Colton Family Showdown. Regan Black

chambray shirt, half-untucked, was wrinkled and damp in places from the baby’s tears or worse. Either he’d grown a beard since the last photo she’d seen or he hadn’t shaved in several days. Nothing in his bio had mentioned a wife or children. He had several siblings, though he didn’t look anything like a content uncle at the moment.

      When her gaze collided with his, she thought the man might burst into tears, too. The baby, a little boy she assumed based on the red airplanes on his sleeper, stared at her with big blue eyes in a wet red face. He hiccupped, then dropped his head to the cowboy’s shoulder and resumed his protest. Sympathy welled up within her for both of them.

      “Mr. Colton?” She pitched her voice just loud enough to be heard over the squalling.

      “Yes.”

      “I don’t mean to interrupt. I’m Kelsey Lauder. We had an interview—”

      He closed his eyes. His lips moved, in prayer or curse, she couldn’t know. Shifting the baby to his left arm, he offered her his right hand, but the baby’s displeasure continued. “I forgot all about it.” He winced as the baby arched and screeched louder still.

      “I’d invite you in, but the smart move is to come back another day. Can you email me with a few options?”

      Technically, yes. “Um...is your wife out?” she asked instead. The idea of hiking back to her car in the dark held zero appeal.

      “Not married. This is...” His voice trailed off as he gently rocked the baby in his arm in a fruitless attempt to settle him. “Well, there isn’t an easy explanation.”

      She’d come prepared to prove herself an asset to his horse breeding program. How to offer help with the baby without overstepping or offending? “I’ve had some experience with kids.” His dark eyebrows lifted. Skepticism or hope? “Lots of younger siblings,” she explained.

      “There were a couple of stints as a nanny on your résumé,” he recalled.

      “You’re right.” Babysitting and child care were the jobs she’d been most qualified for during her high school and college years. She moved back and invited him onto the porch. “It’s cooler out here,” she said.

      “Aren’t babies supposed to be kept warm?” he asked, stepping out.

      The squirming baby had lost a sock and if the blanket was meant to do anything, it was too twisted and bunched between them to be effective. “I think a few minutes in the cooler air might be more help to both of you,” she told him. “May I, Mr. Colton?” she asked, reaching for the baby.

      “Call me Fox,” he said, handing her the little boy.

      Kelsey crooned to the child as she cradled him in the crook of her elbow. She blotted the tears from his chubby cheeks and let him suck on her knuckle when he turned his head. “Aww. Are you hungry, little man?”

      The baby’s cries eased, subsiding to a snuffle and smaller whimpers.

      Fox’s eyes were wide. “How’d you do that?”

      “Practice.” She laughed as he chomped on her finger. “He might be teething, too. What’s his name?”

      “He doesn’t have one.” Fox pushed a hand through his hair, the other holding tightly to the baby’s blanket. He really did need someone to shape up that thick mass of hair. Was he growing the beard for winter, or too distracted to shave? “Well, he probably does, but whoever left him with me didn’t share it.”

      She had no idea what he was talking about and she’d learned it was easier to keep a babysitting job when she didn’t ask probing personal questions. “Do you have formula or any supplies?” She could tell by touch that a diaper change was in order once the baby cooled off a little.

      “Yes, there was formula in the bag.” He turned toward the open door. “It’s upstairs.”

      “Do you think we might talk about the consulting position while he eats?”

      “You’d do that?” The relief in his voice nearly made her laugh.

      “You’re not the first father I’ve rescued.”

      “I’m not the father at all,” he said sharply.

      Great, she’d offended him. “Pardon me, I—”

      “No, no. I was out of line.” He opened the front door and held it for her. “My brother’s wife had a baby yesterday, no, the day before.” He scratched his jawline. “I was up late with them. Then a full day of managing both his property and mine ended with finding this little guy on my doorstep. I’d like to say it’s a long story, but it isn’t. I was headed for bed and found him down here. I don’t know why anyone would leave him with me. I’m... I, um, I haven’t—”

      “You don’t need to explain anything.” She didn’t want the gory details about his love life, or to hear why someone thought he should suddenly be on dad duty.

      The baby had already dented the mystique of Fox Colton that she’d built up in her head. She’d turned him into the superhero of equine genetics and breeding. His reputation and success had been a big factor in how she’d planned her academic focus and mapped out her career.

      She paused just inside the door in what appeared to be a cross between a lobby and a foyer. The floor was stained cement and a coat rack and bench to her left offered room to stow barn boots and coats. Just beyond the bench, a wide glass door was etched with the company logo at the center, artistically flanked by horses in various stages of a gallop. A stairwell bumped against the right wall to a landing before continuing up the longer back wall of the barn to loft that overlooked the foyer. There was another door up there.

      “Everything he arrived with is upstairs in the house,” Fox said, starting up the stairs. “This way.”

      “You live here, too?” She followed him upstairs, the baby still mouthing her knuckle. The reprieve wouldn’t last much longer.

      “It was the perfect place for the office,” he said. “Easy access to the barns. I didn’t want to build something new when everything I needed was right here. Just a little reconfiguring, some patience and more elbow grease.” He looked around as if seeing it for the first time. “The house isn’t huge, but I can’t beat the commute.”

      “I guess not.”

      With the baby quieting down, she counted it a plus to make it into the house. Hurdle one, clear. She noted the gleam on the hardwood floors, a built-in shoe bench with cubbies above and below and hooks on one side. Had he built that himself?

      “Do you want me to take off my shoes?” They were dusty from her long hike across his property.

      He glanced down, frowned a little and shook his head. Was he that reluctant to hold the baby again?

      As she followed him out of the foyer, she noticed the wall that stretched the width of the barn was actually lined with upper and lower cabinets and a narrow countertop in warm, golden granite. She barely had time to appreciate the use of space as his home simply opened up in front of her.

      A full kitchen with more of that wonderful granite took up one wall, separated from the rest of the open living space by an island that could seat four people comfortably. She saw a dining table that might be an antique, or designed to look that way, and a seating area situated around a fireplace and a big-screen television.

      The decor was streamlined and masculine without being stark. Homey, she thought as scents of leather and coffee drifted through the air. “Hungry, you said?”

      On the kitchen counter near the sink, she saw a diaper bag, two bottles and a can of formula. Kelsey talked him through making a bottle while she changed the baby into a fresh diaper and clean clothes. To her, the infant didn’t look much like Fox, so it was easy enough to believe his claim that the child wasn’t his.

      His personal life wasn’t any of her business. All she wanted was the chance to work with