Million Dollar Baby

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

“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.