And Baby Makes Six. Linda Markowiak

      “I’ll handle it. I am handling it.” His grip tightened on the tieback. “This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion. The kids didn’t mean anything. Crystal will adjust, she’ll see that the kids just play a little rough.”

      She heard the conviction in his voice, and she was puzzled. He had everything money could buy, he had three teenagers and a younger son, a life that might be easy materially but was hard in other ways. Surely he didn’t need a little girl.

      What drove him to insist on claiming Crystal? Despite herself, she couldn’t help admiring his unexpected commitment when it came to Crystal.

      He turned from the window and shrugged, as if he hadn’t been white-knuckled on that tieback after all. “If it would make you feel better, why don’t you stay a few days?”

      “If that would make me feel better.”

      “Yeah.” He put a hand back in his pocket, a casual pose again. “I don’t think this is a big deal. But you do, so why don’t you stay a few days and look us over? Maybe you’ll see we aren’t that bad.”

      Everything about this place was that bad. Worst of all was that she was so conscious of him as a man. Conscious in a way she didn’t remember feeling about Delane, or even about her first love as a teenager. That puzzled her, too. She’d always been attracted to the smoothly handsome type, the kind who knew how to dress and what wine to order. She had a feeling Mitch would be happiest with a beer.

      He gave her a grin and said, “After all, we’ve got a dog that smiles, so how could we be that bad?”

      He paused, but before she could speak, he added, “You could spend time with Crystal. I know she’d really like it if you stayed. I realize you have a job with a lot of responsibility, but maybe you could get a few days off, now that you’re up here.”

      She decided she didn’t want to tell him she was out of a job. “Sure. I could set things up. While I’m at it, if I could use your telephone, I could make reservations at the nearest hotel.”

      That would cut into her suddenly constricted budget, but Mitch was right; she should stay. Crystal had been traumatized, whether he wanted to admit it or not. The social worker was supposed to be submitting her report, but Jenny would just as soon see with her own eyes how things were really going in this household.

      Mitch said, “You could stay here.”

      “Here? At your house?”

      “Why not? It’s big enough. And there’s the whole guest wing, with Crystal using only one of the bedrooms.”

      Somehow, she couldn’t imagine staying in his house. And he certainly couldn’t want her here, toting up stray Froot Loops in order to be able to tell the judge what pigs the Oliver men were. What was his game?

      But he was looking right at her, straight and sincere, and she thought maybe it was no game, that he wanted her here for the reason he’d told her: for Crystal. She had to admit that staying here would be better for her finances. Besides, if she wanted to, she could tote up the Froot Loops, in case this custody issue wasn’t really settled after all.

      “Thank you. I’ll stay, perhaps for a week or so if that’s all right.”

      He nodded, one graceful nod from a handsome, athletic man. He let out another long breath, and she found herself doing the same, as an odd sort of prickle went up her spine.

      A quick vision formed, of him rumpled and sleepy-eyed, in his sweatpants and nothing else, goose bumps highlighting muscles that were toned and…sexy.

      Did he look that way every morning?

      As he’d said, the house was big…but perhaps not big enough.