His Secret Love-Child

CHAPTER TWO

FOR how long had she dreamed of this moment? For how long had she thought of what she might say?

Her prepared speech was no longer appropriate. She’d accepted that three nights ago when she’d seen him back at Crocodile Creek, so maybe it was just as well that there were things to say and do now that had nothing to do with their past.

He was past the slowing rotor blades. He was almost by her side.

He stopped.

And he saw who he was facing.

‘Gina.’

The word was a blank expression of pure shock.

He’d had less warning than she. She at least knew that he was in the same part of the world as she was. She’d seen him only three days ago. But Cal hadn’t seen her for five years.

He’d hardly changed, she thought. He was a big man, long and lean and tough. He always had been.

Information about Cal’s background had been hard to glean, but she knew enough. His parents had been farmers on a holding that had been scarcely viable. His mother had abandoned them early. Cal had been brought up to hard times and hard work, and it showed. His bronzed skin was weathered, almost leathery. His deep brown eyes crinkled at the edges, and his strongly boned face spoke of the childhood he’d talked about reluctantly, a childhood where his first memory had been of gathering hay in the blazing sun before a storm on Christmas morning, heaving bales that had been almost as big as he’d been before he had been old enough to stop believing in Santa Claus.

Before he’d been old enough to stop hoping that one day things could change.

But they hadn’t. He hadn’t. He hadn’t changed a bit.

Yet she still loved him. She looked into his shocked face and she felt her heart break all over again.

How could she still love him?

Five years of heartbreak.

She had to move on. He had a life to lead and so did she. There was no room here for emotion.

But… His burnt red, tightly curled hair was just the same as her son’s.

Concentrate on medicine, she told herself fiercely. Use the medical imperative. Medicine had been her lifesaver for five long years and it would be her lifesaver again.

And as for loving?

Get over it.

‘Cal, there’s a baby.’

He was staring at her as if he were seeing a ghost. She might be moving on, but he hadn’t yet. How could he?

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

The harsh words were like a blow and she found herself physically flinching.

But she had to move past this. The baby’s life was too important to waste time on non-essentials.

‘I’ve been at the rodeo,’ she told him. Somehow. It was almost impossible to make her voice work at all, but when she managed it came out expressionless. Businesslike. ‘I found a baby,’ she managed.

‘You found a baby.’ Shock was still the overriding emotion.

‘It’s wrapped in a windcheater, under her T-shirt.’ Pete had moved into helpful mode now. He was looking from Gina to Cal and back again, as if he couldn’t figure out why they weren’t moving. As indeed they must. ‘She says some woman must have dropped it in the bush.’

‘What-?’

‘I need oxygen,’ Gina told him, hauling herself even more into medical mode and willing Cal to follow. ‘Cal, the baby needs urgent help if he’s to survive. He’s badly cyanosed. His breathing is way too shallow-he’s tiring while I watch.’

She still hadn’t pulled the baby from under her T-shirt so he was just a bulge under her bloodstained clothing. No wonder she didn’t have Cal’s belief. She must look crazy. ‘He’s only hours old. He’s lost blood. He’s prem, I think, and he’s not perfusing as he should. Blue lips, blue fingernails. Heartbeat seems far too rapid. Do you have equipment?’

She watched as Cal caught himself. As he finally managed to flick an internal switch.

‘A baby.’ His eyes dropped to the bulge and his deep eyes widened. He was taking in the whole scene, and it wasn’t pretty. ‘Not yours?’

‘Not mine.’ A little blood could go a long way and she was aware that she looked so gory she might well be a mother who’d given birth only hours before. And maybe she looked shocked and pale to go with it.

‘I need oxygen, and I need it fast.’

‘We have an incubator on board. Everything we need.’ The pilot of the chopper-a guy in a flight suit-was coming toward them now, carrying more equipment.

Medical mode won.

‘Let’s move.’

They moved.

The next ten minutes were spent working as once they’d worked together long ago. The pilot-a youngish guy Cal referred to as Mike-was a paramedic and he was good, but with a baby this tiny they needed every ounce of skill they all possessed.

She and Cal were still a team, Gina thought fleetingly as she searched for and found a tiny vein for the intravenous drip. Newborn babies had such a tiny amount of blood that even a small loss could be catastrophic. He had to have replacement fluid. Meanwhile, Cal had a paediatric mask over the tiny face, using the attached bag to assist breathing. His breathing slowed almost at once. From an abandoned baby with nothing, this little one was suddenly being attached to every conceivable piece of medical technology they could use.

Maybe he’d need them all. Because when Cal hooked him to the heart monitor and she watched his heart rate, she winced.

‘There’s something going on,’ she murmured. ‘That heartbeat’s too fast and with this level of cyanosis…’

‘You’re thinking maybe pulmonary stenosis?’

‘Maybe. Or something worse, God forbid. We need an echocardiogram.’

‘Yeah.’ He cast her a doubtful look. ‘We’ve done all we can here. We need to get him back to the base.’

She hesitated. Yes. They needed to get the baby to help. But…where did that leave her?

For the first time since she’d found the baby, there was a tiny sliver of time to consider. The baby was being warmed and he was hooked to oxygen and an intravenous drip. He was as stable as she could make him-for now. Somehow she made herself block out the fact that Cal was watching her as she forced herself to think through what should happen next.

Should she stay involved?

Now was the time to step back-if she could.

There were three factors coming into play here.

First, she badly needed transport. Once she reached Crocodile Creek, she could get a coach to the outside world. Maybe she could even still catch her flight home.

Secondly, more importantly, this baby needed her. Or he needed someone with specialist training.

‘Is there a cardiologist at Crocodile Creek?’ she asked, and Cal shook his head. He was thinking exactly what she was thinking. She knew it.

‘Our cardiologist has just left,’ he said abruptly, and she nodded. But the way he’d spoken… It brought her to the third factor.

Despite the fact that it was sensible for her to go with him to Crocodile Creek-despite the fact that medical imperative decreed that she go-she didn’t want to get in the helicopter with him. It had been a mistake to come. To drag out the moment…

This baby needed a cardiologist if he was to survive. He needed her.

She had no choice, she told herself fiercely. Focus on medicine. Ignore the personal. The personal was all just too hard.

‘We need to think about the mother,’ she managed, and Cal nodded in agreement. They’d always been apt to follow the same train of thought and it was happening all over again.

‘We do.’ He turned away to where Pete was kneeling a few yards away in the dust. Pete had obviously decided that his best role was in keeping CJ occupied and they were etching huge drawings of kangaroos in the dust. ‘Pete, have you no idea where this baby could possibly have come from?’

‘There’s been three or four hundred people through here over the last couple of days,’ Pete said, looking up from his kangaroo and shaking his head as he thought it through. ‘It could be anyone’s kid.’

‘This baby was born here only hours ago. Did you see anyone who was obviously pregnant?’

‘Dorothy Curtin’s got a bulge bigger’n a walrus but she and Max took off with the kids at lunch time.’

‘There’s no way Dorothy would abandon one of hers. But anyone else? Maybe someone who’s in trouble. A kid? Maybe someone who’s not a local?’

‘There were a few out-of-towners on the coach. But I dunno.’ He scratched his head a bit and thought about it. ‘I dunno.’

‘I didn’t see any pregnant women on the bus,’ Gina told them.

‘I’ll need to get the police involved.’ Cal looked uncertainly across at Gina and then he seemed to make a decision. ‘I want the mother found. But we need to take Gina-this lady-back to Crocodile Creek with us,’ he told Pete. ‘Will you stay on and show the police where the baby was found?’

‘Sure thing,’ Pete said. ‘I gotta clean up anyway. ’

‘I’ll show you exactly where I found her,’ Gina told him, and then hesitated, thinking it through. ‘Cal, we need to check the birth site anyway. We might have a girl somewhere who’s in real trouble.’

‘We might at that,’ Cal said grimly-and then added, more enigmatically, ‘And that’s only the start of it.’ He motioned to Mike. ‘Mike, you go with Gina. I’ll stay with the baby.’

Mike nodded. Until then the paramedic had worked almost silently alongside them, but he was obviously aware of undercurrents. He looked at Gina now, a long, assessing glance, and then he looked across to where CJ was intent on his drawing.

‘Is this your son?’ he asked her. ‘Will he be coming back with us, too?’

Cal hadn’t noticed CJ. He’d been preoccupied with the baby and with Gina, and CJ had had his head down, drawing dust pictures. Now his eyes jerked over to where the little boy knelt in the dust.

CJ was totally intent on the task at hand, as he was always intent on everything he did. Pete had been showing him the traditional way aboriginals depicted kangaroos and he was copying, dotting the spine of his kangaroo with tiny white pebbles. Each stone was being laid in order. His drawing of the kangaroo was three feet high-or three feet long-and it’d take many, many pebbles to complete it, but that wouldn’t deter CJ.

So for now he knelt happily in the dust, a freckle-faced, skinny kid with a crop of burnt red curls that were coiled tight to his head. With deep brown eyes that flashed with intelligence.

With hair and with eyes that were just the same as his father’s.

They all saw Cal’s shock. Gina watched his eyes widen in incredulity. She could see him freeze. She could see the arithmetic going on in his head.

She could see his life change, as hers had changed with CJ’s birth. Or maybe before that.

As it had changed the day she’d first met Cal.

‘Hey, the kid’s hair is just the same as yours,’ Pete said easily-and then he fell silent. He, too, had sensed the tension that was suddenly almost palpable.

‘It’s great hair,’ Mike said, with a long, hard stare at Cal. Then he recovered. A bit. ‘OK.’ He stared at CJ for another long moment-and then turned back to Gina. ‘You said your name is Gina? I’m assuming you’re a doctor?’ Cal had been working with her as an equal and her medical training must have been obvious.

‘That’s right. I’m a cardiologist from the States.’ But Gina was hardly concentrating on what she was saying. She was still watching Cal.

‘Then let’s get this birth site checked, shall we?’ Mike said, taking charge because neither of the two doctors seemed capable of taking charge of anything. ‘There are questions that need answers all over the place here.’ He directed another long, hard stare at Cal-and then he took another look at CJ. ‘So maybe we’d better start working on them right now.’

The flight back to Crocodile Creek was fast. They put CJ in the passenger seat next to Mike-helicopter copilot was a small boy’s dream-and Gina and Cal were left in the back to tend to the baby.

But there was scarcely room for both of them to work, and for the moment there was little enough for both to do. It was Gina who opted out, Gina who sank into a seat and harnessed herself in for the ride and Gina who said, ‘He’s your patient, Cal.’

Which was fine, Cal thought as he monitored the little one, adjusting the oxygen rate, listening to the baby’s heart, fighting to keep him stable.

The baby was his patient.

Gina’s son was…was…

Hell, he couldn’t take it in. It was overwhelming. The sight of the little boy had knocked him so hard he still felt as if he’d been punched.

How could Gina have borne a child-his child?-and not told him?

Could it be a mistake? Was he jumping to conclusions? Somewhere there was a husband. He knew that. A husband with coiled red hair the same as his? And eyes that looked like his?

He glanced across at Gina. She looked older, he thought. Much, much older than the last time he’d seen her.

He remembered the first time he’d seen her. She’d just arrived in Townsville, a young doctor from the States come to try her hand at Outback medicine. She’d been thin-almost too thin-her green eyes almost too big for her pinched, white face, and with her riot of deep brown curls tied back in a casual knot that had accentuated her pallor. He’d thought she seemed too young, too frail to take on the job she had applied for.

But over the year she’d been with the Remote Rescue Service, she’d proved him wrong. She’d fast become an important member of the service. She gave her all. She’d thrown herself into her work with total enthusiasm and skill. With basic training in cardiology, she’d proved an indispensable member of their team, and the rest of the doctors had only been able to wonder what had driven her from her high-powered training to life in far north Queensland.

‘I had a relationship that didn’t work out. It was…a bit of a drama.’ It was all anyone had been able to get from her. She didn’t talk about her past.

But finally she did talk, though still not of her background. As they’d worked together over the ensuing months, the pinched, wan look had disappeared and she’d blossomed. She’d gained weight, her eyes had lost their haunted look and had filled with life and laughter, and she’d brought life and joy to…

To his world.

He’d thought her the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

He glanced again at her now. Her hands were clasped on her knees. She was staring straight ahead, unseeing.

She seemed haunted again, he thought. She was too damned thin again. The bloodstained clothes made her look like the victim of some disaster, and he had a sudden feeling that she’d look like that even without them.

He didn’t know her, he thought bleakly. He had no idea what was happening behind that blank mask. She’d walked away from him five years ago and he hadn’t seen her since. His only phone call had elicited a brutal response.

‘I’m married, Cal. My husband needs me. Absolutely. I can’t talk to you any more.’

Married. Married.

He needed to concentrate on his job. His fingers were lying lightly against the baby’s neck, monitoring his vital signs by touch as well as by sight, but there was still time and still room for him to look at her again. She wasn’t looking at him. She was staring down at her hands. She was wearing a plain gold wedding ring. Her fingers had clenched to white.

Why had she come?

Questions. There were questions everywhere. But for now only one mattered, he told himself.

Would this little one live?

He dragged his eyes away from Gina, back to the baby.

Needful or not, he’d continue to monitor him by sight, he decided. And by every other sense-because there was no way he could bear to look at Gina.

And he hardly dared to as much as glance at the little boy sitting next to Mike in the copilot’s seat.

Questions. Too many questions.

They scared him to death.

CJ was fantastic.

Over and over Gina how thought how lucky she’d been to have a little boy who demanded so little. CJ lived in his own small world, where his imagination ran riot. His requirements from his mother were for security and for hugs and for the basic necessities of life, but as long as those were provided whenever required, he was prepared to accept the assorted childminders he’d met in his short life. He even welcomed them as a wider audience for his incredible stories.

Now, as the helicopter landed at Crocodile Creek and the baby was wheeled into the hospital, as the emergency team sprang into action, Cal motioned to one of the nurses to take care of him.

‘Gina’s a doctor,’ he said briefly-brusquely. ‘She’s a cardiologist, right when we need one most. We need her help with the baby. Grace, can you find someone to take care of Gina’s little boy?’

‘Sure.’ Grace, a young nurse with a wide smile, held out her hand to CJ and beamed a welcome. ‘I hear you guys have been out at the rodeo. Did you see many horses?’

‘I saw lots of horses,’ CJ told her, ready to be friendly.

‘Will you tell me about them while we find you some juice and some cake? Come to the kitchen. Mrs Grubb is making chocolate cake and she loves hearing about horses. If we’re lucky, I think there might even be an icing bowl to lick.’

CJ was sold. He cast an enquiring glance at his mother for approval, then tucked his hand into Grace’s and disappeared cakewards.

‘He’s a great kid,’ Mike said as the paramedic wheeled the trolley through into Paediatrics, and Gina gave him a glance that she hoped was grateful.

She looked back at Cal. There was no gratitude there. His face was set and stern.

Maybe she should have phoned him four years ago.

Or not.

Maybe she shouldn’t be here now.

If she hadn’t been here now, this baby would be dead.

‘We need an echocardiogram,’ Cal said. He hadn’t paused as they moved through the hospital. He was intent only on the baby. Or he acted as if he was intent only on the baby.

‘You said you don’t have a cardiologist? No one with cardiology training?’

‘No.’

‘A paediatrician?’

‘Hamish is on leave. We’re trying to contact him now.’

‘We’re dead short of doctors,’ Mike said, and smiled, but then his smile faded a little. ‘There’s been a couple of…disasters. Just lucky you’re here, huh?’

‘I guess,’ she said dubiously, and cast an uncertain look at Cal. His face said there was no luck about it.

But she couldn’t look at his face. She needed to focus. This baby needed skills that she possessed.

He certainly did.

When the results of the echocardiograph were in front of her she felt her heart sink. Any thoughts she had of flying out of this place tonight were completely gone.

‘It’s pulmonary stenosis.’

With the stethoscope she’d been able to hear the characteristic heart murmur at the left upper chest. That and the fast heart rate had made her fairly sure what was causing the cyanosis. And now… Her fears were confirmed. There was a huge pressure difference between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery. Blood flowing in one direction and unable to escape fast enough in the other. Recipe for catastrophe.

‘We can’t risk transfer to Brisbane,’ Cal said slowly-reluctantly. ‘We’ll lose him.’

‘What’s happening?’ Mike asked. He’d come in and watched as they worked, but he’d been on the sidelines. Another nurse was there now-a woman in her thirties who’d been introduced as Jill Shaw, the director of nursing. Jill was wheeling the baby back under the nursery lights, with instructions to keep warming, keep monitoring breathing, while the three of them were left staring at the results.

‘We operate,’ Gina said, staring down at her fingers as if there were some sort of easy answer to be read there. There wasn’t. They really needed a paediatric cardiologist, but the nearest available would be in Brisbane and to transfer the baby…

They would have had to if she hadn’t been here. They’d have been forced to. Cal was an excellent general surgeon, she thought, and his additional physician training made him a wonderful all-rounder in this place where multi-skills were vital. She knew that. Cal’s skills were one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place.

But the operation for pulmonary stenosis on such a tiny child…

The heart valve they’d be working on-the pulmonary valve-was thin, even in adults. Composed of three coverlets, like leaflets, it opened in the direction of the blood flow. With pulmonary stenosis those leaflets were blocked or malformed in some way. In the baby’s case it was a major blockage. His heart was being forced to work far too hard to force blood through.

What she needed to do was to perform a balloon pulmonary valvuloplasty-a tricky manoeuvre even in adults-forcing the valve to open. With babies this size…

She’d normally advise waiting, she thought bleakly. She’d normally advise keeping him on oxygen. She’d try and get him fitter, older. She’d operate at a few weeks.

To operate on such a newborn…

But this was no minor blockage.

‘Do you have the equipment?’ she asked. ‘I’d need to monitor catheters by fluoroscopy.’

‘I’d imagine we have all you need,’ Cal told her. ‘Simon, the cardiologist who’s just left, had the place well set up for heart surgery.’

Gina nodded. She’d worked with this service before, and she’d expected this answer.

Many of the population around Crocodile Creek would be indigenous Australians, and she knew from experience how reluctant they were to leave their people. For a tribal elder to come to Crocodile Creek for an operation would be hugely stressful, but here at least here they could still be surrounded by their own. To be flown to Brisbane, where there was no one of their tribe and no one spoke their language, was often tantamount to killing them. The cultural shock was simply too great for them to handle.

That would be part of the reason Crocodile Creek would be set up so well, she knew. This base would do surgery which would normally only be done in the big teaching hospitals. Death rates would be higher because of it, but the population would accept it. The doctors involved had to accept it.

But this doctor in particular didn’t have to like it.

‘So we have no paediatrician and no cardiologist.’

‘We’re not normally this short-staffed,’ Cal told her. ‘We’ve had a couple of dramas.’

He sounded defensive, she thought. Good. It stopped her thinking about all sorts of things she should be defensive about.

‘Do you have an obstetrician?’

‘Georgie’s mother died last week. She’s flown down to Sydney with her little boy, and we don’t want to pull her back unless we have to. She had back-up-Kirsty was an obs and gynae registrar-but there was a bit of a dust-up and Kirsty and Simon left in a hurry. Emotional stuff.’

‘Emotional stuff?’ she demanded, astonished, and he looked even more discomfited.

‘Um, yeah. We don’t need to go there.’

Of course not. When had he ever?

But she had a baby to take care of. Cal’s emotional entanglement, or lack of it, had to wait.

Mike was waiting for her to make a decision. He was looking interested-as interested in the chemistry between them as he was in the baby-and that made her flush. She remembered how intimate working in this sort of environment could be. She even remembered enjoying it, but she didn’t relish the questions she saw forming in Mike’s eyes now.

‘I’ll wait for an hour and reassess,’ she said, trying to make her voice calm and professional. ‘We need to get him fully warmed and make sure the shock of delivery has worn off. Maybe once he’s settled we might get better circulation.’

‘But probably not,’ Cal said.

‘No,’ she said heavily. ‘Probably not.’

‘So Gina’ll need to stay.’ Mike wasn’t sure what was going on-his eyes were still asking questions-but he was certainly prepared to be friendly while he found out. He gave Cal a rueful smile. ‘Just lucky we have plenty of room in the doctors’ quarters, eh?’

Cal’s face tightened. ‘She can’t stay in the doctors’ quarters.’

‘Why not?’ Mike was confused.

‘I’ll stay in town,’ Gina said hurriedly, but Mike shook his head. He was obviously a skilled paramedic, accustomed to making hard decisions, fast decisions, and he made one now.

‘No way. I’m sorry, Gina, but this baby is sick.’ He cast a dubious glance at Cal-as if he thought Cal might just be losing his mind. ‘We all know this baby’s high risk. It seems to me that we need our cardiologist on hand, right here. Wouldn’t you say, Cal?’

‘Of course.’ The words were tight and blunt. Cal turned away to pack equipment and Mike shook his head at his friend. He was obviously still confused.

‘Cal’s being a bore,’ he told Gina, with another dubious glance at his friend. ‘He’s tired. Too much work. But there’s plenty of us around here who are gentlemen.’ He tried a smile. ‘Especially me.’ He waited to see if he’d teased a reaction from Cal, but a reaction wasn’t anywhere in sight. ‘OK.’ He sighed. ‘Let’s find your son and find you a bedroom.’

‘I’ll stay here and monitor the baby,’ Cal told them, still without turning around.

‘Of course,’ Mike said politely. ‘How did I know you were going to say that?’

‘The baby needs monitoring.’

‘Of course he does, Dr Jamieson,’ Mike agreed. He compressed his lips in disapproval and then he turned to Gina. ‘OK. There’s obviously just me being a gentleman, but I’m all yours. Take me or leave me.’

Charles entered the nursery silently, wheeling his chair across the smooth linoleum until he came to rest against the incubator under the overhead lights. Cal was gazing down at the baby and, seeing the look of his face, Charles thought, Uh-oh.

‘Will we lose him?’

Cal turned and stared, almost unseeingly, down at his friend.

‘I don’t know. He has a chance.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘Gina’s here.’

‘I heard.’ Charles hesitated. He’d met Gina before, just the once. He’d been astounded by the change the relationship had wrought on his reserved friend, and when it had gone pear-shaped he’d felt ill. Now Mike had given him a quick update on what was happening, and he was even more concerned. He’d suspected Cal’s past would catch up with him sooner or later but, damn, he didn’t want him to be presented with it now.

From a selfish point of view they were too many doctors down already. He couldn’t afford to have another of his staff in emotional crisis.

‘Are you coping?’ he asked, and Cal shrugged.

‘I’m coping. You’ve seen the kid?’

‘I’ve seen the little boy, yes.’

‘Dammit, Charles, he looks like me.’

‘Could you be his father?’

It was a direct question and it jolted Cal. He stared at the question from all sides and there was only one answer.

‘Yeah,’ he said heavily. ‘I could.’

‘And that makes you feel-how?’

‘How do you suppose it makes me feel?’ Cal turned and faced his friend square on. ‘If it’s true… She got pregnant and left? Went back to the States to her husband?’ He closed his eyes. ‘Hell, Charles, I don’t want to think about it. I can’t think. I don’t have time. We need to get this baby viable. He needs urgent surgery and we’re stuck with Gina to do it. No one else has the skills.’

He stared down into the crib and his mouth twisted. ‘We’ll do the best for him, poor little scrap. He’s been abandoned, too. People…they play games. They have kids for all sorts of reasons. Who knows what the reason is behind this little one and who knows what the reason is behind the child who’s out in Mrs Grubb’s kitchen, waiting for his mother to take him home? I can’t face any of it. Just… Let’s stick to medicine. It’s all I know. It’s all I want to know.’

There was a moment’s silence. Move on, Cal willed Charles, and finally he seemed to decide that was all there was to do.

‘Emily will do the anaesthetic,’ Charles said mildly, his voice carefully neutral, not giving away any of the anxiety that someone who knew him well could detect behind his eyes. ‘She’s contacting a paediatric colleague in the city who’ll stay on the phone throughout. Do you want to assist, or will I find someone else?’

‘Who?’ He was the only surgeon, and both of them knew it. But he shrugged. ‘It’s OK. I want to assist.’

‘So you can bear to be in the same room as her?’

‘I thought I loved her,’ Cal said heavily. ‘Once. I was a fool-but sure I can stay in the same room as her. I need to be able to. If that’s really my son…’ His voice trailed off.

‘Well, let’s get on with it,’ Charles said, and there was still heavy anxiety behind his eyes. ‘We need to save this life. For now, Cal, that’s all we can think about.’