Stroke of Fortune. Christine Rimmer

again, didn’t most babies start out with blue eyes?

      How old was this little girl? He wasn’t much at judging a baby’s age, but she could be two months or so, couldn’t she? That would make the timing right.

      With great care, he lowered the baby from his shoulder and cradled her in front of him. She yawned, stuck her fist in her mouth, then pulled it free and seemed to study him, her face a blank, yet somehow infinitely wise.

      She looked like…a baby. Small and plump, with a pushed-in nose and a tiny rosebud of a mouth. As for any resemblance—to him, or to Josie Lavender—damned if he could tell.

      Still, it was possible….

      Because he had not been careful that one forbidden night he’d spent with Josie. He’d screwed up royally that night, in more ways than one.

      But why? Why the hell would Josie do this? It wasn’t like her to choose this crazy, irresponsible way to let him know he was a father. Not like her at all.

      Yet, it did add up.

      He’d sent her away after that night, and he hadn’t seen her since. She’d left town, only returned a few weeks ago—or so he’d heard. Rumor had it her mother was sick again and Josie had come back to care for her.

      The rumors had never included anything about a baby, however.

      Flynt gently put Lena back on his shoulder. He made eye contact with Tyler—briefly. Then both men looked away. Spence was still staring at the note. Michael was frowning, his dark gaze moving from Spence to Tyler to Flynt and back to Spence again.

      Flynt thought they all seemed a little— What? Worried? Sheepish? Could they each, like him, be thinking that, just maybe, the note was meant for him?

      No damn way to tell. And whatever might be going through his friends’ minds, Flynt knew what he had to do.

      Somewhere in the trees near the cart path, the doves had started cooing again. A yellow bird hopped across the grass and took flight, vanishing into a big waxy-leaved magnolia at the edge of the fairway.

      Flynt laid it out for them. “Listen, I’m taking this baby home to the ranch until I can figure out what the hell is going on here.”

      The other three men looked at him as if he’d suddenly announced he planned to rob a bank and take a few innocent bystanders hostage.

      After a charged moment, Spence asked in a carefully offhand way, “What did you say, there, buddy?”

      So he said it again.

      Spence looked pained. “Seriously bad idea, with all kinds of negative legal ramifications.” Spence was a lawyer; as a matter of fact, he was the local D.A. “Sorry, man. No way you can just take that baby home with you.”

      Flynt curved a protective hand over Lena’s tiny, warm back. “Watch me.”

      “Stop,” Spence said. “Think.”

      “I am thinking,” Flynt told the lawyer. And he was. He was thinking of Josie Lavender. She could end up in big trouble for abandoning her baby like this—if Lena was her baby, which would mean she was also his baby, which meant he had every right to take her home.

      “Come on, Flynt,” Spence said. “You know we have to call the police and get someone out here from Child Protective Services ASAP to take custody.”

      “No need for any of that. I told you. I’m taking custody.”

      “And I told you—”

      “All right,” Flynt cut in before Spence could get rolling. “I’ll lay it right out for you. I have good reason to believe I’m the one that note was meant for, which means this baby is mine.”

      The doves had stopped their cooing. The silence echoed. Each of the men seemed to be looking anywhere but in each other’s eyes. A small two-engine plane buzzed by overhead, heading out of the small airstrip at Mission Ridge a few miles away.

      Tyler cleared his throat. Michael looked down at his shoes. Spence glanced up at the plane as it soared by overhead, then looked at Flynt—and then away again.

      Flynt grew impatient with all those shifting glances. “You guys have something to say, spit it out.”

      “Fine,” said Tyler. “Question.”

      “Shoot.”

      “How old do you think that baby is?”

      Michael answered that. “I’d guess eight weeks—give or take a week.”

      “So we’re talking about last summer, right? June or July? Maybe August?”

      Michael tipped his head to the side. “Conception, you mean?”

      Tyler nodded.

      “Yeah. I’d say that’s about right.”

      “Okay, then.” Tyler raked his black hair back from his forehead. “I suppose it’s possible that she could be mine.”

      Michael made a low sound in his throat. “Well, guess what? She could be mine, too—though I’m probably the least likely prospect of the four of us. Not a lot of people knew I would be here looking for a pickup game today.”

      Spence said, “Okay.”

      “Okay what?” prodded Tyler.

      “Okay, you got me. I’m no celibate. Count me in as potential father number four.”

      “And what about Luke?” Tyler reminded them. “He’s here at the ninth tee, too, every Sunday around eight—unless something important comes up. And today, he never called me to tell me he was taking a pass on the game.”

      “Didn’t call me, either,” said Spence.

      “All right,” Flynt admitted. “So he didn’t show up and he didn’t call.”

      “Which means the word is not out that he wouldn’t be here,” Tyler said. “And whoever left the baby could very well have assumed that Luke would be here. That means he’s in the running, too—at this point, anyway. The note could have been meant for him. It could have been intended for any one of us.”

      “Fine.” Flynt cradled Lena with the utmost care. “Great. Gotcha. It might be one of us. It might be Luke. It might be any number of guys. But the fact remains this baby goes home with me.”

      Spence looked at him for a very long time. Then he blew out a weary breath. “You’re not going to budge on this one, are you?”

      “You got it.”

      “Hell…”

      “Talk to me.”

      “All right. Would you agree to a compromise?”

      “That depends.”

      Spence laid it out. “I could pull a few strings. Maybe you could take that baby home with you. But there’s no way you’ll get out of an interview—make that interviews. Technically the club’s within the city limits, but the county’s been helping out lately, since the trouble in the Men’s Grill.”

      Trouble was putting it mildly. A few months back, a corrupt group of Mission Creek’s finest had blown the club’s Men’s Grill to smithereens in a failed attempt to kill off the man determined to expose them. That whole area of the club was now being rebuilt. And with so many of its former officers in jail, the Mission Creek P.D. was in something of a state of disarray. Lately the sheriff often ended up stepping in to take up the slack.

      “What are you saying, Spence? That I’ll have to talk to the sheriff?”

      “It’s pretty likely. And somebody from the MCPD, too. And Child Protective Services. T’s have got to be crossed, I’s will need dotting.”

      “The sheriff,” Flynt repeated. The Lone Star County sheriff was a Wainwright—Justin Wainwright,