Page 12 of How to: Hide a Baby

Not daring to give the police time to come closer, she yanked open the tabs and taped them haphazardly across the plastic diaper. Praying the thing would stay in place for the next two minutes, she wrapped the blanket around the baby. Then she collapsed into Luc’s chair, lifted Tony to her shoulder and began to pat the baby’s back, as if a brisk burping commonly followed a diaper change.

“You’re engaged?” Officer Cable struggled to hide her disappointment. Hatcher shoved his hat to the back of his head and grinned.

Grace shot Luc a fulminating glare. “Yes,” she admitted, forcing out the lie. “I am.” Fortunately they didn’t ask the name of her fiancé. Lying to the police came low on her list of ambitions in life. Not that she hadn’t lied anyway, considering she wasn’t really engaged at all.

Cable gave a philosophical shrug. “I guess it’s a false alarm,” she said to her partner.

Hatcher wasn’t so accommodating. “We’ll be writing this up,” he informed them. Grace didn’t have a single doubt he suspected several vital details had been omitted from their story. “Next time I come here—and I will be back—I’ll be having words with the baby’s parents.”

“Of course,” Luc agreed.

He escorted the police officers to the elevators, leaving Grace and Tony behind. The minute they were gone, Grace returned the baby to the desk and, quickly and efficiently, repaired the droopy diaper. Tony fussed through the entire procedure, undoubtedly annoyed at having to suffer the same fate twice in less than five minutes.

Luc appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Changing the baby.”

“Again?”

“Yes, again. I was in such a hurry the first time, I didn’t get it right.”

“Why—”

She turned on him. “Do you realize what would have happened if Officer Cable came over while I was changing the baby?”

Amusement sparked in his eyes. “She would have seen how a baby gets changed?”

“She would have seen that Tony is actually Toni.”

“Come again?”

Grace picked up the baby and carried her to the couch. She fussed with the cushions to build a safe nest and then deposited the baby in the middle. Satisfied, she faced Luc. “I mean, Toni isn’t your nephew but your niece.”

“He’s what?”

Grace folded her arms across her chest.“She.Toni apparently stands for Antonia, not Antonio.”

“You’re kidding!” Luc grinned in amazement. “That’s wonderful. She’s the first female Salvatore in four generations. Or is it five?”

Grace struggled to control her temper. “You’re missing the point. If the police had discovered that you didn’t even know the sex of your brother’s child, the whole game would have been up. They’d have thrown us both in jail and taken the baby into custody.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have let them.”

“You couldn’t have prevented it,” she snapped. She couldn’t remember when she’d last been so angry. “How dare you?”

He stood, leaning against the doorframe, watching her intently. “How dare I what?”

“How dare you lie to them? I mean, when you finally cut loose with a fib, it’s a whopper. But did you have to start with the police?”

He shrugged. “It seemed appropriate at the time.”

“Great,” she grumbled. “So why involve me in your family problems?”

He grabbed her shoulders, hauling her close. “Our problems,” he reminded in a soft, deliberate voice. “We’re engaged. You even told the police that, remember?”

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I just agreed that I was engaged, not who I was engaged to.”

He cut her off. “That isn’t how they’ll recall the conversation.”

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