Lisa Jackson's the Abandoned Box Set (58 page)

“Since before dawn. And the phone has been ringing since about six last night. Someone must've let it slip that the baby's here because before that there was nothing. I was living a normal life. I don't like this, I tell you.”

“Neither do I,” Dallas replied, and Chandra bit her lip to keep tears from spilling on the baby who would never be hers.

* * *

A
S
C
HANDRA SETTLED
into a comfortable life with Dallas, the interest in the baby didn't decrease. While she was busy making closet space for Dallas's things, helping him fill out change-of-address forms and planning the addition to the house, her name and picture appeared in newspapers as far away as Phoenix and Sante Fe. At first she was considered a small-time heroine, the woman who had discovered the baby and rushed him to the hospital. Over the next week, her life was opened up and dissected, and all the old headlines appeared.

The story of little Gordy Shore and his death was revived, and her marriage to Doug Pendleton, subsequent divorce and change of name and lifestyle in Colorado were hashed and rehashed in the newspapers and on the local news. She'd given two interviews, but quit when the questions became, as they always did, much too personal.

It was known that she was trying to adopt the baby, along with hundreds of other applicants, and it had even been speculated that her marriage to Dallas, at first a seeming fairy-tale romance of two people who meet via an abandoned infant then fall in love, was a fraud, a ploy for custody.

“I don't know what I expected,” she admitted to Dallas, upon reading a rather scorching article in the
Denver Free Spirit.
“But it wasn't this.”

Dallas, who had been polishing the toes of his shoes,
rested one foot on the seat of a chair and leaned across the table to stare more closely at her. “Giving up so soon, Mrs. O'Rourke? And here I thought you liked a battle.”

“Not when the stakes are so high,” she admitted, her stomach in knots. She hazarded a quick glance at him. “And I'm not giving up. Not yet.”

“Not as long as there's an ounce of breath in your body, I'd wager,” he said, winking at her.

She rolled her eyes, but giggled. The past few days had been as wonderful as they had been gut wrenching. Though she was worried about adopting J.D., her life with Dallas was complicated, but interesting, and their lovemaking was passionate. She couldn't resist him when he kissed her, and she felt a desperation in their lovemaking, as if they each knew that soon it would be over. If they weren't awarded custody of J.D., they would have no reason to stay together. That thought, too, was depressing. Because each day she was with him, she loved him a little more.

Sam whined to go out, and she slung the strap of her canvas purse over her shoulder. “I guess I'd better get to work,” she said. “And I'll talk to my attorney today, see what he's come up with.”

“I'll walk you,” Dallas offered, holding open the door for her as Sam streaked across the yard. The morning was cool, the sky, usually clear, dark with clouds. Even through her jacket, Chandra shivered.

She reached for the handle of the door of her Suburban, but Dallas caught her hand.

“What's up, Doctor?” she asked, turning to face him and seeing his gaze was as sober as the threatening sky.

“I think I've gone about this marriage thing ass-backward,” Dallas admitted.

“We both have.”

“Right. But I decided that we need to set things right.
So, I hope this is a start.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small silver ring, obviously old, with a single diamond surrounded by smaller sapphires.

“Where did you get this?” she whispered as he slipped it over her finger, and the ring, a size or two too big, lolled below her knuckle.

“It was my grandmother's. Harrison's mother. I don't remember much about her—except that she was kind and loving, and the one person in the world who would always stand up for me.” He cleared his throat suddenly, and Chandra's heart twisted with pain for the man who had once been such a lonely boy. “She died when I was about eight and she left me this—” he motioned to the ring “—and a little money for college and medical school.”

Chandra, her throat thick, her eyes heavy with tears of happiness, touched the ring with the fingers of her other hand.

“You can have it sized,” he said. “Or if you'd prefer something new—”

“Oh, no! It's…it's perfect! Thank you!” Moved, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his throat, drawing in deep breaths filled with his special scent. “We're going to make this work, Doctor,” she whispered into his ear. “I just know it!”

Opening the door of the Suburban, she saw the ring wink in the little morning light that permeated the clouds. She wondered vaguely if Jennifer had worn this very ring, and a little jab of jealousy cut through her. But she ignored the pain; Jennifer was history. Chandra, now, was Mrs. Dallas O'Rourke.

She pushed all negative thoughts aside as she drove into town and stopped at Roy Arnette's office. The lawyer was waiting for her, his glasses perched on the end of his nose, his mouth tiny and pinched. “Have you talked to the Newells today?” he asked as she sat down.

“It's only nine in the morning.”

Roy sighed. “Then you don't know.”

“Know what?” she asked, but she read the trouble in his eyes, and her throat seemed to close in on itself.

“There's a woman. Her name is Gayla Vanwyk. She claims to be the baby's mother.”

“But she couldn't be—” Chandra whispered, her world spinning wildly, her heart freezing.

“Maybe not. But the police are interested in her.”

“But where did she come from? How did she get here? She could be some kook, for crying out loud, someone who read about J.D. in one of these—” She thumped her hand on a newspaper lying open on Roy's desk. “She could just be after publicity or want a child or God only knows what else!”

“Look, Chandra, I'm only telling you what I know, which is that the police are interested in her enough to have some blood work done on her.”

“Oh, God—”

“If she's the natural mother…”

Tears jammed her throat, and Chandra blinked hard. “If she is, why did she leave him?” she demanded, outraged.

“If she's the natural mother, this complicates things,” Roy said. “She'll have rights.”

“She gave those up when she left him!”

“Maybe not, Chandra,” he said as gently as possible, and Chandra felt as if her entire world were crumbling.

Dallas! She needed to talk to Dallas. He'd know what to do. “I won't lose him, Roy, I won't!” she cried, though a horrible blackness was seeping into her soul. Again she saw how small her chances of becoming J.D.'s mother actually were. Sobs choked her throat, but she didn't let them erupt. “I want to see her,” she said with dead calm.

“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!”

* * *

“S
HE'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.

* * *

G
AYLA
V
ANWYK 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.