Shirley Jump - Their Unexpected Christmas Gift

“I’m not the baby’s mother—”

“All the more reason for me to call the cops, babynapper.”

“I’m her aunt. My sister, Sammie, is the irresponsible one.” She gave the baby a smile, but stayed a solid three feet away. “Ellie knows, doesn’t she? I’m your auntie Viv.”

Nick tucked his phone away. The two women were sisters, and the baby was this woman’s niece. Made sense, but still didn’t explain why the baby got left on the kitchen table. “Well, I want to see some ID.”

The woman smiled. Holy hell, she had a beautiful smile. Wide and with a slightly higher lift on one side than the other. There was a tiny gap between her front teeth that Nick might have found endearing under other circumstances. “An ID? For Ellie? I don’t think they hand out licenses to three-month-olds.”

Three months old. Barely a person, which caused a roar of protectiveness in Nick. “Not for her. For you. Prove you’re this kid’s aunt.”

“I can’t. I mean, it’s not like I run around with an ID saying I’ve got a niece. A niece I have only known about for twenty-four hours.” She sighed. “I checked in yesterday, and you saw me then. Mavis checked my license and took my credit card, and…” Her voice trailed off. She opened her purse, took out her wallet and cursed. “Damn it, Sammie. She must have taken my AmEx when I was in the shower.”

“You still have to pay for the room.” The words felt way too weak as soon as they left his mouth. This was his biggest threat? After Sammie or Viv—a nice name for a woman like her, as if it was short for vivacious—had left the baby behind?

“Of course I will.” She sighed, tucked her wallet away, then put out her hands again. “Give me the baby.”

So maybe she was the aunt. It all seemed plausible. Her sister was clearly an irresponsible parent. What assurance did he have that this woman would be a better caretaker? Viv looked like a responsible human, but then again…didn’t most people? Either way, she was still a stranger, and this kid wasn’t old enough to talk, so Nick felt like he had to do some kind of due diligence. “Well, I can’t let you leave with her, not until I know for sure that you’re her aunt and that you’re capable of taking decent care of her.”

Viv crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not going anywhere without Ellie.”

They were caught in a standoff. And Nick wasn’t going to budge. He looked down at the baby, at those big blue eyes that were so trusting and innocent, and knew he couldn’t let the kid down. He’d found her, after all, and like a lost puppy, he was tasked with making sure wherever she went from here was safe and warm and good. The kid— Ellie , he told himself—had started to grow on him, damn it, and until he could figure out the right thing to do—

He did the only thing he could think of. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”

Chapter Two

Vivian stood in a stranger’s kitchen, sitting beside Sammie’s biggest screw-up yet. Not Ellie, of course. The baby was precious and innocent, and smelled like bananas and everything that made Vivian uncomfortable.

If there were two people who shouldn’t be mothers, it was either of the Winthrop girls. Viv, whose entire life revolved around her career, and Sammie, her irresponsible younger sister who had dropped out of high school and run away more times than Viv could count. Sammie considered laws to be nothing more than a loose guideline to life, didn’t believe in self-control or apparently birth control, and had left her three-month-old on the kitchen table of the inn when Vivian drove to a meeting in Durham that afternoon, then told Vivian by text.

Stupidity of the highest degree.

Vivian shouldn’t be surprised. Sammie had never been what people would consider accountable. For anything. She wasn’t Vivian’s half sister—the daughter of boyfriend number seven or eight, who took Sammie to his mother’s house after they broke up, then brought her back and dropped her off when Sammie was nine and “too much of a handful.” From that first day when she’d found Sammie crying and alone, clutching a well-worn stuffed bear, Vivian had vowed to protect the girl.

The two of them had huddled in Vivian’s bed, clutching each other and made a solemn vow—they would never leave each other. Never. And when they grew up, they would be good moms to their children and pick good dads.

Vivian had tried her best to keep those promises for as long as she could. There had been no kids for her—there hadn’t even been any potential baby daddies—but she’d tried to stick close to Sammie, even as the two of them had ended up shuffled through the system like they were candy bars in a snack machine. She’d tried to steer Sammie toward college, or at least a trade, but Sammie had balked at any restrictions, and at eighteen, jetted off on her own, popping in once in a while to drop a bombshell—or, in this case, a practically brand-new baby—into Vivian’s lap.

There were days when Vivian was pretty sure she was from another planet. Unlike her mother and Sammie, Vivian had a degree, a career, an apartment and a predictable, responsible life. She’d made a conscious decision not to settle down, not to have kids and to stick to her comfort zone—the law. When she was fourteen, she’d made that crazy promise with Sammie to be a good mother, but at thirty, Vivian knew better. She wasn’t mother material. Not even close. So best to avoid all that hearth and home stuff and stick to her career. Except now here she was in a town she hadn’t lived in for at least fifteen years, with a baby she didn’t know, wondering why she kept cleaning up after Sammie.

This weekend was supposed to be all about bonding, about spending time with Sammie after more than a year since the last time they’d seen each other. Then Sammie had showed up at the inn with a baby in a basket, and said, “Surprise!” to Vivian, and everything had changed.

Vivian knew she should be resentful. But all she had to do was take one look at Ellie’s precious sweet face, and she knew why she’d dropped everything and broken the land-speed record this afternoon to rush back to Stone Gap when Sammie texted: I can’t handle it. I’m sorry. I left Ellie at the inn. Please take care of her. The little girl hadn’t done anything wrong except be born to a mother who wasn’t ready.

Sammie’s drop and disappear act had created a massive problem for Vivian, though. She couldn’t take care of a baby. Not just because she had neither a single mothering instinct nor any practical experience. Vivian had a demanding job. The law firm where she worked called her the “Results Queen” for good reason. There was a trial to prepare for and an apartment in Durham in the middle of renovations. Meanwhile, a baby required around the clock care. Vivian would have to hire a nanny and find a place that wasn’t swarming with construction workers for the nanny and Ellie to stay, which would mean one more stranger in Ellie’s short life.

“Want some coffee?”

She’d almost forgotten the man was there until he spoke. On an ordinary day, Viv would have noticed a man who looked like that. Tall, lean, dark-haired, with a smile that went on for days, and dark eyes the color of a good espresso. He’d been terribly protective of Ellie, which had frustrated Viv but also kind of endeared him to her. Even now, he hovered over her and the baby, clearly worried and not at all sure that Vivian could be trusted.

“I’d love some.” She’d had an emergency meeting this afternoon that she’d tried to get out of, because she’d promised Sammie a weekend together. So she’d zipped up to make a quick appearance at the office, and just as quickly turned around again when the text from her sister came in, and all hell broke loose. Now Viv was going to have to come up with a plan for Ellie between here and Monday morning. “And thanks for the dinner invitation, but I really need to get back on the road.”