Million Dollar Baby

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 (#ulink_53157e53-8111-5ea1-b916-e494fa8aeb6c)