Million Dollar Baby

DALLAS WASHED THE GRIT from his eyes and let the spray of the shower pour over him. He leaned one arm against the slippery tiles of the stall and closed his eyes as the jets of hot water soothed the ache of overly tired muscles.

The past thirty-six hours had been rough, one case after another. A twelve-year-old with a broken arm, a messy automobile accident with one fatality and two critically injured passengers flown by helicopter to Denver, a drug overdose, two severe strep cases, an elderly woman who had fallen and not only broken her hip, but fractured her pelvis, and, of course, the abandoned baby.

And it was the thoughts of the infant and the woman who’d found him that continued to rattle around in Dallas’s tired mind. Probably because he was overworked. Overly tired. His emotions already strung tight because of the phone call….

He twisted off the faucets and pulled down a towel from the top of the glass shower doors, rubbing his body dry, hoping to infuse a little energy through his bloodstream.

He should eat, but he couldn’t face an empty refrigerator. The joys of being a bachelor, he thought fatalistically, because he knew, from the experience of a brief, painful marriage, that he would never tie himself down to one woman again. No, medicine was his mistress, and a demanding mistress she was. She exacted far more attention than any woman would. Even the woman to whom he’d been married, Jennifer Smythe O’Rourke Duncan.

The bitch. He still couldn’t think of her without the bitter taste of her betrayal rising like bile in his throat. How could he have been duped by her, when all along, she’d been more of a slave to her precious profession than he had to his?

He didn’t bother shaving, that he could do in the morning, but walked through the connecting door to the bedroom and flopped, stark naked, onto the king-size bed. He dropped the towel onto the floor. He’d pick up it and his discarded clothes in the morning.

Muttering oaths he saved for the memory of his marriage, he noticed the red light flashing on his phone recorder, though he hadn’t been paged. A personal call. Great. He didn’t have to guess who the caller was. He rewound the tape and, settling back on the pillows, listened as his half brother’s voice filled the room.

“Hey, Dal. How’s it goin’? I just thought I’d touch base before I drop by tomorrow. You remember, don’t ya?”

How could he forget, Dallas thought grimly. His half brother, Brian, was here in the waning weeks before college started, not because he was working, but because he’d spent the summer camping and rafting in the wilderness. Only now, with less than two weeks until he left for school, did Brian think about the more practical side of education.

“Hey, man, I really hate to bug you about this and I’ll pay you back every dime, you know I will, but I just need a little something to keep me goin’ until my money gets here.”

Right. Brian’s money was scholarship dollars and not nearly enough of them to pay for the tuition, books and a carefree lifestyle.

The machine clicked off, and Dallas scowled. He shouldn’t loan Brian another nickel. Already the kid was into him for nearly ten thousand. But his mother’s other children, Brian, Brian’s twin sister, Brenda, and their older sister, Joanna, were the only family Dallas had ever known.

However, the loans to Brian were starting to bother Dallas, and he wondered, not for the first time, if he should be writing checks directly to University of Southern California rather than to the kid himself.

He’d find out this afternoon. After he felt refreshed and after he made rounds at the hospital, checking on his patients. The image of the newborn flitted through his mind again, and Dallas wondered if he’d run into Chandra Hill. Now there was a woman who was interesting, a woman who knew her own mind, a woman with a presence of authority that was uncommon, a woman who, even in old boots, jeans and a nightshirt, her hair wild, her face free of makeup, was the most attractive woman he’d seen in a long, long time.

He rolled under the covers, switched off the light and decided, as he drifted off, that chances were he might just see her again. And that thought wasn’t all that unpleasant.

* * *

CHANDRA PULLED HER HAIR into a ponytail when she heard the hum of an engine and the crunch of tires against the gravel drive. She pulled back the curtains to discover a tan cruiser from the Sheriff’s Department rolling to a stop near the barn. Sam, vigilant as ever, began to bark and growl.

“You haven’t had this much excitement in a long while, have you?” Chandra asked the retriever as she yanked open the door. Two deputies, the same men she’d met in the hospital, climbed out of the car.

She met them on the porch.

“Sorry to bother you so early,” Deputy White apologized, “but we’re about to go off duty and would like to check over the barn and house.”

“Just to see if there’s anything you might have missed,” Bodine added.

“I hope there is,” Chandra replied, feeling more gracious this morning than she had last night. She thought again, as she had for the past four hours, of the dark-haired infant. She’d called the hospital the minute she’d awakened, but had been unable to prod much information from the nurse who had taken her call. “Doing as well as can be expected. Resting comfortably…in no apparent distress….”

When Chandra had mentioned that she’d brought the baby in, the nurse had warmed a bit. “Oh, Miss Hill, yes. Dr. O’Rourke said you’d probably call.” Chandra’s heart had nearly stopped. “But there’s nothing new on the baby’s condition.”

So Chandra had been given stock answers that told her nothing. Nothing! Except that O’Rourke had had the decency to advise the staff that she would be inquiring. Surprised that he’d bothered at all, she again decided she’d have to make a friend of O’Rourke, even if it killed her.

She hadn’t been this frustrated since she’d lived in Tennessee…. With a start, she pulled herself away from the painful thought of her past and her short-lived marriage, noticing that the deputies looked beyond fatigued. “How about a cup of coffee before you get started?” she asked, and the weary men, seeming much less belligerent in the soft morning light, smiled in response.

“I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” White said.

“No trouble at all. I was just about to pour myself a cup.”

“In that case, you’re on,” Bodine cut in, obviously not wanting the younger man to talk them out of a quick break.

They followed her inside. Sam, ever watchful, growled deep in his throat as they crossed the threshold, but the men seemed unintimidated by the old retriever.

Chandra reached for two mugs from the shelf near the kitchen window and couldn’t help asking, “Have you learned anything else?”

“About the baby?” Bodine asked, and taking off his hat, he shook his head. “Not yet. We thought maybe we could find something here. You got that jacket?”

“The what…? Oh! Just a minute.” She poured them each a mug of coffee from the glass pot warming on the burner of the coffee maker. From the closet, she retrieved the ratty old army jacket and tattered blanket that had swaddled the newborn. Smudges of dirt, a few wisps of straw and several patches of a dark, dried substance that looked like blood discolored the dull green jacket. Faded black letters stated: U S ARMY, but no other lettering was visible.

“Anyone could pick up something like this in a local G.I. surplus store,” Bodine grumbled to himself as he searched the jacket’s pockets and discovered nothing more exciting than lint. He focused his attention on the blanket. It offered few clues to the identity of the newborn, fewer than the jacket. Frowning, he pulled a couple of plastic bags from his pocket and wrapped the blanket and jacket separately, then accepted a cup of coffee. Motioning toward his plastic-encased bundles, he added, “We’ll see if the lab can come up with any clues from these.”

“But don’t hold your breath,” White added. “Despite what Sheriff Newell thinks, the lab guys aren’t gods. There’s just not too much here to go on.” He flashed a hint of a smile as Chandra handed him a steaming cup. “Thanks.”

“Our best hope is for someone to step forward and claim the kid.”

“Is it?” Chandra asked, surprised by her own sense of dread of some relative appearing. “But what if whoever tries to claim the child is a fraud?”

“We won’t let that happen.” Nonetheless, Bodine’s eyebrows drew together and a deep cleft appeared on his forehead. He was worried. He studied the hot black liquid in his mug, as if he could find the answers he was searching for in the coffee. “Why don’t you go over your story one more time.” He held up a couple of fingers when he caught Chandra’s look of distress. “Since we’re here, talk us through it again and show us what you did last night.”

Chandra wasn’t all that eager to repeat the story, but she knew that was the only way to gain the deputies’ confidence. And after all, they were all on the same side, weren’t they? Didn’t Chandra, the police and the hospital staff only want what was best for the tiny, motherless infant?

“Okay,” she said with a forced smile. “It’s just exactly what I said last night.” As they sipped their coffee, Chandra pointed to the loft. “I was sleeping up there when Sam—” the big dog perked up his ears and his tail dusted the floor at the sound of his name “—started barking his fool head off. Wouldn’t let up. And that’s when I heard the sound.”

“The baby crying,” White cut in.

“Yes, but I didn’t know that it was a baby at first.” She continued while they finished their coffee, then led them back outside as Sam tagged along.

The sun was climbing across the morning sky, but frost still glazed the gravel of the parking lot. Sam nosed around the base of a blue spruce where, hidden in the thick needles, a squirrel scolded him. Deputy White tossed the jacket and blanket onto the front seat of the car.

“The noise was coming from the barn.” Chandra followed her footsteps of the night before and shoved open the barn door. Shafts of sunlight pierced the dark interior, and the warm smell of horses and musty hay greeted her. The horses nickered softly as dust motes swirled in the air, reflecting the morning light.

“The baby was in the end stall.” She pointed to the far wall while petting two velvety noses thrust over the stall doors.

As the officers began their search, Chandra winked at Cayenne, her favorite gelding. “I bet you want to go out,” she said, patting his sleek neck. In response, the sorrel tossed his head and stamped. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Cayenne shoved his big head against her blouse and she chuckled. “Grouchy after you missed a night’s sleep, aren’t you?” She walked through the first stall and yanked open the back door. One by one, she opened the connecting gates of the other stalls and the horses trotted eagerly outside to kick up their heels and run, bucking and rearing, their tails unfurling like silky banners behind them.

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.”