Once he sat looked into the nearest basket as he sat down, his eyes widened.   A baby.  Then he looked at the other basket expecting baby paraphilia to find another baby.  He had not really seen Heidi when she was tiny.  She had been about six months old when he was contacted about the mother's death (after holding the baby but soon thereafter) and that he was the father.  That had nearly, understandably, stopped the plans for his wedding with Cressida.  She had forgiven his poor behavior and lack of responsibility when she found out that he planned to raise the little girl as his ward.

He had not wanted her to grow up with a smudge on her reputation before she was even a year old.  The mother's parents were not able to raise the child as they were not healthy.  Lorn made sure the grandparents got updates about how Heidi is doing via letters.  The story they had planned together was that she was the daughter of a friend of his from the US who had died on the trip to visit him.  They had no family to speak of, so he had taken her as his own.

When Cressida heard what they had come up, she had decided to go ahead and marry him with the condition that she adopt Heidi as well.  Lorn's name had not been on the child's birth certificate, so going through the adoption process had been legit.  Now, she was a three-year-old sprite that had lost two mothers now.

Lorn gave the woman a glance and then looked back at the baskets.  "Looks like you have your hands full. How old are they?"  He asked with a smile.  The eyes looked a bit feverish, he thought, but it could be just being tired.  Some men might be uncomfortable around babies, but having been around Heidi the last few years, it was not an issue for Lorn.