Lost and Found (By Request 3's)

This collection of three of Thacker's novels were originally part of her Too Many Dads miniseries, featuring three single men who suddenly become fathers when a baby shows up on each man's doorstep. Reissue.

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Damn, but it felt good to be home again, Alec Roman thought as he steered his silver Lotus into the garage. Grabbing his briefcase and carry-on bag with one hand and his Mc-Donald's takeout sack with the other, he vaulted out of the driver's seat, strode purposefully across the cavernous garage, past the custom outfitted four-wheel-drive Jeep, the Mercedes, and the restored '63 Corvette and into the main house. He'd only been in Asia three weeks this time, but as usual, it had seemed like an eternity.

Whistling and grabbing a light beer from the refrigerator as he passed by, Alec took his dinner into the den. Not one to waste time, he went through his mail as he ate. Fortunately, there was almost nothing of a personal nature today. That suited Alec just fine. He didn't have time for a personal life anyway. These days, his life revolved around the computer firm his father had started. Since taking over the fledgling company fifteen years ago Alec had turned it into an international powerhouse that one day soon would compete with the likes of Apple and IBM.

Alec opened up his briefcase and began going over the contracts he had negotiated while in Japan. He had just become absorbed in the fine points when the doorbell rang. Frowning at the interruption, he pushed his chair back and strode to the front door of his Philadelphia mansion.

On the porch was a heart-shaped red wicker basket decorated with stenciled cupids and a huge white satin bow. For a moment, he couldn't think why anyone would have left such a thing on his porch; he wasn't exactly a hearts-and-flowers kind of guy. Then he recalled it was Valentine's Day. He frowned even more as he wondered which of his many female admirers the gift was from.

It seemed women would stop at nothing these days to pick themselves up a rich husband. He'd had women jump naked out of bushes at him, and others had asked him outright to marry them when they knew he didn't love them. Weekly, he received incredibly intimate and imaginative photographs in the mail. While Alec had nothing against sex, these fortune hunters, working with his well-known reputation as a playboy, all wrongly assumed he was so base and stupid as to be driven by his hormones. Little did they know, Alec couldn't be swayed by desire. Sex was great, but it had nothing to do with the professional goals he had set for himself.

Thankful that there seemed to be no one around to go with the holiday "gift basket," Alec bent to pick it up, then frowned as he got a closer look at the contents. "What the hell?" he murmured, perplexed.

Swathed in white wool blankets was a small baby with a cherubic face and big blue eyes. Seeing him, the baby let out a yowl loud enough to wake the dead. "Hey!" Alec yelled impatiently out into the night, as he straightened and searched for any sign of movement along the sweeping circular drive or immaculately manicured front lawn. "I don't know what you're thinking, leaving this kid here, but this isn't an orphanage! I don't know anything about babies. I can't possibly take care of this kid."

Unfortunately, there was no reply. Alec tried once more to get whomever had left the baby to reconsider, then gave up and decided to take the baby inside.

After a frustrating couple of moments in which Alec seemed to be all thumbs, he discovered that beneath the cumbersome white cashmere blanket the baby was wearing a light blue sleeper with embroidered bunnies on the front. There was a typewritten note taped to the sleeper, addressed simply, "To Andy's Father." It read, "Own up to your mistakes!"

His heart pounding frantically, Alec glanced from the baby to the note and back again. No, it couldn't be, he thought as he stared down at the baby with dark unruly hair so much like his own. Lots of people had dark curly hair. It didn't mean anything. This was just another scam, but it was one that was destined to fail. "I don't care what the note says, kid. You are not my baby!"

The door to Jade Kincaid's downtown Pittsburgh office swung open with a whoosh and a bang. She glanced up, startled, then paused, her heart in her throat. Her unexpected visitor was tall - at least six three or four - athletic, with raven black hair. He had a solid male build from head to toe. But even more interesting than the thirty-something man's sexy uptown appearance, however, was the darling little baby in his arms. Swaddled in a white cashmere bunting outfit and matching hat, the baby couldn't have been more than six or eight weeks old. He was sound asleep against the man's broad shoulder, and the expression of utter bliss on his cherubic face was completely at odds with the disgruntled look of the man carrying him.

"May I help you?"

The sexy stranger nodded at her gruffly by way of introduction, then continued as if he hadn't a second to waste. "Alec Roman. Where's your sister, Ms. Kincaid?"

Uh-oh. Here comes trouble.

"Where's yours?" Jade volleyed back lightly. Nothing beat buying a little time. Judging from the aggrieved look on Alec Roman's face, she was going to need it. What had Nicole done now? she wondered uncomfortably.

His sensual lips thinned. "I'm not kidding around here, Ms. Kincaid," he said quietly.

"Okay," Jade replied lightly, ignoring his increasingly uptight attitude, "we'll shelve the jokes for now. What do you want with Nicole, Mr. Roman?" As if I really want to know.

His expression became distressingly remote. "I'd prefer to discuss that with her."

"That's fine with me." Jade turned to her computer screen and went back to calculating calories. She didn't want to be involved in another of Nicole's romantic-liaisons-gone-wrong anyway.

Unfortunately, Alec Roman didn't show himself out, as she had half hoped he would when she resumed her work. Instead, he walked wordlessly to the conference table at the far side of the room and set the combination baby carrier/car seat he had brought in with him on the center of it. For a moment he just stared at the carrier. Finally, he took a deep breath and put one hand behind the baby's neck and head, the other underneath his bottom. Looking almost as if he didn't dare breathe while attempting such a tricky maneuver, he lowered the baby toward the carrier and finally slipped the sleeping infant into the padded seat.

The baby was situated nicely. Unfortunately, Alec Roman's hands were trapped between the baby and the carrier. For a moment, Jade thought he wouldn't be able to extricate his hands without waking the baby, but after several equally awkward, tenuous moves, and some more breath-holding, Alec Roman finally managed to get his hands out from beneath the baby and strap the baby in. All without waking him.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Lost and Found by Cathy Thacker Copyright © 2003 by Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.