Книга - Million Dollar Baby

Million Dollar Baby
Lisa Jackson

Литагент HarperCollins EUR


#1 New York Times best-selling author Lisa Jackson brings you a reader-favourite story of love, compassion and redemption.When Chandra Hill is awakened by a cry in the night, she is shocked to discover an abandoned new-born in her barn. She takes him to the hospital, but as a former paediatrician her instincts have already kicked in. Before she knows it, she's discussing options for the baby with the emergency room doctor, Dallas O'Rourke.Dallas finds himself bonding instantly with the baby—and with the intriguing woman who brought him in. And when the baby's adoption becomes national news,Dallas realises that what he really wants is a life with them both.










#1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jackson brings you a reader-favorite story of love, compassion and redemption.

When Chandra Hill is awakened by a cry in the night, she is shocked to discover an abandoned newborn in her barn. She takes him to the hospital, but as a former pediatrician her instincts have already kicked in. Before she knows it, she’s discussing options for the baby with the emergency room doctor, Dallas O’Rourke.

Dallas finds himself bonding instantly with the baby—and with the intriguing woman who brought him in. And when the baby’s adoption becomes national news, Dallas realizes that what he really wants is a life with them both.


Praise for #1 New York Times bestselling author






“[B]estselling Jackson cranks up the suspense to almost unbearable heights in her latest tautly written thriller.”

—Booklist on Malice

“When it comes to providing gritty and sexy stories, Ms. Jackson certainly knows how to deliver.”

—RT Book Reviews on Unspoken

“Provocative prose, an irresistible plot and finely crafted characters make up Jackson’s latest contemporary sizzler.”

—Publishers Weekly on Wishes

“Lisa Jackson takes my breath away.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller


Million Dollar Baby

Lisa Jackson






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CONTENTS


Cover (#ua821a99b-e6ea-580f-b554-0cda61d091f4)

Back Cover Text (#ud26ca6a6-eb0f-562a-967a-5f8ff1d393f6)

Praise (#u83bc2725-804d-54bd-b42a-2769e4684e1f)

Title Page (#ub311a29f-6d01-509d-9a4d-41194de49df4)

CHAPTER ONE (#u795908a3-5d51-557e-afdc-a3b956379620)

CHAPTER TWO (#uba979f94-effc-5fa7-9c98-64a918413717)

CHAPTER THREE (#ud41cf427-1868-54cc-b4f4-2c875529e60e)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u811ea394-d991-5812-a881-ecdb902beb0d)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_5178a52f-1cf9-523a-9cd3-0c5b9dcb0a55)


THE DOG STUCK his wet nose in Chandra’s face. He whined and nuzzled her jaw.

“Go ’way,” Chandra grumbled, squeezing her eyes shut. She burrowed deeper into the pillows, hoping Sam would get the message, but Sam didn’t give up. The persistent retriever clawed at her covers and barked loudly enough to wake the neighbors ten miles down the road. “Knock it off, Sam!” Irritated, she yanked a pillow over her head and rolled over. But she was awake now and couldn’t ignore Sam’s whining and pacing along the rail of the loft; the metal licenses hanging from his collar rattled noisily.

When she didn’t respond, he snorted loudly and padded quickly down the stairs, whereupon he barked again.

So he had to go out. “You should’ve thought of this earlier.” Reluctantly, Chandra pulled herself into a sitting position and shoved a handful of hair from her eyes. She shivered a little and, yawning, rubbed her arms.

Sam barked excitedly, and she considered letting him out and leaving him on the porch. As Indian summer faded into autumn, the nighttime temperature in the Rocky Mountain foothills had begun to dip toward freezing. “It would serve you right,” she said ungraciously as she glanced at the clock on the table near the bed. One forty-three. Still plenty of time to fall asleep again before the alarm clock was set to go off.

Grumbling under her breath, she had leaned over and was reaching under the bed, feeling around for her boots, when she heard it: the sound that had filtered through her dreams and pierced her subconscious over Sam’s insistent barking. The noise, a distant wail, reminded Chandra of the hungry cry of a baby or the noise a Siamese cat would make if it were in pain. Chandra’s skin crawled.

You’re imagining things! she told herself. She was miles from civilization….

The cry, distant and muffled, broke the silence again. Chandra sat bolt upright in bed. Her heart knocked crazily. Clutching the quilt around her shoulders, she swung her feet to the floor and crossed the worn wood planks to the railing, where she could look down and survey the first floor of the cabin.

Moonlight streamed through the windows, and a few embers glowed behind the glass doors of the wood stove. Otherwise the cabin was cloaked in the darkness that night brought to this isolated stretch of woods.

She could barely see Sam. His whiskey-colored coat blended into the shadows as he paced beside the door, alternately whining and growling as he scratched on the threshold.

“So now you’re Lassie, is that it?” she asked. “Telling me that there’s something out there.”

He yelped back.

“This is nuts. Hush, Sam,” Chandra commanded, her skin prickling as her eyes adjusted to the shadows. Straining to listen, she reached for the pair of old jeans she’d tossed carelessly across the foot of the bed hours earlier. The familiar noises in this little cabin in the foothills hadn’t changed. From the ticking of the grandfather clock to the murmur of the wind rushing through the boughs of the pine and aspen that surrounded the cabin, the sounds of the Colorado night were as comforting as they had always been. The wind chimes on her porch tinkled softly, and the leaky faucet in the bathroom dripped a steady tattoo.

The cry came again. A chill raced up Chandra’s spine. Was it a baby? No way. Not up here in these steep hills. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Most likely some small beast had been wounded and was in pain—a cat who had strayed or a wounded raccoon…maybe even a bear cub separated from its mother….

Snarling, Sam started back up the stairs toward her.

“Hold on, hold on.” Chandra yanked on her jeans and stuffed the end of her flannel nightshirt into the waistband. She slid her feet into wool socks and, after another quick search under the bed, crammed her feet into her boots.

Her father’s old .22 was tucked into a corner of the closet. She hesitated, grabbed her down jacket, then curled her fingers over the barrel of the Winchester. Better safe than sorry. Maybe the beast was too far gone and she’d have to put it out of its misery. Maybe it was rabid.

And maybe it’s not a beast at all.

By the time she and the retriever crept back downstairs, Sam was nearly out of his mind, barking and growling, ready to take on the world. “Slow down,” Chandra ordered, reaching into the pocket of her jacket, feeling the smooth shells for her .22. She slipped two cartridges into the rifle’s cold chamber.

“Okay, now don’t do anything stupid,” she said to the dog. She considered leaving Sam in the house, for fear that he might be hurt by the wounded, desperate beast, but then again, she felt better with the old dog by her side. If she did stumble upon a lost bear cub, the mother might not be far away or in the best of moods.

As she opened the door, a blast of cool mountain air rushed into the room, billowing curtains and causing the fire to glow brightly. The night wind seemed to have forgotten the warm breath of summer that still lingered during the days.

Clouds drifted across the moon like solitary ghosts, casting shadows on the darkened landscape. The crying hadn’t let up. Punctuated by gasps or hiccups, it grew louder as Chandra marched across the gravel and ignored the fear that stiffened her spine. She headed straight for the barn, to the source of the noise.

The wailing sounded human. But that was insane. She hadn’t heard a baby cry in years…and there were no children for miles. Her dreams must have confused her…and yet…

She opened the latch, slid the barn door open and followed an anxious Sam inside. A horse whinnied, and the smells of dust and saddle soap and dry hay filled her nostrils. Snapping on the lights with one hand, she clutched the barrel of the gun with the other.

The horses were nervous. They rustled the straw on the floor of their boxes, snorting and pawing, tossing their dark heads and rolling their eyes as if they, too, were spooked. “It’s all right,” Chandra told them, though she knew that something in the barn was very, very wrong. The crying became louder and fiercer.

Her throat dry, her rifle held ready, Chandra walked carefully to the end stall, the only empty box. “What the devil…?” Chandra whispered as she spied a shock of black fur—no, hair—a baby’s downy cap of hair! Chandra’s heart nearly stopped, but she flew into action, laying down the gun, unlatching the stall and kneeling beside the small, swaddled bundle of newborn infant.

The tiny child was bound in a ratty yellow blanket and covered by a tattered army jacket. “Oh, God,” Chandra whispered, picking up the small bundle only to have the piercing screams resume at a higher pitch. Blue-black eyes blinked at the harsh overhead lights, and the infant’s little face was contorted and red from crying. One little fist had been freed from the blankets and now waved in agitation near its cheek. “Oh, God, oh, God.” The baby, all lungs from the sound of it, squealed loudly.

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t cry,” Chandra murmured, plucking pieces of straw from the child’s hair and holding him close to her breast, trying to be soothing. She scanned the rest of the barn, searching for the mother. “Hey—is anyone here?” Her sweat seemed to freeze on her skin as she listened for a response. “Hey? Anyone? Please, answer me!”

The only noises in the barn were the horses snorting, the baby hiccupping and crying, Sam’s intermittent growls and Chandra’s own thudding heart. “Shh…shh…” she said, as if the tiny infant could understand her. “We’ll fix you up.”

A mouse scurried across the floor, slipping into a crack in the barn wall, and Chandra, already nervous, had to bite back her own scream. “Come on,” she whispered to the baby, as she realized the child had probably been abandoned. But who would leave this precious baby all alone? The infant howled more loudly as Chandra tucked it close to her. “Oh, baby, baby,” Chandra murmured. Maternal emotions spurred her to kiss the downy little head while she secretly cursed the woman who had left this beautiful child alone and forsaken. “Who are you?” she whispered against the baby’s dark crown. “And where’s your mama?”

Wrapping the infant in her own jacket, she glanced around the dusty corners of the barn again, eyeing the hayloft, kicking open the door to the tack room, scanning the corners behind the feed barrels, searching for any signs of the mother. Sam, yelping and jumping at the baby, was no help in locating the woman’s trail. “Hello? Are you here?” she called to anyone listening, but her own voice echoed back from the rafters.

“Look, if you’re here, come on into the house. Don’t be afraid. Just come in and we’ll talk, okay?”

No answer.

“Please, if you can hear me, please come inside!”

Again, nothing. Just the sigh of the wind outside.

Great. Well, she’d tried. Whoever had brought the child here was on his or her own. Right now, the most pressing problem was taking proper care of the baby; anything else would have to wait. “Come on, you,” she whispered to the infant again, tightening her hold on the squirming bundle. Ignoring the fretting horses, she slapped off the lights and closed the barn door behind her.

Once she was back in the cabin, Chandra cradled the child against her while she tossed fresh logs into the wood stove. “We’ll get you warm,” she promised, reaching for the phone and holding the receiver to her ear with her shoulder. She dialed 911, praying that the call would be answered quickly.

“Emergency,” a dispatcher answered.

“Yes, this is Chandra Hill, I live on Flaming Moss Road,” she said quickly, then rattled off her address over the baby’s cries. “I discovered an infant in my barn. Newborn, dehydrated possibly, certainly hungry, with a chance of exposure. I—I don’t know who it belongs to…or why it’s here.”

“We can send an ambulance.”

“I live twenty miles from town. It’ll be quicker if I meet the ambulance at Alder’s Corner, where the highway intersects Flaming Moss.”

“Just a minute.” The dispatcher mumbled something to someone else and then was back on the line. “That’s fine. The ambulance will meet you there.”

“Good. Now, please contact the emergency room of the hospital….” Mechanically, she began to move and think in a way she hadn’t done in years. Placing the child on the couch next to her, she carefully unwrapped the howling infant. Furious and hungry, the baby cried more loudly, his skinny little legs kicking. “It’s a boy…probably two or three days old,” she said, noticing the stump of the umbilical cord. How many infants so like this one had she examined during her short career as a physician? Hundreds. Refusing to let her mind wander into that forbidden territory, she concentrated on the wriggling child and carefully ran her fingers over his thin body. “He’s Caucasian, very hungry, with no visible marks….” Her hands moved expertly over the smooth skin of the newborn, checking muscles and bones, small fingers and toes, legs, neck, spine, buttocks, head…. “Wait a minute…” She flipped the switch of a brighter light and noticed the yellow pallor of the whites of the baby’s eyes. “He appears jaundiced and—” she touched the downy hair again, carefully prodding “—there’s some swelling on the back of his head. Maybe caput succedaneum or cephalhematoma…yes, there’s a slight bleeding from the scalp, and it appears only on the right side of his head. I don’t think it’s serious. The swelling isn’t too large, but you’d better have a pediatrician look him over the minute he gets there.” She continued to examine the infant as if he were her patient, her gaze practiced and sure. “I can’t find anything else, at least not here without medical equipment. Did you get everything?”

“Every word,” the dispatcher replied. “You’re being recorded.”

“Good.” Chandra shone her flashlight in the baby’s eyes, and he blinked and twisted his head away from the light. “Notify the sheriff’s office that apparently the child’s been abandoned.”

“You don’t know the mother?” the dispatcher questioned.

Chandra shook her head, though the woman on the other end of the line couldn’t see her. “No. I have no idea whom this guy belongs to. So someone from the sheriff’s office should come out here and look through my barn again and check the woods. I called out and looked around for the mother, but I didn’t have much time. I was more concerned with the child.” She glanced to the windows and the cold night beyond. “My guess is she isn’t far off. You’ve got the address.”

Chandra didn’t wait for a response, but hung up. She pulled a blanket from her closet and rewrapped the tiny newborn. He was beautiful, she thought, with a shock of downy black hair that stood straight off his scalp and a voice that would wake the dead. But why had he been abandoned? Had the mother, perhaps homeless, left him in the relative comfort of the barn as she searched for food? But why not stop at the cabin? Why leave him in the barn where there was a chance he would go unnoticed, maybe even die? Chandra shuddered at the thought. No, any responsible mother would have knocked on the door and would never, never have abandoned her child. “Come on, you,” she said to the baby, “we’ve got work to do. You can’t just lie there and scream.”

But scream he did until she swaddled him more tightly and held him in her arms again. Only then did his cries become pitiful little mews. Chandra clutched him even tighter; the sooner she got him to the hospital the better.

Sam was sitting at attention near the couch. She looked in his direction, and the big dog swept the floor with his tail. “You,” she said, motioning to the retriever, “stick around. In case the mother wanders back or the police show up.”

As if the dog could do anything, she thought with a wry smile.

She found more blankets and tucked the child into a wicker laundry basket which, along with several bungee cords and the baby, she carried to her suburban. After securing the basket by the safety belt in the back seat, she crisscrossed the bungee cords over the baby, hoping to hold him as tightly and safely as possible.

“Hang on,” she said to the infant as she hauled herself into the driver’s seat, slammed the door shut and switched on the ignition. She rammed the monstrous rig into gear. The beams of the headlights washed across the side of the barn, and Chandra half expected a woman to come running from the shadows. But no one appeared, and Chandra tromped on the accelerator, spewing gravel.

* * *

“DR. O’ROURKE. Dr. Dallas O’Rourke. Please call E.R.”

Dallas O’Rourke was writing out instructions for a third-floor patient named William Aimes when the page sounded. He scowled menacingly, then strode to the nearest house phone and punched out the number for the main desk of Riverbend Hospital. Checking the clock at the nurse’s station, he realized he’d been on duty for the past twenty-two hours. His back ached and his shoulders were stiff, and he felt gritty from lack of sleep. He probably looked worse than he felt, he thought grimly as the receiver of the phone rubbed against the stubble of beard on his chin.

A voice answered, and he cut in. “This is Dr. O’Rourke. I was just paged.”

“That’s right. I’ll connect you to E.R.”

The telephone clicked and a familiar voice answered quickly. “Emergency. Nurse Pratt.”

“O’Rourke.” Leaning a stiff shoulder against the wall, he scribbled his signature across Aimes’s chart, then rubbed his burning eyes. How long had it been since he’d eaten? Six hours? Seven?

“You’d better hustle your bones down here,” Shannon Pratt advised. “We’re swamped, and we’ve got a live one coming in. The switchboard just took the call. Something about an abandoned baby, a newborn with possible exposure, dehydration, jaundice and cephalhematoma.”

Dallas scowled to himself. What was the old saying? Something about no rest for the wicked? The adage seemed to apply. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.” God, what he wouldn’t do for a hot shower, hotter cup of coffee, and about ten hours in the rack.

He only took the time to leave the chart in the patient’s room and give the third-floor nurses’ station some instructions about Bill Aimes’s medication. “And make sure he takes it,” Dallas warned. “It seems Mr. Aimes thinks he can self-diagnose.”

“He won’t fool us,” Lenore Newell replied, and Dallas was satisfied. Lenore had twenty years of nursing experience under her belt, and she’d seen it all. If anyone could get Bill Aimes to swallow his medication, Dallas decided, Nurse Newell could.

Unwilling to wait for the elevator, he took the stairs to the first floor and shoved open the door. The bright lights and frenetic activity of the emergency room greeted him. Several doctors were treating patients, and there was a crowd in the waiting room.

Shannon Pratt, a slim, dark-haired woman and, in Dallas’s opinion, the most efficient nurse on staff, gave the doctor a quick smile. “They’re on their way. Mike just called. They’ll be here in about five minutes.”

Mike Rodgers was one of the regular paramedics who drove ambulance for Riverbend Hospital.

“How’s the patient?”

Shannon glanced at the notes she’d attached to a clipboard that she cradled with one arm. “Looks like the information we received from the first call was right on. The paramedics confirmed what the woman who called in already told us. The baby—only a couple of days old—has some signs of exposure as well as possible jaundice and slight swelling on one side of the head—the, uh, right,” she said, rechecking her notes. “No other visible problems. Vital signs are within the normal range.”

“Good. Order a bilirubin and get the child under U.V. as soon as I finish examining him. Also, I want as much information from the mother as possible, especially her RH factor. If she doesn’t know it, we’ll take blood from her—”

Shannon touched Dallas lightly on the arm. “Hold on a minute, Doctor. The mother’s not involved.”

Dallas stopped. He glanced swiftly at Nurse Pratt—to see if she was putting him on. She wasn’t. Her face was as stone sober as it always was in an emergency. “Not involved? Then how the hell—”

Pratt held up a hand. “The woman who found the child—”

“The woman who found the child?” Dallas repeated as they passed the admitting desk, where Nurse Lindquist, a drill sergeant of a woman, presided. Over the noise of rattling gurneys and wheelchairs, conversation, paging and computer terminals humming, Dallas heard the distant wail of a siren.

Pratt continued, “The mother isn’t bringing him in. This is a case of abandonment, or so the woman who called—” she glanced down at her notes on her clipboard again “—Chandra Hill, claims. Apparently she’s saying that she discovered the baby in her barn.”

“Her barn?”

“Mmm. Doesn’t know how he got there.” Shannon rolled her large brown eyes and lifted one slim shoulder. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

Dallas swore silently. “If she’s not the mother, how can we do anything with—”

“We’re already working on consent forms,” Pratt cut in, ahead of him, as she usually was in a case like this. “The police are involved, and someone’s looking up a judge to sign the waiver so we can admit the kid as a Baby John Doe.”

“Wonderful,” Dallas growled under his breath. With his luck, the kid’s mother would show up, demand custody and file a complaint against the hospital. Or worse yet, not show up at all, and the child would have to be cared for by the state. “Just damned wonderful.” What a way to end a shift!

The siren’s wail increased to a glass-shattering scream that drowned out all conversation. Lights flashing, the white-and-orange rig ground to a stop near the double glass doors of the emergency room. Two men Dallas recognized hopped out of the cab and raced to the back of the emergency van.

“Okay, listen up,” Dallas ordered Pratt. “I’ll need that bilirubin A.S.A.P., and we’ll need to test the child—drugs, HIV, white count, everything,” he said, thinking of all the reasons a person might abandon a child. Maybe the woman couldn’t afford proper medical attention for herself and the baby; maybe the child needed expensive care. “And get ready with an IV or a bottle…” God, what a mess!

The paramedics shoved open the back doors of the ambulance. Pulling out a small stretcher and carrying it between them, Mike Rodgers and Joe Klinger ran across the short covered span near the doors. A tiny baby, insulated by a thermal blanket, was strapped to the stretcher and was screaming bloody murder.

“Okay, Doc, looks like it’s show time,” Shannon observed as Dallas caught a glimpse of another vehicle, a huge red van of some sort, as it sped into the lot and skidded into a parking space.

The doors to the emergency room flew open. The paramedics, carrying the small stretcher, strode quickly inside.

“Room two,” Nurse Pratt ordered.

Under the glare of fluorescent lights, Mike, a burly redheaded man with serious, oversize features and thick glasses, nodded curtly and headed down the hall without breaking stride. “As I said, it looks like exposure and dehydration, heart rate and b.p. are okay, but—”

Mike rattled off the child’s vital signs as Joe unstrapped the child and placed him on the examining table. Dallas was listening, but had already reached for his penlight and snapped his stethoscope around his neck. He touched the child carefully. The right side of the infant’s head was a little bit swollen, but there wasn’t much evidence of bleeding. A good sign. The tiny boy’s skin was tinged yellow, but again, not extremely noticeable. Whoever the woman was who found the child, she knew more than a little about medicine.

Dallas glanced over at the paramedic. “This woman who called in—Ms. Hill?—I want to talk to her. Do you have her number?”

“Don’t need to,” Mike said. “She followed us here. Drove that damned red van like a bat outta hell….”

The red van. Of course. Good. Dallas wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t the mother just trying to get some free medical attention for her child. So how did she know about the child’s condition? Either she’d diagnosed the baby herself or someone else had…someone who understood pediatric medicine. One way or another, Dallas thought, flashing the beam of his penlight into the baby’s dark eyes, he needed to talk to Ms. Hill.

“When she shows up,” he said, glancing at Nurse Pratt, “I want to see her.”

* * *

RIVERBEND HOSPITAL SPRAWLED across five acres of hills. The building was either five floors, four or three, depending upon the terrain. Painted stark white, it seemed to grow from the very ground on which it was built.

It resembled a hundred other hospitals on the outside and inside, Chandra thought; it was a nondescript medical institution. She’d been here before, but now, as she got the runaround from a heavyset nurse at the emergency room desk, Chandra was rapidly losing her temper. “But I have to see the child, I’m the one who found him!” she said, with as much patience as she could muster.

The admitting nurse, whose name tag read Alma Lindquist, R.N., didn’t budge. An expression of authority that brooked no argument was fixed on features too small for her fleshy face.

Chandra refused to be put off by Nurse Lindquist. She’d dealt with more than her share of authority figures in her lifetime—especially those in the medical profession. One more wouldn’t stop her, though Nurse Lindquist did seem to guard the admittance gate to the emergency room of Riverbend Hospital as if it were the portal to heaven itself and Chandra was a sinner intent on sneaking past.

“If you’re not the mother or the nearest living relative,” Nurse Lindquist was saying in patient, long-suffering tones, “then you cannot be allowed—”

“I’m the responsible party.” Chandra, barely holding on to her patience, leaned across the desk. She offered the woman a professional smile. “I found the boy. There’s a chance I can help.”

“Humph,” the heavyset nurse snorted, obviously unconvinced that the staff needed Chandra’s help, or opinion for that matter. Alma Lindquist lifted her reddish brows imperiously and turned back to the stack of admittance forms beside a humming computer terminal. “I’m sure Dr. O’Rourke will come out and let you know how the infant’s doing as soon as the baby has been examined. Now, if you’ll just take a chair in the waiting area…” She motioned a plump hand toward an alcove where olive green couches were grouped around Formica tables strewn with worn magazines. Lamps offered pools of light over the dog-eared copies of Hunter’s Digest, Women’s Daily, Your Health, and the like.

Chandra wasn’t interested in the lounge or hospital routine or the precious domain of a woman on an authority trip. Not until she was satisfied that everything humanly possible was being done for the baby. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just see for myself,” she said swiftly. Lifting her chin and creating her own aura of authority, Chandra marched through the gate separating the examining area from the waiting room as if she’d done it a million times.

“Hey! Hey—you can’t go in there!” the nurse called after her, surprised that anyone would dare disregard her rules. “It’s against all procedure! Hey, ma’am! Ms. Hill!” When Chandra’s steps didn’t falter, Nurse Lindquist shouted, “Stop that woman!”

“Hang procedure,” Chandra muttered under her breath. She’d been in enough emergency rooms to know her way around. She quickly walked past prescription carts, the X-ray lab and a patient in a wheelchair, hurrying down the tiled corridors toward the distinctive sound of a baby’s cry. She recognized another voice as well, the deep baritone belonging to the redheaded paramedic who had hustled the baby into the ambulance, Mike something-or-other.

She nearly ran into the paramedics as they left the examination room. “Is he all right?” she asked anxiously. “The baby?”

“He will be.” Mike touched her lightly on the shoulder, as a kindly father would touch a worried child. “Believe me, he’s in the best hands around these parts. Dr. O’Rourke’ll take care of the boy.”

The other paramedic—Joe—nodded and offered a gap-toothed smile. “Don’t you worry none.”

But she was worried. About a child she’d never seen before tonight, a child she felt responsible for, a child who, because she’d found him, had become, at least temporarily, a part of her life. Abandoned by his own mother, this baby needed someone championing his cause.

The baby’s cries drifted through the partially opened door. Without a thought to “procedure,” Chandra slipped into the room and watched as a scruffy-looking doctor bent over a table where the tiny infant lay.

The physician was a tall, lanky man in a rumpled lab coat. A stethoscope swung from his neck as he listened to the baby’s heartbeat. Chandra guessed his age as being somewhere between thirty-five and forty. His black hair was cut long and looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb in some time, his jaw was shaded with more than a day’s growth of beard, and the whites of his eyes were close to bloodshot.

The man is dead on his feet. This was the doctor on whom she was supposed to depend? she thought angrily as her maternal instincts took charge of her emotions. He had no right to be examining the baby. Yet he touched the child gently, despite his gruff looks. Chandra took a step forward as he said to the nurse, “I want him on an IV immediately, and get that bilirubin. We’ll need a pediatrician—Dr. Williams, if you can reach him.” The physician’s gaze centered on the squirming child. “In the meantime, have a special crib made up for him in the pediatric ward, but keep him isolated and under ultraviolet. We don’t know much about him. See if he’ll take some water from a bottle, but keep track of the intake. He could have anything. I want blood work and an urinalysis.”

“A catheter?” Nurse Pratt asked.

“No!” Chandra said emphatically, though she understood the nurse’s reasoning. But somehow it seemed cruel to subject this tiny lump of unwanted human flesh, this small person, to the rigors of twentieth-century hospital technology. But that’s why you brought him here, isn’t it? So that he could get the best medical attention available? Belatedly, she held her tongue.

But not before the doctor’s head whipped around and Chandra was suddenly caught in the uncompromising glare of Dr. Dallas O’Rourke. She felt trapped, like a specimen under a microscope, and fought against the uncharacteristic need to swallow against a suddenly dry throat.

His eyes were harsh and cold, a vibrant shade of angry blue, his black eyebrows bushy and arched, his skin swarthy and tanned as it stretched tight across the harsh angles of his cheekbones and a nose that hooked slightly. Black Irish, she thought silently.

“You are…?” he demanded.

“Chandra Hill.” She tilted her chin and unconsciously squared her shoulders, as she’d done a hundred times before in a hospital not unlike this one.

“The woman who found the child.” Dr. O’Rourke crossed his arms over his chest, his lab coat stretching at the shoulder seams, his lips compressed into a line as thin as paper, his stethoscope momentarily forgotten. “Ms. Hill, I’m glad you’re here. I want to talk to you—”

Before he could finish, the door to the examining room flew open and banged against the wall. Chandra jumped, the baby squealed and O’Rourke swore under his breath.

Nurse Lindquist, red-faced and huffing, marched stiffly into the room. Her furious gaze landed on Chandra. “I knew it!” Turning her attention to the doctor, she said, “Dr. O’Rourke, I’m sorry. This woman—” she shook an accusing finger in Chandra’s face “—refused to listen to me. I told her you’d talk to her after examining the child, but she barged in with complete disregard to hospital rules.”

“I just wanted to see that the baby was safe and taken care of,” Chandra interceded, facing O’Rourke squarely. “As I explained to the nurse, I’ve had medical training. I could help.”

“Are you a doctor licensed in Colorado?”

“No, but I’ve worked at—”

“I knew it!” Nurse Lindquist cut in, her tiny mouth pursing even further.

“It’s all right, Alma,” O’Rourke replied over the baby’s cries. “I’ll handle Ms. Hill. Right now, we have a patient to deal with.”

Nurse Lindquist’s mouth dropped open, then snapped shut. Though her normal pallor had returned, two high spots of color remained on her cheeks. She shot Chandra a furious glare before striding, stiff backed, out of the room.

“You’re not making any points here,” the doctor stated, his hard jaw sliding to the side a little, as if he were actually amused at the display.

“That’s not why I’m here.” Arrogant bastard, Chandra thought. She’d seen the type before. Men of medicine who thought they were gods here on earth. Well, if Dr. O’Rourke thought he could dismiss her, he had another think coming. But to her surprise, he didn’t ask her to leave. Instead, he turned his attention back to the baby and ran experienced hands over the infant’s skin. “Okay, that should do it.”

Chandra didn’t wait. She picked up the tiny little boy, soothing the child as best she could, rocking him gently.

“Let’s get him up to pediatrics,” Dr. O’Rourke ordered.

“I’ll take him.” Nurse Pratt, after sending Chandra a quizzical glance, took the child from Chandra’s unwilling arms and bustled out of the room.

The doctor waited until they were alone, then leaned a hip against the examining table. Closing his eyes for a second, he rubbed his temples, as if warding off a headache. Long, dark lashes swept his cheek for just an instant before his eyelids opened again. “Why don’t you tell me everything you know about the baby,” he suggested.

“I have,” Chandra said simply. “I woke up and found him in my barn.”

“Alone?”

“I was alone, and as far as I could tell, the baby was left.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and winced, but some of the tension left his face. He almost smiled. “Come on, let’s go down to the cafeteria. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee. God knows I could use one.”

Chandra was taken aback. Though his voice was gentle, practiced, his eyes were still harsh and assessing. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“The coffee. I don’t think—”

“Humor me, Ms. Hill. I just have a few questions for you.”

With a shrug, she agreed. After all, she only wanted what was best for the child. And, for the time being, this hard-edged doctor was her link to the baby. He held the door open for her, and she started instinctively toward the elevators. She glanced down a hallway, hoping to catch a glimpse of Nurse Pratt and the child.

Dr. O’Rourke, as if reading her mind, said, “The pediatric wing is on two and the nursery is on the other side, in maternity.”

They reached the elevators and he pushed the call button. Crossing his arms over his chest and leaning a shoulder against the wall, he said, his voice slightly kinder, “Let’s get back to the baby. You don’t know whom he belongs to, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So he wasn’t left by a relative or friend, someone who wasn’t interested in keeping him?”

“No.” Chandra felt a tide of color wash up her cheeks. “Look, Dr. O’Rourke, I’ve told you everything I know about him. My only concern is for the child. I’d like to stay here with him as long as possible.”

“Why?” The doctor’s gaze had lost its hard edge, but there were a thousand questions in his eyes. He was a handsome man, she realized, surprised that she noticed. And had it not been for the hours of sleeplessness that honed his features, he might even be appealing. But not to her, she reminded herself.

The elevator bell chimed softly and the doors whispered open. “You’ve done your duty—”

“It’s more than duty, okay?” she cut in, unable to sever the fragile connection between her and the baby. Her feelings were pointless, she knew, but she couldn’t just drive away from the hospital, leaving that small, abandoned infant. Not yet. Not until she was assured the child would be cared for. Dr. O’Rourke was holding the door open, so she stepped into the elevator.

“Dr. O’Rourke. Dr. Dallas O’Rourke…”

The doctor’s shoulders slumped at the sound of the page. “I guess we’ll have to take a rain check on the coffee.” He seemed as if he were actually disappointed, but that was ridiculous. Though, to be honest, he looked as though he could use a quart of coffee.

As for Chandra, she was relieved that she didn’t have to deal with him right now. He was unsettling somehow, and she’d already suffered through a very unsettling night. Pressing the Door Open button so that an elderly man could enter, she watched O’Rourke stride down the hall. She was grateful to be away from his hard, assessing gaze, though she suspected he wasn’t as harsh as he outwardly appeared. She wondered if his sharp tongue was practiced, his guarded looks calculated….

“There she is! In there! Stop! Hold the elevator!”

Chandra felt a sinking sensation as she recognized the distinctive whine of Nurse Lindquist’s voice. No doubt she’d called security and was going to have Chandra thrown off the hospital grounds. Footsteps clattered down the hall. Chandra glanced back to O’Rourke, whom she suddenly viewed as her savior, but he’d already disappeared around the corner at the far end of the corridor. As she looked in the other direction, she found the huge nurse, flanked by two deputies from the Sheriff’s Department, moving with surprising speed toward her. Chandra’s hand froze on the elevator’s Door Open button, although her every instinct told her to flee.

One of the deputies, the shorter one with a flat face and salt-and-pepper hair, was staring straight at her. He didn’t bother with a smile. “Chandra Hill?”

“Yes?”

He stiff-armed the elevator, holding the doors open, as if to ensure that she wouldn’t escape. “I’m Deputy Bodine, and this is Deputy White.” He motioned with his head toward the other man in uniform. “If you don’t mind, we’d like to ask you a few questions about the child you found on your property.”




CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_4a554a6d-0489-56b4-b43a-0de5b90175c7)


“SO I FOLLOWED the ambulance here,” Chandra said, finishing her story as the two officers listened, alternately exchanging glances and sipping their coffee as she explained how she discovered the abandoned child.

Deputy Stan Bodine, the man who was asking the questions, slid his cafeteria chair closer to the table. “And you have no idea who the mother might be?”

“Not a clue,” Chandra replied, tired of repeatedly answering the same questions. “I know it’s strange, but that’s what happened. Someone just left the baby in my barn.” What was it about everyone in the hospital? Why were they so damned disbelieving? Aware of the curious glances cast her way by a few members of the staff who had come down to the cafeteria for their breaks, Chandra leaned across the table and met the deputy’s direct gaze. “Why would I lie?”

“We didn’t say—”

“I know, but I can tell you don’t believe me.”

Deputy White, the younger of the two, stopped writing in his notepad. With thin blond hair, narrow features and a slight build, he wasn’t the least bit intimidating. In fact, he seemed almost friendly. Here, at least, was one man who seemed to trust that she was telling the truth.

Deputy Bodine was another story. As bulky as the younger man was slim, Bodine carried with him a cynical attitude honed by years with the Sheriff’s Department. His expression was cautiously neutral, but suspicion radiated from him in invisible waves. As he swilled the bitter coffee and chewed on a day-old Danish he’d purchased at the counter, Chandra squirmed in her chair.

“No one said we didn’t believe you,” Bodine answered patiently. “But it’s kind of an outrageous story, don’t you think?”

“It’s the truth.”

“And we’ve seen lots of cases where someone has… changed the facts a little to protect someone.”

“I’m not protecting anyone!” Chandra’s patience hung by a fragile thread. She’d brought the baby to the hospital to get the poor child medical attention, and this cynic from the Sheriff’s Department, as well as the good Dr. O’Rourke, were acting as if she were some kind of criminal. Only Deputy White seemed to trust her. “Look, if you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to check out all my acquaintances and relatives. I just found the baby. That’s all. Someone apparently left him in the barn. I don’t know why. There was no trace of the mother—or anyone else for that matter.” To keep her hands busy, she rolled her cup in her fingers, and a thought struck her. “The only clue as to who the child might be could come from his swaddling. He was wrapped in a blanket—not the one I brought him here in—and an old army jacket.”

Bodine perked up a bit. “Where’s the jacket?”

“Back at my cabin.”

“We’ll pick it up in the morning. And don’t disturb anything in that stall where you found the kid…or the rest of the barn for that matter.” He took another bite of his Danish and washed it down with a swallow of coffee. Several crumbs fell onto the white table. He crumpled his cup. Without getting up from his chair, he tossed the wadded cup high into the air and watched as it bounced off the rim of a trash container.

The younger man clucked his tongue and tucked his notepad into his pocket. “I don’t think the Nuggets will be drafting you this season,” he joked. He shoved out his chair and picked up the discarded cup to arc it perfectly into the trash can.

“Lucky shot,” Bodine grumbled.

Chandra was just grateful they were leaving. As Bodine scraped his chair back, Dr. O’Rourke strode into the room. He was as rumpled as before, though obviously his shift was over. His lab coat was missing, and he was wearing worn jeans, an off-white flannel shirt and a sheepskin jacket.

“Just the man we wanted to see,” Bodine said, settling back in his chair. Chandra’s hopes died. She wanted this interrogation over with.

“So I heard.” O’Rourke paid for a cup of coffee and joined the group. “Nurse Pratt said you needed some information on Baby Doe. I’ve left a copy of the admittance forms at the E.R. desk, and I’ll send you a complete physical description of the child, as well as that of his condition, as soon as it’s transcribed, probably by the afternoon. I can mail it or—”

“We’ll pick it up,” Bodine cut in, kicking back his chair a little so that he could view both Chandra and O’Rourke in one glance. “Save us all some time. Anything specific we should know right now?”

“Just that the baby is jaundiced, with a swelling on the right side of his head, probably from a difficult birth. Other than that, he looks pretty healthy. We’re keeping him isolated, and we’re still running tests, but he’s eating and giving all the nurses a bad time.”

Chandra swallowed a smile. So O’Rourke did have a sense of humor after all.

The doctor continued. “A pediatrician will examine him as soon as he gets here, and we’ll give you a full report.”

“Anything else?” White asked, scribbling quickly in his notepad again. He was standing now, but writing as quickly as before.

“Just one thing,” O’Rourke replied, his gaze sliding to Chandra before returning to the two deputies. “The umbilical cord wasn’t severed neatly or clamped properly.”

Bodine dusted his hands. “Meaning?”

“Meaning that the baby probably wasn’t born in a hospital. I’d guess that the child was delivered without any medical expertise at all. The mother probably just went into labor about three days ago, experienced some difficulty, and when the baby finally arrived, used a pair of scissors or a dull knife to cut the cord.”

Chandra sucked in her breath and O’Rourke’s gaze swung to her. She cringed at the thought of the baby being born in anything less than sterile surroundings, though, of course, she knew it happened often enough.

“What do you think?” O’Rourke asked, blue eyes drilling into hers.

“I don’t know. I didn’t really look at the cord, only to see that it wasn’t bleeding.” Why would he ask her opinion?

“You examined the infant, didn’t you?”

Chandra’s response died on her tongue. Dr. O’Rourke didn’t know anything about her, she assumed, especially her past, and she intended to keep it that way. She’d come to this part of the country for the express purpose of burying her past, and she wasn’t about to unearth it now. She fiddled with her coffee cup. “Yes, I examined him.”

“And you were right on with your diagnosis.”

No reason to explain. Not here. The Sheriff’s Department and Dr. O’Rourke—and the rest of the world, for that matter—might find out all about her eventually, but not tonight. “I’ve had medical training,” she replied, the wheels turning in her mind. “I work as a white-water and camping guide. We’re required to know basic first aid, and I figure the more I know, the better I can handle any situation. So, yes, I’ve taken every medical course I could.”

O’Rourke seemed satisfied; his gaze seemed less suspicious and his eyes turned a warmer shade of blue.

Bodine stood and hiked up his pants. “Well, even if you don’t think the baby was delivered in a hospital, it won’t hurt to check and find out if anyone’s missing a boy.”

“Missing from a hospital?” Chandra asked.

O’Rourke lifted a dark eyebrow. “What better place to steal a newborn?”

“Steal?” she repeated.

Squaring his hat on his head, Deputy Bodine said, “The black-market baby business is booming these days.”

“You think someone stole this baby then left him in my barn? That’s crazy—”

Bodine smiled his first genuine smile of the night. “Sounds a little farfetched, I admit, but we have to consider every angle. Could be that whoever took Baby Doe could have holed up in your barn for the night and something went wrong. Or they left him there while they went searching for food or more permanent shelter.”

“Or you could’ve scared ’em off,” Deputy White added.

Chandra shook her head. “There was no one in the barn. And I live nearly ten miles from the nearest store.”

“We’ll check out all the possibilities in the morning,” Bodine assured her. Turning his gaze to O’Rourke, he said, “Thanks, Doctor. Ms. Hill.”

The deputies left, and Chandra, not even realizing how tense she’d become, felt her shoulders slowly relax.

“So how’s he doing?” she asked, surprised at her own anxiety, as if she and that tiny baby were somehow connected, though they weren’t, of course. The child belonged to someone else. And probably, within the next few hours, Bodine and White would discover the true identity of Baby Doe and to whom he belonged. Chandra only hoped that the parents had one hell of an explanation for abandoning their child.

“The boy’ll be fine,” O’Rourke predicted, stretching his long legs in front of him. He sipped from his cup, scowled at the bitter taste and set the cup on the table, content to let the steam rise to his face in a dissipating cloud. Chandra noticed the lines of strain around the edges of his mouth, the droop at the corners of his eyelids.

“Can I see him?” she asked.

“In the morning.”

“It is the morning.”

His gaze locked with hers and the warmth she’d noticed earlier suddenly fled. “Look, Ms. Hill, I think you and the kid both need some rest. I know I do.” As if to drive home his point, he rubbed a kink from his shoulders. “You can see him around ten.”

“But he is eating.” She’d heard him say so before, of course, but she couldn’t stem the question or the concern she felt for the child.

A whisper of a smile crossed the doctor’s thin lips. “Nurse Pratt can barely keep up with him.” O’Rourke took another swallow of his coffee, his unsettling eyes regarding Chandra over the rim of his cup. She felt nervous and flustered, though she forced herself to remain outwardly calm. “So who do you think left him in your barn?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“No pregnant friends who needed help?”

Her lips twisted wryly. “I already told the deputies, if I had friends who needed help, I wouldn’t suggest they use one of my stalls as a birthing room. They could’ve come into the house or I would’ve driven them to the hospital. I think, somehow, we would’ve found ‘room at the inn,’ so to speak.”

O’Rourke arched a thick eyebrow, and his lips twitched, as if he were suppressing a smile. “Look, there’s no reason to get defensive. I’m just looking for some answers.”

“I gave all of mine to the deputies,” she replied, tired of the unspoken innuendoes. She leaned forward, and her hair fell in front of her shoulders. “Now you look, Doctor O’Rourke, if I knew anything about that baby—anything at all—I’d pass that information along.”

He didn’t speak, but his relentless stare continued to bother her. The man was so damn intimidating, used to getting his way—a handsome, arrogant son of a gun who was used to calling the shots. She could see he was tired, irritated, but a little amused at her quick temper. “You know,” she said, “I expected the third degree from the police, but not from you.”

He lifted a shoulder. “The more I know about the child, the better able I am to take care of him. I just don’t want to make any mistakes.”

She was about to retort, but the words didn’t pass her lips. Chandra knew far too well about making mistakes as a physician. Her throat closed at the sudden burst of memories, and it was all she could do to keep her hands from shaking. She took a quick drink of coffee, then licked her lips. When she looked up at O’Rourke again, she found him staring at her so intently that she was certain he could see past the web of lies she’d so carefully woven around her life here in Ranger, Colorado. Did he know? Could he guess that she, too, had once been a physician?

But no one knew about her past, and that’s the way she intended to keep it.

The silence stretched between them, and she shuffled her feet as if to rise. It was late, and she wanted to get some sleep before she returned later in the morning, and yet there was something mesmerizing about Dr. O’Rourke that kept her glued to her chair. He was good-looking in a sensual way that unnerved her, but she’d been around lots of good-looking men, none of whom had gotten under her skin the way O’Rourke had. Maybe it was because he was a doctor, or maybe it was because she was anxious about the baby, or maybe he was just so damned irresistible that even she, a woman who’d sworn off men, and most specifically men with medical degrees, was fascinated. She nearly choked on her coffee.

As if sensing she was about to flee, he finished his coffee and cleared his throat. “You know,” he said, tenting his hands under his chin, “you’d better get used to answering questions, because the minute the press gets wind of this story, you’re going to be asked to explain a helluva lot more than you have tonight.”

The press. Her heart dropped like a stone and memories rushed over her—painful memories of dealing with reporters, photographers, cameramen. Oh, God, she couldn’t face them again. She wasn’t ready for the press. What if some hotshot reporter saw fit to dig into her background, through her personal life? Her hands grew suddenly damp. She slid her arms through the sleeves of the jacket she’d tossed over the back of her chair. “I think I can handle a few reporters,” she lied, hoping she sounded far more confident than she felt.

“It’ll be more than a few. Think about it. This could be the story of the year. Christmas is only a few months away, and the press just loves this kind of gut-wrenching drama.”

“You could be wrong.”

O’Rourke shook his head and stifled a yawn. “Nope. An abandoned baby, a complicated, unexplained birth, perhaps a missing mother, the mystery child swaddled only in an old army jacket—could it be the father’s?—it all makes interesting copy.” Rubbing a hand around his neck, he added, “You’ll have a couple of reporters from the Banner, maybe someone from Denver. Not to mention the local television stations. My guess is that this story will go regional at least.” He lifted his eyebrows speculatively, as if he believed he were far more informed than she. Typical. “And once the story hits the news services, I’ll bet that neither one of us is gonna get a moment’s rest.” He crossed one battered running shoe over the other and rested his heels on the seat of the chair Deputy White had recently vacated.

“Are you trying to scare me?” Chandra asked.

“Just preparing you for the inevitable.”

“I can handle it,” she assured him, while wondering what it was about this man that made her bristle. One minute she wanted to argue with him, the next she wanted to trust him with her very life. Good Lord, she must be more tired than she’d guessed. She’d instinctively come to depend on him because he was a doctor—the one man who could keep her in contact with the baby. After all, he could stop her from seeing the child.

Deep down, though, she knew her anger wasn’t really directed at Dr. O’Rourke specifically. In fact, her wrath wasn’t really aimed at doctors in general; just at a few doctors she’d known in her past, especially a particularly egotistical plastic surgeon to whom she’d once been married: Douglas Patrick Pendleton, M.D., P.C., and all-around jerk.

Now she couldn’t afford to have Dr. O’Rourke against her. Not only was he her link to the child, there was a chance he might help her with the press and the Sheriff’s Department—not that she needed any help, she reminded herself. But Dr. O’Rourke did seem fair and was probably sometimes kind, even though he appeared ragged and cynical around the edges.

“I guess I am tired,” she finally said, as half an apology. Dr. O’Rourke wasn’t the least bit like Doug. No, this man with his rugged good looks, beat-up running shoes and worn jacket looked more like a mountain climber than an emergency-room physician. She couldn’t imagine him reading medical journals or prescribing blood-pressure medicine or attending medical conferences in Chicago or New York.

And yet it did seem possible that he could care for an abandoned infant. On that score, Chandra was comfortable. O’Rourke, she sensed, was a good doctor, the kind of man who had dedicated himself to people in need rather than to the almighty dollar. Unless the unshaven jaw, worn clothes and fatigue were all part of an act.

She didn’t think so. His gaze was too honest. Cutting, yes. Intense, certainly. But honest.

Scraping back her chair, she stood and thrust her hand across the table. “Thanks for all the help.”

He clasped her palm with his big hand, and she forced a smile, though Dr. O’Rourke didn’t return the favor. As his fingers surrounded hers, the doctor stared at her with those electric blue eyes that could look straight into her soul, and her face suddenly felt hot.

Quickly, Chandra yanked back her hand and stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans. Her voice nearly failed her. “I’ll be back later,” she assured him as she turned and marched out of the cafeteria, hoping he didn’t guess that she’d reacted to his touch. She was tired, that was all. Tired and nervous about the infant. God, what a night!

* * *

DALLAS WATCHED CHANDRA HILL retreat. A fascinating woman, he thought grudgingly as he swirled the dregs of coffee in his cup. There was something about her that didn’t quite click, an attitude that didn’t fit with the rest of her.

Still, she intrigued him. The feel of her hand in his had caused his heart to race a second, and she’d reacted, too—he’d seen the startled look in her eyes as she’d drawn back. He laughed inwardly. If she only knew how safe she was with him. He’d sworn off beautiful women long ago, and despite her uncombed hair, hastily donned clothes and face devoid of makeup, Chandra Hill was gorgeous.

And trouble. One hundred fifteen pounds of trouble packed onto a lithe frame. She obviously bucked authority: Nurse Lindquist would testify to that. At the thought of Alma Lindquist’s agitated expression, Dallas grinned. Yes, he imagined Chandra with her sharp tongue and high-handed attitude could get under anyone’s skin.

Fortunately, Dallas didn’t have time for a woman in his profession. Not any woman. And especially not a firecracker like Ms. Hill. He rubbed his eyes and blinked several times, trying to dispel her image.

He was off duty. One last look at the Baby John Doe and then he’d go home and sleep for twelve hours. Maybe longer. But first, he might stop by the sheriff’s office and listen to the recording of Chandra Hill’s call to the emergency dispatcher. If he heard the tape, perhaps he’d get a better perspective on what condition the child was in when she found him. Oh, hell, it probably wouldn’t do any good. In fact, he decided, he was just curious about the lady. And he hadn’t been curious about a woman in a long, long time.

Squashing his cup with one hand, he shoved himself upright and glanced at the corridor down which Chandra had disappeared.

Who was this tiny woman with her unlikely knowledge of medicine? Jaundice was one thing, the layman could spot that. And a lay person might notice the swelling on the baby’s head. But to come up with the medical term after a few first aid courses? Unlikely.

Nope. For some reason, Chandra Hill was deliberately holding back. His eyes narrowed at the thought.

Obviously the child wasn’t hers. He’d checked out her trim figure and quick step. No, she wasn’t the least bit postpartum, and she was far too young to have a daughter who’d gotten pregnant. But a sister? Or a friend?

Could the baby be stolen? Could Chandra have taken the child from its home, then realized it needed medical attention, concocted this story and brought him in? Dallas didn’t think so. A dozen questions about Chandra Hill swam through his tired mind, but he couldn’t come up with an answer.

Drawing in a long breath, he was surprised that the scent of her—a clean soapy scent unaffected by perfume—lingered in the stale air of the cafeteria, a fresh breeze in this desert of white walls, polished chrome, chipped Formica and the ever-present smell of antiseptic.

She was definitely a mystery, he decided as he shoved back his chair, but a mystery he was too damned tired to unravel.




CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_eae30aa7-35d3-5f42-8ba6-872cabc9ca09)


SAM WAS WAITING for Chandra. As she opened the door, he jumped up, yipping excitedly, his tail wagging with unbridled enthusiasm. “Oh, come off it,” Chandra said, smiling despite the yawn that crept up on her. “I wasn’t gone that long.”

But the big dog couldn’t get enough attention. He bounded back and forth from his empty dish to her as she started for the stairs. “Don’t get too anxious, Sam. Breakfast isn’t for another three hours.” In the loft, she nudged off one boot with the toe of the other. “What a night! Do you believe it? The police and even the doctor seem to think I had something to do with stealing the baby or kidnapping the kid or God only knows what! And that Dr. O’Rourke, you should meet him…” She shook her head, as if she could physically shake out her own thoughts of the doctor. Handsome, arrogant and sexy, he was a man to steer well clear of. But she couldn’t. Not if she wanted to see the baby again. “Believe me, this is one mess,” she told the dog, who was still pacing in the kitchen.

She thought about checking the barn one last time, but was too exhausted. Tossing off her jacket, she dropped onto the unmade bed, discarded her jeans and sought solace under the eiderdown quilt she’d inherited from her grandmother.

With a disgruntled sigh, Sam swept up the stairs and parked in his favorite spot on the floor near the end of the bed. Chandra heard his toes click on the old pine boards as he circled three times before dropping to the floor. She sighed to herself and hoped sleep would quickly overcome her weary body as it seemed to have done for the old dog.

Three days after moving into this place a couple of years before, Chandra had discovered Sam, so thin his ribs showed beneath his matted, dusty coat, his eyes without spark and a wound that stretched from one end of his belly to the other. He’d snarled at her approach, his white teeth flashing defensively as she’d tried to touch him. But she’d brought him water and food, and the listless dog had slowly begun to trust her. She’d eventually cleaned the wound, the mark of a cornered wild animal, she’d guessed, and brought Sam into the house. He’d been with her ever since, a permanent and loving fixture in her life.

But a far cry from a man or a child.

She smiled sadly and pulled the covers closer around her neck. Just because she’d found an abandoned infant was no reason to start dreaming old dreams that she’d discarded long ago. But though her body was fatigued, her mind was spinning with images of the wailing, red-faced infant, the sterile hospital room and the unsettling visage of Dr. Dallas O’Rourke. Even with her eyes closed, she could picture him—jet black hair, eyes as blue as a mountain lake and lips that could thin in anger or gentle into the hint of a smile.

Good Lord, what was wrong with her? In frustration, she pounded her pillow with her fist. In less than four hours, she had to get up and lead a white-water expedition of inexperienced rafters down the south fork of the Rattlesnake River. She didn’t have time for complications, especially complications involving a man.

She glared at the clock one more second before squeezing her eyes closed and thinking how she would dearly love someday to have a baby of her very own.

* * *

DALLAS WASHED THE GRIT from his eyes and let the spray of the shower pour over him. He leaned one arm against the slippery tiles of the stall and closed his eyes as the jets of hot water soothed the ache of overly tired muscles.

The past thirty-six hours had been rough, one case after another. A twelve-year-old with a broken arm, a messy automobile accident with one fatality and two critically injured passengers flown by helicopter to Denver, a drug overdose, two severe strep cases, an elderly woman who had fallen and not only broken her hip, but fractured her pelvis, and, of course, the abandoned baby.

And it was the thoughts of the infant and the woman who’d found him that continued to rattle around in Dallas’s tired mind. Probably because he was overworked. Overly tired. His emotions already strung tight because of the phone call….

He twisted off the faucets and pulled down a towel from the top of the glass shower doors, rubbing his body dry, hoping to infuse a little energy through his bloodstream.

He should eat, but he couldn’t face an empty refrigerator. The joys of being a bachelor, he thought fatalistically, because he knew, from the experience of a brief, painful marriage, that he would never tie himself down to one woman again. No, medicine was his mistress, and a demanding mistress she was. She exacted far more attention than any woman would. Even the woman to whom he’d been married, Jennifer Smythe O’Rourke Duncan.

The bitch. He still couldn’t think of her without the bitter taste of her betrayal rising like bile in his throat. How could he have been duped by her, when all along, she’d been more of a slave to her precious profession than he had to his?

He didn’t bother shaving, that he could do in the morning, but walked through the connecting door to the bedroom and flopped, stark naked, onto the king-size bed. He dropped the towel onto the floor. He’d pick up it and his discarded clothes in the morning.

Muttering oaths he saved for the memory of his marriage, he noticed the red light flashing on his phone recorder, though he hadn’t been paged. A personal call. Great. He didn’t have to guess who the caller was. He rewound the tape and, settling back on the pillows, listened as his half brother’s voice filled the room.

“Hey, Dal. How’s it goin’? I just thought I’d touch base before I drop by tomorrow. You remember, don’t ya?”

How could he forget, Dallas thought grimly. His half brother, Brian, was here in the waning weeks before college started, not because he was working, but because he’d spent the summer camping and rafting in the wilderness. Only now, with less than two weeks until he left for school, did Brian think about the more practical side of education.

“Hey, man, I really hate to bug you about this and I’ll pay you back every dime, you know I will, but I just need a little something to keep me goin’ until my money gets here.”

Right. Brian’s money was scholarship dollars and not nearly enough of them to pay for the tuition, books and a carefree lifestyle.

The machine clicked off, and Dallas scowled. He shouldn’t loan Brian another nickel. Already the kid was into him for nearly ten thousand. But his mother’s other children, Brian, Brian’s twin sister, Brenda, and their older sister, Joanna, were the only family Dallas had ever known.

However, the loans to Brian were starting to bother Dallas, and he wondered, not for the first time, if he should be writing checks directly to University of Southern California rather than to the kid himself.

He’d find out this afternoon. After he felt refreshed and after he made rounds at the hospital, checking on his patients. The image of the newborn flitted through his mind again, and Dallas wondered if he’d run into Chandra Hill. Now there was a woman who was interesting, a woman who knew her own mind, a woman with a presence of authority that was uncommon, a woman who, even in old boots, jeans and a nightshirt, her hair wild, her face free of makeup, was the most attractive woman he’d seen in a long, long time.

He rolled under the covers, switched off the light and decided, as he drifted off, that chances were he might just see her again. And that thought wasn’t all that unpleasant.

* * *

CHANDRA PULLED HER HAIR into a ponytail when she heard the hum of an engine and the crunch of tires against the gravel drive. She pulled back the curtains to discover a tan cruiser from the Sheriff’s Department rolling to a stop near the barn. Sam, vigilant as ever, began to bark and growl.

“You haven’t had this much excitement in a long while, have you?” Chandra asked the retriever as she yanked open the door. Two deputies, the same men she’d met in the hospital, climbed out of the car.

She met them on the porch.

“Sorry to bother you so early,” Deputy White apologized, “but we’re about to go off duty and would like to check over the barn and house.”

“Just to see if there’s anything you might have missed,” Bodine added.

“I hope there is,” Chandra replied, feeling more gracious this morning than she had last night. She thought again, as she had for the past four hours, of the dark-haired infant. She’d called the hospital the minute she’d awakened, but had been unable to prod much information from the nurse who had taken her call. “Doing as well as can be expected. Resting comfortably…in no apparent distress….”

When Chandra had mentioned that she’d brought the baby in, the nurse had warmed a bit. “Oh, Miss Hill, yes. Dr. O’Rourke said you’d probably call.” Chandra’s heart had nearly stopped. “But there’s nothing new on the baby’s condition.”

So Chandra had been given stock answers that told her nothing. Nothing! Except that O’Rourke had had the decency to advise the staff that she would be inquiring. Surprised that he’d bothered at all, she again decided she’d have to make a friend of O’Rourke, even if it killed her.

She hadn’t been this frustrated since she’d lived in Tennessee…. With a start, she pulled herself away from the painful thought of her past and her short-lived marriage, noticing that the deputies looked beyond fatigued. “How about a cup of coffee before you get started?” she asked, and the weary men, seeming much less belligerent in the soft morning light, smiled in response.

“I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” White said.

“No trouble at all. I was just about to pour myself a cup.”

“In that case, you’re on,” Bodine cut in, obviously not wanting the younger man to talk them out of a quick break.

They followed her inside. Sam, ever watchful, growled deep in his throat as they crossed the threshold, but the men seemed unintimidated by the old retriever.

Chandra reached for two mugs from the shelf near the kitchen window and couldn’t help asking, “Have you learned anything else?”

“About the baby?” Bodine asked, and taking off his hat, he shook his head. “Not yet. We thought maybe we could find something here. You got that jacket?”

“The what…? Oh! Just a minute.” She poured them each a mug of coffee from the glass pot warming on the burner of the coffee maker. From the closet, she retrieved the ratty old army jacket and tattered blanket that had swaddled the newborn. Smudges of dirt, a few wisps of straw and several patches of a dark, dried substance that looked like blood discolored the dull green jacket. Faded black letters stated: U S ARMY, but no other lettering was visible.

“Anyone could pick up something like this in a local G.I. surplus store,” Bodine grumbled to himself as he searched the jacket’s pockets and discovered nothing more exciting than lint. He focused his attention on the blanket. It offered few clues to the identity of the newborn, fewer than the jacket. Frowning, he pulled a couple of plastic bags from his pocket and wrapped the blanket and jacket separately, then accepted a cup of coffee. Motioning toward his plastic-encased bundles, he added, “We’ll see if the lab can come up with any clues from these.”

“But don’t hold your breath,” White added. “Despite what Sheriff Newell thinks, the lab guys aren’t gods. There’s just not too much here to go on.” He flashed a hint of a smile as Chandra handed him a steaming cup. “Thanks.”

“Our best hope is for someone to step forward and claim the kid.”

“Is it?” Chandra asked, surprised by her own sense of dread of some relative appearing. “But what if whoever tries to claim the child is a fraud?”

“We won’t let that happen.” Nonetheless, Bodine’s eyebrows drew together and a deep cleft appeared on his forehead. He was worried. He studied the hot black liquid in his mug, as if he could find the answers he was searching for in the coffee. “Why don’t you go over your story one more time.” He held up a couple of fingers when he caught Chandra’s look of distress. “Since we’re here, talk us through it again and show us what you did last night.”

Chandra wasn’t all that eager to repeat the story, but she knew that was the only way to gain the deputies’ confidence. And after all, they were all on the same side, weren’t they? Didn’t Chandra, the police and the hospital staff only want what was best for the tiny, motherless infant?

“Okay,” she said with a forced smile. “It’s just exactly what I said last night.” As they sipped their coffee, Chandra pointed to the loft. “I was sleeping up there when Sam—” the big dog perked up his ears and his tail dusted the floor at the sound of his name “—started barking his fool head off. Wouldn’t let up. And that’s when I heard the sound.”

“The baby crying,” White cut in.

“Yes, but I didn’t know that it was a baby at first.” She continued while they finished their coffee, then led them back outside as Sam tagged along.

The sun was climbing across the morning sky, but frost still glazed the gravel of the parking lot. Sam nosed around the base of a blue spruce where, hidden in the thick needles, a squirrel scolded him. Deputy White tossed the jacket and blanket onto the front seat of the car.

“The noise was coming from the barn.” Chandra followed her footsteps of the night before and shoved open the barn door. Shafts of sunlight pierced the dark interior, and the warm smell of horses and musty hay greeted her. The horses nickered softly as dust motes swirled in the air, reflecting the morning light.

“The baby was in the end stall.” She pointed to the far wall while petting two velvety noses thrust over the stall doors.

As the officers began their search, Chandra winked at Cayenne, her favorite gelding. “I bet you want to go out,” she said, patting his sleek neck. In response, the sorrel tossed his head and stamped. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Cayenne shoved his big head against her blouse and she chuckled. “Grouchy after you missed a night’s sleep, aren’t you?” She walked through the first stall and yanked open the back door. One by one, she opened the connecting gates of the other stalls and the horses trotted eagerly outside to kick up their heels and run, bucking and rearing, their tails unfurling like silky banners behind them.

Chandra couldn’t help but smile at the small herd as she stood in the doorway. Life had become so uncomplicated since she’d moved to Ranger, and she loved her new existence. Well, life had been uncomplicated until last night. She rubbed her hand against the rough wood of the door and considered the baby, who only a few hours before had woken her and, no doubt, changed the course of her quiet life forever.

Inside the barn, Deputy Bodine examined the end stall while Deputy White poked and prodded the barrels of oats and mash, checked the bridles and tack hanging from the ceiling and then clambered up the ladder to the hayloft. A mouse scurried into a crack in the wall, and cobwebs, undisturbed for years, hung heavy with dust.

“This yours?” Bodine asked, holding up Chandra’s father’s .22, which she’d left in the barn upon discovering the infant.

Heat crept up her neck. “I must’ve dropped it here when I found the baby. I was so concerned about him, I didn’t think of much else.”

Bodine grunted as he checked the chamber.

“Nothing up here,” Deputy White called down from the loft.

“I could’ve guessed,” Bodine muttered under his breath as he turned his attention back to the stall, instructing Chandra to reconstruct the scene. She pointed out the position of the baby and answered all the questions he asked. Deputy White climbed down the ladder from the loft and, after observing the stall, asked a few more questions that Chandra couldn’t answer.

The deputies didn’t say as much, but Chandra read in their expressions that they’d come up against a dead end. Outside, they walked through the paddocks and fields, and even followed a couple of trails into the nearby woods. But they found nothing.

“Well, that’s about all we can do for now,” Bodine said as they walked across the yard. He brushed the dust from his hands.

“What about the baby?” Chandra asked, hoping for just a little more information on the infant. “What happens to him?”

“Don’t worry about him. He’s in good hands at the hospital. The way I hear it, Dr. O’Rourke is the best E.R. doctor in the county, and he’ll link the kid up to a good pediatrician.”

“I see.”

Bodine actually offered her a smile. “I’m sure O’Rourke will let you look in on the kid, if you want. In the meantime, we’ll keep looking for the baby’s ma.” He opened the passenger side of the cruiser while Deputy White slid behind the wheel. “If we find her, she’s got a whole lotta questions to answer before she gets her kid back.”

“And if you don’t find her?”

“The baby becomes a ward of the state until we can locate a parent, grandparent or other relative.”

Chandra’s heart wrenched at the thought. “He’ll be put in an institution?”

“Probably a foster home—whatever Social Services decides. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, we have to find the mother or next of kin. We’ll keep you posted,” he said, as if reading the worry in her eyes for the very first time.

Bodine slid into his seat, and Deputy White put the car into gear. Chandra waited until the car had disappeared around the bend in the drive before returning to the house with the rifle.

So what happens next? she wondered. If nothing else, the baby was certainly a part of her life.

As she walked into the house, she heard the phone ringing. She dashed to the kitchen. “Hello?”

“Miss Hill?”

She froze as she recognized Dr. O’Rourke’s voice. “Hello, doctor,” she said automatically, though her throat was dry. Something was wrong with the baby. Why else would he phone her?

“I thought you’d like to know that the baby’s doing well,” he said, and her knees nearly gave out on her. Tears of relief sprang to her eyes. O’Rourke chuckled, and the sound was throaty. “He’s got the nurses working double time, but he’s eating, and his vital signs are normal.”

“Thank God.”

“Anytime you want to check on him, just call,” Dallas said.

“Thanks for calling.”

There was a long pause before O’Rourke replied. “You seemed concerned last night and…since the boy has no family that we know of…”

“I appreciate the call.”

* * *

AS DALLAS HUNG UP the phone in his office at the hospital, he wondered what the devil had gotten into him. Calling Chandra Hill? All night long he’d remembered the worry in her eyes and, though he wasn’t scheduled to work for hours, he’d gotten up and gone directly to the hospital, where he’d examined the baby again.

There was something about the boy that touched a part of him he’d thought was long buried, though he assumed his emotions were tangled up in the circumstances. The baby had been abandoned. Dallas’s emotional reaction to the infant was because he knew that baby had no one to love him. No wonder he had felt the unlikely tug on his heartstrings when he’d examined the baby and the infant had blinked up at him with trusting eyes.

“This is crazy,” Dallas muttered, and headed back to the parking lot. He would drive over to the club and swim out his frustrations before grabbing some breakfast.

* * *

RIVERBEND HOSPITAL APPEARED larger in daylight. The whitewashed walls sprawled upward and outward, seeming to grow along the hillside, spawning several clinics connected by wide breezeways. The Rocky Mountains towered behind one facility, and below it, within view, flowed the Rattlesnake River. The town of Ranger was three miles away.

Chandra parked her truck in the visitors lot and prepared herself for a confrontation with another nurse on an authority trip. She wouldn’t have to pass anywhere near the emergency room, so in all probability, she wouldn’t run into Nurse Lindquist again. Or Dr. O’Rourke. He’d appeared dead on his feet last night, surely by now he was sleeping the morning away.

Probably with his wife.

Chandra’s eyebrows pulled together, and above her nose a groove deepened—the worry line, Doug used to call it. The thought that Dr. O’Rourke was married shouldn’t have been unpleasant. Good Lord, he deserved a normal life with a wife and kids…yet…

“Oh, stop it!” she grumbled, walking under the flat roof of a breezeway leading to the main entrance of the hospital. The doors opened automatically and she walked through.

The reception area was carpeted in an industrial-strength weave of forest green. The walls were gray-white and adorned with framed wildlife posters hung exactly ten feet apart.

A pert nurse with a cap of dark curls, a dash of freckles strewn upon an upturned nose and a genuine smile greeted Chandra from behind the information desk. “May I help you?”

Chandra returned the woman’s infectious grin. “I hope so. I’m Chandra Hill. I brought in the baby—”

The nurse, Jane Winthrop, laughed. “I heard about you and the baby,” she said, her dark eyes flashing merrily. “I guess I should transfer to the night shift in E.R. That’s where all the action is.”

“Is it?” Chandra replied.

“Oh, yeah. But a lot of it’s not too pretty, y’know. Car accidents—there was a bad one last night, not too long before you brought in the baby.” Her smile faded and her pretty dark eyes grew serious. “Anyway, what can I do for you?”

Jane Winthrop was a refreshing change from Alma Lindquist.

“I’d like to see the baby, see how he’s doing.”

“No problem. He’s in pediatrics, on two. Take the elevator up one floor and turn to your left. Through the double doors and you’re there. The admitting nurse, Shannon Pratt, is still with him, I think. She’d just started her shift when they brought the baby in.”

Chandra didn’t waste any time. She followed Jane’s directions and stopped by the nurse’s station in the pediatric wing on the second floor. Chandra recognized Nurse Pratt, the slim brunette, but hadn’t met the other woman, plump, apple cheeked, with platinum blond hair, a tanning-booth shade to her skin and pale blue eyes rimmed with eyelashes that were thick with mascara.

“You’re back,” Shannon said, looking up from some paperwork on the desk. “I thought you would be.” She touched the eraser end of a pencil to her lips as she smiled and winked. “And I bet you’re looking for one spunky little guy, right?” Before Chandra could answer, Shannon waved toward one of the long corridors. She leaned closer to the other nurse. “I’ll be back in a minute. This is the woman who brought in the Baby Doe.”

The blond nurse, whose nameplate read Leslie Nelson, R.N., smiled and a dimple creased one of her rosy cheeks. “He’s already won over the entire staff—including Alma Lindquist!” She caught a warning glance from Shannon, but continued blithely on. “You know, there’s something special about that little guy—” The phone jangled and Leslie rolled her huge, mascara-laden eyes as she picked up the receiver. “Pediatrics. Nurse Nelson.”

“She’s right about that,” Shannon agreed as she led Chandra down the hallway. “Your little friend has wormed his way into the coldest hearts around. Even Dr. O’Rourke isn’t immune to him.”

“Is that right?” Chandra asked, lifting an eyebrow. She was surprised to hear Dr. O’Rourke’s name, and even more surprised to glean a little bit about the man. Not that she cared. He was just a doctor, someone she’d have to deal with while visiting the baby.

“One of the nurses caught him holding the baby this morning. And he was actually smiling.”

So there was a more human side to the gruff doctor. Chandra glanced down the hallway, half expecting to see him, and she was surprised at her feeling of disappointment when he didn’t appear.

Shannon clucked her tongue and shook her head. “You know, I didn’t think anyone could touch that man, but apparently I was wrong.” She slid Chandra a glance. “Maybe there’s hope for him yet. Here you go. This little guy’s still isolated until we get the results of his tests. But my guess is, he’ll be fine.”

They stood behind a glass partition. On the other side of the clear wall, the dark-haired infant slept, his face serene as an ultraviolet light warmed him. There were other newborns as well, three sleeping infants, who, separated by the wall of glass, snoozed in the other room. Nearby, a nurse was weighing an unhappy infant who was showing off his lungs by screaming loudly.

“We’re busy down here,” Nurse Pratt said.

“Looks that way.” Chandra focused her attention back on the isolated baby, and her heart tugged. So perfect. So beautiful. So precious. The fact that he was separated from the rest of the infants only made his plight seem more pitiful. Unwanted and unloved, living in a sterile hospital with only nurses and doctors—faces, hands and smells that changed every eight hours—to care for him.

A lump formed in her throat—a lump way out of proportion to the situation. She’d been a physician, for God’s sake, a pediatrician. She was supposed to handle any given situation and keep her emotions in check. But this time, with this child, she was hopelessly ensnared in the trap of caring too much. Involuntarily her hand touched the cool glass. If only she could pick him up and hold him close….

Chandra felt Shannon’s gaze resting on her, and she wondered just how much of her emotions played upon her face. “It looks as if he’ll be okay once we get the jaundice under control,” Shannon said softly.

“And his caput—”

“Nothing serious, according to Dr. O’Rourke, and he’s the best E.R. physician I’ve ever met.”

“And the pediatrician?”

“Dr. Spangler was on duty and looked him over last night. Agreed with O’Rourke right down the line. Dr. Williams will check the baby later this morning.”

Chandra felt a sense of overwhelming relief. She stared at the perfect round cheeks and the dark sweep of lashes that caressed the infant’s skin, watched as his tiny lips moved ever so slightly, as if he were sucking in his dream. On whose breast did he subconsciously nurse?

Chandra’s heart wrenched again and she felt rooted to the spot. Though she’d seen hundreds of babies, they had all come with mothers firmly attached, and she’d never once experienced a pang of devotion so deep. The feeling seemed to spring from an inner well of love she’d never known existed.

True, she had been married, had hoped to bear her own children, and so, perhaps, all her motherly instincts had been turned inward. But now, years later, divorced and having no steady man in her life, her nurturing urges seemed stronger than ever, especially where this tiny baby was concerned.

“Uh-oh.” Nurse Pratt exhaled softly. “Trouble.”

“What?” Chandra turned and discovered two men striding toward her. Both were of medium height, one with curly black hair, the other straight brown. They wore slacks and sweaters, no hospital ID or lab coats.

“Make that double trouble,” Shannon corrected.

“Miss Hill?” the man with the straight hair and hard eyes asked. “Bob Fillmore with the Ranger Banner.”

Chandra’s heart sank as the curly-haired man added, “Sid Levine.” He held out his hand as if expecting Chandra to clasp it. “Photographer.”

She felt Sid’s fingers curl over her hand, but she could barely breathe. Reporters. Already. She wasn’t yet ready to deal with the press. “But how did you know—”

“Have you got permission to be here?” Nurse Pratt cut in, obviously displeased.

Fillmore ignored her. “I heard you found an infant in the woods near your home. Abandoned, is that right?”

“I don’t think this is the place to conduct an interview,” Nurse Pratt insisted. Behind the glass, the baby started making noise, soft mewing sounds that erupted into the hard cries Chandra had heard the night before. Chandra whipped her head around and the sight of the infant, her baby—no, of course he wasn’t hers, but he was in distress and she wanted desperately to run to him and pick him up.

“Is that the kid?” Fillmore asked. “Any idea who he belongs to? It is a he, right?” He looked to Chandra for verification as he withdrew a small pad and pen from the inner pocket of his jacket. He’d also unearthed a small tape recorder from his voluminous pockets and switched on the machine.

The baby cried louder, and Chandra felt her back stiffen. “Look, I’m not ready to give you an interview, okay? Yes, I found the baby—in my barn, not the woods—but since this is a case the police are investigating, I think you’d better go to the sheriff’s office to get your facts straight.”

“But why your property?” Fillmore insisted, his tape recorder in his outstretched hand. Memories, painful as razors, cut through Chandra’s mind as she remembered the last time she’d had microphones and recorders waved in her face, how she’d been forced to reveal information to the press.

“I don’t know. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“Just a few more questions.”

Obviously the man wasn’t about to give up. Chandra glanced at Nurse Pratt and, without thinking about protocol, ordered, “Call security.”

Fillmore was outraged. “Hey—wait—you can’t start barking orders—”

“If she doesn’t, I will.” Dr. O’Rourke, who could have heard only the last of the exchange, strode down the hall. Dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and down vest, he nonetheless oozed authority as he glared at the reporter and photographer with a stare that would have turned the fainthearted to stone. He motioned to Shannon. “Do as Ms. Hill suggests. Call security.” Nurse Pratt walked to the nearest telephone extension and dialed.

“Why all the secrecy?” Fillmore demanded, apparently not fainthearted and not the least bit concerned about O’Rourke’s stature, anger or command of the situation. “We could help you on this, y’know. A couple of pictures of the baby and an article describing how he was found, and maybe, just maybe, the kid’s folks will reconsider and come back. Who knows what happened to them? Or to him? For all anyone knows, this kid—” he hooked a thumb toward the glass “—could’ve been stolen or kidnapped. Right now some distraught mother might be anxious to have him back again, and you guys are impeding us.”

He’s right, Chandra thought, disliking the reporter intensely as she noticed a flicker of doubt cross Dr. O’Rourke’s strong features.

“In due time,” the doctor replied, his gaze landing on Chandra for a heart-stopping second. A glimmer of understanding passed between them, as if she and the doctor were on the same side. Quickly, O’Rourke turned back to the reporters. “My first concern is for the child’s health.”

“The kid got problems?” Fillmore persisted, his eyes lighting with the idea of a new twist to an already newsworthy story.

“We’re running tests.” O’Rourke, in a sweeping glance, took in the two men and Chandra, and once again she felt a bond with him, though she told herself she imagined it. She had nothing, save the baby, in common with the man.

O’Rourke wasn’t about to be pushed around. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a patient I have to see. If you want to continue with this interview, do it somewhere else.” He turned just as two security guards, hands on holsters, entered the pediatric wing.

“Okay, what’s going on here?” the first one, a man with a thick waist and a face scarred by acne, demanded. His partner stood two feet behind him, as if he expected the reporters to draw weapons.

“Just lookin’ for a story,” Fillmore said.

“Well, look somewhere else.”

Levine threw up his hands, but Fillmore stood his ground and eyed the doctor. “What is it with you, O’Rourke? Why do you always see us as the bad guys?”

“Not bad guys, just guys without much dignity.” Dr. O’Rourke stepped closer to Fillmore and scrutinized the reporter with his uncompromising gaze. “You tend to sensationalize things, try to stir up trouble, and that bothers me. Now if you’ll excuse me, and even if you won’t, I’ve got a patient to examine.”

Summarily dismissing both men, O’Rourke stepped into the nursery to examine the baby. With a nudge from the guards, both reporter and photographer, muttering under their collective breath, headed out of the wing. “You, too,” the heavier guard said, motioning toward Chandra.

“She can stay.” O’Rourke, though on the other side of the window, pointed toward Chandra before focusing his attention on the crying infant. Chandra had to swallow a smile as she stared at the vest stretched taut across O’Rourke’s back.

The guard shrugged and followed his partner through the double doors while Chandra stood dumbstruck. She didn’t know what she expected of O’Rourke, but she suspected he wasn’t a particularly tolerant man. His demeanor was on the edge of being harsh, and she was certain that just under his facade of civility, he was as explosive as a volcano.

On the other hand, he touched the infant carefully, tenderly, as he gently rolled the screaming baby from front to back, fingers expertly examining the child. It was all Chandra could do to keep from racing into the room and cradling the baby herself, holding the infant close and rocking him.

This has got to stop, Chandra, she told herself. He’s not yours—he’s not! If she had any brains at all, she’d tear herself away from the viewing window, walk out of Riverbend Hospital and never look back. Let the proper authorities take care of the child. If they could locate the parents or next of kin, so be it. If not, the Social Services would see that he was placed with a carefully-screened couple who desperately wanted a child, or in a foster home…

Quit torturing yourself!

But she stayed. Compelled by the child and fascinated by the doctor examining him, Chandra Hill watched from the other side of the glass.

Why she felt a special bond with the child and the doctor, she didn’t know. And yet, as if catching a glimmer of the future in a crystal ball, she felt as if they, all three, were inextricably bound to each other.




CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_53157e53-8111-5ea1-b916-e494fa8aeb6c)


DR. O’ROURKE WAS QUICK and efficient. His examination took no longer than five minutes, after which he gave Nurse Pratt a few instructions before emerging from the glassed-in room. “I think he’ll be out of isolation tomorrow,” he said, joining Chandra.

“That’s good.”

“Know any more about him?”

She shook her head and began walking with him, wondering why she was even conversing with him. She thought she caught an envious look from Shannon as they left the nursery, but she chided herself afterward. Envious? Of what?

“The Sheriff’s Department show up at your place?” he asked as they walked. His tone wasn’t friendly, just curious. Chandra chalked his questions up to professional interest.

“This morning at the crack of dawn. The same two deputies.” She stuffed her hands into her pockets. “They poked around the barn and the grounds. Didn’t find much.”

O’Rourke pushed the button for the elevator, and the doors opened immediately. “Parking lot?”

“Yes.” She eyed him for a second, and as the car descended, said, “I’m surprised to see you here this early. Last night you looked like you could sleep for twenty years.”

“Thirty,” he corrected, then allowed her just the hint of a grin, and she was shocked by the sensual gleam of white teeth against his dark skin. His jaw was freshly shaven, and the scent of soap and leather clung to him, overpowering the antiseptic odor that had filtered through the hospital corridors and into the elevator. “But I’ve learned to survive on catnaps. Five hours and it’s all over for me.” He studied her with that intense gaze that made her throat grow tight, but she held her ground as a bell announced they’d landed at ground level. “What about you?”

“Eight—at least. I’m running on empty now.”

He cocked a dubious eyebrow as they walked past the reception area and outside, where the sunlight was bright enough to hurt the eyes. Chandra reached into her purse for her sunglasses and noticed that O’Rourke squinted. The lines near his eyes deepened, adding a rugged edge to his profile. The man was handsome, she’d give him that. Dealing with him would be easier if he were less attractive, she thought.

“That reporter will be back,” he predicted. “He smells a story and isn’t about to leave it alone. You might be careful what you say.”

Though she knew the answer from personal experience, she wanted to hear his side of the story. “Why?”

His lips twisted into a thin line of disapproval and his eyes turned cold. “Words can be misconstrued, taken out of context, turned around.”

“Sounds like the voice of experience talking.”

“Just a warning. For your own good.”

He acted as if he were about to turn away, and Chandra impulsively grabbed the crook of his arm, restraining him. He turned sharply and his gaze landed on her with a force that made her catch her breath. She swallowed against the dryness in her throat and forced the words past her lips. “When can I see the baby? I mean, really see him—hold him.”

She didn’t remove her fingers and was aware of the tensing of his muscles beneath the sleeves of his shirt and jacket. “You want to hold him?”

“Oh, yes!” she cried, her emotion controlling her tongue.

“You feel something special for the child, some sort of bond?” he guessed.

“I…” She crumbled under the intensity of his gaze. “I guess I feel responsible.”

When he waited, for what she knew was further elaboration, she couldn’t help but ramble on. “I mean he was found on my property, in my barn. I can’t help but think that someone wanted me to find him.”

“That you were chosen?” He sounded as if he didn’t believe her, yet he didn’t draw his arm away.

“Yes. No. I mean—I don’t know.” She’d never been so confused in her life. Always she’d been a take-charge kind of individual, afraid of nothing, ready for any challenge. But one tiny newborn and one very intimidating man seemed to have turned her mind to mush. “Look, Doctor, I just want to hold the baby, if it’s okay with you.”

He hesitated, and his voice was a little kinder. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

“What?” She couldn’t believe he would dissuade her now, after he’d called her to tell her the child had improved and then had let her stick around. But that warming trend had suddenly been reversed.

“Until the Sheriff’s Department sets this matter straight, I think it’s best for you and the child if you stayed away from the hospital until everything’s settled.”

Her hopes, which she had naively pinned on this man, collapsed. “But I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” O’Rourke said. “You thought that since I rescued you from those vultures, loosely called reporters, that I was on your side, that you could get at the kid through me. Well, unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Either you’re a relative of the child or you’re not. And I don’t like being used.”

“You called me,” she reminded him, and watched his lips tighten.

“I’ve had second thoughts.”

“To hell with your second thoughts!” Her temper, quickly rising, captured her tongue. “I’m not going to hurt the baby. I’m just someone who cares, Doctor. Someone who would like to offer that poor, abandoned child a little bit of love.”

“Or someone who enjoys all the attention she’s getting?”

“If that was the case, I wouldn’t have tried to throw the reporters out of the hospital, now, would I?”

That stopped him, and whatever he was about to say was kept inside. He stared at her a few minutes, his gaze fairly raking over her, as if he were examining her for flaws. She almost expected a sneer to curl his lip, but he was a little too civilized for outward disdain. “I’m just being straight with you. There’s a lot I don’t know about that baby who’s up in pediatrics, Ms. Hill. And a lot more I don’t know about you. If it were up to me, I’d let you hang around. Based on first impressions, I’m guessing that you do care something for the infant. But I don’t know that, the hospital administration doesn’t know that and Social Services doesn’t know that.”

He turned then, and left her standing in the middle of the parking lot, her mouth nearly dropping open.

* * *

HE DIDN’T UNDERSTAND why he’d come to her rescue in the hospital, only to shoot her down a peg or two.

Instinctively, Dallas knew that she was a different kind of woman than those he’d met. There was something about her that attracted him as well as caused him to be suspicious. She seemed at once strong willed and yet innocent, able to take care of herself and needing something—a man?—to lean upon occasionally.

There had been a desperation in her eyes, a pleading that he hadn’t been able to refuse in the hospital, but here, out in the light of day, she’d looked far from innocent—in fact, he suspected that Ms. Hill could handle herself in just about any situation.

Dallas felt himself drawn to her, like a fly buzzing around a spider’s web. He didn’t know a thing about her, and he was smart enough to realize that she was only interested in him because he was her link to the baby. Yet his stupid male pride fantasized that she might be interested in him—as a man.

“Fool,” he muttered to himself, kicking at a fragment of loose gravel on the asphalt. The sharp-sided rock skidded across the lot, hitting the tire of a low-slung Porche, Dr. Prescott’s latest toy.

He must be getting soft, Dallas decided. Why else would he let a woman get under his skin? Especially a woman who wasn’t being entirely honest with him.

He slid behind the wheel of his truck and flipped on the ignition. What was it about Chandra Hill that had him saying one thing while meaning another? He didn’t want to keep her from the child, and yet he had an obligation to protect the baby’s interests. Hospital policy was very strict about visitors who weren’t relatives.

But the baby needed someone to care about him, and Chandra was willing. If her motives were pure. He couldn’t believe that she was lying, not completely, and yet there was a wariness to her, and she sometimes picked her words carefully, especially when the questions became too personal. But that wasn’t a sin. She was entitled to her private life.

Yet he felt Chandra Hill was holding back, keeping information that he needed to herself. It was a feeling that kept nagging at him whenever he was around her; not that she said anything dishonest. No, it was her omissions that bothered him.

He crammed his truck into gear and watched Chandra haul herself into the cab of a huge red Chevrolet Suburban, the truck that last night he’d thought was a van. Her jeans stretched across taut buttocks and athletic thighs. Her skin was tanned, her straight blond hair streaked by the sun. She looked healthy and vibrant and forthright, and yet she was hiding something. He could feel it.

“All in your mind, O’Rourke,” he told himself as he drove out of the parking lot and toward the center of town. He had hours before his meeting with Brian, so he decided that a stop at the sheriff’s office might clear up a few questions he had about Chandra Hill and her abandoned baby.

* * *

CHANDRA DROVE INTO RANGER, her thoughts racing a mile a minute. Automatically, she adjusted her foot on the throttle, managing to stay under the speed limit. She stopped for a single red light and turned right on Coyote Avenue. Without thinking, she pulled into a dusty parking lot and slid into one of a dozen available spaces, her mind focused on the infant. Baby John Doe. Already she’d started thinking of him as J.D. Kind of a bad joke, but the child deserved a name.





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