Buch lesen: «Saved By The Baby»

Chapter One

“I got five bucks and a bottle of Bud that says she won’t stick around two days.”

Jeet Hammond lounged a fat elbow on the counter of Harper’s Doughnut Shop and pointed his coffee cup at the long-legged brunette sashaying past the picture window. Disinterested, Sheriff Tate McIntyre watched the woman flick in and out of view between the signs plastering the plate glass. He hadn’t a clue who his deputy was talking about and he didn’t care. Tate had neither the time nor the heart to worry about females.

With a good-natured grin he reminded his deputy of what everyone in the county already knew. “No betting on beer, Jeet. You know I don’t drink.” Few people understood the reasons why.

“I know, I know, and you don’t gamble, either.” Jeet’s fleshy face wrinkled in mischief. “But I still do.”

Tate laughed and pushed back the remains of Clare Harper’s almost-famous pecan pie. Then the serendipitous Oklahoma wind teased the woman’s shapely legs, lifting the edges of a blue-flowered skirt ever so slightly, and he realized who she was. Suddenly, the pecan pie felt as heavy on his stomach as a watermelon. He hadn’t known she was back in town.

Jeet, his head tilted in a comical leer, stared at the billowing skirt and chanted prayerfully, “Higher, higher. Dang, but she has the prettiest legs I ever seen. No wonder them fancy folks out West pay money to take pictures of ’em.”

“If your wife heard you talking about beer and some woman’s legs at the same time you’d be sleeping in my spare room again.”

Jeet had the grace to look guilty, though he continued to follow the brunette’s progress until she was out of sight.

“You got that right.” He sighed blissfully. “But Tate, old buddy, even a tough case like you has to be affected when Julianna Reynolds shows up in Blackwood after all this time.”

Tate shifted uncomfortably and concentrated on his warm, sweet coffee. He was affected all right, but not in the way Jeet had in mind. Ten years ago when Julee had walked away from him on those gorgeous gams she’d taken something he’d never gotten back—his last twenty dollars and a sizable chunk of his heart. He didn’t intend that anyone would ever hurt him that way again.

“If she was so successful, how come we never seen no pictures of her?” Jeet craned his head toward the window.

“She’s a leg model, Jeet. It’s hard to recognize a person by her legs.”

He didn’t add that he’d recognized Julee every time he’d seen those long perfect legs in a commercial or a magazine. If he thought about it, he could still feel the smooth silk of her skin against his. But he darn sure wasn’t going to think about it. Not now. Not ever.

“Some folks said it was her in that movie last year about the ballet dancer.”

“Yeah, I heard that.”

“Man, that billboard out by the interstate almost made me run off the road the first time I seen it. I bet that was her.”

It was Julee, all right. Tate had driven out to that billboard and set up a driver’s license check right next to it. Sat up there half the night staring at those legs, writing tickets, and reliving the one memory that haunted him.

A scalding sip of coffee washed down the bitterness that rose every time Tate remembered the woman he’d loved enough to die for. He hadn’t been good enough for her. He’d known it then and he knew it now. She deserved a better life, and they’d both known an illegitimate mixed-blood troublemaker from the wrong side of the tracks couldn’t give it to her. With an annoyed grunt, he clanged the white mug onto the saucer.

Tossing several bills on the table, Tate rose. “Come on, Jeet. Lunch is over and we’ve got plenty of work to do.”

His portly deputy scraped back from the table, hitched up droopy pants, and followed. “Wonder what she’s doing here after all this time.”

That’s what Tate was wondering, too.

Julianna Reynolds was on a mission.

With a purposeful swing of her famous legs, she strode down the sunny main street toward the Blackwood Municipal Building. With every step nearer the man who held her whole world in his hands, Julianna fretted. He was married, happy, successful. She’d planned never to interfere in the life he’d chosen, but desperate times meant desperate measures. Somehow she’d get his cooperation without ever revealing the real reason for her sudden reappearance in Blackwood. She owed him that much.

The huge clock on the grounds of Evans Funeral Home read a little past noon. She blanched at the grim reminder of death, the terrible vulture hovering over her day and night. Death was her enemy, creeping forward with each passing moment. Only the grace of God and modern technology held the monster at bay for now.

The warm spring breeze stirred the scent of tulips in the brick planters on each side of the tall courthouse steps. Without pausing to admire their beauty, Julianna opened the heavy double doors and entered the cool, dim interior.

Megan, her only child, the light of her life, her reason for living, was dying. Only a bone-marrow transplant could save her, and after several weeks of searching and testing, no donor match had been found. So, Julianna had done what she’d sworn never to do. She’d packed a bag and come back to Blackwood to find Megan’s father. She’d come home to find Tate McIntyre.

No one sat at the reception desk outside the wooden door marked Seminole County Sheriff. Julianna paused, gathering courage to open the door. Throat dry as cotton, her confidence waned. What if he refused? What if this plan to save Megan failed? Drawing a deep breath to calm her trembling insides, she turned the knob to Tate’s office.

The door was locked. Shoulders sagging in disappointment, she leaned her forehead on the cool brass plate bearing Tate’s name. If she hadn’t already cried enough tears to fill a football stadium, she’d have broken down.

“Looking for someone?”

At the deep, gravelly voice, Julianna jerked her shoulders back to flawless posture and whipped around. Tate McIntyre, older, bigger, and far more handsome than she remembered stood a mere three feet away.

Her heart did a foolish jitterbug that she chalked up to nerves. She was scared silly, not attracted, though any female alive would notice this tall, dark lawman.

Wearing a shuttered expression above a crisply pressed uniform shirt, creased blue jeans and brown boots, he was still Tate, but with tantalizing changes. Lean and tough looking, he brought to mind a marine. The tall, anvilshaped body that had made him a top football recruit filled out the sheriff’s shirt to perfection, the olive color emphasizing his mocha skin and green eyes. His brown-black hair was shorter, the almost military cut highlighting the high cheekbones of his Native heritage. Julianna’s stomach dipped. The handsome boy had become a stunning man. A man who had chosen another woman over her.

From somewhere in the building came the static of a police radio. Tate cocked his head to listen, not taking his eyes off her for a minute.

She’d wondered about him many times over the years, but nothing had prepared her for this moment. Her ears rang and blood pulsed at her temples. Some deeply buried emotion threatened to rear its head as she took in the man she’d once loved with all the teenage passion possible. She fought it back. Tate was the past, and she was here for Megan. Only for Megan.

Suddenly short of breath, Tate stared at the tall, willowy brunette with a death grip on his office doorknob. Julee Reynolds was not only back in town, she was standing outside his office, looking up at him with anxious blue eyes that threatened to undermine his resolve never to get emotionally involved with a woman again.

With steely control, he drew some air into his tortured lungs. She’d always been beautiful to him, even when the other guys had called her “Olive Oyl” and “Toothpick,” but years of working in an industry where beauty is carefully cultivated had enhanced her natural assets. He didn’t want to notice, didn’t want to feel a thing in her presence, but he did.

“Hello, Tate.”

She extended a hand—a long, manicured hand with those fancy fake nails women liked. Fool that he was, he wrapped his fingers around hers. The jolt of awareness from her skin to his was as powerful as the stun gun they’d zapped him with in the police academy. She was warm and soft and—criminy, she was Julee, the woman who’d taken his heart to L.A. and never sent it back. That’s why he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk. Heck, he couldn’t even think.

Like his father, Julee had been relegated to a mental file marked “unsolvable case” so he could move on with his life. Maybe that’s why seeing her affected him so strongly and brought back an avalanche of unwanted feelings. Time and hard work had distanced him from most of the pain in his past, but nothing had ever filled the void Julianna had left when she’d stepped on that old Greyhound bus and ridden away.

He’d known she had to give the modeling world a shot, had wanted that for her. She and her mom had already lost their house and were barely holding things together. He just hadn’t realized it would hurt so much when she never came back, especially after his career-ending injury. Eventually, pain turned to resentment and resentment to bitterness. She’d proved him right. He wasn’t worth her coming back to. He’d fallen into a black hole after she left and nearly destroyed himself. Since then, he’d kept his heart locked away, taking care not to risk that kind of rejection ever again.

If he had a lick of sense, he’d find out what she wanted and send her back to L.A.—ASAP.

“How are you?” Her voice was that smooth honeyed alto that had once sent his teenage libido into overdrive. Just talking to her on the phone had been a sexual fantasy. Sexiest voice, sexiest legs, sweetest girl on the planet.

He slammed the cover on that file so fast his brain ached.

“Doing good. Yourself?” He willed himself to release her hand, then reached around her and unlocked his office so they could go in. Lord knew he needed to sit down and get a grip.

Standing aside, he let her enter first, catching the subtle drift of some designer perfume. He couldn’t name it. Never was good at that sort of thing, though he could sniff out a meth lab or a drunk driver with his eyes closed.

“It’s been a long time,” she said, her blue gaze drifting around the old, narrow office that he’d worked so hard to gain. His desk, always a cluttered mess, looked even more so today. The air-conditioning wheezed and rattled and little dust wads flapped in the vent. To her big-city eyes, accustomed to the best, he supposed this place looked and smelled like a musty hole in the wall.

“A very long time,” he repeated, glancing at the calendar on his desk. Nine years, seven months and thirteen days, to be exact. The date she’d left him was a permanent scar on his heart, like a bad tattoo that no amount of surgery could remove. “I heard you did all right for yourself.”

“You heard?”

He shrugged, not willing to let her know how he’d scrounged for every drop of information, praying she’d make it big then praying she wouldn’t. He’d even fantasized about her coming back, broke and lonely. In his dreams, he’d been the man she needed, the only one who could help her. He’d been a dumb kid then who’d believed in the impossible.

Tate shifted the weight off his bad knee. Weather must be changing for the old injury to act up this much. Or maybe it was the eighteen-hour day he’d spent on duty, half of it on his feet, searching the lake woods for a lost child. But Tate had no complaints. He’d felt like a million bucks when he’d placed the boy in his tearful parents’ arms.

He knew his stance had given him away when Julee’s gaze came back to him, drifting down his body to rest at his aching knee. Though her attention was purely curious, Tate’s body grew warmer than the April weather dictated.

“I never did get a chance to tell you how sorry I was about your knee injury. Does it still bother you?”

So she had known. And never even called. Apparently, she hadn’t given him another thought once she hit the big city.

“Sometimes,” he admitted gruffly. Nearly ten years had passed. Why was she bringing it up now?

Julee touched his arm lightly, but enough that the electric shock of her touch still made his insides quiver. Not just physical wanting, though she had that power, too, but emotional need so intense he wanted to collapse at her glamorous feet. After all this time, he was still a fool.

“I always hated what happened to you.”

If she’d cared so much, why hadn’t she come home? Why hadn’t she been the one to see him through those black days? Why had she left him alone to drown in alcohol and self-pity and to marry the first woman who would tolerate both?

“That was a long time ago.” He stepped back from the subtle lure of her perfume, placing the desk between the two of them. “It all happened a long time ago.”

They’d been so young, thinking they could have it all. Julee would be a famous model. He’d play pro football. Then they’d find their way back to each other. Trouble was, her dream came true about the same time his died on the ten-yard line with three minutes to go in the first half of the season opener.

He’d fallen into the black abyss of anger and alcohol, too proud to call her, but furious when she didn’t call him. Then Shelly had come along, sweet and sympathetic, willing to tolerate his drunken rages and self-pity. She’d been his anchor during a time when he’d wanted to die. Out of some alcohol-distorted sense of gratitude, and because he needed to believe someone cared, he’d married her after less than a month.

Tate squeezed his eyes shut and blotted out the memories. Too much time had passed to go there now. “So. What brings you back to Blackwood?”

And how soon will you be on the next flight out?

Some emotion stirred behind her beautiful blue eyes. What was it? Nerves? Anxiety?

Squinting in thought, he studied the intense set of her jaw, the shadows above her elegant cheekbones. That’s when he knew. Julianna was afraid.

The loose rollers on his chair clattered against the brown tile as he pulled it away from the desk. One hand on the nubby gray backrest, he waited, cop instinct on alert.

What was she afraid of? And what on God’s green earth could it have to do with the hometown she’d abandoned years ago? Better question, what did it have to do with him?

“Mind if I sit down?” she asked. Tate tried to ignore the tingle in his gut whenever her lips moved. “I have some important business to discuss with you.”

Fighting the need to protect her from whatever demon chased her, and the greater need to protect himself from her, Tate indicated the green vinyl-covered chair across from his desk, then settled into his own. Immediately, he wished he hadn’t. Julee sat, crossing her long beautiful legs directly in his line of vision. His chest tightened. Sitting upright, he steepled his hands beneath his chin to block the view. He had to get her out of this office.

“Business?” Curiosity got the best of him. What kind of business could bring Julianna Reynolds back to Blackwood?

When she leaned forward, expression earnest, her silky blue blouse gapped slightly, affording him an unwanted glance of creamy skin. Infuriatingly, his body reacted. She was sexy, vulnerable and beautiful, a combination that spelled danger for any man but was deadly for him. She was big city and he was small town. She was rich and he was a working stiff. And she was, as her mother had once said, “too good for that McIntyre boy.”

Criminy! Why he was thinking this way? He didn’t know this woman. Hadn’t known her for years. All they had was the past, and that was better left alone.

The phone emitted a soft buzz, and he barely held back a curse. He was too busy to worry over Julianna Reynolds, and the sooner he found out what she wanted, the sooner she’d be gone and he’d be safe from thinking too much.

Holding up one finger of his left hand in a “wait-a-minute” gesture, he punched a button with the right. “Yeah?”

His receptionist’s voice came out of the speakerphone. “Mrs. Barkley needs you to drive by her place. She’s sure the Peeping Tom is back.”

Taking out his annoyance on the receptionist, he growled, “Where have you been?”

“Even Rita the Magnificent has a bladder, Tate. Don’t get your tail in a twitch.”

He glanced at Julee, saw her struggling with a grin, and was relieved when she rose and starting roaming the room. He swiveled sideways to avoid watching the swish of her blue skirt against silken thighs.

Having Julee in his office was bad enough without the hired help humiliating him. Smart-aleck receptionist. But he knew better than to cross Rita the Magnificent. She was a lot more than a receptionist, and he couldn’t manage without her. “Tell Mrs. Barkley I’ll be there as quick as I can.”

“Oh, she said there’s no big hurry. And she wants to know if you’ll stop by the store and get Penelope some cat food before you come out.”

Tate gave in to a grudging grin. He’d investigated her “Peeping Tom” four times in as many months. Poor old Mrs. Barkley. Anything for a little company. He wondered what kind of cake she’d baked this time and hoped he’d have time to eat a piece of it while she entertained him on the piano.

“No problem.”

From the corner of his eye he could see Julee surveying the row of framed certificates and citations hanging around his small, cluttered office. He hoped she wouldn’t miss the college diploma. She’d had success handed to her on a silver platter, but he’d worked plenty hard for his.

As he started to disconnect, Rita spoke again. “Don’t forget you need to be back in time for Little League practice.”

“Anything else?”

“I left the list on your desk. A meeting with the county commissioner at four, the task force tomorrow morning, Martha’s birthday party and the slave auction at the high school—”

“Hold on.” He scrounged around in the enormous stack of folders and papers. The list lay in plain sight beneath a snow globe paperweight that Jacob, his seven-year-old buddy from the Big Brother program, had given him last Christmas.

“I found it.” He stuck the list in his shirt pocket and shut off the receptionist’s disembodied voice.

Julee’s blue gaze, wide with curiosity, drifted back to him. “You are a busy man.”

“Goes with the job. So if you don’t mind…” He let the words trail off hoping she’d take the ball and run with it. Her visit was starting to get under his skin.

Before she lost her nerve, Julianna settled back into the green chair and plunged into the story she’d rehearsed for days.

“I’ve come home to Seminole County to do some charity work. You know. One of those celebrity things that are good for an income tax break.”

She blasted him with a hundred-watt smile as fake as the words she’d spoken. She’d never done a “celebrity thing” in her life. Though she’d worked tirelessly to increase bone-marrow donors and had even headed a previous drive, celebrity had nothing to do with it. Outside the modeling industry and this small town she had no celebrity status, but Julianna prayed Tate wouldn’t know that. Finding cures for sick children had simply become her passion.

Tate arched an eyebrow. Stacking his hands behind his head, he tilted back in his rather bedraggled roller chair. “What could that possibly have to do with me?”

Julee crossed her arms over her middle. She hadn’t expected a red-carpet welcome after all these years, but his cool appraisal turned her butterflies into swarming buzzards.

Behind him, through the window, Julianna vaguely comprehended the ebb and flow of light traffic out on the street. A single horn honked. Car doors slammed. The quiet, unhurried normalcy of everyday life in a small town soothed her.

Normalcy—a condition she could hardly recollect. For a while three years ago, life had almost been normal. They’d been sure Megan had been cured by the chemotherapy treatments.

Then had come the frightening news two months ago that Megan’s leukemia cells had reappeared, throwing her into the desperate search for a bone-marrow donor, the only hope of cure now that chemo had failed to permanently destroy the disease. Until now they hadn’t even considered this last-ditch, drastic kind of treatment. For the first time Julee had no choice but to involve Tate. Megan was in a second drug-induced remission, but the doctors said it was only a matter of time until the cells began to multiply again. How much time, no one could say.

Not one day since then had they lived a moment without fear. Megan, her beautiful nine-year-old daughter, deserved a normal life, and so did dozens of other children awaiting a bone-marrow transplant.

If she could get Tate to donate blood without him knowing about Megan, everyone would be better off—Megan, Tate and his wife. No wife, however devoted, wanted the shock of discovering her husband had an unknown child by his first love. Plenty of reasons to face Tate’s chilly regard.

Leaning her elbows on a pile of official-looking documents Julianna locked eyes with the man who held Megan’s fate. The air conditioner thumped to life, but even the cool blast of air couldn’t counter the tingle of sweat prickling the back of her neck.

“I’m involved with increasing the number of minority donors for the bone-marrow transplant database. Since my hometown happens to be the tribal capital of the Seminole Indians, I thought this would be a good place to start.”

The chair rollers clattered to the floor. Tate frowned at her, puzzled, but clearly intrigued. The chatty clerk at the motel had been telling the truth; Sheriff McIntyre was a sucker for a good cause.

“Bone-marrow donation?”

“People wouldn’t necessarily be donating their bone marrow. At first, there’s just a blood test and the donor information is put into the data bank. Then if someone needs a transplant, doctors can access the data bank for a suitable match.”

“I thought relatives usually donated bone marrow.”

Julee’s pulse kicked up a notch, the falsely chipper smile tightening. “That’s the ideal situation, but sometimes family members don’t match.” Like me.

In a deliberate attempt to calm her fraying nerves, Julee picked up the paperweight from Tate’s desk and rolled it between her hands, watching snow drift over the pair of baying hounds. Was it her imagination, or could she still detect the warmth of Tate’s skin? Oddly, the thought calmed her.

“Any reason why you’re targeting minorities?”

Oh, yes, the most important reason in the world. Their daughter had Tate’s Seminole heritage and the genetic types that went with it.

“Minorities have a very limited donor system, so the chances of finding a match are almost nil. And because their population is small, we need all the donors we can get.”

“We?”

She shrugged, but her grip on the paperweight was tight enough to turn her knuckles white. She’d done fine without this man for nearly ten years. She had no desire to disrupt her life or his any more than necessary, but Tate’s cooperation could save Megan’s life. “I’ve been working with the bone-marrow registry for a while. Too many kids die who could be saved by somebody if only that someone had his blood type on file.”

Her heart had been broken a dozen times as beautiful children she and Megan had come to know had withered away while waiting for a transplant. Minority children especially lacked hope. Somehow, she had to change that.

“Why come to me? Why not go to the hospital or the Chamber of Commerce?”

“I have. The hospital administrator thinks it’s a great opportunity for PR. The bone-marrow people will send a mobile unit, the Saturn Company has signed on to sponsor, and we’ll accept regular blood donations, too, to help with expenses.”

He tilted back in his chair again, eyebrows knit in thought. Bright sunlight slanted in through the window behind him and gleamed off his almost-black hair. He picked up a pen and rotated it between his fingers. “Let me ask that again. Why come to me?”

“I’m lining up all the community and civic leaders. The mayor, the school administration, fire chief, etc. Since I’m especially interested in bringing the Seminoles on board, your influence…” At Tate’s thunderous expression, Julee clapped her lips together. She’d thought he was warming to the idea, but now the cold, shuttered expression returned.

“You’ll have to go to the BIA or tribal chiefs if you want the Seminoles. Don’t expect me to get involved.”

Her heart fell. “But I thought—”

“You thought what, Julee? That you could march in here and pretend ten years hadn’t passed? That I’d ignore the law-enforcement needs of this county to run around drumming up business for your tax break?”