Know Me, Keep Me (Full Heart Ranch Series Book 3)

by Barbara Gee

  Jolene went to him and gently pulled his head against her shoulder, running her fingers soothingly through his thick hair. “We’ll get through it, Boone. All we can do now is take it a day at a time, like Ryan said.”

  “I’m dreading what’s in Doug’s file. I’m afraid this is going to affect a whole lot of people, and the innocent parties in the crowd have no idea their worlds are about to be turned upside down.”

  “I think maybe that was inevitable as soon as the blackmail started. If not you, someone else would have eventually pulled the plug. Extortion can’t last forever before someone has to take drastic measures, like your dad coming to you.”

  “You’re probably right. I’m just not looking forward to the backlash.”

  “It’ll be worse for you, considering who you are and how feral the reporters are going to be. I hate that.”

  Boone kicked off his shoes, then laid back on the bed, propped up by a mound of pillows. He patted the bed beside him. “Come here.”

  Jolene removed her own shoes and climbed up beside him, moving readily into the curve of the arm he held out to her. He pulled her in, her head resting on his shoulder and her body pressed against his side.

  She slid an arm across his chest. “You’re going to have to tell Virgil and Kay soon,” she said hesitantly. “We don’t want things to blow up before you get a chance to talk to them.”

  “I know. How would you suggest I do it?”

  They talked about options for a while, and then Boone got a check-in text from Doug saying he was fine. After that, in spite of everything, Jolene felt her eyelids getting heavy. She shifted, snuggling closer to Boone’s warm body, and let her eyes close.

  * * *

  Boone felt her relax against him and he glanced down at her lovely face, glad she’d been able to doze off. He had no intention of releasing her, though. Holding her like this was exactly what he needed. He put his phone on vibrate so the text tone wouldn’t wake her up the next time Doug checked in.

  He felt a sense of relief now that the decision of whether to go public had been made and was out of his hands, but his dread for what was still to come was now even more overwhelming. How many families would be affected? What were they like? Logic would put the guilty parties as wealthy and desperate, just like his dad, and willing to carry their secrets to their graves. He wondered when the doctor had ended his despicable side business. Surely it wasn’t still going on, considering the advanced techniques hospitals now used for identifying patients.

  Boone’s body started to relax, comfortable on the bed with Jolene beside him, but his mind continued to spin. Doug continued to text him every thirty minutes, and with the fourth text he said he was almost finished with the file. Forty minutes later, Boone’s email notification sounded, and seconds later he had one last text from Doug.

  Ready to be picked up.

  He gave the address of the motel he had holed up in, and Boone immediately forwarded it to Tuck, so he could get agents on the way. He forwarded the file, too, then carefully slid his arm out from under Jolene, relieved that she stayed asleep as he left the bed. He laid a blanket over her, then hurried to Tuck’s office.

  The FBI agent was seated at his desk, and Boone had the feeling he’d been there the whole time. “Got the file,” Tuck said, “and I texted Ryan. We’ll go through it together and make notes, then come up with a plan depending on what we find.”

  “And you’ll have someone get Doug?”

  “They’re ready to leave now. Should be there within fifteen minutes.”

  Boone sent Doug that information, then lowered himself into a desk chair, scooting up to the giant monitor Tuck was using to display the fruits of Doug’s efforts. Tuck paged down through the file to get an idea of how it was organized, and one thing was clear immediately—Doug was worth every penny he was being paid. The file contained not only many, many copies of original documents, but also copious but concise notes which Doug had painstakingly typed out.

  Tuck scrolled back to the beginning and the two men read through the first few pages, which contained a synopsis of what Doug had found. Neither of them spoke. By the time Ryan arrived, they’d gained a pretty clear picture of what they were looking at.

  “What do we have?” Ryan asked, pulling up a chair, his eyes fixed on the monitor.

  Tuck and Boone exchanged a bleak look.

  “A mess,” Tuck said shortly.

  CHAPTER 23

  Jolene slept until Maddy called to her from the doorway of the bedroom. She sat up, disoriented for a moment, and then it all came flooding back. Boone had told the others everything, and the last thing she remembered was being snuggled up together waiting for Doug to send his file. Considering the absence of Boone on the bed now, she assumed it had arrived.

  “Breakfast is almost ready,” Maddy was saying. “Libby is coming over, and then the guys will give us an update while we eat. They’ve been at it all night.”

  Taking a few minutes to freshen up in the bathroom, Jolene put her hair in a ponytail and hurried to the kitchen to help. She found that Maddy had been up for a while, long enough to prepare a delicious looking French toast casserole and a bowl of mixed fruit.

  “You should have gotten me up sooner,” Jolene said apologetically. “I can’t believe I slept so long, and with you up fixing all this food.”

  “I’d say you must have had some sleep to catch up on,” Maddy said. “I’m sure Boone’s situation has been weighing on you pretty heavily. That’s bound to keep you up at night.”

  Jolene sighed and took the banana Maddy handed her. “There’s a lot about Boone that keeps me up at night,” she admitted to her friend, peeling the banana and slicing it into the fruit bowl.

  Maddy chuckled softly. “I can imagine. And to think he’s Virgil and Kay’s son. It blows my mind, and I get chills every time I think about them finding out.”

  “Chills in a good way, I hope,” Jolene said. “Boone is scared to death of how they might react. I know in the end it’ll all be good and they’ll be thrilled to have him in their lives, but it might take a while to get there. Lots of emotions to work through.”

  “I don’t think it’ll take all that long,” Maddy said. “I think as soon as they know the truth, the bonding will start. I don’t know him well, but it’s obvious Boone is an exceptional person. That’s so in line with being a Desmond, and I think the familial bond will take over almost immediately.”

  “He is pretty amazing, and knowing all the crap he’s going to be facing makes me almost ill,” Jolene declared. “Can you imagine how the press is going to react when his story comes out? They’ll be like rabid dogs. He doesn’t deserve that.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what exactly is up with you and Boone?” Maddy asked curiously as she filled a ceramic pitcher with maple syrup. “I can tell he’s come to depend on your support, and you obviously care about him a lot. It’s also obvious there’s a strong mutual attraction, but I get the feeling you’re fighting that.”

  Jolene stirred the fruit, then pushed the bowl to the side and leaned over, propping her elbows on the countertop, her chin in her hands. “I’m trying to fight it, because I don’t think we should go there. Not when he’s going to be leaving so soon.”

  Maddy frowned. “There is such a thing as long-distance relationships, you know. If he’s as into you as I think he is, I can’t imagine he’s going to just up and walk away without looking back.”

  “Maybe not,” Jolene said. “I mean, yeah, he says he wants to stay in contact even after he’s gone, but so much is up in the air right now. I’m afraid the attraction for him is mostly having a listening ear, and like you said, a source of support. And after he leaves and gets back to his real world, it’ll probably seem distant and a little silly to him.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Maddy asked, her frown deepening. “I don’t know him as well as you do, but I can’t see that. He seems so genuine. And it’s not like he’ll just forget all about t
he ranch once he can play hockey again, considering his birth parents live here.”

  Jolene rubbed her temples. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just my defense mechanism kicking in, trying to save me from disappointment in case things do change.”

  “I can understand that, but if you feel as strongly about him as I think you do, I’d be pretty disappointed if you were too chicken to give it your best shot, Jo. Men like Boone don’t come along very often. I’d hate for you to always wonder what might have happened if only you’d been brave enough to be open to a relationship with him.”

  “We already have a relationship,” Jolene grumbled. “We’re really good friends. Maybe that’s all God has in store for us.”

  Maddy smiled. “It’s a start, I’ll give you that. But something tells me it’s not the end.”

  “Ugh, Maddy. Let’s not talk about this anymore. You’re trying to give me hope, while I’m trying my best to tamp it down. That’s not a good combination.”

  Her friend chuckled. “Okay, I’ll let you off the hook for now, since the food is ready and I think I just heard Libby come in the front door. But we’ll definitely continue this conversation at a later date. I’m not going to let you be a coward about this.”

  Jolene wrinkled her nose at her friend. She knew Maddy well enough to know she would stick to that promise. They carried the food to the dining table, and Maddy asked Jolene to start pouring the coffee while she went to get the men.

  When they filed into the room, Jolene’s pulse quickened at the sight of Boone, but when their eyes met, her heart fell. He looked weary and beaten, and she knew immediately that what the men had to tell them wasn’t going to be good. She set the pot of coffee on the table and forced herself to stay put, when what she really wanted to do was go to him and hold him close and not let go until his nightmare was over.

  They all took their seats at the table. Tuck looked around at everyone, then held out his hands to Maddy and Libby, who were seated on either side of him. The others all grabbed hands too, forming a linked circle. Jolene felt Boone’s tension as he gripped her hand hard, almost to the point of pain, although she knew he wasn’t aware of his own strength at that moment.

  “Let’s pray,” Tuck said. He began his prayer by offering thanks for Boone’s arrival at the ranch, and for the blessing he would be to Virgil and Kay. Then he asked for wisdom and guidance as they worked to right the wrongs that had been done.

  His words were heartfelt and eloquent, and when he finished they were all just a little weepy. Jolene knew that Boone especially was fighting strong emotions. She also suspected this was the first time in his life he’d been surrounded by a group of people who cared so much about him, and she hoped his new circle of support would be enough to get him through the weeks and months to come.

  They passed the food, and Tuck suggested that Boone be the one to start giving the details from Doug’s detailed and very comprehensive file. The women listened closely as he took them through the first week Doug had spent in Texas.

  Finding the name of the doctor who had delivered Boone hadn’t been hard, since birth records were pubic information. That had been the only easy part, though. The doctor, Clinton Golding, had died six years ago, and had been retired from the OB/GYN practice for more than a dozen years. Doug knew at least one other doctor had been involved, but finding which one, and whether he was still practicing or retired, had posed a challenge.

  Acting on a hunch, Doug pored through hundreds of public records, looking for anything that referenced babies switched at birth in or around Ashland—because if there had been multiple attempts, as he suspected, it was almost impossible for every single instance to have been completely successful.

  He eventually found one that had been reported twenty-five years ago, at the same hospital where Boone had been born. The parents of a still-born child had requested DNA testing, because they wanted to know whether there were any genetic problems they should be aware of with future pregnancies. The test results had taken weeks to come in, because back then it was a much slower process. When the results did come back, they showed that the baby was not the biological child of the parents who were mourning her, and the hospital had immediately launched an investigated to find out what had happened.

  Conveniently, a delivery nurse stepped up almost right away and admitted she’d worked a double shift the night the baby had been born, and she might have gotten confused. They’d been short-staffed, and she had been so busy and tired it was possible she hadn’t followed protocol, resulting in in the regrettable mix-up.

  The hospital ended up determining that her short-cuts had indeed caused the tragic mistake. The nurse had been dismissed, the healthy baby was returned to her rightful parents, and no criminal investigation had been opened.

  As Doug pondered the situation, he knew there was a chance the switch had been the result of the nurse’s incompetence, just as everyone believed. But he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the nurse had been paid to take the blame. He felt there was a good chance that the doctors had intentionally switched the babies, and been unaware that the parents who thought their baby died had subsequently ordered the DNA test. If the test had been carried out without the doctors’ knowledge, they wouldn’t have had a chance to switch the samples out, and that would explain why the results had accurately shown the child’s parentage.

  The next step Doug had taken was to investigate the nurse who had taken the fall. It didn’t take long for his suspicions to be confirmed. He discovered that Paula Daily had been an employee of Dr. Golding’s OB/GYN practice for a year prior to getting hired at the hospital, which set the stage nicely for being an accomplice to the doctor’s baby swapping plot. Further research turned up the fact that she had moved to Dallas a few months after being fired, where she’d purchased a nice house in the suburbs, and paid cash for it. Evidently she’d been compensated handsomely for her efforts.

  Doug drove to Dallas and showed up on Paula’s doorstep. The woman was now seventy-four and didn’t appear to be in good health. She was also not inclined to be helpful. She didn’t ask Doug in, so he gave her his business card and started asking his questions while he stood on the front porch. Paula was nervous and sweating profusely, but she stuck to the story she’d memorized long ago.

  When Doug had tried to trip her up she’d yelled at him to leave, saying she had a doctor appointment and couldn’t waste any more time on his stupid questions about something that had happened over twenty years ago. Doug told her to save his card and call him if she changed her mind and wanted to talk about it more.

  He left and drove his car around the corner to wait. Twenty minutes later Paula pulled out of her drive. Doug had followed her, on the off chance she was on the way to alert someone from her past about his questions. She must have been telling the truth about having an appointment, however. She had indeed gone to a medical office, and it wasn’t an obstetrical practice. So no clues there.

  ***

  By the time Boone got to this point in the story, everyone had finished eating except for him.

  “How about I take over so you can eat?” Ryan suggested.

  Boone gratefully accepted. The night had been long and arduous, and he was pretty much talked out. He took a few bites of Maddy’s incredible breakfast and realized he was ravenous. Jolene smiled knowingly at him; she knew his appetite all too well. She moved the French toast and fruit closer to him, for when he was ready for seconds.

  Ryan picked up where Boone had left off. After talking to Paula, Doug had hit a wall for a couple of days. He searched more public records to see whether Dr. Golding or his practice had ever had any malpractice suits filed against them. A few cases had been settled out of court, but nothing that was related to Doug’s investigation. On a whim, he had stopped at the police department to inquire about any past charges against the doctor, ones that had perhaps not made it into his professional records. The extra-helpful clerk there turned up nothing on Dr. Golding himself, a
lthough she revealed that he had a son who’d been arrested multiple times for misdemeanors as a teen and in his twenties. He was in his late thirties now, though, and his only recent infraction was a DUI four years ago.

  Faced with another brick wall, Doug decided to search for other hospital employees who had been working the night the babies had been switched, to get their take on what had happened. It was a longshot, considering how many years had passed, but worth a try. Before he got very far on that, however, he’d received a call from a number he didn’t recognize. He’d been shocked to find it was the nurse, Paula.

  The conversation was short and to the point. Paula requested that he meet her at a coffee shop in Dallas as soon as possible. He found her hunched over a table in the corner of the shop, and once he sat down, Paula didn’t waste any time. She told him that the previous day she’d been told she had advanced stomach cancer, and had less than six months to live. She was terrified of dying, and knew she had to make things right before she did. Telling Doug everything she knew was her way of doing that.

  With her permission, Doug had taped the conversation, and he’d included the audio file with the rest of his notes. Over the course of the next two hours, Paula told Doug everything she knew about the baby swapping operation—and she knew a lot. She had worked at the practice in Ashland for a year before moving on to the hospital, where she’d worked for a total of three years. The switch that had been discovered was the second one she’d assisted with.

  When she had initially agreed to participate, because the lure of big money was simply too much to resist, Paula had been smart enough to give herself some leverage in case the doctors didn’t compensate or protect her as promised. During the whole time she’d been employed at the OB practice, grooming her for the position she would take at the hospital, she’d gathered information on the operation. After she left the practice, she’d kept careful notes on every meeting she had with Dr. Golding regarding switching babies, and made copies of all the checks she’d been given for her part in the plots.