Lisa Jackson's the Abandoned Box Set

  “You can’t. The police are still talking to her.”

  “I’ll wait,” she insisted, somehow managing to keep the horrid fear of losing the baby at bay. “But at the first opportunity, I want to talk to that woman!”

  * * *

  “SHE’S DEFINITELY POSTPARTUM,” Dallas said quietly. The bottom dropped out of Chandra’s world as she sat slumped into a chair in his office, her heart heavy. “Now we’re waiting for the lab to check blood types.” He looked tired, his blue eyes dark with worry, his hair uncombed. He rubbed his neck, as if to straighten the kinks, and Chandra was reminded of the first time she’d seen him in the emergency room so few weeks before. He’d been weary then, too, but she’d known that this man was different, special. And now he was as sick with worry as she was. Maybe even more so.

  “So she’s had a baby,” Chandra whispered with a stiff lift of her shoulder as she feigned nonchalance. “That doesn’t mean she had this baby.”

  “Very recently.”

  “Does she look like J.D.?”

  He shook his head. “Who can tell? She has black hair, dark eyes. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. The boy could look like his father—or someone else in the family.”

  Chandra’s hands were shaking. She clasped them together and saw the ring, Dallas’s grandmother’s ring, her wedding ring, a symbol of a marriage that, perhaps, was never meant to be. Taking in a shuddering breath, she stared past Dallas to the window where the first drops of rain were slanting over the glass. Thunderheads brewed angrily over the mountains, and the sky was dark as pitch. “I can’t believe it. Not after all this… She can’t just appear and claim the child….”

  Dallas rounded his desk and took her hands in his; the stones of the ring pressed into his palm. “Don’t tell me you’re a quitter after all, Mrs. O’Rourke.”

  “It seems the odds are against us, aren’t they?” Chandra had only to crane her neck to see the newspapers littering Dallas’s desk. “That name—the Million Dollar Baby—it’s stuck. Did you know that? Some couples are actually in a bidding war to gain custody. What chance do we have?”

  Dallas’s eyes flickered with sadness. He pressed a kiss against her temple. “We haven’t lost yet.”

  “But it doesn’t look good.”

  “We won’t know if she’s even possibly the mother until the blood work is analyzed. Even then, we can’t be sure. She has no birth certificate—claimed she had him out in the woods near your place. She can’t or won’t name the father.”

  Chandra’s shoulders slumped. Even if this woman did prove to be a fraud, she was just the first. Woman after woman could claim to be mother of the baby, and sooner or later the real one might show up. If, God willing, she and Dallas were allowed to adopt J.D….

  Her heart ripped, and she bit her lip to fight back tears. Dallas was right about one thing, they hadn’t lost yet, even though the odds of adopting the child seemed to be getting slimmer by the minute.

  Dallas drew her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her, as if he really cared. Her heart nearly crumbled, and she wanted to lean against him, to sob like a baby, to cling to him for his strength, but she wouldn’t break down. Instead, she contented herself with resting her head against his chest and listened to the calming rhythm of his heartbeat. God, how she loved him. If he only knew…. But she couldn’t tell him. Not yet. She’d seem like some simpering female, depressed and clinging to a man who had no real ties to her.

  * * *

  GAYLA VANWYK WASN’T TOO HAPPY about being in the hospital, that much was certain from the crease in her brow and the pout of her full lips. Dallas guessed her age at twenty-three, give or take a couple of years. She was a beautiful girl, really, with curling black hair that framed a heart-shaped face filled with near-perfect features. Her exotic eyes were deep brown, rimmed with curling ebony lashes and poised above high cheekbones.

  She sat in Dr. Trent’s office, smoking a cigarette and staring with obvious distrust at the people in the room. Dallas stood near the window and looked down at the parking lot where, wedged between the cars of doctors, nurses, staff and patients, were double-parked vans and cars. Reporters milled about the parking lot and lobby.

  “Shouldn’t I have my attorney here or somethin’?” Gayla asked, eyeing the men and women who had dealt with the infant.

  Dr. Trent, as always soft-spoken, smiled kindly. “This isn’t an inquisition, Miss Vanwyk. These are some of the doctors who examined the child when he came into the hospital, and they’d like to explain his conditions to you.” He tried to calm her down, to explain that they were only interested in the health of the baby, but she wasn’t buying it.

  “Look, I’ve done all I have to,” she said, crushing her cigarette in a glass ashtray Trent had scrounged out of his desk. “I know my rights. I want my baby back.”

  “As soon as the test results are in, we’ll forward them to the police and Social Services,” Trent said.

  “Good. And how long will that take?” She stood up, ending the interview, and deposited her pack of cigarettes into a well-worn purse.

  “A day at most, but Social Services—”

  “Screw Social Services, I just want my kid.”

  “You left him,” Dallas said, unable to let the conversation end so abruptly.

  “Yeah, I had to. No choice.”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s personal,” she said, narrowing her eyes on him. “And I don’t have to talk to you. You’re the doctor who wants to adopt him, aren’t you? You’re married to the woman who found him.”

  “I just want to get to the truth.”

  “Well, you got it.” She turned on her heel and left the scent of heavy perfume and smoke wafting after her.

  “If that’s the mother, I don’t envy the kid,” Dr. Spangler said, fiddling with the buttons on his watch. “Maternal, she’s not.”

  Dallas shoved his hands into the back pockets of his pants. “I don’t buy it,” he said, his eyes narrowing a little as he considered the woman’s story. Even if she was the baby’s mother, she seemed more defensive than concerned about the child.

  In his own office, he punched out the number of his friend in Denver, the private investigator. Why not check out Miss Vanwyk? If she proved, indeed, to be J.D.’s mother, and the state saw fit to grant her custody, there wasn’t much Dallas could do about it. If, however, she wasn’t the baby’s mother, or he could prove her unfit, then at least the baby would be placed in a home with loving parents—not necessarily with Chandra and him, but with people who loved him.

  And what will you and Chandra do? Call the whole thing off? Divorce? Or start over? Living together not for the sake of a child, but because you love each other.

  Love? Did he love her already?

  Impossible. Love was out of his realm. Or was it? After all, he had given her the ring, a ring he’d never even shown to Jennifer.

  At the realization that he’d fallen all too willing a victim to love again, Dallas flung one leg over the corner of his desk and wondered how he could convince Chandra that, with or without the baby, they belonged together….

  “Killingsworth Agency,” a female voice cooed over the phone, and Dallas snapped his wandering thoughts back to attention. First, he had to find out about the woman claiming to be the baby’s mother; next, he’d deal with his marriage.

  * * *

  THREE DAYS LATER, Chandra was a nervous wreck. Certainly blood tests couldn’t take so long…unless they were testing DNA.

  She’d begged Dallas for information, but he claimed he, as a prospective adoptive parent, was being kept as much in the dark as she. It was all she could do not to find Miss Vanwyk and demand answers.

  “In due time,” Dallas told her. “You can’t risk talking to her now. It might jeopardize our chances of adopting the baby.”

  And so she kept away. But the press didn’t let up, and Chandra felt as if her life were being examined through a microscope. As was Gayla Vanwyk’s. Chandra’s
life seemed to be a story right out of the most sensational of the tabloids, and she had trouble sleeping at night. Were it not for Dallas’s strong arms on which she had come to depend, she doubted she would be getting any rest at all.

  As for work, things were slowing down as summer receded into fall. And though Chandra needed to fill her idle days, Rick wouldn’t hear any arguments from her. “Listen, you look like you haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in two weeks, and we’re not busy, anyway. Until all this hubbub about that kid dies down, you take some time off. Consider it paid vacation or a honeymoon or whatever, but you take all the time you need to put your life in order. Listen to someone who knows what he’s talking about—this is free advice, Chan. If I would’ve spent more time working things out with Cindy, she’d probably still be here with the kids and I would still be playing Santa Claus instead of getting Christmas cards from St. Louis.”

  Never, in the years she’d worked with him, had Chandra heard him complain about the split from the woman who’d borne his children. Though he hadn’t married anyone else, hardly even dated, Rick just didn’t talk about his past.

  Chandra grabbed a rag from behind the register and slapped at a cobweb hanging from the wagon-wheel chandelier. “But I can’t just sit around the house and stare at Sam all day,” she protested, frowning as she spotted another dangling string of dust.

  “Why not? It’d do you some good. You haven’t taken any time off since you started working here.”

  Randy breezed through the door and heard the tail end of their argument. “Hey, you may as well take advantage of Rick’s good humor,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “I am. I’m gonna find me a woman and a kid and get married and take a few months’ paid vacation—”

  “Get outta here,” Rick said, chuckling to himself. “No, not you, Randy. But you, Chan, do yourself a favor. Get to know that husband of yours.”

  That husband of mine, she thought ruefully. For how long? Snagging her long denim coat from the peg near the door, she hurried outside and shivered in the cold mountain wind. The first snow of the season had dusted the highest peaks, but here, in the lower valley, raindrops danced in the parking lot, creating shallow puddles that she had to dodge as she made her way to her Suburban. The thought of living without little J.D. was crippling, the thought of living without Dallas devastating. In a few short weeks, they’d become so close, and their marriage, though it hadn’t been based on love, had provided, in many ways, the happiest moments of her life—though her parents had been shocked when she’d called them with the news.

  “You shouldn’t have been so hasty!” her mother had warned. “What do you know about this man?”

  Chandra’s father had come to her rescue. “Oh, hush, Jill. She’s old enough to know what she’s doing!”

  “And that’s what you said when she married Doug!”

  Now, remembering the telephone conversation, Chandra smiled at her parents’ happy bickering. They’d be lost without each other. They depended upon each other, and, yes, they argued with each other, but she never doubted that their love ran as deep as any ocean and their devotion to each other, as well as to their three daughters, was stronger than any force on earth.

  She’d hoped for that same kind of love and devotion in her own marriage to Doug, and it hadn’t occurred. But this time…if only Dallas could love her….

  She wasn’t ready to go home, knowing that there would be more messages from reporters on her answering machine. She drove instead to the hospital, hoping that she could share a cup of coffee with Dallas or just talk to him.

  In the parking lot, Chandra encountered reporters, hand-held cameras, microphones and tape recorders. A police cruiser was idling near the entrance, and Chandra recognized the flat, frowning face of Deputy Stan Bodine behind the wheel. Chandra waved at him as she drove to a rear parking lot.

  She left her Suburban far from the main doors and dashed through the physician’s lot to a side entrance. Inside the hospital, she shook the rain from her hair and rubbed her hands from the cold, then hurried to Dallas’s office.

  He wasn’t in. Dena checked his schedule and relayed that Dallas wasn’t due back in the hospital until two, at which time he was to report for his shift in ER.

  Chandra visited the nurses in the pediatrics wing, then took the elevator to ER. Dallas hadn’t signed in yet. There were a few patients in the waiting room as Chandra started for the door. She was near Alma Lindquist’s desk when she heard the voice of a distraught mother.

  “But he hasn’t taken any liquids. I can’t get him to drink, and his temp’s been at a hundred and four for a couple of days. The pediatrician says it’s just the flu, but I’m worried.”

  “Who’s your pediatrician?” Nurse Lindquist inquired.

  “Dr. Sands, and I trust him, but Carl is so sick…”

  Chandra couldn’t help but overhear the conversation, and she looked at the small boy cradled in his mother’s arms. His face was pale, and he could barely keep his eyes open. “Has he had any blood work done?” she asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” the mother replied, her own face pasty with worry.

  “You haven’t had a white count?”

  “Not that I know of.” The mother looked perplexed. “Dr. Sands says there’s a virus going around….”

  Alma rose from her chair. “Mrs. O’Rourke, this isn’t…”

  But Chandra didn’t hear her. As she looked at the little boy, images of another sick child came to mind. She saw Gordy Shore’s listless eyes and pale face, his lethargy palpable.

  “Admit this child immediately. Get a white count, and if that’s elevated, have his lungs X-rayed.” Chandra turned to the mother. “Have there been any other symptoms—vomiting? Diarrhea? Swelling?”

  “No, he just barely moves, and he’s usually so active,” the mother replied, obviously close to tears.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of him.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Has Dr. Sands listened to his lungs—”

  “Last week,” the mother replied.

  “Admit this child,” Chandra ordered again, but Nurse Lindquist’s lips pressed into a stubborn line. Obviously, she wasn’t taking any instructions from a woman who held no authority at Riverbend, but Chandra, spying Dallas walking from the stairs, flew past her. “That patient,” she said, motioning to the little boy, “is supposed to have the flu, but he hasn’t had a white count and…” She rattled off the conversation to Dallas and, thankfully, he listened to her.

  “There are other patients,” Nurse Lindquist objected as Dallas approached, but he surveyed the waiting room where a few people sat patiently, flipping through ragged magazines.

  “Anything life threatening?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Admit this child—now,” he ordered as an ambulance roared to the doors. “And call Dr. Hodges if we need more help.” He then led the mother and child back to the examining room.

  Pandemonium broke loose as another ambulance, siren screaming, pulled up to the door. Paramedics began wheeling stretchers into the emergency room.

  Chandra heard the page calling for every available staff member, and she saw the influx of personnel and equipment. Suddenly, nurses, doctors and volunteers were everywhere as the first of the patients were wheeled into examining rooms.

  “Bad accident…truck jackknifed on the freeway…” she heard a paramedic explain to a nurse. “This one needs help, he’s lost a lot of blood and his blood pressure has dropped—”

  “Put him in room three. Dr. Prescott’s on his way.”

  Chandra didn’t even think about the ramifications of what she was doing, but followed Dallas into the examining room, where he was leaning over the boy, a stethoscope to his chest.

  “I don’t hear anything, but we’ll have to see—”

  Shannon Pratt stuck her head into the examining room. “Dr. O’Rourke, we need you! Big accident. Multiple victims. We’re calling all the staff back to the
hospital.”

  “I can handle this,” Chandra said, motioning to the boy, her heart in her throat. “You had blood taken?”

  “It’s in the lab now.”

  “I’ll take him to X-ray.” Chandra met the questions in Dallas’s gaze and didn’t flinch. A special glimmer passed between them. “They need you out there,” she said. Shouts, moans and the sound of rattling equipment and frantic footsteps filtered through the door.

  “You’re sure about this?” Dallas asked.

  “Positive. Come on,” she said to the boy as she lifted him into a wheelchair, “let’s get some pictures taken….

  The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. Chandra helped out where she could, but was sent home when the administration caught wind that a doctor not certified in the state was giving advice, if only to other physicians. Though she didn’t actually treat anyone, the administration was taking no chances. They didn’t even allow her to do volunteer work, for fear that her connection to Dr. O’Rourke, Baby John Doe and Gordy Shore—plus the fact that she was unlicensed—could be grounds for one helluva lawsuit should anything go wrong.

  But Chandra was grateful to have been able to help, and she wondered, not for the first time, about becoming licensed in Colorado.

  The cabin seemed suddenly lonely and empty. Dallas had told her not to wait up for him, and she felt a despondency she’d never experienced in all the time that she’d lived here.

  Several calls had come in while she was out. One had been from a reporter from Los Angeles, another from a married couple from Bend, Oregon, and a third from a lawyer in Des Moines whose clients “would pay big money” for an infant. As if she could or would help them.

  Chandra took down the numbers and relayed them to Marian Sedgewick, the social worker, who, to Chandra’s dismay, hedged concerning the adoption. She had mentioned that even if Gayla Vanwyk were a fraud, many couples were trying desperately to adopt the child. Though Chandra’s petition was given special consideration because of all Chandra’s help with the child and obvious love for the baby, there were also good reasons for placing him with someone else.