To the Doctor: A Daughter

CHAPTER ONE

‘SHE’S your baby.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Maybe he hadn’t heard right. It was the end of a long day and Dr Nate Ethan was thinking of the night to come. This woman was his last patient and then he was free.

Donna would be waiting. That was a good thought. Tonight was the Terama Jazzfest and he was never too tired for jazz.

Meanwhile, it looked as if he had to cope with a nutcase.

‘Excuse me?’ he said again, and forced himself to focus. Nutcase or not, she might be in trouble. He didn’t know who she was and with unknown patients nothing should be assumed.

So concentrate…

She could well be a single mum, he decided, noting the absence of a wedding ring. After six years of country medicine he noticed such things almost without trying. She was in her late twenties, he guessed, though the strain on her face made her look older. Faded jeans, a T-shirt that was old and misshapen and the knot of frayed ribbon catching back her mass of black curls suggested financial hardship.

What else? She looked as if she was in trouble, he thought. Her dark eyes-brown, almost black-were made even darker by shadows of fatigue, and her finely boned face was etched with worry.

‘How can I help you?’ he asked, his tone gentling. Hell, they had it hard, these single mums. A little boy, maybe four years old, was clinging to a fistful of her T-shirt, and she carried a baby that looked no more than a few weeks old.

‘I’m not here to ask for help.’ Her tone was as weary as her face. She seemed like someone at the end of her tether. ‘I’m here to hand over what’s yours.’ She lifted the baby toward him. ‘This is Mia. She’s four weeks old and she’s yours.’

Silence. The silence went on and on, stretching into the evening. Outside a kookaburra started laughing in the clump of eucalypts hanging over the river and the laughter seemed crazily out of place.

Would he help?

Gemma was feeling sick. Everything-her entire future-hung on what happened in the next few minutes.

Was he as irresponsible as her sister?

He looked…nice, she decided. But, then, Fiona had looked ‘nice’ and where had that got her?

Maybe, like Fiona, he was too good-looking for his own good. He was seriously handsome, in a way that could make him a candidate for the next James Bond movie. Tall, with great bone structure and a deeply tanned complexion, his size didn’t make him seem aloof. His burnt red hair was coiling forward over his brow in an endearing twist, and his deep green eyes sort of twinkled even when he wasn’t smiling.

He had great bones, she decided-the sort of bones that made a girl want to…

Whoa. She wasn’t going down that road. Never again. That was the sort of feeling that got her into this mess in the first place. The sort of feeling Fiona had had…

And on the other side of the desk…

She was a nutcase, Nate decided. Heck, as if he didn’t have enough on his plate.

Donna was waiting.

‘Um… I’ve never met you before,’ he ventured, and she nodded.

‘No.’

‘Then how-’

‘Hey, she’s not my baby,’ she told him, meeting his eyes and holding them with a look that was direct and strong. Challenging. ‘She’s yours.’

‘I don’t-’

‘My sister is…’ She caught herself at that and she bit her lip while the shadows under eyes seemed to darken. ‘My sister was Fiona Campbell. She was a locum here until last December. Do you remember her?’

His eyes widened. Fiona Campbell. He certainly remembered Fiona, and he remembered her with a certain amount of horror. ‘Yes, but-’

‘You went to bed with her?’

To bed. His gut gave a stupid lurch. You went to bed with her. Fiona…

Dear God, this was the stuff of nightmares. ‘Yes, but-’

‘There you are, then,’ she said wearily. ‘One and one make three. Fiona had your baby a month ago and she died the day after delivery.’

This time the silence seemed to reach into eternity. The woman didn’t say another word-just sat and watched, giving him time to take it in. The child by her side was silent as well. The little boy held onto her shirt fiercely, as if keeping in contact with her was the only important thing in his life. And the baby was sound asleep, nestled in a swathe of pink blankets and oblivious to the world around her.

Fiona Campbell.

Hell.

She’d been the flightiest locum. Graham, his uncle and his partner in this tiny country medical practice, had been ill and Nate had been desperate. Fiona had been the only doctor who’d answered his advertisement.

So she’d bubbled into his life, sparkling with life and totally fascinating. She had been gorgeously, stunningly beautiful.

She had also been a little bit…mad?

It had taken him time to see it. She’d lived her life to the full, hardly sleeping, partying, accepting dates with anyone who’d asked her and running on sheer adrenalin.

And from the time she’d met him she’d wanted to sleep with him.

‘We’re made for each other,’ she’d told him, seductive in her sheer audacity. ‘You’re the most gorgeous doctor I know. And what about me? Aren’t I the most gorgeous doctor you know?’

She was at that, he’d conceded. He’d been between girlfriends, she’d been bewitching in her desire to take him to her bed…and, well, a man was only human.

As soon as he’d slept with her, though, he’d known it had been a mistake. A major mistake. There had been layers beneath her surface he could scarcely imagine. She had been driven-and he didn’t know why.

So he’d slept with her. Just the once. And that had been it. He’d had the sense to back away fast. And when Graham had recovered and Fiona had left, he’d felt nothing but relief.

But when he’d slept with her…

‘We were careful,’ he said, thinking it through and thinking fast. He was hardly speaking to the woman in front of him. He was speaking only to himself. He knew enough to avoid unsafe sex. ‘She said she was protected-and I used a condom as well. Of course I did.’

‘Of course you did, and bully for you.’ The woman shrugged. ‘But are you sure she didn’t get to it first?’

His eyebrows hit his hairline. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘I mean what Fiona wanted Fiona generally got. And it seemed she wanted your baby.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Is it?’ She shrugged again and her shrug was a gesture of bone-weariness. ‘Fiona told me this is your baby. She said she chose you as the father, and if she decided she wanted your baby then I wouldn’t have put it past her to lie about protection-and even damage your condom before you used it. But if you’d like to do a DNA test…’

He was staring at the baby like he’d have stared at a coiled snake. She had red hair. Red hair! ‘It’s impossible.’

‘She named you as the father, using a statutory declaration before the baby was born.’ She gestured to her handbag. ‘She even signed it in front of a Justice of the Peace. Do you want to see?’

‘No!’

‘Suit yourself.’ She rose and proffered the bundle in her arms. ‘But like it or not, this is your daughter, Dr Ethan. Her mother’s dead so that makes her all yours.’

To say Nate was dumbfounded was an understatement. He sat in his chair as if rooted to the spot and his head couldn’t take it in. He opened his mouth and what came out was feeble. ‘I don’t want a baby!’

‘I imagine you don’t. But you have one.’

‘This is ridiculous.’ He rose but he didn’t come around the desk. It was as if he was afraid to come close. This whole scenario was a nightmare. A ridiculous nightmare. And any minute he’d wake up. Please…

‘I told you…we were careful.’

‘Fiona was never careful.’

He took a deep breath, searching for control. Searching for sanity. Glancing down at his appointment list, he registered her name.

‘You’re Gemma Campbell.’

‘That’s right. Fiona’s sister.’ Her tone was almost uninterested and for the first time he realised why. She was here to hand over a baby and leave, he thought with a jolt of sick dismay. She was here to hand over a baby that had nothing to do with her-and everything to do with him.

‘And…and Fiona told you this…this baby was mine.’

‘She did.’ For the first time he saw the glimmer of a smile behind the weariness. ‘Though I might have guessed. Have a look for yourself.’ And she lifted the blanket away from the baby’s head.

It was all he could do not to gasp.

He’d seen baby photos of himself. He’d been born with the burnt red hair he had now. It was unusual hair-dark, tinged with black and curling into a thick mane. He had dark skin and green eyes and eyebrows that were definitely black.

He’d been a gorgeous baby, his mother had told him, and this baby was certainly that. Gorgeous.

She lay in her cocoon of blankets, one fist curled into a tiny ball at the edge of her rosebud mouth. She had tight, tight curls, a deep burnt red in colour, and her tiny, finely etched eyebrows were as black as…

As black as his.

Dark skin and red hair and black eyebrows. Her colouring was really rare.

As was his.

She’d have his green eyes, Nate guessed, and as he stared down at her he felt something twist deep inside. It was a gut-wrenching twist that had him clutching the edge of his desk for support.

‘You still want to tell me she’s not yours?’ Gemma’s eyes rested on his, not without sympathy. But her voice was implacable.

‘Yes… No.’ The world seemed to spin. A daughter. He had a daughter. ‘But-

‘I told you, what Fiona wants…wanted, Fiona got. And it seems that she took one look at you and decided that she wanted your child.’

He stared at her blindly and then sat heavily back down behind his desk.

‘Hell!’

‘Yes,’ Gemma said softly. She sat as well, waiting for him to come to terms with what she’d just said.

‘Gemma, I’m thirsty.’ It was the little boy, speaking for the first time. He was still clutching her T-shirt but he was staring at Nate as if he was afraid of him.

At least this was something concrete. Thirst. He could cope with thirst.

He couldn’t cope with a baby.

He rose, filled a paper cup from the water cooler and handed it to the child. The little boy stared at it as if it might just contain poison, but then his thirst got the better of him and he drank.

It was a respite-albeit a minor one-but it gave Nate breathing space. Space to know one thing for certain.

‘Whether I’m her father or not is immaterial,’ he said flatly. ‘I can’t have her.’

‘Whether you’re her father or not isn’t the least bit immaterial. She’s yours.’

‘I don’t want her.’

‘You’d rather she was adopted by strangers?’

That was another kick to the guts. His eyes flew to hers. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that. It’s you or adoption. Take your pick.’

‘But you… You’re obviously caring for her.’

‘Yes. But I can’t keep her.’

‘Why not?’ His voice came out almost as a croak. He sounded sick. Well, why wouldn’t he sound sick? He surely felt like that.

‘I have my own life-’ she started.

He wasn’t buying into this. She’d taken on the baby’s care already. What could be more logical than asking her to keep up the good work? ‘This is your sister’s child.’ He forced his voice to stay steady, despite thoughts that weren’t the least bit steady. His thoughts were close to panic. ‘And you have a child already.’ He took a deep breath, thinking it through.

‘Look, crazy or not… If it’s proven that she’s mine-and I’m not conceding that yet, but if she is-then I guess I’m stuck with child support. I’ll pay you to keep her.’

Her eyes flashed anger at that. ‘Oh, that’s very generous. I don’t think.’

‘Well, what else do you expect me to do?’

‘Shoulder your responsibilities,’ she snapped. ‘And not offload them onto me. I’ve had enough.’

He focused on her then. Really focused.

She’d had enough.

It was true, he thought. Her face was pale with strain and her eyes were dark pools of exhaustion.

What had she said? That Fiona had died in childbirth. It sounded unbelievable. Vibrant, alive Fiona.

Crazy Fiona.

But Gemma had lost her sister.

‘How did she die?’ he asked, his tone softening, and he saw her eyes widen in surprise. She hadn’t expected compassion.

‘I don’t…’

He took a deep breath. ‘Look, maybe we’d better have the whole story. Did she die of eclampsia?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘She died of kidney failure caused by her pregnancy combined with uncontrolled diabetes. She died because she didn’t give a toss for her life-or the lives of her children. Both of them.’

Both of them.

Both…

Wasn’t the little boy hers, then?

Nate stared at the child, stunned, and then he looked at Gemma. There were similarities, he thought. Woman and boy were both dark-haired and pale-skinned. They looked like mother and son. But…maybe there were stronger similarities between the child and what he remembered of Fiona.

And the girl herself reminded him of Fiona. Though there were marked differences. Fiona had been almost ethereal in her beauty. She’d dressed with flamboyance and skill-and considerable expense-and he’d never seen her without make-up.

This girl looked as if she didn’t know what make-up was. And her clothes…! Her clothes wouldn’t be welcome at a welfare shop, he thought. They were dreadful.

But he could still see the resemblance-both to Fiona and to the little boy by her side.

And he remembered what the little boy had said. ‘Gemma, I’m thirsty.’ Not ‘Mummy, I’m thirsty.’

‘This is Fiona’s child?’

‘Good guess.’

‘You don’t want me to take him, too?’ It was a harsh snap and she blinked. And then she smiled. Her arm came out and she hugged the little boy to her.

‘No fear. Fiona was Cady’s birth mother but I’ve been mother to him for over two years now. Cady and I are a team.’

They were, too. Woman and child against the world. He stared at them both and they stared back-and again he felt his gut twist in a recognition of…

Of what? Of something. And he didn’t know what the hell it was.

He took a grip on himself. Sort of. ‘You’re not prepared to take on a second?’

‘No.’

‘You’d better explain.’

Her chin jutted. ‘I don’t see why I need to.’

Heck, she couldn’t just leave. She couldn’t. What was she proposing-that she just set down the baby and walk away? The prospect made him feel dizzy. His world was tipping on its axis and he cautiously placed his hands flat down on the desk as if righting himself.

‘I… Please.’ Once more he forced his voice to steady. ‘No, of course you don’t need to. But…but I need to know. Everything.’

She stared at him for a long, long minute. And then she lifted the cup from her nephew’s hands and set it on the desk.

‘Cady, look. There’s blocks in the corner,’ she told him, motioning to where Nate kept a basket of toys to amuse small children. ‘Can you build me a house?’

Cady considered and then nodded, with all the gravity of a carpenter agreeing to sign a contract for house construction.

‘Sure.’ He knelt on the floor and started to build. One block after another. The sight was somehow comforting compared to the unbelievable conversation that was taking place over the desk.

But then the doctor in him focused. The child seemed to be building more by feel than sight. He was lifting the coloured blocks and feeling their edges, fitting them together with a satisfactory click.

Was he blind? Maybe he normally wore glasses…

It wasn’t his business. Cady wasn’t his patient. Somehow this crazy conversation had to resume.

‘Right,’ Nate said. He took a deep breath and braced. ‘Tell me.’

‘My sister was… I think you could almost call her manic.’

‘Now, that’s what I don’t understand.’ Nate thought back to the last time he’d seen Fiona. Manic? For some reason the description suddenly seemed apt. He hadn’t known why then. He didn’t know why now.

‘In what sense was she manic?’

‘I told you she had diabetes.’

He thought that through and couldn’t make sense of it. ‘Diabetes is not usually a life sentence and it has nothing to do with a person’s mental state.’

‘It does if you’re as perfect as Fiona.’ Gemma shrugged. ‘You need to understand. Fiona…well, she was two years younger than me and from the time she was born she was perfect. My mother certainly thought so. My mother was a beauty queen in her own right. My father left us before I can remember, and all my mother’s pent-up ambitions centred on Fiona. Perfect Fiona.’ She took a deep breath, fighting back bitterness that had been instilled in her almost since birth.

‘Anyway, Fiona was as beautiful as even my mother could want. Even as a baby she was gorgeous and she turned from winning baby pageants to winning beauty contests almost without a break. And she was clever-brilliant really. She passed her exams with ease, she moved from one eligible man to another-whatever she wanted Fiona got. She was indulged to the point of stupidity by our mother, and when Mum died Fiona’s boyfriends took right over.’

He saw. Or maybe he saw. ‘And then?’

‘And then she was diagnosed with type-one diabetes.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Neither do I really. I only know that Fiona had just started medical school, she was flying high and suddenly she was faced with four insulin injections a day, constant monitoring and dietary restrictions.’

‘I do know what diabetes is,’ he told her. ‘Type one… It’s a damnable pest but if it’s well controlled it’s hardly life-threatening.’

‘Hers wasn’t well controlled. Not because it wasn’t possible to control it but because she wouldn’t. She hated it. She refused to monitor herself. She gave herself the same amount of insulin every day regardless of what her blood sugars were and sometimes she didn’t even do that. She refused to accept the dietary modifications. You need to understand. For once it was an area where she wasn’t perfect and she couldn’t bear it.’

He thought about that. He had diabetics in his practice who refused to take care of themselves and the results could be catastrophic. But…

‘She was a doctor. She knew. With medical training she’d know what the risks were.’

‘I think,’ Gemma told him, slowly as if the words were being dragged out of her, ‘I think my sister was a little bit crazy. She’d been indulged all her life. She was the golden girl and everyone treated her as if she was perfect. The thought of injections, the thought of not being able to eat everything she wanted and the thought of her body being less than perfect… Well, as I said, I think she was a little bit mad. It was as if she saw diabetes as a bar to her perfection and if she ignored it, it’d go away. Only as a doctor you’d know that that’s a disaster.’

He was horrified. Why hadn’t he guessed any of this? He’d never even known she’d been diabetic. And not to control it… ‘That’s practically suicide.’

‘Yes.’ She gave a grim little nod. ‘It is-and by the time she’d finished medical school the effects were starting to show. Then our mother died. Mum and Fiona had fought about Fiona’s diabetic management. Fiona had rebelled but Mum’s death just seemed to make things worse. Things weren’t going right in Fiona’s world and she reacted with anger. Her specialist told her that if she couldn’t keep her diabetes under control then at least she shouldn’t get pregnant. She must have been pregnant within minutes of him saying that. With Cady.’ She shrugged and her eyes seemed to shadow with remembered pain. ‘And her decision to have Cady tore our lives apart.’

Our lives? There was a desperate bleakness in her words and she looked as though she was staring back into a chasm that she couldn’t quite escape.

‘And?’ Nate prodded, and Gemma seemed to shake herself back to reality. To the harshness of now. Her voice became brisk and carefully businesslike.

‘And she darn near died having him. When she didn’t it was as if she was mad at the world. As if she’d been cheated. She was furious that she didn’t die and from then on she was on a downhill spiral of neglect.’

By now Nate was thoroughly confused. He shook his head, trying to reconcile what he was hearing with the vibrant, lovely doctor who’d swept into his life twelve months ago. ‘She seemed fine. I didn’t get any of this when she was here.’

‘No.’ She met his look, her eyes steady and challenging. ‘I guess you only saw what most men saw-the gorgeous Fiona. Fiona the irresistible. But there was another Fiona-the Fiona who walked a fine line between sanity and madness. She had Cady and she walked away from him. She knew…she knew that I’d take care of him. How could I not? But I kept working. After what she’d done to me… I barely managed it but there were glimmers of my former life left.’

He still didn’t follow. ‘That sounds as if she was angry with you.’

‘Of course she was.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘She was supposed to be the perfect one,’ Gemma said wearily. ‘And she was. My mother loved her to distraction and I was sidelined. But she was jealous even of that. She was jealous of me from the moment she was born-as if I could ever compete with her. It was crazy, but like a cuckoo in another bird’s nest she’d push aside any sibling that competed for her attention. And when our mother got sick she leaned on me. That drove Fiona crazy-that Gemma, the plain one, should now have what she wanted. Health. And our mother’s dependence. So she fixed me right up. She saddled me with a baby and then…and then when I managed to cope and still have a life-of sorts-she gave me another. And she died doing it.’

Dear heaven…

Nate sat back in his chair. He let what she’d said drift slowly though his mind, trying to assimilate it. He raised his hand and ran his fingers through his thatch of burnt-red curls, fighting for some sanity. Fighting for some reason.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t think.’

‘There’s not much to think about.’

‘Well, that’s a crazy statement,’ he snapped, shock giving way to anger. ‘Not much to think about! When you come in here and present me with the fact that I’m a father…’

‘If you slept with Fiona you must have known fatherhood was a possibility.’

‘Of course I didn’t.’

‘You’re a doctor,’ she snapped back, as angry as he was. ‘You know very well that no contraceptive is perfect. Unless it’s abstinence. And you and Fiona didn’t practise abstinence.’

‘No, but-’

‘But nothing. She’s your baby.’ She rose again and proffered her bundle. ‘Are you going to take her-or are you intending to arrange an adoption? Fiona had this baby to punish me for not being ill. I’ve thought it through. It worked with Cady. I’ve taken him in and I’ve cared for him and I love him to bits. But with Mia…every time I look at her I get angry. That’s no way to rear a child, Dr Ethan. She deserves better than that. So…you’re her daddy. Will you take her-or will you find someone else who’ll love her?’

He did have an option, he thought incredulously. He could just say take her away and she would. She’d hand her over to adoptive parents.

But no. She was way ahead of him.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ she told him flatly, and it was as if she had read his mind. ‘I’m not arranging the adoption. For a start that’d mean taking care of her for longer-and I daren’t take the chance that I’ll grow to love her. And even if I wanted to, I can’t. There are no official documents naming me as her parent. There’s only the birth certificate. Cady’s birth certificate…well, Cady’s certificate landed me right in it, but Mia’s certificate says her mother is deceased and her father is Nate Ethan. You. So as of this moment you’re her sole guardian. Like it or not.’

Carefully, deliberately, she set the sleeping baby on the desk in front of him.

She’d been well cared for, Nate saw in some deep recess of his brain that could still note such things. She was rosy and chubby and beautifully dressed. She’d been loved.

‘How…how old did you say she was?’

‘Four weeks. She should be smiling soon.’

‘And…how long since Fiona…?’

‘Fiona never regained consciousness after the birth. She lapsed into a coma at thirty-eight weeks and the doctors performed an emergency Caesarean. It was all horribly too late. She died the day after delivery.’

He closed his eyes. This was all far too much to take in. Fiona dead?

And he had a daughter.

No! ‘You can’t leave her here!’

‘Watch me.’ She tilted her chin in a gesture of defiance and then handed over a business card. ‘This is where you can find me.’

‘If I need you?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m tired of being needed, Dr Ethan. Cady needs me and that’s all the responsibility I can handle. But if…in future…you want Cady to meet his half-sister…’

Hell. The future stretched before him, vast and unknown. Ten minutes ago his future had been the Terama Jazzfest. Now…

‘You can’t do this.’

‘I can.’ She leaned over the little boy and took Cady’s hand in hers. ‘That’s a great tower,’ she told the little boy. ‘But we need to go.’

‘You’re leaving town?’ Nate’s voice was an incredulous croak and she smiled, not without sympathy.

‘That’s the plan. We live in Sydney and it’s a long drive.’

‘But what the hell am I meant to do?’

‘What I’ve been doing,’ she told him. ‘Shoulder your responsibility. You are a doctor after all. I assume you know baby basics and I’ve checked your background. You have a nice little bush nursing hospital on hand. They’ll have everything you need.’ She laid a bag on the desk beside the sleeping baby. ‘This contains formula, bottles, clothes-everything you need. And now, Dr Ethan, you’re on your own.’

But he wasn’t on his own. Not quite.

From Reception there was the sound of a door opening and then closing, followed by brisk heels tapping across the floor. He’d left the door open just a little. Hannah, his receptionist, had seen his last patient for the day into his rooms and then left. There was no one out there. Except…

The door opened just a little and Donna’s beautiful face peeked around.

‘Yoohoo. Anyone home?’ Her eyes found Nate and she smiled her loveliest smile. ‘Nate, darling, we’re going to be very late. I’ve brought your evening clothes so you can change here and we can get going right now.’

Compared to Fiona, Donna didn’t cut it, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t gorgeous. She was tall, five feet eleven or so, willow thin and beautifully groomed. In fact, she was just the way Nate liked his women. And she was dressed to kill. She was wearing a 1920s costume-a pencil-thin fringed dress which accentuated every gorgeous curve as it shimmered and swayed, and high, high stilettos. Her sleek chestnut bob was adorned with a tiny velvet headband and feather, and she wore beads that reached almost to her hips.

She was some sight! Normally Nate would have whistled his appreciation. But he wasn’t in the mood for whistling.

And Donna should have known better than to barge in on a patient.

‘Donna, I’m busy.’

‘No. No, he’s not busy. Not any more.’ Gemma smiled at the sight of Nate’s girlfriend and held out her hand in welcome. ‘This makes it all perfect. You have a new lady in your life. From what Fiona told me about you I was sure you wouldn’t let grass grow under your feet. How do you do? I’m Gemma. And this is Cady. We’re just leaving. But…’ She eyed Donna’s stunning dress with a wry smile. ‘If I were you, I’d put a cloth over your shoulder if you’re intending nursing Mia in that dress. She does suffer a little from reflux.’

With that she gave them both her very brightest smile, collected Cady and walked out the door.

‘Stop!’

She didn’t.

And Nate moved. Hell, he moved. He’d never moved faster in his life. Gemma had walked out into the reception area but before she could reach the door to the car park he was in front of her, blocking her path.

‘You’re not going anywhere.’

She raised her mobile eyebrows at that. ‘You’re planning on locking me up and throwing away the key?’

‘No.’

‘Then what?’

What? He ran his fingers though his hair and he groaned. ‘Hell.’

‘What’s wrong, Nate?’ Donna was clearly puzzled.

‘I…this lady…Gemma…wants to leave me with her baby.’

‘No.’ Gemma wasn’t having any of that. ‘She’s your baby. Not mine. Get things right.’

‘Your baby.’ Donna blenched. ‘Yours! Did you and…?’ She looked wildly from Gemma to Nate and back again, and Gemma gave a derisory laugh.

‘Don’t get yourself in a state here. No, Nate and I didn’t do a thing. I’ve only just met your Dr Ethan. This isn’t my baby. I’m only the stork, delivering his bundle whether he likes it or not.’

Donna’s confusion grew. ‘What’s going on?’

What was going on? Nate didn’t have a clue. He was so at sea that he felt like he was drowning. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Let me past.’ Gemma’s voice was implacable.

‘You can’t leave.’

‘I can. I must. I need to work tomorrow. I’ve taken every one of my sick days and more over the last few weeks, and if I’m not back tomorrow I risk being sacked.’

‘You work?’

‘Amazing but true.’

‘And who looks after Cady while you work?’

‘There’s no joy down that road,’ she snapped, seeing where his thoughts were headed. ‘Cady goes to day care at the hospital and I can’t afford to keep two children in care.’

‘You’re a nurse?’

‘No, Dr Ethan.’ Her patience had pretty much come to an end. ‘I’m a doctor. Amazing as it sounds. Just like my sister. Only I’m so unlike my sister that you wouldn’t believe it. In fact, I’ve never had an illegitimate child in my life. Now, if you don’t mind…’

‘Gemma, I feel funny.’ The child’s voice from beside her was neither plaintive or high-pitched. He was simply stating a fact, and Gemma closed her eyes in a gesture of sheer weariness.

‘I know, sweetheart. So do I. I need to find somewhere for us to have dinner.’ She turned back to Nate. ‘I’ve been waiting all afternoon to see you and I can wait no longer. You have a baby to see to. I have Cady. So can we leave it, please?’

He stared down at the card that she’d given him. There it was in black and white. Dr Gemma Campbell. Anaesthetist. Sydney Central Hospital.

She really was a doctor.

And this was no nightmare. This was cold, hard fact.

‘I can find you at Sydney Central?’

‘Yes. As I said-only if you want the kids to be in contact. It’s up to you. I’ll tell Cady about Mia as he grows up, but if you don’t want her to know…or if you decide on adoption…’

‘Nate, honey, what the hell is going on?’

‘It seems I have a baby,’ Nate said in a voice that held not the slightest hint of humour. His tone said that he’d been trapped. There was anger behind the words and both women heard it.

And surprisingly Gemma’s face softened into very real sympathy.

‘I’m sorry, Nate,’ she told him. ‘I understand you’ve been used. But…so have I. And it does boil down to the fact that you’re Mia’s father. Good luck with her, and I hope you learn to love her-as I love Cady.’

And she smiled and walked around him. Out into the car park. Out of his life. For ever?