Free Baby Before Business (Silhouette Romance) by Susan Meier

Street Journal reporter, as she reached to take Sabrina from Ty. “That’s all I needed to tell you. If anybody has any questions for me, I’ll be in my office.”
    She walked to the foot of the conference table. Holding Sabrina over the baby seat, she gasped as if she’d forgotten something. “I’m sorry, Ty. I just assumed you would want me to take Sabrina with me to my office. Did you want to keep her here?”
    He said only, “No.”
    Madelyn set Sabrina in the baby carrier and buckled her in. His answer wasn’t a perfect response but it was good enough. “I’ll see you tonight, then.” She paused on her way out the door. “Oh, unless you’d like to have lunch with the baby?”
    This “no” was a little firmer and Madelyn got his message loud and clear that she was pushing things. Whatever. As long as Ty didn’t out-and-out yell, Madelyn knew she was making points with his staff.
    That night when Ty returned home, he methodically searched his house for Madelyn. He found neither nanny nor baby, but he did discover a mouthwatering pot roast in the oven. The scent made his stomach growl.
    “My parents shopped today and my mother will be cooking dinner every afternoon.”
    He spun away from the stove to see Madelyn standing in the doorway. Dressed in denim shorts and a pink T-shirt, she could have been a teenager. Even the baby on her hip didn’t make her look any older. Recognizing that nothing could make Madelyn look old enough for an affair with him should have stifled the immediate surge of attraction Ty felt for her. It didn’t. Instead of her youth and enthusiasm making him feel old and battered, somehow looking at her made him feel younger.
    Luckily, he knew better. “I didn’t hire your mother.”
    “No, you didn’t. But she’s not helping you. She’s helping me.”
    “I’m not paying her.”
    “She doesn’t care. She’s helping anyway.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I bit off more than I can chew and family helps out when trouble strikes.”
    “I know what family does. I raised two brothers, remember?”
    Madelyn looked at him oddly. “That’s right. You have two brothers.”
    He sighed. There was that age difference again. She wasn’t even old enough to remember his younger brother Cooper. “Not only have we talked about this before, but I would have thought you would have easily remembered since there are four bedrooms upstairs. One for my parents, and one each for three kids.”
    Madelyn gaped at him. “This was your family home?”
    “Why does that surprise you?”
    Madelyn sat on one of the kitchen chairs as if too shocked to stand, dropping the baby on her lap. “This explains a few things. Like why everybody thinks you’re a scrooge.”
    “Keeping my parents’ house makes me a scrooge?”
    “You’re a rich guy. You should have a mansion. Instead you live in a house you inherited.” She glanced around, as if taking inventory. “You probably never even remodeled it.”
    “It didn’t need to be remodeled and I don’t need a mansion. This house is good enough.”
    “Whatever. But I’ll need to know everything aboutyour second brother. I must have been too young to have met him when I lived here before.”
    Well, thanks for rubbing that in. “His name is Cooper. He graduated from college and struck out on his own. End of story.”
    Madelyn studied him for a few seconds, then she sighed. “If there’s more to it than that, if you had a big fight, if your brother bad-mouthed you, I need to know what happened.”
    “My brother did not bad-mouth me. If anything my brother left so he wouldn’t bad-mouth me.” He squeezed his eyes shut. Damn. If she didn’t get to him one way, she did another. “Stop poking your nose where it doesn’t belong and do your job.”
    “My nose belongs anywhere I sense there’s a problem that’s hurting your reputation. If your brother’s a problem, I need to know.”
    “My brother left town with a college education that gave him the