To Save His Baby

by Judi Lind

  “No. I had a sudden craving for—There! Paco’s Tacos.” She pointed to a disreputable-looking Mexican carryout stand with tired turquoise paint covered by handpainted signs.

  “I want to see their health-department rating,” he groused as he pulled into a parking space. To his surprise, about a dozen people waited in line at the window.

  Barely waiting until the vehicle came to a complete stop before climbing out, Valerie licked her lips in anticipation. “Don’t be such a wimp, Branton. This place is authentic.”

  “Yeah, so’s Montezuma’s revenge, but that doesn’t mean I want it.” Nonetheless he took his place behind her in the long line.

  When they finally reached the order window, she insisted Gil let her do the ordering. “I know just what I want. Two guacamole tacos, an order of carnitas and oh, one of those came asada burritos, with extra sour cream, and a huge order of refried beans.”

  “Good grief, are you planning on feeding all of Scottsdale?”

  She frowned. “I’m hungry. Should I order for you, too?”

  Ten minutes later, arms laden with fragrant packages, Valerie led the way into her house. Walking directly to the kitchen, she opened bags and sampled tidbits while she walked. “Hurry up, Branton. I’m starving.”

  Dumping the entire contents onto the table, she rustled through the cupboards for plates and napkins. “Sit, sit,” she directed, parking herself close to the pile of mouth-watering delicacies.

  Gil had to admit the food smelled delicious.

  After they had sated their initial hunger, Gil hesitantly brought up what was certain to be a sore subject.

  “After we finish, I want you to pack a suitcase.”

  She raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Where are we going?”

  “To a motel.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Isn’t that a little presumptuous on your part?”

  “A motel for sleeping. And safety.”

  Now her eyebrows dipped into a frown. “Safety?”

  He set aside a half-eaten burrito and met her gaze directly. She had to understand how serious this was; her life depended on her listening to him now. “I’m far from convinced that your brake failure was an accident. And until I’m proved wrong, I think you’d be much safer in a motel. Unless I can talk you into leaving the city entirely until this is over?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “I didn’t think so. So the next best thing is for us to check into a motel. Some plain little out-of-the-way cheapie where no one will think to look for you.”

  Her own half-eaten taco dropped from her fingers. “You...you think someone arranged for that accident? That someone wants to kill me?”

  He felt a strong urge to gather her into his arms, to reassure her—and himself—that she was safe and that this nightmare would soon be over. But they would only be fooling themselves. Until this case was resolved and the kidnappers safely tucked behind bars, they were both in grave danger.

  Obviously he represented a law-enforcement agency that was creeping entirely too close for comfort. But why Valerie? Did the kidnapper believe he might have confided in her? Or did she know something that made her a danger?

  It didn’t really matter. If her brakes had been tampered with, it had happened last night while the Celica was parked right outside this house. The would-be killer obviously knew where she lived and wasn’t afraid to act.

  Cupping her trembling fingers with his palm, he sought to keep his voice calm, professional. “I know it’s hard to face that someone wants to kill you, but, Val, you have to believe that the danger is very real. I can get some men assigned to watch the house. But what about the hospital? Or the clinic? Whoever is behind this knows you and your routine. Only if we break that pattern do we have a chance of staying alive long enough to make an arrest.”

  “Oh, Gil, I’m afraid.”

  “Good. It’s good to have a cautious fear of these people. But if we stay together and you do exactly as I tell you, we’re going to defeat these bastards. I promise.”

  Her gaze held his for a very long time. Finally she nodded. “All right. I’ll pack a suitcase. What else should I do?”

  Before he could answer, the phone rang.

  Pulling her hand from beneath his, she walked to the phone that was mounted on the wall. “Hello? Oh, yes, Detective Sanchez. What can I do for you?”

  She listened for a moment, then replied, “Within ten days. Yes, I understand. Who? Oh, yes, he’s right here.”

  Holding the receiver out, she waited until Gil took it from her hand.

  “Gil Branton.”

  “Ferdy Sanchez here. Understand your lady friend had a bit of trouble this morning.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” Gil glanced at Valerie, who was watching him intently. “You have any news on that front?”

  “’Fraid so,” Sanchez replied. “The accident reconstruction boys went over what’s left of the Celica with tweezers and a magnifying glass. Like you suspected, the brake line was cut almost all the way through. The fluid was long gone by the time she made that overpass. If I was you, I’d get my girlfriend outta that house. Somewhere safe.”

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  “Good. Oh, and Branton?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Make sure to let me know where you folks go to ground. Nobody else but me, understand?”

  “You got it. And...and thanks, Ferdy.”

  “Don’t mention it. Just keep a good eye on the doc. And make sure she gets that accident report filed within ten days.”

  “Sure thing.” Gil dropped the phone back on the hook and turned to face Valerie.

  “Well?”

  “Get your suitcase, Doc.”

  HE DROVE AIMLESSLY down the urban streets, looking for a motel. He passed by dozens of places. Too ritzy, exposed parking lot, too near the freeway. If anybody was going to ferret out their hiding place, they were damned well going to have to work at it.

  A bright pink neon sign caught his attention. The Tepee Motel. Arranged in a courtyard style like motels of the fifties, the Tepee was perfect. The office sat square in the middle and was housed in a giant plaster tepee, the fake beams of which rose more than twenty feet in the air. The entire front of the motel was littered with touristy props: a Conestoga wagon, a couple of smaller wickiups for the kids to play in and a gigantic plaster buffalo with immense horns. The cars parked in front of the units were effectively hidden by all the cheap special effects. The decor was so tacky no one would ever guess the sophisticated and respected doctor would be hiding out in such a place.

  They checked in and carried their suitcases into the room. Although it was certainly not fancy, it was remarkably clean, the linen fresh and the carpets recently shampooed. Valerie dropped her suitcase on the floor and sat on one of the two double beds. She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared into space.

  “You okay?”

  “Do you have any idea how many times you’ve asked me that?”

  “It would probably be less if you ever answered.”

  She waved an arm, then locked it back around her knees. “I’m fine. My professional reputation is in shreds, my car is totaled, someone—probably a friend—wants to kill me, and I’m living in Disney Does Dallas. What’s not to like?”

  He leaned down and ran a knuckle over her smooth cheek. “At least you still have your sense of humor.”

  “Oh, that’s doing me a lot of good.”

  “You still have me.”

  She looked up abruptly and pinned him with that disconcerting azure gaze. “Do I, Gil?”

  He drew in a deep steadying breath. He couldn’t lie to her, not after all she’d been through. Sitting on the bed beside her, he returned her steady gaze. “Val, I can’t make any promises about the future. Hell, I’m not even certain we’ll both live through the night. But for what it’s worth...yeah, I’m yours for as long as it lasts.”

  Her eyes held him in place as she studied his features. Finally sh
e nodded. “Okay. I can believe that. And accept it.”

  Lowering his head, he cupped her chin and placed his lips on hers. Kissing Valerie was like eating a spoonful of honey. A remembered sweetness, light and not too cloying. A luscious taste that made him want only more.

  He pulled her into his arms. Running his fingers along the soft downiness of her arms, his fingers found the edge of her shirt and his hand slipped beneath it. He stopped when he reached the constraining fabric binding her ribs.

  “Does it hurt?” he asked, lightly touching the bandage.

  “Only when I laugh.”

  Gil wanted nothing more than to hold her tightly against him. When he’d been lying in the hospital bed in Los Angeles he’d had an almost constant sense of heartrending emptiness. As if something precious had been lost, along with his memory. Now he understood. Even though he didn’t recall her name or even her face, his heart still held onto the love he’d felt. The love he’d lost.

  Now that he held her in his arms again, he didn’t want anything to break this precious moment. He bent down and gently pressed his lips to the fine hair at her temple. She’d unloosened her braid and her hair fell about her shoulders like a golden cloud. He buried his face in its clean softness and drank in the essence of this woman who touched him so. The woman who held the key to his past.

  Her hand touched his face and he lifted himself up. Gil looked into her eyes, seeking and finding the feverish emotion that mirrored his own. “Are you sure?” he whispered.

  Valerie nodded, her eyes bright. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

  He ran his fingertips down the smooth plane of her cheek, down her throat, lingering at the tiny pulse point at the base. He wanted to savor every inch of her being. Every inch of her heart.

  His fingers raced downward. Although he had no memory of their shared intimacy, he felt as if his hand was following a well-known path. Gil knew without recalling that their past lovemaking had encompassed rousing passion, and tender gentleness as well.

  He continued his quest. His need to know her as he knew himself was overpowering. A soft smile lit her face when Gil touched her gently rounded stomach, as if she were savoring a sweet secret.

  Her fingertips laced through his hair, and pleasure shuddered through him. As they found the old familiar rhythms, there were no utterances of love. As if they both understood that they were two shell-shocked victims, dazed by the frightening events of the war they’d been dragged into. Two embattled spirits finding solace in a single moment of calm before fresh fighting broke out.

  Valerie touched and caressed him as if she knew the secrets of his body and was determined to give rather than receive.

  As his desire built to a frightening crescendo, he finally lowered himself onto her. Her fingers tightened around his neck as he entered her and they moved together in a rhythm that was timeless and yet uniquely their own.

  “Oh, Gil,” she breathed against his neck. “Hold me. Tighter!”

  He buried his face in her shoulder, pressing closer as though he could meld her body into his. He understood her need for closeness, for it was only when he was with Valerie that Gil felt safe. Needed. And he desperately needed her need to complete him as a man.

  She cried out as she climaxed, and Gil felt a powerful surge of fulfillment in having given pleasure to a woman who so touched his soul. Free at last to luxuriate in the boundless gift of pleasure she offered him, Gil found his own release.

  Later he held her softly rounded form in his arms while she slept. His senses still singing from their lovemaking, he fell into a deep sleep.

  Just as his lovemaking with Valerie released the physical tension of the past weeks, their emotional closeness seemed to crack the carefully constructed wall around his memory. As he slept, he dreamed of swinging a powerful sledgehammer and shattering a stained-glass window. Colorful fragments of memory bombarded him. A tiny piece of his past here, a sliver of awareness there.

  He remembered running barefoot as a boy and cutting his foot on the tab of a soda can.

  Then another memory covered that one, and he was laughing with Valerie as they goofed around washing her car.

  Then that dream faded and another, more disturbing one took its place. He was following the paper trail that led to a pair of adoptions.

  In this dream, Gil’s hands grew clammy and his pulse quickened as he opened the adoption folders. In both cases, records were signed in blood-red ink by Dr. Valerie Murphy.

  No! Not Valerie, not the woman he’d grown to love. The fear that she was involved sent him racing through the night. In his dream, he remembered speeding across the desert highway, but didn’t know whether he was running to or away from the truth. After nearly four hundred miles, he arrived, physically and emotionally exhausted, on the outskirts of the asphalt jungle known as Los Angeles.

  The dream memory stopped abruptly. Swirls of images flitted through his mind. His pulse raced and his breath huffed painfully when a new and disturbing picture filled his mind. He was driving again, this time on a winding, almost deserted road. A green truck—why did he see the color clearly?—was behind him. Too close. Pushing. Pressing. Tapping his bumper.

  Pushing him to the edge of the highway. Hundreds of feet below he could see the flashing lights of the city. Then his little rented car was airborne and Gil was flying toward those twinkling lights.

  Gil awoke and sat bolt upright in bed, sweat pouring over his face. The dream had been too real. Almost a photographic image of the actual events of that night, he realized, as a precise memory of the events shoved through his conscious. It had been that very night when the green truck ran him off the edge of Mulholland Drive. The night he was almost killed.

  The same night when every piece of evidence pointed to the woman he was sleeping with, the woman he thought he loved, as the ringleader of this dreadful racket.

  Valerie moaned in her sleep and snuggled closer to the warmth of his body.

  Had his faith in her been shaken by the overwhelming mountain of evidence?

  Gil couldn’t remember.

  Was he, in fact, sleeping with the enemy?

  The facts certainly pointed to that conclusion.

  But facts, he knew, didn’t always point to the truth.

  He was willing to bet his very life that Valerie Murphy was innocent. Hell, he thought as sleep finally claimed him. That was a wager he’d already made.

  Chapter Ten

  Valerie peeked out the blinds in the motel window for the fourteenth time in the past hour. When Gil had left to check in with his office shortly after nine that morning, he’d promised to be gone only an hour. Two max. Now the noon news broadcast was almost over and still no word from him.

  She picked up the bed pillow and slammed it on the newly made bed. Why was she always setting herself up like this? Time and again Gil Branton had proved himself to be the most unreliable, most conniving, person she’d ever met. Still, after a single night wrapped in his arms, she’d fallen for the same old stories. The same old lies.

  Was she so love-starved, so desperate, that this man was worth swallowing her pride and choking on her self-respect?

  Fortunately a noise at the door saved her from having to answer that question.

  “Valerie? Unfasten the chain. It’s me.”

  Her earlier misgivings temporarily shelved, she raced for the door and fumbled with the brass chain. “Gil! What took you so long? I’ve been a nervous wreck. I was almost ready to call out the troops when you—”

  She broke off and stared at him. His jaw was set and his eyes were hard. “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

  “You could say that.” He tossed a thick manila folder, bound with a rubber band, onto the bed. “Another infant disappeared. Last night.”

  “Oh, no! This baby wasn’t delivered at Parker Memorial, was it?”

  “’Fraid so. Day before yesterday.”

  Valerie’s hand rose to her throat. “Not...not ano
ther of my babies? Please say I didn’t deliver this child.”

  Gil turned his head and stared at the framed poster of a desert scene in ubiquitous pastel hues. “Sorry, Doc.”

  She sank onto the edge of the bed and dropped her face into her hands. Sadness, bone-deep and penetrating, settled in her very soul. This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be happening. Not again. Not to her.

  A spark of shame burned her cheeks. Some noble compassionate healer she was, worrying about her professional reputation when a mother—a woman she’d helped bring an infant into the world—had just lost her most precious possession.

  She’d had four deliveries the day before yesterday. Valerie was fairly certain the Diaz baby was safe; both parents were dark-skinned Hispanics. Besides, it had been a difficult delivery, and mother and baby weren’t scheduled for release until later this afternoon.

  She brushed a strand of hair from her face and looked up. “Who? Whose baby was kidnapped?”

  “A woman named Lundquist. Karen Lundquist.”

  “Oh, no!” Karen Lundquist was a particular favorite of Valerie’s. Barely eighteen, but a sparkling ray of sunshine whenever she’d come into the clinic. Karen’s boyfriend, Brent, the baby’s father, had been killed in a tragic auto accident coming home for Thanksgiving last fall.

  Karen later confided that she hadn’t told Brent about the pregnancy. She hadn’t wanted the news to obstruct his studies. She’d been going to tell him that fateful Thanksgiving weekend.

  For a long time Valerie had thought Karen might give up the child—she was so young, after all. But Karen said her baby was the second chance she and Brent never had. So, with the help and support of both families, she’d opted to bear and raise the child. It had been a boy, Valerie recalled. She’d named him Brent.

  “Oh, poor Karen,” she breathed at last. “That baby meant the world to her. How did it happen?”

  Gil shrugged. “I don’t have any details. It was just phoned in this morning. I thought we might go out to her house this afternoon and talk to her. Since you’re her doctor, she might respond better with you there.”

  Glad to finally have something to do, Valerie jumped up from the bed. She stopped at the dresser long enough to twist her hair into a loose ponytail and dab on fresh lipstick. “Let’s go.”