Rebecca Winters - The Baby Discovery

With his other hand he smoothed the fine dark hair on the tiny head. He studied each perfect feature, the shell ears, the minute finger and toenails. There weren’t any lashes yet, but his eyes looked like they might be open a tiny slit. Surely that had to be a good sign!

“Dear God, if you aren’t a miracle!”

A middle-aged nurse he didn’t recognize came into the room. She smiled when she saw him standing at the crib. “Sorry if the noise woke you. I heard you were here all night and figured you needed the sleep.”

“I should have been up before now. What does the doctor say about the baby’s condition today?”

“At this stage, things are tentative.”

His spirits plummeted. He should have known better than to ask. “Do you have any idea what time Ms. Richins will be on duty again?”

“She works the night shift. If she’s scheduled for tonight, she’ll be in at eight p.m. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No, thank you. I wanted to let her know I appreciated the cot.”

“She went home at five-thirty this morning, but I’ll pass your gratitude along.”

“Thank you.”

He touched the baby’s flailing hands once more, then pulled his own hands out of the crib.

“I’ll be back later,” he whispered. “Get better for me now.”

After tossing the gloves in the waste bin, he reached for his cowboy hat. Before walking out the door, he hesitated.

“There is one thing,” he said to the nurse. “I carry a cell phone. If there’s any change in the baby either way, could someone phone me immediately?”

“Of course. Write your number at the top of the chart hanging on the front of the crib.”

He walked back and put it there with an attached pencil, but once that was accomplished, it was almost impossible to walk away from the baby. Zane felt like he was leaving a part of his heart.

“Babies are stronger than you think.” The nurse could read his mind.

“I pray you’re right.”

When he stepped outside the ER, the sunlight nearly blinded him. One thing about Utah blizzards. After they’d blown themselves out, the bluest sky on earth magically appeared.

At least a foot and a half of wet, heavy snow, maybe more, had blanketed the world around him. Its whiteness dazzled the eyes. He had his work cut out to clear it off his truck before he could see enough to drive home.

After snow-blowing his driveway and the front path leading to the porch, he went in the house and checked his answering machine. The police hadn’t called, of course.

Still full of anger, he headed for a hot shower. In case his cell phone rang, he kept it on the tile sink so he could hear it.

Later, when he’d put on a clean shirt and jeans, he rustled up some food for a sandwich, but his stores were low. He needed to do something about that before the guys pulled in tonight.

First, however, he needed to talk to his crew, then straighten the house. He had a cleaning lady who came in once a week, but there were still things to do.

Three hours later he took off for the supermarket and loaded up on supplies. On his way down one of the aisles looking for napkins, he found himself stopping in front of the disposable diaper section, something he’d never done before in his life.

There were several brands for newborns. Zane felt a pit in his gut when he thought of Johnny struggling for life beneath the heater of his crib.

As his gaze strayed to the baby bottles, pictures of the tubes and IVs hooked up to those five precious pounds of humanity flooded his mind, bringing tears to his eyes.

He blinked them back before heading to one of the checkout counters. Once he’d put the groceries away, he’d drive out to the ER and stay with Johnny. When the guys phoned, he’d give them directions to the hospital so they could see the baby before they all moved on to his house.

Hopefully Ms. Richins was working tonight and would come on duty while he was still there. For some reason the image of her gleaming brown hair and eyes like rich, warm drops of melted chocolate, managed to intrude whenever he thought about Johnny. He couldn’t seem to separate the two in his mind.

There was a sweetness in her voice and expression around the baby. Zane had been charmed by her.

When Meg went out to her car at seven p.m., she told herself it was because she needed time to scrape the ice off her windshield so she wouldn’t be late for work. On a clear night after a storm, everything froze.

But the job only took five minutes, and her Jeep could go anywhere in the snow without problem.

When she walked into the ER at seven-twenty, Dr. Parker’s head turned in her direction. She’d forgotten his hours were different than those of the staff.

He checked his watch. “You’re forty minutes early tonight. In case you’re looking for Baby Doe, he’s not here.”

“No!” she cried in agony, and started shaking her head.

“Take it easy, Meg. I meant that it was good news. He’s still sick, but stabilized. I took him off the extremely Critical List and had him transferred to the nursery around dinnertime.”

“Thank heaven!” She clung to the counter, still trying to recover.

“I guess we should have hung a sign. When Mr. Broderick discovered the baby wasn’t here, he reacted the exact same way you did.”

“He’s here?” Just the mention of the stranger’s name brought this suffocating feeling to her chest.

“Obviously he was.”

Without conscious thought Meg raced around the corner and down the hall. She opened the door and took the stairs to the nursery one floor up.

“Where have you put Baby Doe?” she asked Shelby Clark, one of the nurses at the station.

“You mean, our little celebrity? I’m afraid you’ll have to stand in line outside the sick baby nursery,” she teased. “At the moment there are three people ahead of you. They’re all men, and they’re gorgeous!” she confided.

“If you’re up here, that means the word has already spread to the main floor. I think every eligible female in this hospital is waiting her turn for a glimpse of them. Donna says they’re movie stars here on location for a film.”

Donna was wrong.

The men were probably the engineers helping Zane Broderick on his project. But Meg kept those thoughts to herself.

“I just want a peek at the baby before I go on duty in a few minutes.”

“Sure you do.” Shelby winked.

Under other circumstances Meg would have enjoyed Shelby’s innocent teasing. But not tonight. Meg was too close to this case. Dr. Parker had upset her too much.

If she’d found Dr. Tingey in the ER, his first words would have been, “I have good news. Baby Doe has been transferred to the nursery.”

But that wasn’t Dr. Parker’s style. Telling her the baby was gone had almost given her a heart attack. Aside from her other reason for leaving Tooele, the thought of not working around Dr. Parker any longer than necessary held a lot of appeal.

It was just as well she’d talked to Debbie this morning about moving back to Salt Lake. To her surprise, her roommate admitted she’d been worried about Meg and thought a change of scene sounded like a good plan for her.

Meg also learned that Debbie had been considering moving home to Logan, Utah, where she could stay with her folks and attend graduate school at Utah State. But she’d been hesitant to talk to Meg about it because she didn’t want to leave her in the lurch.

Not only had their talk helped Meg decide to give two weeks’ notice to the hospital, Meg’s first reaction when she heard the baby was gone proved her emotions were too involved to be healthy.

Hard as it was to do, she decided it would be better not to see the baby again. Now that he’d been moved to the nursery, there was no reason for Meg to be up here. No reason at all.