style="font-size:15px;"> The request was unusual. “What’s wrong with him?” Katie sniffed the air. “Other than the obvious. Did you have to bring me a ripe one?”
“Sorry.” Abby laughed. “And to answer your other question—nothing, I hope.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Katie said. She reached for an empty folder. “So, what name do I put on the chart?”
“This—” Abby held the infant up “—is Baby X.”
Katie put down her pen and looked at Abby. “Is this some kind of a joke?”
R.J.’s words, Abby thought. “I wish. Someone just dropped him off on our doorstep. Classic note pinned to the blanket and everything. All that was missing was snow and a heart-wrenching musical score.” She shook her head. It wasn’t the baby’s fault, but that didn’t change anything. “The press is going to have a field day.”
Katie took the baby from her. “The press?”
Abby nodded. “They were there for Mother’s announcement about the clinic’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebration. They liked this story better.” She glanced toward the door leading to the first examining room. It was closed. “Tell Ford I’ll be by as soon as I can manage.”
Katie shifted the baby to her other arm. The outer door buzzed softly, announcing another patient. “What do we do with Baby X until then?”
Abby paused in the doorway, one hand on the knob. “See if you can get him to talk.” With that, she hurried away.
THE DARKNESS ABOUT HER lifted slowly, like a heavy curtain being drawn away. A dull, persistent ache came to fill its place, and it felt as if there was something inching down her forehead just above her brow.
With fingers that didn’t quite feel as if they belonged to her, she touched the spot on her head. A stickiness registered. She looked at her fingers.
Blood.
Her blood.
Why?
She gazed around slowly. The ache wouldn’t allow her to move quickly. She was on the ground, in an alley of some sort, and it was daylight.
Relying on shaky limbs, she managed to rise to her feet. As she did so, she became aware of another sensation.
Her arms felt empty. As if she had been holding something that was gone now.
But what?
Dazed, confused, she looked down at them, trying to remember what it was she’d lost.
Trying to remember anything at all.
But there was nothing but a huge void.
She couldn’t remember.
Anything.
A noise caught her attention. Like a magnet of hope, it drew her around.
There was a man standing at the end of the alley. A man dressed in blue. A policeman.
He looked at her uncertainly, stepping forward. “Can I help you, ma’am?”
A sob caught in her throat as she made her way toward him. “Yes.”
Suddenly the world began to shimmer. Spinning, it retreated from her until there was nothing left but a tiny opening for the light to squeeze through. And then, even that was gone.
Boneless, she fell to the ground.
CHAPTER TWO
KYLE MCDERMOTT SHIFTED in his chair. He’d lost count of how many times now. Had he been wearing the jeans he so rarely put on these days, he would have rested his ankle across his thigh. But that wouldn’t fit, given the three-piece suit he was wearing. Besides, it would somehow seem disrespectful to the other occupants of the room, most of whom looked as if they hadn’t been truly comfortable in months.
He glanced at his sister. He knew that Marcie had been uncomfortable for a while now. She was the reason he was here, suffering and growing progressively more agitated.
Kyle didn’t like waiting, had never been able to tolerate it. And even if he could have, he wouldn’t have liked waiting here, in a room full of women whose bodies were in various stages of pending motherhood. He felt out of place, the lone male in the midst of some secret female sorority he had no right to be invading.
As far back as he could remember, Kyle McDermott had never thought of himself as an actual people person. His talents lay in other directions. It was only because he loved his baby sister, Marcie, that he was here. And paying dearly for it.
Trying vainly to stifle an exasperated sigh that begged to be exhaled, he glanced at his watch. Forty-seven minutes. Forty-seven minutes past the scheduled time for Marcie’s appointment.
Where the hell is that doctor?
Never raising her eyes from the magazine she was flipping through, Marcie leaned over in his direction. “It’s not going to go any faster if you keep looking at it.”
“I don’t want it to go faster. I just want your doctor to get here.”
He was trying to keep his voice down, but it seemed as if every set of eyes had turned in his direction. He should never have let Marcie talk him into coming along. It was bad enough having to be her coach, without enduring this.
“When I told you to get your doctor’s first morning appointment, I didn’t think he started at noon.”
“She.” The word left her lips tersely. Marcie gave up the pretense of reading and closed the magazine. “Can’t you even remember that? I must have told you a hundred times.”
“A dozen,” he corrected out of habit, remembering now. Of course, he knew Maitland was a woman. It had just slipped his mind, that’s all. He saw Marcie’s brows draw together the way they always did when she stubbornly dug in. He didn’t want another argument. This was neither the time nor the place. For the sake of peace, he tried for a truce. “Sorry, Marce, I’m preoccupied.”
“You’re always preoccupied.”
It wasn’t the first time Marcie had flung the accusation at him. And to a certain extent, it was true. His mind was always going off in a dozen different directions, taken up by a myriad of details. Maybe that was why she’d turned to Billy Madison in the first place.
This bickering wasn’t going to get them anywhere, Kyle thought. And the only thing worse than sitting here in the middle of a room full of pregnant women was arguing with his sister in a room full of pregnant women. He shouldn’t have come today. If it really meant that much to Marcie to have him along on an office visit, next week would be better for him.
Fed up and tired, Kyle began to rise. Marcie’s hurt look came as no surprise. He fielded it. “Listen, I’d better go. I’ll leave the car for you and I’ll call a cab.”
Marcie reached out to catch his arm, then stopped herself. “Afraid you’ll miss your precious
