Stroke of Fortune. Christine Rimmer

she returned with his drink, she had another waitress with her, a dark-eyed, faintly exotic-looking blonde. Flynt suppressed a sigh. There were a few drawbacks to the job of club president. One was the way the staff seemed to think he was just dying to meet each and every one of them. He never had the heart to disillusion them, so he was always saying hi and shaking hands. He did his best to keep their names straight, but there were a lot of them. Luckily for him, the majority wore name tags.

      “Mr. Carson, this is Daisy Parker,” Ginger said. “She’s new. We’ve trained her in the Yellow Rose.” The Yellow Rose Café was the more casual of the other two restaurants at the club. “Now I’m showing her around the Men’s Grill.” At the club, the wait staff received training in all three of the club’s restaurants. That way they could work wherever Harvey needed them.

      “Daisy.” He frowned. Something about her was familiar, he just couldn’t put his finger on what—then again, maybe not. He shrugged. “Nice to meet you. Welcome to the Lone Star Country Club.”

      Daisy Parker made a few polite noises. Then Ginger set his club soda in front of him and the two waitresses left him in peace. Flynt sipped his gutless drink and wished it was a Chivas on the rocks and stared into the middle distance, thinking of Josie, wondering if she might have been telling the truth when she said that Lena wasn’t theirs.

      No. More likely, she was lying in bed in that rundown shack of her mother’s right about now, crying herself to sleep, eaten up by guilt over what she had done.

      Ginger and the new waitress had retreated to one of the staff stations and begun folding the white linen napkins, each monogrammed with the letters LSCC, that were used in the Men’s Grill and in the Empire Room, the club’s most expensive restaurant.

      The blonde said something, and Ginger laughed softly, not loud enough to disturb any of the men smoking their cigars and sipping their whiskeys nearby. Then she leaned close to Daisy and whispered something in her ear. Daisy nodded, murmured a low reply. Flynt wondered again if he’d met the blonde somewhere before.

      “Flynt,” said a voice at his shoulder. “How are you?” It was Judge Carl Bridges, stern-faced and sad-eyed as ever.

      “Carl.” The men shook hands.

      The judge indicated the empty chair opposite Flynt. “Mind if I join you?”

      Flynt did mind. He’d rather sit and brood over Josie Lavender and the baby that might or might not be his. But his mama didn’t bring him up to be outright rude. Besides, he owed the white-haired judge for getting him and his war-hero buddies out of a major jam in the past, owed him big time. If Carl Bridges didn’t want to drink alone, Flynt would provide the company he needed. Anytime. Anywhere. “Be my guest.”

      Carl took the chair and signaled for a waitress. Ginger sent over the new blonde, who greeted him politely and took his order of a bourbon and water on ice.

      “Well,” Carl said when the waitress left them. “Heard from Luke Callaghan lately? I’ve been trying to get a hold of him, but he’s not picking up the phone at the estate and his staff there is downright evasive about where the hell he could be.” Luke had more money than the Carsons and the Wainwrights combined. He owned a huge place out at nearby Lake Maria that everyone referred to as “the estate.” Carl chuckled. “I suppose he’s halfway around the world right now, playing baccarat at Monte Carlo, with a gorgeous woman hanging on his arm.”

      Flynt shrugged. He’d always known there was more to Luke than the playboy image he showed to the world. They’d gone to the Virginia Military Institute together, served in the Gulf conflict side by side and even helped their former commander ferret out a money-laundering ring run out of the MCPD a few months back—the ring responsible for the bombing of the Men’s Grill, as a matter of fact. There was no better man to have at your back in a tough situation.

      But he didn’t know where Luke was, and he told the judge as much. “All I know is he didn’t make the golf game this morning. If he’s in town, Luke always makes the game.”

      Daisy returned with Carl’s drink. He gave her a warm smile and a wink and then waited until she went back to folding napkins before he leaned across the table and pitched his voice low. “I heard your game this morning was interrupted at the ninth tee.”

      Flynt suppressed a groan. “Who told you that?”

      “What can I say? I have my sources, both at the MCPD and in the sheriff’s office.”

      Hell. He’d known this would happen. Once Spence Harrison dragged the police and social services into the situation, all hope of keeping the story quiet was gone. “I’m trying to keep it low-key, Carl.”

      “I understand. The child is at the ranch, right? Grace is looking after her?”

      “Is there anything you don’t know?”

      Carl chuckled again. “Very little, and that’s a fact.”

      What could he say? “Your sources have it right.”

      “You’re keeping her?”

      “If you mean, will she be staying at the ranch for a while, then yes. She will. Tomorrow we’ll start the search for a nanny.”

      “And then what?”

      “Damn it, Carl. You can be as nosy as a maiden aunt.”

      Carl raised his glass to Flynt in a quick salute. “You know how I am.” He took a sip. “I like to keep on top of what’s happening in my district.”

      “Yeah, well.” Flynt picked up his club soda and drank the rest of it. He set the glass down. “To put it to you straight, I don’t really know what’s happening. I’m taking a paternity test tomorrow. We’ll have to wait for the results.”

      “Ah,” said the judge. “Of course. I see…”

      By Tuesday morning, the story of the mystery baby abandoned on the golf course for three war heroes and a top heart surgeon to find was all over town. All the waitresses at the Mission Creek Café were talking about it.

      Josie had the early shift that day. When she went in the back room for her midmorning break, another waitress, Margie Dodd, signaled her over and showed her the ad in the Mission Creek Clarion.

      “See there.” Margie sucked on a cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke through her nose, tapping a finger at the place she wanted Josie to see. “They’re lookin’ for a nanny out at Carson Ranch. Gotta be for the mystery baby.”

      Josie knew she ought to just shake her head, shrug, mutter something meaningless and step outside for her break. But she did no such thing. She set down the Coke she’d poured for herself and she looked at the paper spread out on the table, at the words in bold print right where Margie’s long red fingernail was pointing. “Loving, experienced nanny sought. Live-in position. Excellent salary, full benefits. References required. Inquire at Carson Ranch.”

      Josie stared at that ad and couldn’t stop a certain image from flashing through her mind—the image of Flynt’s face, as he’d looked the other night. So bleak. So lonely. Staring at her through the darkness, demanding that she admit the abandoned baby was theirs.

      Her throat closed up, just the way it had when she first raised the blind and saw him there beyond the glass. Oh, she was a sucker for Flynt Carson, and that was a plain fact.

      He was exactly the kind of man she’d sworn she’d never let herself get near—tortured and troubled, with an alcohol problem. Truly, considering the daddy she’d had, and the things that had happened in her life so far, she ought to know better.

      She did know better.

      But sometimes a person’s heart just loved where it wanted to, no matter that her brain kept ordering it to stop.

      Margie let out a dry cackle of laughter. “The mystery baby is Flynt Carson’s, did you hear that?”

      Josie swallowed.