CHAPTER ONE

      TAYLOR PRYCE cursed under his breath as he watched the freckled kid on the swing. Didn’t public playgrounds have any supervision? If that kid didn’t slow down, he was going to crack his head open like a watermelon.

      Hooking his hands through the openings on the chainlink fence, Taylor fought the urge to yell at the boy, who was about five years old and, if he didn’t stop trying to turn himself upside down on that swing, probably wouldn’t live to be six.

      But Taylor managed to control himself. It wasn’t his problem. The kid’s mother was sitting just ten feet away, placidly gossiping with the other moms. She clearly wasn’t worried about how centrifugal force worked, or about concussions and busted skulls. Taylor turned around, unable to bear the gut-twisting suspense of watching the swing lurch higher and higher. It wasn’t, he repeated to himself, his problem.

      He adjusted the knot on his tie uncomfortably. God, it was going to be a hot day. Checking his watch, he cast a scowling gaze around the park, which was already crowded on this steamy June morning. Kids everywhere. Mothers and infants, fathers and sons, balls and Frisbees and jump ropes. Didn’t anyone have to work on a midweek morning anymore? Was everyone in Florida a tourist? And where the devil was McAllister?

      The kids on the playground behind him were really turning up the volume, squealing and hollering at one another like wild animals. Again he controlled the urge to turn around and check on the preschool daredevil. It was ridiculous. When had Taylor Pryce, thirty-year-old professional bachelor, developed this sudden fidgety paternal streak?

      But, of course, he knew when it had happened—he knew to the day, to the minute. It happened more than a year ago, when he had read an old love letter addressed to his dead brother, a letter that spoke of a baby on the way.

      Somehow, ever since that moment, while his lawyers combed the country, searching for that baby, Taylor’s subconscious had been training him, getting him ready to be a father.

      A father. He shut his eyes against the bright morning sun. God, that sounded strange. Until the letter had surfaced, he hadn’t even known he was an uncle. But the letter left no room for doubt. Jimmy, who died two years ago in some crazy, war-torn European country Taylor had hardly known existed, had left behind a child, a little boy, now almost two years old. A boy who should bear the Pryce name—but didn’t. A boy who had been... Taylor clenched his teeth. There was only one word for it. Stolen. His nephew had been stolen.

      Taylor jerked his tie down an inch and pried his top button loose. It must be a hundred degrees out here. Where the hell was Charlie?

      But just as Taylor pulled his keys out of his pocket, ready to head back to his car, Charlie McAllister’s pudgy, sweat-drenched face jogged into sight.

      “It’s about time,” Taylor said as Charlie plopped on the bench in front of him, wiping his gleaming face with his terry wristband. “Weren’t we supposed to meet at eight?”

      Charlie leaned his head back, dramatically out of breath. “Yeah, well, I don’t run as fast as I used to.” He mopped the sweat from his neck and arms. “And you don’t run at all; you lazy son of a gun. How the hell do you stay so fit?”

      Taylor just raised his eyebrows—they’d been through this before, and Charlie knew full well that it had something to do with the half-dozen doughnuts he’d scarfed down before his run this morning. Besides, they hadn’t met out here to discuss exercise programs. Propping one foot up on the bench beside his friend,