This Baby Business. Heatherly Bell

or missed calls, and no news would always be good news in his book. Still, he wanted to check in with Cute Girl and make sure everything was cool with Grace. It was true that she slept on and off most of the day, but her crying had been enough to drive one nanny away. He stayed seated in the plane as his passengers walked across the tarmac toward the hangar.

      Carly answered on the fourth or fifth ring. “Hello?”

      “Hey. How’s it going? How’s my baby girl?”

      “Okay. She’s very sweet, but, um, she cries a lot. Does she do that with you?”

      “Yeah. What’s she doing right now?”

      “She’s taking a nap.”

      She did some of that during the day in between all the screaming. “Good. I had hoped she wouldn’t be too much trouble for you.”

      “Well...no, she’s fine. So cute.”

      Was that hesitancy in her voice? “Is it okay, then, if I stay until my shift is over?”

      “Of course. You take your time. I’ll be here.”

      Levi hung up, pretty proud of his baby girl converting Cute Stuck-Up Girl into a fan, and strode inside the hangar. He checked email from his phone.

      Another message from Sandy’s father, Frank, saying that, no, they couldn’t come to see Grace in California. Did he have any idea how expensive plane tickets were to people who were not pilots? Why didn’t he just fly himself to Atlanta and stay with them for a few weeks? They wanted to see Grace. He fired off another email explaining that he was a working man and couldn’t take that much time off.

      One thing appeared to be certain—they’d never be happy until he handed Grace over to them.

      He headed toward Magnum Aviation’s offices to check in with Cassie. The older woman pretty much ran the show around here, even if she kept threatening to retire. She’d worked for Stone’s late father and had stayed on the past few months to ease the transition. Levi guessed it was a consequence of this being a small, south county airport, but it did seem as though there were an awful lot of relatives working it.

      Emily Parker was Stone’s fiancée and one of their regular pilots. Sarah, Stone’s sister and part owner of the business, was a local artist who occasionally worked at the Short Stop Snack Shack. She also happened to be engaged to Matt Conner, one of Levi’s best buddies from the air force and also a pilot on staff. So if it seemed that there were about two degrees of separation from Stone and half of the people who worked for him, Levi would not be wrong. Basically, he, Jedd Taylor, the mechanic, and Cassie were the odd ones out. They should form a club.

      “Hello, darlin’,” Levi said as he approached Cassie.

      “Hi, cowboy,” Cassie said with a wink. “How’s that precious baby girl this morning?”

      He rested a hip against her desk. “It’s not the mornin’ that’s the problem. It’s the middle of the night.”

      “Ah, she’s still not sleeping through the night?”

      “Any advice for me?”

      “Well, it’s like that advice they give to parents about sibling rivalry. You know the best way to avoid it?”

      This was not his problem, and the way things were going with his love life, Grace would never have a chance at a sibling. “Tell me.”

      “Have one kid. So if you’d like your baby to sleep through the night? Fast-forward a few years.”

      “Aw, hell’s bells. Not helpful. And I’m going to need me a new sitter, too.”

      “What happened?” Emily asked as she walked out of Stone’s office.

      “Annie got married. She called me from Reno this morning.”

      Emily slapped a file on Cassie’s desk. “What? No heads-up or anything?”

      “What did you do with Grace?” Cassie asked, a little squeak in her voice.

      He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I left her with my next-door neighbor.”

      “Carly, I hope.” Cassie nodded.

      “Yeah. How’d you know?”

      “I know everything,” Cassie said.

      It didn’t surprise Levi much, since Cassie was pretty much the senior-citizen oracle of Fortune, California.

      “I was in a bind. Annie quit on me, no notice.” Levi relaxed and took a seat near Cassie’s desk. “I have a good sense about people. She’s obviously got a few rug rats of her own running around. Said she’s an expert.”

      “Um, not exactly,” Emily said, coming around to her desk.

      “What’s that supposed to mean? She lied to me?” His spine stiffened. If she’d lied, he’d have to get out of here now and go pick up Grace. He did not deal with liars. Period.

      “I doubt she lied to you. Her mother died last year and left the family a baby company, and Carly’s running the show now. So that’s probably what she meant by she’s an expert,” Cassie said.

      She’d never said she had children of her own. He’d just assumed, and she hadn’t corrected him. Not quite the same as lying, but he still didn’t like it. Maybe sleep deprivation had his senses off-kilter. Wouldn’t surprise him any.

      “This time I suggest you take a little more time finding a sitter.” Cassie frowned in his direction. “You need someone who has the time to do it. Someone like Carly, reliable and dependable, but with the extra time to give attention to a baby.”

      He shrugged. “Annie said I didn’t pay her enough, but I was paying all I could afford.”

      When the landlord had told him how much he wanted for rent, Levi had thought the man was kidding. Levi had made a joke about the Kardashians, which the landlord hadn’t found funny. Levi hadn’t thought it funny, either, once he’d realized the rent figure was actually considered a deal for the area. Back home in Lubbock, he’d have land at those prices. But he had steady work and benefits as a pilot in Fortune, and Stone had promised him a raise as soon as possible.

      “Sandy’s parents still want me to bring Grace back to Atlanta. I don’t want to give them any reason to think I can’t handle raising her and working.”

      “Millions of women and men do it every day. Why can’t you?” Emily said.

      “Exactly.”

      While he’d like to believe he had nothing to worry about with the Lanes, nothing in life was one hundred percent certain. Least of all when it involved people and their emotions. Not everyone had mastered mind over matter. Sandy’s parents, for one. They were somewhat hysterical people who were still operating from raw emotion. He’d tried to be understanding, given that they’d lost their daughter. But while he was sure they understood that Sandy’s death had nothing to do with him, he’d become a convenient scapegoat for their pain. He got an email from Frank Lane every day, and they were never kind.

      As far as Levi was concerned, he would raise Grace on his own. It didn’t matter where. At the moment it happened to be in the small town of Fortune, where he had a good job and a community of friends. But he’d go where he had to go in order to make ends meet. To create a life that worked. No need to get sentimental and emotional about one particular place when there were so many all over the country. If there was one thing he’d learned in the summers he’d spent with his grandfather on his ranch while his parents were traipsing all over the world, it was to rely on himself.

      For now, he’d stay in Fortune. It was what he told himself every time his boots got too itchy about the idea of settling down in one place for too long. The stability of a small town would be good for Grace. With the Sierra Nevada Mountains and snow just hours away, the beach a forty-five-minute drive and San Francisco only an hour away, both location and weather were