Their Newborn Baby Gift. Alison Roberts

don’t think this baby is well. And I don’t think it’s simply hypothermia.’

      Both the women behind the desk stared at him.

      ‘This is Ryan Walker,’ Evie said. ‘Our new neonatal cardiac surgeon?’

      ‘Oh...’ Susie blinked. ‘Pleased to meet you. You’ve been at the gala, I guess.’

      ‘Yes.’ Ryan’s smile was tight. He clearly didn’t want to waste time on introductions. ‘Where is this procedure room?’

      ‘Right this way.’ Janine was back to her normal calm efficiency in the face of any emergency.

      There was no real reason for Evie to go with them but nobody stopped her and she didn’t even pause to think about whether it was appropriate. She was the one who’d heard this infant and discovered him. She was already involved. Connected. Worried sick, even.

      ‘I’ll get the heaters on,’ Janine said, as soon as they entered the clinical space, which was equipped with everything they could possibly need, including ventilators and an empty, state-of-the-art incubator. ‘Where did you find him? Just out in the open in the middle of the car park?’

      ‘No. He was kind of hidden between the wheelie bins near the ambulance bay,’ Evie said, and the squeeze around her heart was almost painful.

      Ryan put the box down and then reached inside to carefully lift the baby out. It was wrapped in a piece of clothing as a blanket. A well-worn hoodie.

      ‘It’s a girl,’ Susie murmured. ‘And very recently born. Within the last hour or two, I’d say. Oh, my...is that a hair tie on the cord?’

      ‘How long has she been outside, do you think?’ Janine had switched on both overhead and mattress heaters. ‘It’s freezing out there.’

      ‘It has to be more than half an hour,’ Ryan said, stripping off his tuxedo jacket and throwing it into a corner of the room. He started to roll up his shirtsleeves, stepping towards the sink to wash his hands. ‘I was standing not far away for at least that long and I would have seen somebody leaving the box.’

      He turned his head to glance at Evie, which made her blink and then catch her bottom lip between her teeth. He’d been standing in the car park for at least half an hour? Waiting for her so that he could return the necklace?

      Wow...

      It made her feel...special?

      More than that...it reignited that sensation in her belly and gave her a disturbing flashback to that moment when her fingertips had touched his hand. This had to stop, right now. It was worse than simply finding a man attractive. This Ryan was a doctor and that put him completely out of her league even if she was prepared to consider getting close to someone. She’d been taught that lesson long ago. And she wasn’t interested in getting close to anyone, anyway. So much safer not to.

      But she couldn’t look away from this someone, despite her best efforts. This was her first proper glimpse of the man in strong lighting and it stole her breath away. Tanned skin on muscled forearms was dusted with golden hair and there were matching streaks of gold on his head. He looked like someone who spent all his spare time on a beach, which was not unlikely given that he had come from Australia. Something like surfing was probably a normal hobby over there. He had blue eyes, she noticed as he turned back to the table. Very blue eyes...

      With an actual, physical wrench, she dragged her gaze away from him. It snagged on the empty box that had been the baby’s only shelter from the chilly autumn night. Except...it wasn’t quite empty, was it?

      ‘There’s a note in the box,’ Evie said.

      Only Janine glanced in her direction. Ryan and Susie were completely focused on the baby, checking her out from head to toe.

      ‘What does it say?’

      ‘“Please help my baby. Find her a mum who can look after her because I can’t.”’ Evie’s voice choked up. ‘It looks like it was written by a kid... Oh, I hope she’s okay...’

      ‘They’ll find her,’ Janine said. ‘Or maybe she’ll come back to find us.’

      Evie swallowed. ‘I don’t know about that. How desperate would you have to be to leave your baby and run away?’

      She put the note back with the box and the hoodie—the only items they had that might provide a clue to the mother’s identity and perhaps her whereabouts. Where had she given birth? And had she been all alone? How frightening would that have been?

      Evie took a step closer to the table where the doctors were examining the tiny baby. She was so tiny. Naked and vulnerable. She had stopped crying for the moment and, while her body was squirming under the attention of professional hands, her eyes seemed to be trying to focus on the nearest face—as if she was searching for someone she recognised.

      ‘I can’t see any obvious major abnormalities,’ Susie said. ‘But I’d only give her an Apgar score of about six. Seven at the most. Her respiratory effort is down and her colour’s off. Look at her legs.’

      Evie looked as well. While the baby’s upper body was quite pink, her legs were very pale and the tiny toes had a distinctly bluish tinge.

      ‘Differential cyanosis,’ Ryan nodded. ‘Let’s check the peripheral pulses.’

      His hands looked huge against the tiny body under the warmth of the lamps. Clever-looking hands, Evie thought, and so gentle as he felt for the different pulses. Brachial at the elbow, radial in the wrists and femoral in the groin.

      Janine, standing close to Evie, let her breath out in a sigh. ‘Poor little mite,’ she murmured. Oh... I’d better call the police, hadn’t I? And Social Services?’

      ‘It can wait for a bit. I want to know what’s going on here.’ Ryan’s face was creased with concentration and then his frown deepened. He put his fingers on the baby’s chest, very softly, and he closed his eyes for a moment. Was he feeling for the way the heart was moving?

      His eyes snapped open. ‘Stethoscope?’

      Susie pulled hers from around her neck and handed it to him. Evie caught the glance she gave Janine that suggested they might be lucky in having a cardiac specialist on hand.

      ‘Femoral pulse is absent,’ Ryan said, as he warmed the bell of the stethoscope in his hand. ‘And the radial is weak.’

      It had to be hard to hear any heart sounds with the warbling cries the baby was making again. Maybe that was why Ryan cupped the tiny head with one hand, his thumb offering a comforting stroke over the whorls of dark hair. Watching him do that melted something deep inside Evie, maybe because it was so tender and suggested a concern that went beyond anything purely professional. Then he nodded once and straightened and it was clear that his only thoughts were clinical.

      ‘Systolic murmur,’ he said.

      ‘Congenital heart condition.’ Susie nodded. ‘What’s your guess? A ventricular septal defect, maybe?’

      ‘Could be. Or a hypoplastic left heart. Or coarctation of the aorta. We need to get some ECG dots on and do an ultrasound.’ He looked down at the baby and his mouth curved in a poignant smile that made Evie’s heart skip a beat on top of that melting sensation.

      ‘You’re having a bit of a rough start at this game of life, aren’t you, sweetheart?’

      ‘She needs a name,’ Janine said. ‘Even if it’s just temporary.’

      ‘Grace...’

      Everybody’s heads turned and Evie blushed. The name had just popped out before she’d stopped to think.

      ‘It was my mum’s name,’ she added. And she’d been thinking of her mother just before she’d found the baby, hadn’t she? Her mother’s necklace, anyway.

      ‘I like it,’ Susie said. ‘Grace it is.’

      ‘Can