod, but when he tried to hand the baby over those tiny lungs contracted and the baby began to scream. Linc rolled his eyes and reached for her. His PA started to grin but one glance put an end to that.

      Frowning, Linc plunked Jennifer against his shoulder again and vanished into his office.

      He took his eight-thirty meeting with Jennifer still plastered against him. His people pretended not to notice.

      By nine-thirty, she’d drifted off to sleep. After a quick survey of the Italian leather, smoked glass and cherrywood furnishings of his office, Linc sent his PA on another shopping expedition. In short order a thing that looked kind of like a tilted basket stood on the conference table along with diapers, baby bottles and formula.

      The basket thing was pink and padded. Linc put the baby into it and breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t object.

      His PA had phoned his European clients at the Waldorf. They were not in their rooms but, at Linc’s direction,

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