Fortune's Christmas Baby (Fortunes of Texas)

She had bed hair and no makeup, not that she wore much.

“That’s cool,” he said, nodding. “So how about lunch tomorrow?”

She frowned, looked pained, and he braced for the refusal, and perhaps a final goodbye. “Maybe.” Another glance back. “Can I call you?” She’d turned the knob, was pushing back inside the door.

“Of cour—”

Nolan’s happy agreement broke off as an unmistakable wail sounded behind Lizzie—from inside that apartment.

“Are you babysitting?” he asked. Earning money during her holiday?

“Yes!” The word came out, along with a complete change in her. “Yes, I am.” She smiled at him and opened the door more completely, not to invite him in, but just as if she had nothing to hide.

And with a flash, Carmela’s expression the other night when she’d faced him at the bar sprang to mind.

You messed her up, Forte.

Yet, when he’d seen her, other than being understandably wary and pissed at him, she hadn’t seemed messed up at all. She’d graduated. Had a job.

Suddenly the fear he’d seen in her eyes a couple of times took on all new significance.

Oh, God.

“Do you really have a bath running?” She seemed to have forgotten about it and water could be running over.

He hoped to God water was running over. And that she was babysitting.

“No.”

She’d lied. His senses honed, the rest of him was nebulous.

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“Who are you babysitting for?” His entire system just kind of paused. He felt nothing. Like he’d been put on ice for a future thaw.

The stricken look that came over her face could have been missed if he hadn’t been watching her so closely. “Carmela,” she said then, in that overcheery voice. “Didn’t she tell you? She has a baby.”

“Carmela.”

“Yes! She has a baby. Isn’t that great?”

“Is she home?”

“No! I told you, I’m babysitting. She’s working today. She’s an intern for an architectural firm.”

The baby let out another wail, obviously agitated, and Lizzie looked behind her.

“You better go tend to that,” Nolan said, still standing there.

She nodded, and as she closed the door, she said, “I’ll call you about tomor—” But Nolan, all Fortune now, stepped forward. He didn’t enter her home, but her words broke off as his foot kept the door from closing.

“I can wait,” he said.

“Nolan...”

The baby’s cries became more urgent, even to an untrained idiot like him.

He could be wrong.