Yuletide Baby Surprise

by Catherine Mann

  Right now, he wanted Mari.

  Although from the look of horror on her face, his half-joking come-on line hadn’t struck gold.

  She opened and closed her mouth twice, for once at a loss for words. Fine by him. He was cool with just soaking up the sight of her. He leaned back against the wet bar, taking in her long, elegant lines. Others might miss the fine-boned grace beneath the bulky clothes she wore, but he’d studied her often enough to catch the brush of every subtle curve. He could almost feel her, ached to peel her clothes away and taste every inch of her café-au-lait skin.

  Some of the heat must have shown on his face because she snapped out of her shock. “You have got to be joking. You can’t honestly believe I would ever make a move on you, much less one so incredibly blatant.”

  Damn, but her indignation was so sexy and yeah, even cute with the incongruity of that Santa hat perched on her head. He couldn’t stop himself from grinning.

  She stomped her foot. “Don’t you dare laugh at me.”

  He tapped his head lightly. “Nice hat.”

  Growling, she flung aside the hat and shrugged out of the hotel jacket. “Believe me, if I’d known you were in here, I wouldn’t have chosen this room to hide out.”

  “Hide out?” he said absently, half following her words.

  As she pulled her arms free of the jacket to review a rumpled black suit, the tug of her white business shirt against her breasts sent an unwelcome surge of arousal through him. He’d been fighting a damned inconvenient arousal around this woman for more than two years, ever since she’d stepped behind a podium in front of an auditorium full of people and proceeded to shoot holes in his work. She thought his computerized diagnostics tool was too simplistic. She’d accused him of taking the human element out of medicine. His jaw flexed, any urge to smile fading.

  If anyone was too impersonal, it was her. And, God, how he ached to rattle her composure, to see her tawny eyes go sleepy with all-consuming passion.

  Crap.

  He was five seconds away from an obvious erection. He reined himself in and faced the problem at hand—the woman—as a more likely reason for her arrival smoked through his brain. “Is this some sort of professional espionage?”

  “What in the hell are you talking about?” She fidgeted with the loose waistband on her tweedy skirt.

  Who would have thought tweed would turn him inside out? Yet he found himself fantasizing about pulling those practical clunky shoes off her feet. He would kiss his way up under her skirt, discover the silken inside of her calf…

  He cleared his throat and brought his focus up to her heart-shaped face. “Playing dumb does not suit you.” He knew full well she had a genius IQ. “But if that’s the way you want this to roll, then okay. Were you hoping to obtain insider information on the latest upgrade to my computerized diagnostics tool?”

  “Not likely.” She smoothed a hand over her swept-back hair. “I never would have pegged you as the conspiracy theorist sort since you’re a man of science. Sort of.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “So you’re not here for information, Mari.” If he’d wanted distance he should have called her Dr. Mandara, but too late to go back. “Then why are you sneaking into my suite?”

  Sighing, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine. I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to laugh.”

  “Scout’s honor.” He crossed his heart.

  “You were a Boy Scout? Figures.”

  Before he’d been sent to a military reform school, but he didn’t like to talk about those days and the things he’d done. Things he could never atone for even if he opened free clinics on every continent, every year for the rest of his life. But he kept trying, by saving one life at a time, to make up for the past.

  “You were going to tell me how you ended up in my suite.”

  She glanced at the door, then sat gingerly on the arm of the leather sofa. “Royal watchers have been trailing me with their phones to take photos and videos for their five seconds of fame. A group of them followed me out the back exit after my last seminar.”

  Protective instincts flamed to life inside him. “Doesn’t your father provide you with bodyguards?”

  “I choose not to use them,” she said without explanation, her chin tipping regally in a way that shouted the subject wasn’t open for discussion. “My attempt to slip away wasn’t going well. The lady pushing this room-service cart was distracted by a phone call. I saw my chance to go incognito and I took it.”

  The thought of her alone out there had him biting back the urge to chew out someone—namely her father. So what if she rejected guards? Her dad should have insisted.

  Mari continued, “I know I should probably just grin for the camera and move on, but the images they capture aren’t…professional. I have serious work to do, a reputation to maintain.” She tipped her head back, her mouth pursed tight in frustration for a telling moment before she rambled on with a weary shake of her head. “I didn’t sign on for this.”

  Her exhaustion pulled at him, made him want to rest his hands on her drooping shoulders and ease those tense muscles. Except she would likely clobber him with the silver chafing dish on the serving cart. He opted for the surefire way to take her mind off the stress.

  Shoving away from the bar, he strode past the cart toward her again. “Poor little rich princess.”

  Mari’s cat eyes narrowed. “You’re not very nice.”

  “You’re the only one who seems to think so.” He stopped twelve inches shy of touching her.

  Slowly, she stood, facing him. “Well, pardon me for not being a member of your fan club.”

  “You genuinely didn’t know this was my room?” he asked again, even though he could see the truth in her eyes.

  “No. I didn’t.” She shook her head, the heartbeat throbbing faster in her elegant neck. “The cart only had your room number. Not your name.”

  “If you’d realized ahead of time that this was my room, my meal—” he scooped up the hotel jacket and Santa hat “—would you have surrendered yourself to the camera-toting brigade out there rather than ask me for help?”

  Her lips quivered with the first hint of a smile. “I guess we’ll never know the answer to that, will we?” She tugged at the jacket. “Enjoy your supper.”

  He didn’t let go. “There’s plenty of food here. You could join me, hide out for a while longer.”

  “Did you just invite me to dinner?” The light of humor in her eyes animated her face until the air damn near crackled between them. “Or are you secretly trying to poison me?”

  She nibbled her bottom lip and he could have sworn she swayed toward him. If he hooked a finger in the vee of her shirt and pulled, she would be in his arms.

  Instead, he simply reached out and skimmed back the stray lock of sleek black hair curving just under her chin. “Mari, there are a lot of things I would like to do to you, but I can assure you that poisoning you is nowhere on that list.”

  Confusion chased across her face, but she wasn’t running from the room or laughing. In fact, he could swear he saw reluctant interest. Enough to make him wonder what might happen if…

  A whimper snapped him out of his passion fog.

  The sound wasn’t coming from Mari. She looked over his shoulder and he turned toward the sound. The cry swelled louder, into a full-out wail, swelling from across the room.

  From under the room-service cart?

  He glanced at Mari. “What the hell?”

  She shook her head, her hands up. “Don’t look at me.”

  He charged across the room, sweeping aside the linen cloth covering the service cart to reveal a squalling infant.

  Two

  The infant’s wail echoed in the hotel suite. Shock resounded just as loudly inside of Mari as she stared at the screami
ng baby in a plastic carrier wedged inside the room-service trolley. No wonder the cart had felt heavier than normal. If only she’d investigated she might have found the baby right away. Her brain had been tapping her with the logic that something was off, and she’d been too caught up in her own selfish fears about a few photos to notice.

  To think that poor little one had been under there all this time. So tiny. So defenseless. The child, maybe two or three months old, wore a diaper and a plain white T-shirt, a green blanket tangled around its tiny, kicking feet.

  Mari swallowed hard, her brain not making connections as she was too dumbstruck to think. “Oh, my God, is that a baby?”

  “It’s not a puppy.” Rowan washed his hands at the wet-bar sink then knelt beside the lower rack holding the infant seat. He visibly went into doctor mode as he checked the squalling tyke over, sliding his hands under and scooping the child up in his large, confident hands. Chubby little mocha-brown arms and legs flailed before the baby settled against Rowan’s chest with a hiccupping sigh.

  “What in the world is it doing under there?” She stepped away, clearing a path for him to walk over to the sofa.

  “I’m not the one who brought the room service in,” he countered offhandedly, sliding a finger into the baby’s tiny bow mouth. Checking for a cleft palate perhaps?

  “Well, I didn’t put the baby there.”

  A boy or girl? She couldn’t tell. The wriggling bundle wore no distinguishing pink or blue. There wasn’t even a hair bow in the cap of black curls.

  Rowan elbowed aside an animal-print throw pillow and sat on the leather couch, resting the baby on his knees while he continued assessing.

  She tucked her hands behind her back. “Is it okay? He or she?”

  “Her,” he said, closing the cloth diaper. “She’s a girl, approximately three months old, but that’s just a guess.”

  “We should call the authorities. What if whoever abandoned her is still in the building?” Unlikely given how long she’d hung out in here flirting with Rowan. “There was a woman walking away from the cart earlier. I assumed she was just taking a cell phone call, but maybe that was the baby’s mother?”

  “Definitely something to investigate. Hopefully there will be security footage of her. You need to think through what you’re going to tell the authorities, review every detail in your mind while it’s fresh.” He sounded more like a detective than a doctor. “Did you see anyone else around the cart before you took it?”

  “Are you blaming this on me?”

  “Of course not.”

  Still, she couldn’t help but feel guilty. “What if this is my fault for taking that cart? Maybe the baby wasn’t abandoned at all. What if some mother was just trying to bring her child to work? She must be frantic looking for her daughter.”

  “Or frantic she’s going to be in trouble,” he replied dryly.

  “Or he. The parent could be a father.” She reached for the phone on the marble bar. “I really need to ring the front desk now.”

  “Before you call, could you pass over her seat? It may hold some clues to her family. Or at least some supplies to take care of her while we settle this.”

  “Sure, hold on.”

  She eased the battered plastic seat from under the cart, winging a quick prayer of thankfulness that the child hadn’t come to some harm out there alone in the hall. The thought that someone would so recklessly care for a precious life made her grind her teeth in frustration. She set the gray carrier beside Rowan on the sofa, the green blanket trailing off the side.

  Finally, she could call for help. Without taking her eyes off Rowan and the baby, she dialed the front desk.

  The phone rang four times before someone picked up. “Could you hold, please? Thank you,” a harried-sounding hotel operator said without giving Mari a chance to shout “No!” The line went straight to Christmas carols, “O Holy Night” lulling in her ear.

  Sighing, she sagged a hip against the garland-draped wet bar. “They put me on hold.”

  Rowan glanced up, his pure blue eyes darkened with an answering frustration. “Whoever decided to schedule a conference at this time of year needs to have his head examined. The hotel was already jam-packed with holiday tourists, now conventioneers, too. Insane.”

  “For once, you and I agree on something one hundred percent.” The music on the phone transitioned to “The Little Drummer Boy” as she watched Rowan cradle the infant in a way that made him even more handsome. Unwilling to get distracted by traveling down that mental path again, she shifted to look out the window at the scenic view. Multicolored lights blinked from the sailboats and ferries.

  The Christmas spirit was definitely in full swing on the resort island. Back on the mainland, her father’s country included more of a blend of religions than many realized. Christmas wasn’t as elaborate as in the States, but still celebrated. Cape Verde had an especially deep-rooted Christmas tradition, having been originally settled by the Portuguese.

  Since moving out on her own, she’d been more than happy to downplay the holiday mayhem personally, but she couldn’t ignore the importance, the message of hope that should come this time of year. That a parent could abandon a child at the holidays seemed somehow especially tragic.

  Her arms suddenly ached to scoop up the baby, but she had no experience and heaven forbid she did something wrong. The little girl was clearly in better hands with Rowan.

  He cursed softly and she turned back to face him. He held the baby in the crook of his arm while he searched the infant seat with the other.

  “What?” she asked, covering the phone’s mouthpiece. “Is something the matter with the baby?”

  “No, something’s the matter with the parents. You can stop worrying that some mom or dad brought their baby to work.” He held up a slip of paper, baby cradled in the other arm. “I found this note tucked under the liner in the carrier.”

  He held up a piece of hotel stationary.

  Mari rushed to sit beside him on the sofa, phone still in hand. “What does it say?”

  “The baby’s mother intended for her to be in this cart, in my room.” He passed the note. “Read this.”

  Dr. Boothe, you are known for your charity and generosity. Please look over my baby girl, Issa. My husband died in a border battle and I cannot give Issa what she needs. Tell her I love her and will think of her always.

  Mari reread the note in disbelief, barely able to process that someone could give away their child so easily, with no guarantees that she would be safe. “Do people dump babies on your doorstep on a regular basis?”

  “It’s happened a couple of times at my clinic, but never anything remotely like this.” He held out the baby toward her. “Take Issa. I have some contacts I can reach out to with extra resources. They can look into this while we’re waiting for the damn hotel operator to take you off hold.”

  Mari stepped back sharply. “I don’t have much experience with babies. No experience actually, other than kissing them on the forehead in crowds during photo ops.”

  “Didn’t you ever babysit in high school?” He cradled the infant in one arm while fishing out his cell phone with his other hand. “Or do princesses not babysit?”

  “I skipped secondary education and went straight to college.” As a result, her social skills sucked as much as her fashion sense, but that had never mattered much. Until now. Mari smoothed a hand down her wrinkled, baggy skirt. “Looks to me like you have Issa and your phone well in hand.”

  Competently—enticingly so. No wonder he’d been featured in magazines around the globe as one of the world’s most eligible bachelors. Intellectually, she’d understood he was an attractive—albeit irritating—man. But until this moment, she hadn’t comprehended the full impact of his appeal.

  Her body flamed to life, her senses homing in on this moment, on hi
m. Rowan. The last man on the planet she should be swept away by or attracted to.

  This must be some sort of primal, hormonal thing. Her ticking biological clock was playing tricks on her mind because he held a baby. She could have felt this way about any man.

  Right?

  God, she hoped so. Because she couldn’t wrap her brain around the notion that she could be this drawn to a man so totally wrong for her.

  The music ended on the phone a second before the operator returned. “May I help you?”

  Heaven yes, she wanted to shout. She needed Issa safe and settled. She also needed to put space between herself and the increasingly intriguing man in front of her.

  She couldn’t get out of this suite soon enough.

  “Yes, you can help. There’s been a baby abandoned just outside Suite 5A, the room of Dr. Rowan Boothe.”

  * * *

  Rowan didn’t foresee a speedy conclusion to the baby mystery. Not tonight, anyway. The kind of person who threw away their child and trusted her to a man based solely on his professional reputation was probably long gone by now.

  Walking the floor with the infant, he patted her back for a burp after the bottle she’d downed. Mari was reading a formula can, her forehead furrowed, her shirt half-untucked. Fresh baby supplies had been sent up by the hotel’s concierge since Rowan didn’t trust anything in the diaper bag.

  There were no reports from hotel security or authorities of a missing child that matched this baby’s description. So far security hadn’t found any helpful footage, just images of a woman’s back as she walked away from the cart as Mari stepped up to take it. Mari had called the police next, but they hadn’t seemed to be in any hurry since no one’s life was in danger and even the fact that a princess was involved didn’t have them moving faster. Delays like this only made it more probable the press would grab hold of information about the situation. He needed to keep this under control. His connections could help him with that, but they couldn’t fix the entire system here.