Million Dollar Baby

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

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.