The Toddler's Tale. Rebecca Winters

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      Thank heaven she hadn’t heard about the kidnapping of Connor O’Hara’s son, Chase, from the clinic day care! Max thought. By now Janelle and her partner, Petey—the man Max and the others referred to as the fake Connor—were probably long gone from Austin with the cute little guy.

      It was likely the only news story Ms. Markum had ever missed out on since working for Tattle Today. As soon as Max had delivered his ultimatum, he’d drive her to her car, then follow her into town to make sure she went straight home before he met with Michael Lord, head of security at Maitland Maternity, to help pick up the con artists’ trail.

      Heat stormed her face once more. “Well, well. Now I’m Medusa as well as the black widow. Make up your mind.”

      “I haven’t even started yet.”

      Another stiletto stab to the wound he’d inflicted earlier. Chelsea could taste blood.

      “I think I’ll take it as a compliment that you’ve managed to make me sound bigger than life. But in case you’ve forgotten, I have a boss who gives me orders, and I’m not the only one on stage. Let’s be generous, shall we, and give the other networks, including the cable channels, at least a modicum of credit for the part they play in what you view as the whole nefarious business of reporting the news.”

      Without warning he stood on the brakes. His action killed the engine. Wonderful! They were out in the middle of nowhere.

      On her side of the truck lay miles of ranch land. On the other side of the road, beyond his broad shoulders, she could see a dilapidated construction site, but there weren’t any workmen about. No vehicles.

      Next door to the site she spied a small ranch-style house set among a stand of pecan and cottonwood trees. In the dead grass stood a For Sale sign. Both the excavation site and the house stood about a hundred feet away from the road and appeared uncared for. It never occurred to her he might be cruel enough to make her get out here and find her own way home.

      She dared a glance in his direction.

      When he turned his powerful male physique toward her, she noticed a nerve throbbing at one corner of his mouth. His handsome features had hardened into a grim facsimile of the flesh-and-blood man who made her pulse race faster than she deemed healthy.

      She struggled for composure under the fierce accusation of eyes more black than brown in the semidark interior of the truck. They matched the angry sky.

      “You call it responsible reporting when you trespass on the Lord ranch, interfere with police and FBI business, cause grief to everyone who helped bring down Vince Eckart, just so you could get some damn photos of Camille and her baby? After the incident at the Bobbie Stryder concert, this is like déjà vu. For a woman as highly intelligent and sophisticated as you are, I fail to understand this obsession you have for invasive manipulation of the news. Dare I hope that one day you’ll find you’re a victim of someone like yourself? It could be an enlightening experience.”

      Though they’d skirmished many times in the past, he’d never yelled at her to make a point. Another trait she grudgingly respected in Max Jamison. Well-chosen words, not noise, were his scalpel. Like a great surgeon, he knew the precise place to cut, how deep to penetrate to get at that vulnerable core inside her.

      Willing tears not to form, she averted her eyes. “Don’t you know anything is possible in this world—”

      “What’s that?” He cut her off without preamble. In an abrupt move he shifted in the seat, turning his head away from her. “Listen! There it is again. Do you hear it?”

      Chelsea assumed he’d heard the wind, which had been buffeting the truck, but she rolled down her window all the same. Gust-driven raindrops pelted her face.

      She shivered from the wet cold and started to roll it up again when she heard crying. At first she thought it must be a cat in distress, but the more she listened, the more human it sounded.

      “That’s a little child’s voice!”

      “You’re right,” he murmured, “but where?”

      Sensing a mystery, Chelsea opened the door to investigate. Before her new Italian leather heels touched the ground, she could see a woman beckoning to them from across the road, shouting frantic cries for help. Her body was nothing more than a silhouette in the downpour.

      Max levered himself from the cab, their personal war put on hold in the face of this unexpected crisis. Chelsea chased after him. In case she couldn’t get to the station in time to report the story on Camille and the baby, maybe she’d find nuggets of a new drama unfolding here.

      Arms flailing, a panic-stricken young woman no more than twenty-one, twenty-two, met Max halfway. Water ran down her pretty features and dripped off her dark blond braids. The rain had plastered the corduroy jumper against her thin body, revealing every shiver.

      “Thank heaven y-you heard me!” she cried. “I need h-help!” Her hands gripped his hard-muscled forearms. “My baby wandered away from me and f-fell through some boards. I tried to go after her, but the framework is c-crumbling. I’m afraid to make a move or everything m-might cave in on top of her!”

      Another trapped child.

      As the sickness welled up in his gut, Max closed his eyes tightly for a moment.

      Chelsea watched his reaction, stunned by the distinct pallor of his complexion and the way his body had tautened. Something earthshaking was going on inside him. But what?

      “It’s going to be all right,” she heard him murmur at last. “What’s your name?”

      The mother seemed to hesitate for a moment before she said, “Traci Beal.”

      “Traci? How long has your daughter been down there?”

      “I d-don’t know. A half hour m-maybe. You’re the first p-person to stop.”

      The poor woman’s teeth were chattering. This was the perfect heartbreaking child-in-distress story, but a lot of good it was going to do Chelsea without a camcorder. She flashed him a look of outrage for destroying her camera. But his attention was focused on the mother.

      “You haven’t phoned for help yet?”

      The young woman shook her head. “I don’t h-have a phone and didn’t dare leave the baby to run to a neighbor’s house. Please…you’ve g-got to help me!” She sounded on the verge of hysterics. “If anything happens to Betsy…”

      In the next instant Max left them to climb inside the excavation, where the child’s incessant crying was louder. Chelsea noticed that no matter how much care he took, more material caved in.

      As she watched him move around and lift debris, Chelsea held her breath. She couldn’t think of another man who would dive into a precarious situation like this with no thought for his own life.

      When she reflected on the constant stream of disgusting men who had flowed in and out of her mother’s world, living off her money, she couldn’t imagine one of them putting a child’s crisis ahead of his own selfish needs.

      After a few minutes Max climbed back to them, his face grim as he addressed Traci. “She’s crawled into a main drainage СКАЧАТЬ