Secret Delivery (2 page)

Jack felt as if someone had dropped a mountain on him.

The same woman who’d already given him the surprise of his life eight months ago on Christmas morning.

Alana Davis.

Now here she’d turned up again like a bad penny. Driving a stolen car and rattling off a story about being held captive.

A story he wasn’t buying.

Alana had some explaining to do.

She didn’t look much different now than she had when he’d fished her out of that frozen creek. She’d been wet then. Shivering, and scared, too.

Of course, she’d had a darn good reason to be scared. She’d nearly drowned and then had gone into shock and labor at the same time. It’d been a miracle that Jack hadn’t had to deliver the newborn right there in the cab of his truck. Thankfully, he’d gotten her to the hospital and Dr. Bartolo in the nick of time.

“I had a baby?” Alana asked.

It was a question that confused and riled Jack. Of course, just about everything Alana had ever done had
confused and riled him. Maybe it was the fever causing her to act this way. Maybe not. But it didn’t matter. She’d made her decision about Joey the minute she walked out on him when he was barely a day old.

Now she’d have to live with that decision.

She couldn’t have a lick of a claim to Joey. Jack had been the only father the little boy had ever known. He wouldn’t lose him now, especially not to the mother who’d abandoned him, and Jack was certain he’d be able to convince a judge of that. She might have some legal rights as the birth mother, but those rights could be taken away.

“You don’t remember giving birth to a baby,” he said. Jack made sure it sounded as if he was accusing her of a Texas-size lie.

Tears sprang to her china-blue eyes, and her bottom lip trembled. She awkwardly swiped at her wet shoulder-length brown hair to push it away from her face. “Why are you saying this? Why are you telling these lies?” The tears and the trembling increased. “If I’d had a baby, I would have remembered.”

But the stark fear on her pale face said differently.

“Oh, you had a baby all right. Six pounds, two ounces,” he supplied.

She only shook her head.

And Jack saw something in those blue eyes that he hadn’t wanted to see. Something familiar that he’d garnered from eight years of being the sheriff of Willow Ridge. The harsh reaction of a woman who just might be telling the truth.

Oh, hell.

Groaning, he sank down in his chair and stared at her.
“While we’re waiting for the doctor, maybe we should start from the beginning,” he suggested. Somehow, he had to make sense of all of this and arrest her for auto theft or send her on her way. “You said you remember your car going into the creek?”

Alana nodded. “I remember that. You pulled me onto the muddy bank and gave me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. You saved my life.”

So far, so good. “And then you went into labor.”

Silence. For a long time. He could see the worry lines bunch up her forehead. “I don’t remember that part.” It seemed to break her heart to say it.

It damn near broke Jack’s, too. Of course, he had more at stake than she did. Joey was his son in every way that mattered. And he wouldn’t ever turn his back on that little boy the way Alana had.

“I took you to the hospital that day,” Jack continued, wondering what he was going to do if he actually jogged her memory. “We got there, and you had the baby on the way into the examining room.”

He watched those blue eyes to see if there was any recollection of that. But there didn’t seem to be any. Only more tears. Disgusted with the sympathy those tears were producing in him, he grabbed a handful of tissues from his desk drawer and shoved them at her.

“Wipe your eyes,” he insisted.

She did. It didn’t help, though. More tears followed. So did a helpless-sounding throaty moan. “Why don’t I remember? Why?”

“To hell if I know. You didn’t seem to have a memory problem when you were there at the hospital.” But even then, he’d thought there was something fishy about her
story of how she’d gotten into the creek. Or what she was doing in Willow Ridge in the first place.

Alana stared at him. Blinked. “Maybe I had amnesia from the accident.”

Now it was Jack’s turn to shake his head. “The doctor thoroughly examined you. No head trauma. No trauma of any kind except for a bruise on your shoulder from the seat belt. I never heard of a seat belt bruise causing amnesia.”

“Emotional stress, then.” She sounded desperate to come up with an explanation, any explanation, of why she’d done something so despicable.

“You were fine after the delivery.” Jack didn’t bother to answer nicely. Every moment with her was like another mountain falling on him. “You even filled out the hospital paperwork.”

Including the birth certificate.

“You nursed Joey,” he continued. “Ate Christmas dinner that my aunt Tessie brought in for you. You slept a few hours. And then a little after one in the morning, you sneaked out of the hospital.”

She repeated that last sentence under her breath. A moment later, a spark flared across those blue irises. “That must have been when the guard and the nurse kidnapped me.”

Jack didn’t bother to suppress a groan. So they were back to that story. Of course, he couldn’t completely dismiss it. After all, she was sitting in his office wearing just a nightgown. A wet one at that.

The flimsy cotton clung to her breasts. It was so clingy that he could see her nipples.

He got up, grabbed a raincoat from his closet and put it over her so that it covered the entire front of her body.
For reasons he didn’t understand or care to explore, seeing her breasts reminded him that she was a woman. An attractive one at that.

Jack didn’t want to think about that.

He only wanted to remember that this was the person who could destroy him. All because of DNA. As far as Jack was concerned, she was just an egg donor, nothing more.

“Willow Ridge might be a hayseed town to a city girl like you, but we still have a few amenities,” he explained. “Like a security camera in the hospital parking lot, for instance. That camera photographed you leaving the hospital
alone
. No guard. No nurse. Definitely no indication of a kidnapping. You left of your own free will and without anyone’s coercion or assistance.”

And he should know. He’d studied the tape hundreds of times trying to figure out what the devil had happened.

“You mean I left alone in the dead of winter?” she clarified. There was strong skepticism in her frail voice, and she waited until he confirmed that with a frosty nod. “Did I get into a car?”

Now, here was the confusing part. “No. You just walked away.”

Jack still had that image of her in his mind, too. Wearing the bleached-out green hospital gown, cotton robe and flip-flops, she’d walked out of the front of the one-story hospital, and stumbled on the sidewalk. The cold wind had whipped at her nightclothes and her hair. She’d looked unsteady.

She’d staggered several more times as she made her way through the parking lot.

There’d only been one clear shot of her face that night.

Jack would never forget it.

It was the same frightened, tearstained, shell-shocked face that was staring back at him now.

“You said the baby’s name is Joey?” she asked.

All of his muscles went stiff. He didn’t want to discuss Joey with her. But he also knew he didn’t have a choice. Eventually, he had to give her enough details to satisfy her curiosity so he could get her out of there.

“You named him,” he reminded her.

Another blink. “Did I?”

He couldn’t contain his smirk, but beneath it, his concerns were snowballing. “You did. You said you named him after your kid brother who died when you were a child.” And he braced himself.

Alana hugged his raincoat closer to her. “I remember my little brother, Joey. And I remember I was wearing a green hospital gown and robe when I woke up at the house in the woods.”

Jack actually welcomed the change in subject, even though he knew it could only be temporary.

Eventually she’d ask more about Joey.

“What else do you remember about the house, the guard and the nurse?” he asked.

She hesitated a moment. “Everything, I think. It was December twenty-sixth when I woke up in that house. So I must have been there all this time.” Alana’s eyes met his. “Why did they hold me captive?”

Jack shrugged. “You’re the only one who’ll be able to answer that.”

Their eyes stayed connected until she lurched at the sound of the front door opening. Because he was on edge, Jack automatically reached for his gun and went
to the door. But the gun wasn’t necessary. The tall, lanky visitor was Dr. Keith Bartolo.

“Doc’s here,” Jack relayed to Alana, only because she looked ready to jump out of her skin.

“Jack,” the doctor grumbled. He pulled off his rain-beaded felt hat, and with his leather medical bag gripped in his right hand, he made his way down the hall.

Jack had known the doctor most of his life, since the man had moved to Willow Ridge over twenty-three years ago and set up a practice. Jack also knew when Bartolo wasn’t in a good mood. Apparently, the fiftysomething-year-old doc didn’t like being called out after hours during a storm. Jack knew how the man felt. He rarely worked late these days because of Joey, but here he was at ten thirty going a second round with Alana Davis when he was supposed to be finishing up paperwork so he could take the weekend off.

“You said you had a sick prisoner,” Dr. Bartolo prompted. He headed in the direction of the lone jail cell at the far end of the hall.

“She’s in my office,” Jack corrected.

The doctor lifted a caramel-brown eyebrow, and Jack stepped to the side so the man could enter. The doc and Alana looked at each other, and Jack didn’t know which one of them was more surprised.

Alana swallowed hard. “I know you.”

“Of course you do.” Dr. Bartolo stared at her. “I was the attending physician when Jack brought you to the hospital last Christmas.”

That was it. Apparently that was all the bedside manner he intended to dispense. The doctor plopped his
bag onto Jack’s desk, unzipped it and pulled out a digital thermometer. After putting a plastic sleeve over the tip, he stuck it in Alana’s mouth.

“Why is she a prisoner?” the doctor asked as the thermometer beeped once.

“She stole a car.”

Even though Alana didn’t say anything out loud, her eyes said plenty. Jack could almost hear her giving him a tongue-lashing. Yes, she’d stolen the car. She’d admitted that. But according to her, it’d been to escape.

So, was it true?

He could check with the sheriff who’d posted the stolen car report and get the name of the person who had filed the claim. That would lead him to Alana’s so-called guard. Jack hoped this wasn’t some kind of lovers’ quarrel. But he immediately rethought that. Maybe that would be the best solution for him. Find whoever was behind this so she could drop the amnesia act.

If it
was
an act.

The thermometer made a series of rapid beeps. Dr. Bartolo pulled it from her mouth and looked at the tiny screen. “Your temp’s just a little over a hundred. Not too high. Any idea what’s wrong with you?”

She shook her head.

“Okay.” Dr. Bartolo didn’t appear to be any more convinced of that than Jack did of her amnesia story. He flicked the plastic disposable tip into the trash and placed the thermometer back into his bag. “Are you taking any meds?”

Alana glanced at Jack. “No.”

Jack frowned. “She said a guard and a nurse gave her
some sedatives, and they’d been doing that for some time now,” he explained. And he didn’t think she’d forgotten that already. Her eyes narrowed slightly as if she hadn’t wanted to share that information with the doctor.

“Sedatives?” the doctor questioned. “What kind?”

She shook her head again, causing Jack to huff. Before the doctor’s arrival, she’d been chatty, so why hush now? “The kind of sedatives that might cause memory loss,” Jack provided. “Or not. She could be making that part up.”

That caused some concern in the doctor’s eyes. “If there’s a possibility of memory loss, she needs to be hospitalized. I’d also need to do a tox screen to see if there’s anything in her blood.”

“Would a fever that low cause her to hallucinate?” Jack asked Dr. Bartolo. “Or could sedatives do that?”

He lifted his shoulder. “Not the fever but possibly the sedatives. Why? What makes you think she’s hallucinating?”

“A couple of things, but we can try to figure out all of that at the hospital.” And once he had more details, he’d have to deal with the stolen car issue. It was entirely possible that the sheriff of the town where the stolen car complaint was filed would come and take Alana back to face those charges.

Jack hated that he felt relief about that.

But he did. The sooner he got Alana Davis out of Joey’s life, the better.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Alana announced, standing. But she had to catch his desk to stop herself from falling. Or maybe it was all an act to get him to feel sorry for her.

“Across the hall.” Jack pointed in that direction. Both Jack and the doctor watched her as she made her way into the tiny room.

“Okay,” Dr. Bartolo said the moment the bathroom door closed. “What’s this all about? Did she come back to town to try to get Joey from you?”

“I don’t know.” There was so much about this that didn’t make sense. “She says she doesn’t remember giving birth to him.”

“Is that so?” Bartolo stayed quiet a moment. “I guess that means she can’t or won’t say why she left town the way she did.”

“She says she doesn’t remember that, either. But she does remember being taken captive after leaving the hospital.” Jack paused to figure out how best to phrase this. “Is it possible she’s crazy?”

“It’s possible,” the doctor readily agreed. “After all, most normal women wouldn’t just abandon their newborn the way she did.”

True. Her behavior here tonight hadn’t convinced him that she was doing any better than she had been eight months ago.

“But maybe it’s something equally obvious,” the doctor continued. “Maybe she’s broken the law. Maybe she’s a criminal, and she’s telling you she has memory loss to cover up something else.”