Maverick Christmas Surprise. Brenda Harlen

buckled into the car seat started to squirm and squall.

      Wilder stepped back, an instinctive retreat.

      “Pick him up and bring him inside,” Max said.

      “Me?” Wilder was horrified by the very thought.

      With a sigh, his father reached down and grabbed the car seat with one hand and the enormous diaper bag with the other.

      “Hunter said there was a baby on the doorstep,” Avery said, entering the kitchen from the dining room at the same time that Wilder and Max came in from the porch.

      Then she spotted the carrier in Max’s hand and her expression softened. “Ohmygod—it is a baby.” Her gaze shifted to Wilder. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you’re a daddy?”

      “Because I’m not,” Wilder insisted. “There’s no way that kid’s mine.”

      “He’s in denial,” Genevieve, his brother Knox’s wife, said. Because apparently Hunter’s announcement had drawn everyone away from the table.

      “I think the baby’s hungry,” Lily said worriedly.

      “You just want to feed everyone,” her husband Xander teased.

      “He is gnawing on his fist,” Hunter noted. “And that’s a telltale sign of hunger.”

      As Hunter was the only one of his brothers with significant daddy experience, Wilder was willing to defer to his expertise. But having the problem identified didn’t give him the first clue about how to solve it.

      So when his brothers and their partners—and Wren—huddled around the baby, pushing Wilder and Max out of the way, Wilder didn’t object.

      “He’s definitely hungry,” Sarah said, as the baby’s unhappy cries turned to sobs.

      “Let’s see if there’s a bottle in the bag,” Merry suggested.

      There were, in fact, two bottles—one premixed and one empty, plus a can of powdered formula.

      Avery unbuckled the harness and lifted the infant out of his seat. His plaintive cries immediately ceased.

      Everyone seemed to be talking at once, speculating about the note as they fussed over the little guy. Wilder took advantage of their preoccupation to study the baby—who didn’t seem quite so intimidating now that he was quiet—and realized, a little uneasily, that the baby was staring back at him.

      Is it possible? he wondered. Can he be mine?

      “Where’d the baby come from?” Wren wanted to know.

      “Someone left him on the doorstep,” her dad explained.

      “Maybe he’s a gift from Santa,” she suggested.

      Hunter chuckled. “Unfortunately for Uncle Wilder, I don’t think the baby came with a gift receipt.”

      “He does look a lot like Wilder’s old baby photos,” Logan, the eldest Crawford brother, noted.

      “He does not,” Wilder denied, though without much conviction.

      But no one was paying any attention to him, anyway.

      Except his father, who sidled closer. “The note was signed with the letter ‘L,’” Max noted. “Does that jog your memory at all?”

      He automatically started to shake his head, because he didn’t want his memory jogged. And if he was in denial—well, he was quite happy to stay there. Because in denial, his life was easy and carefree and he didn’t have the responsibility of an infant who’d been dumped into his lap—or, to be more precise, on his doorstep.

      But somehow, in the midst of all the chaos going on around him, hazy memories slowly came into focus in Wilder’s mind. Memories of an early holiday party at Reunion Tower in Dallas, a few too many cocktails and a pretty—and very adventurous—blonde named Leighton Ames. And no, he wasn’t oblivious to the fact that her name started with the same letter that had been scrawled on the bottom of the note.

      They’d had a good time together, not just that night, but for several weeks afterward. And then, just as suddenly as their relationship had started, it ended.

      Her decision, Wilder remembered now.

      Just after the New Year, she’d abruptly called things off. He’d been a little disappointed at first, but there were plenty of other women in the world. And truthfully, he hadn’t thought of her again—until now.

      Was Leighton the baby’s mother?

      Was it possible that he was the father of this baby who’d been abandoned on the doorstep?

      But if she believed that to be true, why hadn’t she ever told him that she was pregnant?

      Well, he could probably guess the answer to that one. Either Leighton wasn’t sure about the baby’s paternity, or she didn’t trust him to step up.

      He would have, of course. He would have undoubtedly felt panicked and trapped, but he would have done the right thing. Not that she could have known that, because they hadn’t had the type of relationship where they talked about their future hopes and dreams. Their conversations had been more along the lines of “your place or mine?” And after that question had been answered, there had been even less talking.

      But if she hadn’t trusted him to step up, why would she dump the baby on him now?

      And how did she even know where to find him?

      He’d had no communication with her in almost a year. And the last time they were together, he didn’t know that he’d be moving to Rust Creek Falls, so it was unlikely she could have tracked him down here.

      Reassured by his own reasoning that it couldn’t have been Leighton who dropped the baby off—and conveniently ignoring the fact that his name was on the note—Wilder breathed a sigh of relief, confident that he was off the hook. But his father would require additional proof, so as the rest of the family went back into the dining room, he scrolled through the contacts in his phone to see if he still had her number.

      Amazingly, he did, and tapped it to initiate the call.

      “Hello?”

      The female voice that immediately answered sounded frantic.

      “Um...hi,” he said. “I’m trying to reach Leighton Ames.”

      “You and me both,” she replied, sounding as if she was fighting tears.

      He frowned at that. “Is this still her number?”

      “Yes, but she forgot her phone when she left.” The woman on the other end of the line sighed. “Or maybe she didn’t forget it.”

      Which didn’t make any sense to him, but all he said was: “Well, if you hear from her, can you ask her to call Wilder Crawford?”

      “Why?” She sounded both curious and wary. “What business do you have with my sister?”

      Sister?

      He couldn’t recall Leighton mentioning a sister, but surely a sister would know if Leighton had had a baby. And if this was Leighton’s baby, that meant the woman on the phone was the baby’s aunt.

      Before he could ask, she spoke again. “Wait a minute—did you say Wilder Crawford?”

      “I did,” he confirmed.

      “I found your name and a Montana address scrawled on a Post-it note in Leighton’s apartment,” she said. “I think she might be on her way to see you.”

      The knots in his stomach tightened. “She might have been here already...and left something.”

      He heard a sharp intake of breath. “What kind of something?”

      “A baby,” he admitted. “Did she—”

      “Cody!”