Millionaire M.D.

Justin was grinning to beat the band.

“Now, darlin’. Please don’t be giving all the wild details of our sex life to Sheila. You didn’t tell her what we did two nights ago in the Porsche, did you?”

Smoothly, as if they’d been a couple for a hundred years, he bent down, bussed the top of her head, chucked the baby’s chin, and then plunked down on the opposite side of the booth. “Sheila, I’ve only got forty minutes, max. I want the greasiest hamburger you’ve got back there, heavy on the barbecue, and a ton of fries-”

“Like you need to tell me this, sweetheart?” Sheila whirled around, clearly delighted with him, and sashayed off to deliver their order.

Winona needed a second to recover her equilibrium. Five minutes ago, she’d had no equilibrium problems, but suddenly her heart was flopping in her chest louder than a beached whale and her nerves were suffering hiccups. She didn’t have nerves. She’d certainly never suffered from arrhythmia-at least until Justin walked in. And that kiss from two nights ago seeped back into her mind with a twinge of guilt.

She felt his gaze on her face. Nothing new, their looking at each other. They’d known each other for five million years, for Pete’s sake. Only, nothing was the same since that kiss. He’d never-never-looked at her this way before. As if she were a woman, instead of an old ragtail-younger-neighbor friend. As if she were a woman who sexually interested him. As if he didn’t have all that much trouble imagining her in bed. And was enjoying that imagining.

Her gaze frittered around the diner. The red barstools were all taken, the long Formica counter filled up with locals. Booths lined the walls, mostly spilling over with young families, but, traditionally, medical personnel popped over here to grab the counter seats because the hospital was so close by. No one in the medical field ever seemed to eat healthily. On the jukebox, someone was wailing about losing somebody. There was a truck and a cup of a coffee and a dog in the song, so no question it was a country-style wail. Manny, the cook, was visible from the open window of the grill kitchen. He was wearing his beefcake-style white undershirt that showed off his shoulder and upper arm muscles, and he was wielding a black spatula. Sheila patted his butt every time she went by.

The diner was familiar. Comfortable. The teasing was a pain in the keester, but what could Winona expect from a small town where everyone knew her, and, damnation, everybody cared? Hell, she cared, too, and could pry with the best of them when she was in the mood. Normally it was as easy to be in the Royal Diner as at home.

Except tonight.

She felt a sensation of panic, as if her whole world were shifting on her. It wasn’t exactly that she minded his looking at her in that new way. That intimate, hot, unnerving-damn-him way. But she’d always known what to say to Justin, how to behave, what to do around him, and suddenly all that comfort level was lost.

Finally he got around to saying something. “You look tired, Win.”

“Thanks, Doc. That’s just what a girl wants to hear.”

“And not just a little tired. You look just plain whipped.”

Immediately she bristled. What had happened to all the sweet talk he’d used when Sheila’d been around? “Are you looking for a sock right in the labonza? I’m not the least tired,” she snapped.

The insult went right over his head. “What’s wrong?”

Her shoulders sank. The feeling of strangeness disappeared. This was, after all, Justin, who she’d known forever-and who already knew all about Angel. “Everything.”

“So. We’ll fix this ‘everything.’ But that’s a little tough to do unless you’re willing to be a little more specific.”

Out it poured. All the frustrations from the last time she’d seen him. Even though technically Angel should have been promptly turned over to Social Services, no one really had a sweat with her temporarily baby-sitting. Still, the whole world, and especially her boss, kept reminding her that the baby showing up on her doorstep didn’t mean she had any dibs-or legal rights-on Angel. And she knew that. But for the same reason, one of the first things she’d done was check out what was going on with foster care.

“Okay.” When Sheila served dinner, Justin didn’t even look up, just kept his eyes on hers, encouraging her to keep talking.

“There’s no great foster-care family waiting in the wings. The court finds a place when it has to. That’s the way it is. So there are the Barkers, who’ve already taken in two kids, even though they barely had room for the second one. They can take in a baby for a couple of weeks if there’s no other place. They’re good people, but they don’t want Angel, Doc.”

“Okay.”

“And there’s another family on the foster-care list…” She pushed her fork around fretfully. “On paper, they’re qualified. In reality, we’ve never put a child with them. He…smells. She dresses vintage Victorian to scrub her bathroom. I’m not saying anything’s that terrible, but there seem to be some raisins missing in their bran, you know? They claim to desperately want kids, that they can’t have their own, be happy to foster. But I’m telling you-”

“Angel isn’t going there.” Justin, God love him, didn’t waste time phrasing the comment as a question.

Again, her shoulders eased. He understood. “I realize that doesn’t mean that I’m the best choice to take care of the baby. Or that I’m entitled. In any way. But-”

“Oh, shut up, Win. You don’t have to justify anything to me.” He peeked at the snoozing baby as he started wolfing his burger. “So keep on talking. What’s happened so far with the parent search? I take it you haven’t found the baby’s mother?”

“God knows, I’m trying.”

“But…?”

She started filling him in. Leading her mom-suspect list were a couple of teenage girls. Both troubled. Both had histories of drinking and truancy. Both came from rich families where the parents had recently shipped them off to residential ranches. “You know the kind of place I’m talking about. They have a dry-out program, but it’s also a live- in school, all the academics. The idea is to remove the kids from the environment that was contributing to their trouble, see if professionals and positive peers can’t help turn the kids around.”

“Actually, I don’t know anything about those places, but it’s obvious you do.”

“Yeah. And some of them are excellent. Kids do take a wrong turn sometimes. Especially if they can’t get away from bad peer influences on their own. The only thing that ticks me off is how expensive they are, it’s not like everyone can take advantage. But, anyway, on those two specific girls-neither of them was pregnant, according to their parents.”

“Which means…?”

“Which means nothing. The parents could be lying, thinking that they’re protecting their daughters. So I can’t be sure until I’ve checked that out, and that’s going to take longer than overnight.” She lifted a forkful of cheddar cheese mashed potatoes, but then let it drop again. “In the meantime, I picked up news about another kid. Parents live in a trailer park, dad works in the oil fields, girl got pregnant at fourteen, supposedly had the baby in the family trailer and it died. Only maybe the baby didn’t die. Maybe that’s what the girl said to avoid trouble, and if so, and if her child was Angel, then it could well have fetal alcohol syndrome-at best. But right now, I have no grounds to haul in the girl and force her to take a medical exam.” She glared at Justin. “I’m almost positive that this girl isn’t Angel’s mother. But if she were…then either of those foster-care families would be the worst place to put a baby with those kinds of special problems.”

“I hear you. You’re saying you’d want to take in Angel even more if you thought she had special problems. Not less. But in the meantime, how come you’re so positive that that one girl isn’t Angel’s mom?”

“Well, I can’t be positive-but whoever is the mom of that baby knew me personally. She had to. I mean, she not only left the baby at my house, but left a personal note to me. And I didn’t know that kid in the trailer park from Adam-or anyone in her family.” Sheila stopped by the table, delivered the warmed bottle and two gigantic pieces of pie, but when she couldn’t get another conversation going, moved on again. “I spent hours in the schools today. And on the computer. Found three runaways. Six truant cases. I’m still trying to follow up on all of them. Then I hit the docs, the clinics, the obstetricians, Planned Parenthood. I swear I could smack ’em all upside the head. None of those people talk. They’d guard the confidentiality of a kid in trouble no matter what. It’s like trying to get blood out of a turnip. So then I tried calling ministers and priests and rabbi Rachel-”

He glanced over at her plate, and stole some of the chops she wasn’t eating.