by Lisa Jackson
She didn’t care how big or intimidating he was. Rage scorched her blood. How could he—this man she’d planned to marry—do this to her? Inching up her chin, she picked up the horrid pages and waved the report in the air. “And what are you doing checking up on me?”
“You’re supposed to wait in the lounge.”
“Stupid me! I thought being your fiancé gave me a few privileges.”
“Not snooping in my office.”
“But it’s okay for you to snoop into my life, is that right?” She slapped the damned report onto his desk. “How dare you have me investigated like some criminal! Who do you think you are that you can open up my life and check me out? I thought—no, I hoped—you were above that sort of thing!”
A muscle in the corner of Dallas’s jaw came to life, but there was no anger in his eyes. “What did you expect, Chandra?”
“Trust!” she shot back, and he winced.
“And I expected the truth, which you seemed to twist around to suit your advantage.”
“I did not—”
“You came waltzing in here with a baby whom you claim you’ve never set eyes on before and a load of medical knowledge. And you ended up turning this hospital upside down—”
“I’ve done no such thing!”
Dallas snorted, his face a steely mask. “You read the headlines today in the Banner?”
“Yes, but—”
“You see the picture?”
“What, exactly, is your point?” she asked, leveling a glacial stare at him.
“I just wanted to know whom I was dealing with.”
“Because you thought I might have stolen the baby, then, seeing he needed medical attention, brought him in here?”
“At first, yes, but—”
“Well, you’re way off base, Doctor!”
“I know that now.” Unbuttoning his lab coat, Dallas dragged one hand through his thick hair. “But I didn’t—not in the beginning.”
“And you check up on any person you’ve never met before?”
“Any person I think I might marry.”
She stiffened. Marriage? Now? After this damned report? She didn’t think so. “When you ordered that investigation, you couldn’t have had the faintest idea we might discuss the remote idea of wedded bliss!” She shook her head, disbelieving that their relationship had come to this. She was trembling inside, her breathing erratic, and she went to the window to open it a crack and let in some fresh air. “You really are a bastard, O’Rourke,” she said quietly.
A cold smile crept across his lips. “Coming from you, that’s quite an indictment. Your résumé—” he motioned to the damning report “—is chock full of deadbeats. Especially your ex-husband.”
She felt as if she’d been slapped. “A failing of mine, I guess. I just can’t say no when a real jerk asks me to marry him!”
“You asked me, lady. Not the other way around.” He flung the white jacket over an already crowded spoke of a brass hall tree before glancing at her again.
Chandra felt the color drain from her face. “You arrogant son of a—”
“Don’t,” he cut in. “Let’s not sink to name-calling. Bastard and jerk were good enough. I got the message.”
That was it. She’d had it! She grabbed her purse and started for the door. He reached for her arm, but she spun away from him.
“Chandra, wait!” Her hand was on the doorknob, and she, ignoring him, yanked hard.
With a curse, he slammed the door closed. “Don’t go—”
She turned frigid eyes on him. “Don’t you have some patients to see or, at the very least, some new person in your life that you can sic a private detective on?”
“There’s only one new person in my life,” he admitted.
“Meaning me?” she spat. “Well, scratch me off the list. I’m not into the humiliation game, okay? I don’t hang out with people who dredge up my dirt.” She sighed loudly, trying to rein in her galloping rage. With difficulty, she stared into his cobalt blue eyes—eyes that seemed to see into the darkest corners of her heart. “It’s too bad, you know,” she said shakily. “Maybe if you’d grown up with a little love, if someone had cared for you, you’d know how to care back, how to treat people, how to—” She stopped suddenly when she saw the raw pain in his eyes. She knew then that she’d hit her mark, that she’d wounded him as deeply as he’d hurt her.
Stonily, he stepped away from the door. “I don’t think we have anything more to discuss,” he said, his voice flat. He moved to the desk, snatched up the damaging report and held it out to her. “You can have this.”
Why did she suddenly feel like a heel? She was in the right, damn it! She snatched the report from his hands, but felt the overwhelming need to apologize. She knew she had a sharp tongue, but she didn’t usually try to cut someone she cared for so deeply. “Look, I’m sorry. That crack about your family—was…uncalled-for…”
“Don’t worry about it.” He sat down in his chair and picked up the telephone receiver, staring at her impatiently, waiting for her to leave.
Sighing, she wadded up the damned report and tossed it into a wastebasket near his desk. “Can’t we start this afternoon over?” she said, her fury spent.
“Why?”
“Because there’s more to us than what’s contained in some investigator’s printout.”
He dropped the receiver. “Let’s not delude ourselves, okay? What we’ve got is a baby—that’s all. He’s our one common bond. Unless you want to count sex.”
Swallowing hard, she glanced through the window to the traffic moving steadily in and out of the parking lot. He was right, of course. Though she’d like to think that love was involved, it wasn’t. Love, as far as Dallas O’Rourke was concerned, didn’t exist. She’d have to settle for this man who didn’t love her, so that she could become J.D.’s mother.
“Well, as long as we understand each other,” she said, managing to keep her voice steady.
“You still want to marry me?” he asked, squinting at her, as if looking for flaws.
“I still need a father for J.D.”
Dallas drummed his fingers on his desk and pulled his forehead into a frown of disgust. Chandra felt as if her life were on a balance, slowly wobbling, and she was unable to right it.
“I guess I shouldn’t have checked up on you,” he finally said. “But I thought, when you first brought J.D. to the emergency room, that you could have stolen him or that you were covering for the real mother—that you had a sister or cousin who was in trouble. Believe it or not, I just wanted to help, and I had to be sure that the story you were giving me wasn’t a line.”
“And now?”
He slid a glance to the wastebasket. “I think the report’s filed in the appropriate slot. All I need to know now is that you’re playing straight with me.”
“I’ve never lied to you.”
“Except about your practice.”
“Well, now you know.”
“Not everything, Chandra.”
“I—I’ll tell you about it,” she said nervously, her hands beginning to sweat. “But not now. Trust me on this?”
His jaw slid to one side, and as he stood, he retrieved his leather jacket from the hall tree.
“For God’s sake, Dallas, don’t you trust anyone?” she asked, hating the silence that was radiating from him. She knew why he had trouble trusting people. God knew that she hadn’t been completely honest with him herself, and yet she hoped that he would give her the benefit of the doubt.
He slid his arms into his leather jacket, adjusted the collar and looked at her. His features had lost some of their severity, but he didn’t smile. “I’m trying,” he admitted, “but it’s not easy.” He walked to the door and held it open for her. Then, as if to leave the argument behind them in the office, he asked, “Okay, it’s confession time, how did you get past the sergeant?”
“The what?”
“Dena—the receptionist. She takes her job seriously.”
<
br /> “I’ve worked in hospitals,” Chandra explained. “And your door was unlocked.”
“My mistake,” he said, smiling crookedly. “Well, one of my mistakes. I seem to be making more than my share lately.” He reached forward and took her hand in his. “Come on,” he said with a slow smile. “I think there’s someone waiting to see you.”
“J.D.?” Her heart soared.
“Mmm.” He tugged on her hand and led her out of the office before locking the door. “High crime element in the neighborhood,” he explained with a glimmer in his eyes. “You never know who you’ll catch prowling around.”
“Very funny.”
“I thought so.” He guided her through the corridors to an exterior exit. “Oh, by the way, I thought we’d get dinner first, then visit your friend. But we have one stop first.”
“A stop?”
“City Hall. I think we’d better stop by and apply for a marriage license. Unless you’re chickening out.”
“Me? Chicken out?” she asked, her heart racing. This was it. Her out. If she only dared take it. She licked her lips nervously as she stared into his incredible blue eyes. “No way.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
LENORE NEWELL COULDN’T HAVE been more delighted with company, or so it seemed to Chandra. She insisted Chandra drink a glass of iced tea while she held the baby. Lenore prattled on and on about the children she’d cared for over the years. The living room of the Newell home, a quaint two-storied farmhouse flanked by a wide front porch, was filled with pictures of children, dozens of them, some who had only stayed a few weeks, others who had lived with the Newells for years.
Over the fireplace, a family portrait, showing Lenore and Frank some twenty years younger and surrounded by four beaming-faced boys, gave testament to the Newells’ strong family ties and the house itself seemed cozy and warm.
The furniture in the living room was upholstered in well-worn floral prints that matched a circular rug. Crocheted cloths covered the end tables, and a cuckoo clock near the chimney chirped the hours.
“He’s just as sweet as he can be,” Lenore said, touching J.D.’s cheek with her finger. The baby, sleeping in Chandra’s arms, yawned, then snuggled closer. “I just can’t imagine anyone in her right mind giving him up.” She glanced over at Dallas, who was standing near an upright piano littered with more photographs of children and teenagers. “Frank says no one’s come in to claim him yet. Can you believe that?”
“Hard to,” Dallas drawled.
Lenore sighed. “Well, the child’s better off with a family who loves him!” She sat in a chair next to the rocker in which Chandra was holding the baby. “Are you thinking of trying to adopt him?”
The question didn’t surprise Chandra. Surely Lenore had guessed how close she felt to the baby. “I hope to.”
“Good! This child needs a mother.” She turned her gaze back to Dallas, and added with a crafty wink, “He could use a father, as well, you know.”
“We’re already a couple of steps ahead of you, Lenore,” Dallas confided, slouching against the upright.
“Are you?” She arched her eyebrows in anticipation of a little small-town gossip. Dallas didn’t give her any more details, but Chandra, sending him a murderous look, decided Lenore had the right to know everything.
“Dallas and I plan to be married.”
Lenore’s mouth rounded, and she couldn’t hide the surprise and ultimate delight in her eyes. “Married!” She turned to Dallas for confirmation, but received only a noncommittal shrug. “Don’t tell me Dr. Ice is melting.”
“Very funny, Lenore,” Dallas observed with a dry smile as the screen door squeaked on rusted hinges and Frank Newell, tall and whip-lean, strode into the foyer.
“In here—we’ve got company,” his wife sang out. “There’s beer and iced tea in the fridge.”
Frank paused under the arch that separated the living room from the foyer. “Well, Doctor,” he said with a widespread grin at the sight of Dallas. He motioned to the glass of iced tea in Dallas’s hand. “Can’t I buy you anything stronger?”
“This’ll do.”
“You’ll never guess what!” Lenore said, bustling to her feet and heading past her husband toward the kitchen. Her footsteps retreated, but her voice still carried. “Dallas and Chandra are going to get married and adopt the baby! How is that for perfect?”
“Is that so?” Frank asked, frowning and looking suddenly tired.
“That’s the plan.”
“For you and about six hundred other couples.”
“What?” Lenore asked. Carrying a tray laden with two bottles of beer, a pitcher of tea, pretzels and cookies, she bustled back to the living room.
Chandra felt icicles form in her heart. “Others?”
“The phones down at the station have been ringing off the hook. Seems the story in the Banner got picked up by the news services and now we’ve got TV and newspaper reporters calling in every damn minute, along with attorneys and people wanting to adopt as faraway as San Francisco. From what I hear, the same thing’s going on at Riverbend.”
The bottom dropped out of Chandra’s world. She felt Dallas’s gaze on her as she involuntarily held J.D. more tightly. She couldn’t give him up. Wouldn’t. Desperation wrenched her heart, and it was all she could do to sit and rock instead of scooping the baby into her arms and fleeing. A lump filled her throat, and she sent up a silent prayer that she be given the privilege of raising this precious child.
Frank twisted open a bottle of beer. “I’m surprised the press hasn’t camped out in the front yard, but I suppose it’s only a matter of time.” He took a long swallow and sighed, his kind eyes resting on Chandra. “You won’t be out of this, you know. Bob Fillmore and the Banner were just the tip of the iceberg. For the next few weeks, Miss Hill, I’m afraid you’ll be hounded.”
“There are laws about trespassing,” she said.
“And we’ll uphold them. But your phone will be ringing non-stop. They’ve already named this guy, you know.” He nodded toward the baby. “Some reporter in Denver got wind of the fact that several couples are trying to bid for him. Our Baby John Doe is now the Million Dollar Baby.”
Chandra’s heart turned to stone, and Lenore protested, “He can’t be raffled off like some prize quilt at a county fair!”
“I know. It’s just a gimmick. But I don’t think this is going to blow over.” Frank offered Dallas a beer, but the doctor declined. “And I suppose you’ll get your share of the press as well, O’Rourke. Yep—” he shook his head slowly before draining half his bottle “—we’re all in for a lot of fun.”
* * *
FRANK NEWELL WAS RIGHT. By the time Chandra arrived home that night, her answering-machine light was blinking, and the tape was filled with the names and telephone numbers of local reporters as well as a call from a couple in Salt Lake City. Chandra suspected this couple was only the first. Soon there would be a lot of couples desperately calling in hopes of adopting J.D.
“Fat chance,” she muttered. The only people she telephoned were her parents. They deserved to hear what was going on in her life from her own lips.
Her mother answered and shouted for Chandra’s father to pick up the bedroom extension. “I can understand you wanting the baby,” her mother rambled on. “God knows you’ve wanted a child forever, but what about this doctor fellow? How can you be sure that marrying him won’t be a mistake? Oh, well, I don’t want to discourage you, honey, it’s just that I don’t want to see you hurt again.”
“I won’t be, Mom,” Chandra said, winding the telephone cord around her wrist and leaning against the kitchen counter.
“Of course she won’t, Jill,” Chandra’s father cut in. “Chandra knows what she’s doing. I’m behind you one hundred percent, girl.”
“Well…well…well, so am I,” her mother stuttered. “I just think you can take this slow, you know, make sure. You’ve got the rest of your life—”
“Not if she wants to adopt that
baby—”
“Do whatever you think is best,” Jill said, sounding irritated with her husband. “And know you’ve got our blessing. If you tell us when the wedding’s scheduled, we’ll be there!”
“With bells on,” Chandra’s father added.
“That I don’t know,” Chandra replied. They talked a little longer, about everything and nothing, her father asking about her job, her mother sneaking in questions about Dallas. Finally, with both parents in agreement at last that their daughter was old enough to make her own decisions, they hung up and Chandra turned on the answering machine. Whistling to Sam, she walked outside to the small garden, where a few tomatoes still ripened on the vine and the golden tassels on the corn stirred in the breeze. On the other side of the garden was the orchard where pears and apples littered the ground, beyond which were the forested hills. This small ranch would be a perfect place to raise a child, she thought, her heart tearing at the prospect of losing J.D.
And what about Dallas? What would be the point of marrying him when they had no child to hold them together? You could have other children, Dallas’s children. If he were willing. And there weren’t any guarantees that they would be able to conceive. All the advertisements seeking adoptable children were proof enough of the infertility rate. The thought of carrying Dallas’s child nearly brought tears to her eyes. For years, she’d given up on the dream of having her own children, and now, with Dallas, it was possible, and what a wonderful baby they could make together. Her throat was suddenly clogged with unshed tears. Dallas’s baby! Oh, God, how perfect! Absently, she rubbed her abdomen. A brother or sister for J.D….
She pulled a weed from the garden and tossed it over the fence. Would she be willing to marry Dallas without the prospect of a child? Without J.D.? She cared for him, perhaps even loved him, but was it enough? She felt confused and frustrated and wanted to do something, anything to ensure that the baby would be hers. Sitting around and waiting was killing her. Calm down, she told herself. She felt the breath of night as the sun sank below the horizon. Would Dallas ever want her to be a part of his life without the baby?
“Oh, God, what a mess,” she said with a sigh as she climbed onto the split-rail fence separating garden from orchard. She sat quietly, watching the sky darken in shades of rose and purple. An owl, hunting early this evening, landed in the gnarled branches of the apple tree.
