Australia: Handsome Heroes: His Secret Love-Child. Lilian Darcy

      ‘Is there any news of the mother?’ Em asked.

      ‘There’s a search party scouring the bushland around the rodeo grounds, but there’s nothing. The current thinking is that whoever it was left with the crowd.’

      She flicked a glance up at him. ‘And left her son.’

      ‘She probably thought he was dead. He was so flat…He may well have appeared dead to someone who had no med training. Someone who was distressed and desperately ill herself.’

      She nodded bleakly and then turned her attention back to the baby. ‘He almost was dead,’she whispered. ‘He came so close. Oh, Lucky. If not for Gina. And now…Another little boy.’

      ‘Em…’ He knew where she was going. The way he said her name was a growl, meant to deflect her, but it didn’t work.

      ‘Did you know you had a child?’

      ‘No. Em, I—’

      ‘I can’t believe you have a son,’ she told him, and Cal hesitated. And then he shrugged. This was Emily. His friend. He knew from long experience it was no use to try and deflect her, so why not vent a little spleen? He surely had spleen to be vented.

      ‘If you can’t believe it, imagine how I feel!’ he demanded, but he didn’t get the reaction he wanted. He expected indignation on his behalf—that was what he wanted. Even sympathy. Instead, Emily had the temerity to smile.

      ‘Yep, I can see how it might leave you flabbergasted. A child out of left field. Does she want child support?’

      ‘No!’

      ‘Then why has she come?’

      ‘She just thought I had the right to know.’

      ‘After all these years? Why not sooner?’

      ‘She’s been married,’ Cal told her. ‘She was married when I knew her. She got pregnant and went back to her husband.’

      ‘Whew.’ Em whistled, then lifted the drug sheet beside the crib and studied it. Giving him a bit of personal space. ‘That’s heavy stuff,’she commented. ‘Did you know she was married?’

      ‘Yes, but I thought it was over.’

      ‘But it wasn’t.’

      ‘Apparently not.’

      ‘So what’s happened now to make things different? Marriage break up?’

      ‘Her husband’s dead.’

      ‘Dead?’

      ‘Quadriplegia. Complications.’

      She winced. ‘Oh, Cal, that’s really tough.’

      Tough? He didn’t want to think about tough, he thought bitterly. He didn’t want to think about what Gina must have gone through over the last few years.

      He didn’t want to think about Gina.

      ‘Did she use you to get pregnant?’ Em asked, adjusting the drip stand so she could get a clearer view of the baby’s tiny face. ‘Because her husband was a quad?’

      ‘No!’ It was his turn to wince. OK, that was what he’d thought initially, but somehow…that someone else should think that of Gina was unbearable. ‘He was injured just after she discovered she was pregnant.’

      ‘Ouch.’ She flicked another glance up at him and then looked away. ‘So that’s why the loyalty. That’s why she went back to him.’

      ‘Em, could we leave this?’

      She looked at him steadily then, her intelligent eyes turning thoughtful. ‘Maybe we can and maybe we can’t. So now her husband’s dead and she comes back—’

      ‘Em…’

      ‘It puts a different complexion on things,’ she said, unperturbed. ‘I always wondered how the guy would feel in such a situation. To be unexpectedly a full-fledged dad. And for Gina to front you now…It’d be so hard. But maybe she’s right.’ She cocked her head to one side, considering. ‘I wonder. Even if you’d done this via a sperm bank, maybe there’s a moral obligation to tell you that your sperm’s successful? That’s there’s a kid out there in your image?’

      ‘He wasn’t the result of any sperm bank. Em, we need to write up these notes.’

      ‘Yeah, Charles told me it was a really hot affair.’ Em grinned, refusing to be deflected. ‘Not a sperm bank at all. This is the one that gossip says broke your heart. Charles said she really cracked your armour and it’s the only time in your life it’s ever been cracked. Well, now.’

      ‘Em…’

      ‘Hey, but she’s here and you don’t have an excuse to be heartbroken any more.’ Em even looked cheerful. ‘You’ve been using the excuse that you loved and lost for five long years. You’ve been using it to keep the world and commitment at bay. Now you can take up where you left off. And she’s not married. You know, I’ll bet that was one of the things that attracted you to her in the first place. I can see letting yourself fall for a divorcée with as jaded a view of commitment as you have. But now…I wonder what you’ll decide to do now?’

      ‘What the—?’

      ‘She’s been an excuse, hasn’t she, Cal?’ Em said softly, boring right to the heart of the matter. There was something about this time, this place—the dim light of the nursery with only this one tiny baby between them—that made a conversation like this seem possible. Or less impossible. ‘All these years, you’ve been telling yourself that you haven’t got involved with anyone because Gina broke your heart. You’ve been letting us all think you still love Gina.’

      ‘I don’t,’ he snapped. But…Did he?

      ‘Then why haven’t you gone out with other women?’

      ‘I have. Look, can we leave this?’

      ‘Of course,’ she agreed. ‘But as for going out with other women…Sure you do, until they get the first idea that they might be able to expect some emotional return. Then you drop them like hot coals. And if you think the rest of the staff in the house will leave it, you’re very much mistaken. Are you taking over here at nine?’

      ‘Nine till twelve. Yes.’

      ‘There you go, then.’ She turned back to her little patient. ‘We’ll just have to keep you alive until then, won’t we, Lucky?’ Her face softened. ‘And then it’s Dr Cal’s turn to keep you alive. Or Dr Gina’s, or whoever else is on duty. But we will keep you alive.’

      The intensity of her voice shocked him.

      ‘Of course we will,’ he told her, and she looked up and met his eyes. Her own eyes welled with tears.

      ‘There’s a mother out there who doesn’t have a son,’ she whispered. ‘It’s our job to keep our Lucky safe until we find her. But isn’t it strange that on this day, when we’ve found this unknown baby, you’ve found your own son?’ She smiled at him, a wavering smile that said as much about her own fragile emotional state as it did about her uncertainty over the little boy’s fate. ‘Go on, now, Cal. I have a job to do. And maybe you do, too. See if you can find CJ before you come back on duty. You have years of catching up to do.’

      CHAPTER FOUR

      THE house was still when Cal returned. Unusually still. Everyone must be out, he decided. Or busy.

      Half their luck.

      He grabbed a beer but then replaced it. With regret. He could really use a beer, but if he was to go back on duty at nine he had to leave it.

      Why was the kitchen empty? And the lounge? Where was everyone? This house was always full of people. He needed people.

      He needed people now.