by Rita Herron
His head told him yes; his heart vetoed the probability.
But he would have to walk away.
Feeling anxious, he paced the homey cottage, pausing to study the small white bassinet. The pale yellow blanket dotted with bunny rabbits. The little blue teddy bear crouched inside. His gaze roamed to the nursery and he stalked toward it, aching to go inside. This was his son’s room. He had a right to see it.
But he paused, his hand clutching the cold doorknob. A feeling of regret and longing swept through him so deep that his whole body began to shake. He could go inside, could pick the lock and finally look at the room Lindsey had prepared for their son’s arrival. Moisture suddenly filled his eyes, pricking at his eyelids like a thousand needles trying to jab through his skin.
But he would be invading her privacy.
When Lindsey was ready to share the nursery, she’d show it to him. And when they solved the mystery surrounding his son’s disappearance, they would open the door together. He rubbed his thumb over the train whistle in his pocket. When he found his son, he wanted to give him the special trinket so if he ever got lost again, he could blow on the whistle and Gavin would be able to find him.
THE NEXT DAY Gavin left Agent Barnes in charge of manning the phones at Lindsey’s. Lindsey and Gavin drove to the Brevard campus, scrutinizing students as they walked to the dean’s office.
“Should we look around first?” Lindsey asked.
“No, we don’t want to alert the students we’re here and take a chance on scaring her off.”
A squatty looking gray-haired man greeted them, introduced himself as Dean Evans and invited them into his office. Gavin quick
“Yes, I saw the news clip. I’m so sorry for your problems, Miss Payne.”
“We received an anonymous call last night saying the young woman we’re looking for is one of your students. We’d like to talk to her.”
The older man regarded him with concern, then turned to Lindsey. “Do you think this young lady kidnapped your child?”
“I honestly don’t know. She may be an innocent in all this, but it would help if I spoke with her. Her name is Candy Sue.”
“We don’t have a last name, but if you could check your computer—”
“I know Candy Sue,” the dean said. He smiled when Gavin looked surprised. “This is a small campus, Mr. McCord. We take an active roll in all the students’ lives.”
“Then you know of her situation.”
“Somewhat. And I can assure you she’s not a kidnapper.”
“Will you take us to her?”
Once again, the man studied him, but seemed to realize he should cooperate and motioned for them to follow. “We’ll see if she’s in the dorm. I’d like the chaplain to be present when you talk to her.”
“No problem,” Gavin and Lindsey both replied.
A few minutes later they met the chaplain and followed the men across campus to a medium-size dorm. When they reached the hall where Candy Sue lived, they found another girl inside.
“This is Jeanie, Candy Sue’s roommate,” the dean explained.
The chaplain took Jeanie aside and explained the situation.
Jeanie eyed them both, chewing on her lip. “She’s due back any minute. She had an early class.”
“I don’t see any baby paraphernalia,” Gavin whispered to Lindsey.
Lindsey nodded, glancing at the colorful posters on the wall, the scattered shoes, typical teenage CDs and books and clothes. A photograph of a thin girl sat on the metal desk. Scraggly hair, a plain pale face, freckles on her nose, she looked barely old enough to drive—could the innocent face in the picture actually have committed a crime?
“You knew she was pregnant?” Gavin asked.
Jeannie nodded.
“Do you know what happened with her baby?”
“I’ll answer that.”
“Candy Sue.” Jeanie raced toward her friend but Candy Sue shrugged off her concern. A thin redheaded young boy wearing clunky glasses stood beside her, looking protective.
“I…I’m Candy Sue. I saw you on TV last night.” The young woman actually held out a trembling hand to shake Lindsey’s. Lindsey accepted the gesture and indicated a wooden desk chair. “Can we sit down and talk?”
The girl nodded and sank onto the bed, but Gavin kept his gaze trained on her, determined to scrutinize r every movement to see if she was lying.
“You’re the boy who called us?” Lindsey asked.
He shook his head. “No, I’m Bobby. I don’t know who called.”
So they didn’t know they were coming. “Then I’m glad you’ll talk to me, Candy Sue,” Lindsey said softly.
A Planet Hollywood T-shirt and baggy pair of denim shorts hung on the girl’s skinny frame while pale thin white legs stretched below. She clutched the books to her as a shield, looking frail and scared to death. The boy moved behind her, one hand braced on her shoulder while the chaplain and dean hovered nearby.
“Look, Candy, we’re not here to hurt you or accuse you of anything, but I think something terrible happened the night I gave birth and I’m trying to put the pieces together.” Lindsey explained about the odd circumstances surrounding her baby.
Tears slowly slipped down the girl’s cheeks. “I…I don’t know what happened with your baby.” She lowered her head, her voice a thready whisper, “But my baby didn’t make it.”
“You gave birth to a little boy, too?” Gavin asked.
The girl nodded, then began to sob. “He was stillborn. He had a heart problem, and the doctor said there was nothing he could do.”
Except for the stillborn part, the story was exactly the same one the doctor had told Lindsey, right down to the heart condition. “Then you disappeared.”
“I had a memorial service for him, then came back to school.” Misery wrenched the girl’s words. “That nice doctor at the clinic helped me arrange things.”
“Did you plan to keep the baby?” Gavin asked.
Candy Sue nodded. “I thought about adoption but…” She looked up and squeezed Bobby’s hand. “Bobby was going to help me raise him. Then he…he didn’t make it.”
She started to cry softly and Lindsey drew her into her arms and consoled her. “Shh, it’s all right. You shouldn’t go through this alone. Have you told your folks?”
The young girl shrank back in horror. “No, I couldn’t. Please, promise me you won’t tell them. My daddy will kill me.”
Lindsey’s troubled gaze flew to Gavin as if to ask, what next? Should they search her place, talk to her parents?
He didn’t think there was any need. He had a gut feeling Candy Sue was telling the truth. The girl looked too fragile and miserable to be lying. And she was definitely afraid of her father. No, first, he would get a copy of the autopsy report for Candy Sue’s child. Instincts warned him it would be identical to the one Lindsey had received. But if Candy Sue planned to keep her baby, then Cross and the lawyer hadn’t switched Lindsey’s son to replace Candy Sue’s for an adoption. So what happened next? And why had Cross lied? He’d get a search warrant for Cross’s office and files, but that would take some time. He’d confront the doctor first, make him tell the truth.
“Candy Sue, you heard Lindsey’s ory,” Gavin said in a low voice. “I hate to suggest this, but would you mind taking a blood test? We simply want to clarify the results of the autopsy report.”
Candy wiped her eyes and agreed, then followed them to the car, clinging to her friend Bobby as she went. Gavin took Lindsey’s hand, adrenaline pumping. Soon they would have enough to nail Cross and force him to talk, and he couldn’t wait to do it.
TWO HOURS later, after Candy had submitted to lab work and they’d dropped her off at the chaplain’s office, Lindsey and Gavin returned to Maple Hollow. Lindsey tried to summon her nerve as they pulled into the hospital parking lot. Gavin had muttered obscenities about Cross all the way from Brevard to Maple Hollow. He’d also had his partner check Candy Sue’s phone records, and true to her
word, she hadn’t been in contact with anyone off campus. Just to be cautious, he’d run a check on Bobby and his roommate and they’d spoken with the dean before they left, but the dean verified they were good boys, both visible on campus, certainly not capable of plotting a kidnapping scheme and hiding out a baby.
Lindsey felt shell-shocked and numb. She’d hoped the young woman had her son. At least she could have understood her reasons for kidnapping her baby. She could have even sympathized. But now, other possibilities nagged at her.
The doctor had definitely lied to her.
But why? Why would he tell her she’d been his only patient that night? Why would he allow someone to take her baby?
None of it made sense.
Unless that horrible man Gavin had arrested had stolen her baby for revenge. Maybe he’d threatened the doctor and forced him to cover for him. So far, neither she nor Gavin had been able to voice that fear.
Gavin tore into the hospital, a man desperate for answers. Lindsey had never seen him so furious, so out of control. Seconds later, Gavin slammed a fist on the nurses’ station. The receptionist jumped, a look of alarm spreading on her face at Gavin’s menacing presence. “We want to see Dr. Cross—now.”
“He… I’m not sure he’s in.” The young redhead bounced from her seat and darted toward the back corridor. Gavin followed, Lindsey trailed right behind him. Two nurses hurled themselves out of his way as he stalked past them, fear evident in their shocked expressions. The receptionist grabbed the nurse’s arm, her voice a panicked whisper. “Brenda Leigh, get the doc.”
The heavyset nurse who’d been so kind to Lindsey during her stay worried her lip with her teeth as she held up a warning hand to Gavin. “Stop there, Mr. McCord or I’ll call security. Dr. Cross is with a patient—”
“I don’t care, I want to see him right now.”
“He’s in the middle of an exam,” Brenda Leigh said. Gavin reached for the door, but Lindsey caught his hand.
“Wait, Gavin, that woman doesn’t deserve for us to walk in on her.”
Her calm statement seemed to shake him back to his senses. He nodded, but spoke curtly to the nurse, “Let him know we’. And he’d better not slip out the back door.”
Brenda Leigh’s eyes narrowed as she rushed inside the room. Moments later, she appeared with the doctor by her side. He gestured toward his office and led the way. Gavin shut the door as soon as they entered, placing himself between the door and the physician.
“You’d better have a good explanation for lying to us, Cross, because right now I’m contemplating arresting you for at least a dozen different offenses.”
“What?” Cross’s hand went to his heart in shock. “How dare you come here and—”
“Cut the bull!” Gavin glared at the man’s quivering form. “I’m not playing games here, Cross. We know you lied—we found the girl who delivered her baby the same day as Lindsey.”
Lindsey studied Cross’s face, sickened that she’d ever trusted him. “Her name is Candy Sue.”
“She also claims she lost her son that night.” Gavin’s voice rose to a thunderous level, “So either you had two deliveries go wrong that night, two babies who died identical deaths or you’re covering up something.” He paused, watching the vein in Cross’s forehead pulse. “And my bet is on the latter.”
Cross stammered a denial. “She’s confused, she must have meant another night. I did deliver a young girl’s baby that week but it was the day before.”
Gavin jerked the doctor’s collar and shook him. “We’re not buying it, doc. You said Lindsey was confused, you blamed the medicine before and we both know you lied. Where is her baby?”
Cross’s head wavered back and forth. “I told you, her baby didn’t make it. The other girl was in the day before.”
Gavin growled an obscenity. “I’m bringing the feds down on you. You won’t even remember you had a practice when I get through. Now tell me what happened to my son.”
“Your son?” the doctor squeaked.
Gavin hesitated, his voice steely. “Yes, Cross. My son.”
Cross wavered for a moment as if he was going to spill his guts, then sank his nails into the wood grain of his desk. “I…I don’t know,” Cross said shakily. “I tried to save him, his heart was too weak…”
“No,” Lindsey bellowed. “That’s not true. Why won’t you stop lying?”
Gavin balled his hand into a fist and shoved it into Cross’s face. “You’d better start talking, Cross, before—”
The door swung open and Sheriff Forbes burst in. “What’s going on William?”
“He stormed in here threatening me,” Cross said in a whiny voice. “The man’s crazy.”
Forbes slowly closed the distance between the door and Gavin, flicking his thumb in a gesture for him to release the doctor. “Come on, William, let’s go down to the station and talk.”
ased the doctor’s jacket with such force he toppled back and hit the wall.
A FEW HOURS later, Lindsey and Gavin returned to her place, Lindsey’s head throbbing. Gavin had spent an hour grilling the doctor but he hadn’t budged. When his lawyer, Little, had arrived, Cross’s teeth had clenched tighter than a cemented wall of bricks, ending the interrogation. On the way home, Gavin had called his partner and asked him to get a search warrant for Cross’s office.
Could they all be involved in her son’s disappearance—the doctor, the lawyer and sheriff? But why?
“He’ll give it up sooner or later,” Gavin said in a rough, tired voice.
Lindsey mumbled an agreement and massaged her temple. “I have to lie down.”
“Would you like something to eat?”
“No, no food.”
“At least take your vitamins, Linds. You haven’t eaten much at all the past few days.”
She downed the vitamins with a glass of water and saltines. The look of concern on Gavin’s face nearly brought her to tears but she refused the weakness. “I just need to rest, okay?”
He gently kissed her forehead, then pulled her to him for a long moment, stroking her back. “We’re going to find him, Linds. I promise.”
“I know.” She lifted her gaze to his and saw the hope and worry and…love?
For their son, yes.
For her…no, she couldn’t allow herself to climb on that roller coaster tonight.
As if he realized she was at the end of her emotional and physical rope, he guided her to the bedroom. She had no energy to fight him, not when it felt so wonderful to have someone care for her, if only for a few brief moments.
Her breath hitched in her throat as he gently unbuttoned her blouse and pulled away the fabric, his fingertips grazing the sensitive swell of her breasts. Her nipples puckered, strained against the satin fabric of her pale, pink bra. His throat constricted, his hands sweeping down her side, feathering light touches over her delicate midriff.
She shivered, drawn by his dark hungry stare. His gaze fastened to her face as he knelt and undid the buckles of her sandals, slipping off her shoes and massaging each foot with firm hands. Legs trembling, she leaned against him and closed her eyes, savoring the feel of his fingers kneading her tense muscles. His gentle ministrations soothed the anxiety from her nerves, seduced her into feeling alive again for the first time in months. How right, how wonderful it felt to be here like this with him, to shed the barriers between them and seek solace with one another in the quiet of the night. He caressed her calves, massaging, working up her inner thighs and she moaned, idly sliding her fingers into his thick dark hair. Higher, softer, more… Just when she might have given in to the passion sparking to life, his hand moved back to her foot, traced along the underside, and he released her foot and rose, his gaze once again imploring her with silent questions.
She had no answers. Only the silence that hummed between thesire they shared, and the pain and secrets that lay between them.
Finally he turned and fumbled through her drawer and found a dark green nightshirt. He
helped her put it on, the dark brown of his irises turning smoky black in the dim light of her bedroom. Moonlight streaked his dark brown hair with honeyed tones, bathed the room in a surreal light. She slid her skirt down her hips and he picked her up in his arms and carried her to bed. When he eased back the covers and lay her on the crisp yellow sheets, she cradled her arm around his neck and inhaled his strong masculine scent. Woodsy and earthy, just like him. Solid, stable, a rock of corded muscle that felt like a wall of security to her. A tendril of his dark hair had fallen over his face and she brushed it back, itching to thread her fingers through the thick, overly long strands. Their gazes locked. Hearts collided for a second. Inhibitions, reservations floated away on some nameless cloud of doubt.
“Will you hold me for a while, Mac?” Lindsey asked softly.
He arched a dark eyebrow and she smiled, remembering that night so long ago when they’d forgotten all the reasons they shouldn’t be together and had just taken. Taken and given all through that long lonely night.
She wished they could do it again.
But then there was Cory. And all those lonely months afterwards…
“You know I want you, Linds.”
His whiskey-rough voice rolled over her like a warm tide. But another dizzy spell assaulted her and she pressed her fingers to her head.
“I know. But—”
“Shh, you don’t have to explain.” He brushed his lips across her cheek and slipped down on the bed beside her. Without another word, he pulled her into his embrace, showered her with gentle kisses and rubbed the aching part of her lower back until she fell asleep.
GAVIN LAY in a pained position, his body hard and aching for the woman beside him. For a moment, just a brief moment, he’d almost given in. Almost taken Lindsey up on the need he’d seen so vibrant and alive in her eyes. But she wasn’t feeling well and he couldn’t take from her again without knowing that he had something to give in return.
She groaned and rolled over and her body seemed so fragile in his arms, worry hit him. She’d been under such stress lately, hadn’t been eating, or resting—was she really all right?