Saved By The Baby. Linda Goodnight
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him on the piano.
“No problem.”
From the corner of his eye he could see Julee surveying the row of framed certificates and citations hanging around his small, cluttered office. He hoped she wouldn’t miss the college diploma. She’d had success handed to her on a silver platter, but he’d worked plenty hard for his.
As he started to disconnect, Rita spoke again. “Don’t forget you need to be back in time for Little League practice.”
“Anything else?”
“I left the list on your desk. A meeting with the county commissioner at four, the task force tomorrow morning, Martha’s birthday party and the slave auction at the high school—”
“Hold on.” He scrounged around in the enormous stack of folders and papers. The list lay in plain sight beneath a snow globe paperweight that Jacob, his seven-year-old buddy from the Big Brother program, had given him last Christmas.
“I found it.” He stuck the list in his shirt pocket and shut off the receptionist’s disembodied voice.
Julee’s blue gaze, wide with curiosity, drifted back to him. “You are a busy man.”
“Goes with the job. So if you don’t mind…” He let the words trail off hoping she’d take the ball and run with it. Her visit was starting to get under his skin.
Before she lost her nerve, Julianna settled back into the green chair and plunged into the story she’d rehearsed for days.
“I’ve come home to Seminole County to do some charity work. You know. One of those celebrity things that are good for an income tax break.”
She blasted him with a hundred-watt smile as fake as the words she’d spoken. She’d never done a “celebrity thing” in her life. Though she’d worked tirelessly to increase bone-marrow donors and had even headed a previous drive, celebrity had nothing to do with it. Outside the modeling industry and this small town she had no celebrity status, but Julianna prayed Tate wouldn’t know that. Finding cures for sick children had simply become her passion.
Tate arched an eyebrow. Stacking his hands behind his head, he tilted back in his rather bedraggled roller chair. “What could that possibly have to do with me?”
Julee crossed her arms over her middle. She hadn’t expected a red-carpet welcome after all these years, but his cool appraisal turned her butterflies into swarming buzzards.
Behind him, through the window, Julianna vaguely comprehended the ebb and flow of light traffic out on the street. A single horn honked. Car doors slammed. The quiet, unhurried normalcy of everyday life in a small town soothed her.
Normalcy—a condition she could hardly recollect. For a while three years ago, life had almost been normal. They’d been sure Megan had been cured by the chemotherapy treatments.
Then had come the frightening news two months ago that Megan’s leukemia cells had reappeared, throwing her into the desperate search for a bone-marrow donor, the only hope of cure now that chemo had failed to permanently destroy the disease. Until now they hadn’t even considered this last-ditch, drastic kind of treatment. For the first time Julee had no choice but to involve Tate. Megan was in a second drug-induced remission, but the doctors said it was only a matter of time until the cells began to multiply again. How much time, no one could say.
Not one day since then had they lived a moment without fear. Megan, her beautiful nine-year-old daughter, deserved a normal life, and so did dozens of other children awaiting a bone-marrow transplant.
If she could get Tate to donate blood without him knowing about Megan, everyone would be better off—Megan, Tate and his wife. No wife, however devoted, wanted the shock of discovering her husband had an unknown child by his first love. Plenty of reasons to face Tate’s chilly regard.
Leaning her elbows on a pile of official-looking documents Julianna locked eyes with the man who held Megan’s fate. The air conditioner thumped to life, but even the cool blast of air couldn’t counter the tingle of sweat prickling the back of her neck.
“I’m involved with increasing the number of minority donors for the bone-marrow transplant database. Since my hometown happens to be the tribal capital of the Seminole Indians, I thought this would be a good place to start.”
The chair rollers clattered to the floor. Tate frowned at her, puzzled, but clearly intrigued. The chatty clerk at the motel had been telling the truth; Sheriff McIntyre was a sucker for a good cause.
“Bone-marrow donation?”
“People wouldn’t necessarily be donating their bone marrow. At first, there’s just a blood test and the donor information is put into the data bank. Then if someone needs a transplant, doctors can access the data bank for a suitable match.”
“I thought relatives usually donated bone marrow.”
Julee’s pulse kicked up a notch, the falsely chipper smile tightening. “That’s the ideal situation, but sometimes family members don’t match.” Like me.
In a deliberate attempt to calm her fraying nerves, Julee picked up the paperweight from Tate’s desk and rolled it between her hands, watching snow drift over the pair of baying hounds. Was it her imagination, or could she still detect the warmth of Tate’s skin? Oddly, the thought calmed her.
“Any reason why you’re targeting minorities?”
Oh, yes, the most important reason in the world. Their daughter had Tate’s Seminole heritage and the genetic types that went with it.
“Minorities have a very limited donor system, so the chances of finding a match are almost nil. And because their population is small, we need all the donors we can get.”
“We?”
She shrugged, but her grip on the paperweight was tight enough to turn her knuckles white. She’d done fine without this man for nearly ten years. She had no desire to disrupt her life or his any more than necessary, but Tate’s cooperation could save Megan’s life. “I’ve been working with the bone-marrow registry for a while. Too many kids die who could be saved by somebody if only that someone had his blood type on file.”
Her heart had been broken a dozen times as beautiful children she and Megan had come to know had withered away while waiting for a transplant. Minority children especially lacked hope. Somehow, she had to change that.
“Why come to me? Why not go to the hospital or the Chamber of Commerce?”
“I have. The hospital administrator thinks it’s a great opportunity for PR. The bone-marrow people will send a mobile unit, the Saturn Company has signed on to sponsor, and we’ll accept regular blood donations, too, to help with expenses.”
He tilted back in his chair again, eyebrows knit in thought. Bright sunlight slanted in through the window behind him and gleamed off his almost-black hair. He picked up a pen and rotated it between his fingers. “Let me ask that again. Why come to me?”
“I’m lining up all the community and civic leaders. The mayor, the school administration, fire chief, etc. Since I’m especially interested in bringing the Seminoles on board, your influence…” At Tate’s thunderous expression, Julee clapped her lips together. She’d thought he was warming to the idea, but now the cold, shuttered expression returned.
“You’ll have to go to the BIA or tribal chiefs if you want the Seminoles. Don’t expect me to get involved.”
Her heart fell. “But I thought—”
“You thought what, Julee? That you could march in here and pretend ten years hadn’t passed? That I’d ignore the law-enforcement needs of this county to run around drumming up business for your tax break?”
“No! That’s not what I thought at all.” Where had she gone wrong? “As I said, you’re the sheriff, you have a certain clout that could be used—”
“Used?