Million Dollar Baby

“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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