‘You wouldn’t like to get those kids away from my car?’ he said uneasily.

‘Watch your coffee,’ she reminded him. ‘Babies burn and she can reach it. You can move your car onto the kerb if you’re uncomfortable.’ She refused to be ruffled. ‘While it’s in my yard I can’t drag the children away from it.’

‘Then will you hold the baby while I shift it?’ he begged, and she shook her head.

‘No, Mr Grey.’ She wasn’t taking his baby while he went to move his car. Instinct told her she’d never see him again.

And he saw exactly what she was thinking. He stared over the table at her, anger flaring. ‘Look, I could have just dumped her and run,’ he snapped.

‘And you didn’t.’ She nodded, not warming to the man in the slightest. He might have a smile to knock a girl sideways, but he wasn’t coming across well at all. He was a darn sight more worried about his car than his baby. ‘That’s very noble of you.’

The censure in her tone was obvious, and his brows snapped together in anger.

‘You think I’m a rat.’

‘It’s not my job to think anything of the kind,’ she told him. ‘I’m paid to worry about children-not to make judgements about the people who are caring for them. Or not caring for them.’

‘Hey, she was dumped on me!’

‘Really?’ Her grey eyes widened in polite disbelief and she looked from man to baby and back again. ‘You know,’ she said softly, ‘she looks very like you.’

‘I’d imagine she does,’ Luke said bitterly. ‘Of all the stupid…’ His eyes flew to Wendy’s again, the anger still there. ‘But she’s not my daughter. I swear.’

‘You’re related though?’

‘I guess we are,’ Luke said slowly, and for the first time his attention faded from his precious car. ‘I’ve been thinking.’ He cast a dubious look at the little girl he was holding, as if he was still trying to figure out where she’d come from. She’d grabbed a teaspoon; she was banging it on the table, and enjoying the occupation immensely. ‘She…she’s my half-sister.’