Wanted: Father for Her Baby: Keeping Baby Secret / Five Brothers and a Baby / Expecting Brand's Baby

“If I do, she’ll come back to Maysville to be with me and she’s pregnant and—No, I’m not going to upset Elsa. There was a female Dundee agent named Kate Malone who worked on Elsa’s case with Frank. Maybe I could contact her.” Agitated and uncertain, Leenie paced the floor. “Oh, hell, maybe I’m complicating this much too much. Maybe I should just call Frank and tell him.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

“For lightning to strike, I guess. For some sign that calling him is the right thing to do.”

“If you feel you can’t call Frank, call this Kate Malone and ask for her help.”

“If she tells Frank that I have a child, he’ll know or at the very least suspect the baby is his. Maybe it’s better if I don’t involve Frank. I don’t think I can handle telling him. Not now. Not under these circumstances.”

Frank boarded the Dundee jet, Kate Malone at his side. This was a first for him—flying off on an assignment and not knowing where he was going. Kate had come to his apartment this morning and met the lovely flight attendant, Heather Gant, just as Heather was leaving. Although she hadn’t said anything, Kate had lifted a judgmental eyebrow at Frank as the woman passed her in the hall. Ending his months of celibacy was reason for celebration, so he’d been feeling pretty good when Kate showed up.

“Shave and take a shower,” Kate had told him. “We’re off on an assignment as soon as we can get to the airport.”

“No way, I’ve got vacation time coming.”

“It’s been canceled. You’re needed on this job.”

“Can’t another agent handle it? Why me?”

“I’ll fill you in on the plane,” she’d told him. “We have a child kidnapping and the family wants Dundee involved.”

“How does the FBI feel about us interfering?”

“Not thrilled. But our old friend Dante Moran is heading up the case, so he knows we won’t work at cross purposes with his people.”

So, he’d agreed to come along with Kate without putting up too much of a fuss. Although her reasons were apparently personal—and as a general rule none of his fellow agents nosed into other agents’ past lives—everyone at Dundee knew that Kate always took a keen interest in any case involving a kidnapped baby. Shortly before leaving her job as Dundee’s CEO, Ellen Denby had hired Kate, who was a former Atlanta P.D. officer, just as Ellen had been. And rumor was that they had worked together when Kate was a rookie.

Frank munched on a cheese danish, then washed it down with black coffee. If he hadn’t been such a sucker for a sob story—single mother, overwrought with fear, and an abducted two-month-old boy—he’d be on his way to Sawyer’s Hilton Head vacation retreat instead of being midair, flying off on an assignment that was sure to be pure hell on the nerves. Dealing with overwrought mamas wasn’t his speciality. He’d leave coddling the abducted kid’s mommy to Kate.

He swigged on the coffee, then set aside the dark blue mug with the gold Dundee emblem. “Exactly where are we going?”

“South,” Kate replied.

“Could you be more specific?”

“The deep South.”

“Why all the secrecy? It’s just a child abduction case, isn’t it? Nothing hush-hush.”

“Yes.”

An odd sensation hit him in the gut. Kate had rushed him around so much at his apartment, assuring him she’d give him all the info on their plane trip, that he hadn’t actually thought things through. But something didn’t feel right about this whole thing.

“We’re working on the case as partners,” he said. “That means I need to know everything you know.”

“Right.”

“So fill me in.”

“Okay, but I need to tell you things from the beginning. Or at least my beginning.”

He nodded.

“Daisy got in touch with me this morning as soon as she arrived at Dundee. A woman named Haley Wilson had phoned her and asked specifically for me. I returned Ms. Wilson’s call because she had told Daisy that we had a mutual acquaintance whose infant son had been kidnapped.”

“So this is personal for you?”

“In a way, but…”

Kate stared at him with a peculiar look of concern in her eyes, and Frank’s gut tightened painfully. “But what?”

“Ah, hell, Frank, there’s no easy way to say this.”

“So, say it, will you?”

“The mutual acquaintance is Dr. Lurleen Patton.”

Although he’d thought about her, dreamed about her, cursed her for nearly destroying his love life, no one had mentioned her name in eleven months.

“Leenie?”

“Yes, Leenie.”

It took him a full minute to wrap his mind around the idea that Leenie had an infant son. “Leenie has a baby?”

“A little boy.”

“How old?”

“Two months.”

He did the math quickly, but even before adding up eleven months since he’d been with Leenie, he’d known the truth. “The baby’s mine.”

“Yes.”

Then reality sucker punched him. “Leenie’s baby has been kidnapped?”

“Yesterday afternoon. Someone crashed their vehicle into the nanny’s car. The nanny was injured, but she’ll live. The woman who caused the wreck stole the baby from his car seat.”

“It is my baby, right?” How was it possible? he asked himself. Yes, he and Leenie had had sex. Repeatedly. But not once had he forgotten to use a condom.

“The lady who called me, this Haley Wilson, is Leenie’s best friend and she says the baby is definitely yours.”

“Why the hell didn’t she—God, Kate, I’m a father.”

She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder, then squeezed. “Ms. Wilson said that Leenie is trying very hard to be strong and brave, but she’s falling apart. She needs you.”

“She needs me now. What about when she first found out she was pregnant? Or when the baby was born?” Frank growled the questions, outrage bringing his blood to a boil.