The Baby Gift. Alison Roberts

      Then he stooped and picked something up from the debris that had been pushed into piles to make way for the stretcher. Julia focused on what he held. It was a soft toy animal of some kind. Probably well loved and shabby to start with but it now had stuffing coming from a ripped-off leg and it was covered with bloodstains.

      ‘Carla’s, do you think?’

      ‘Probably. We didn’t have any other children in the carriage, thank goodness.’

      For a long moment, she held Mac’s gaze. Watching the wheels turning in a brain shrugging off how tired it was. For a moment she wondered if he was thinking her statement was another indication of her aversion to working with paediatric cases but then she saw the grim lines in his face deepen and a haunted look appear in the way he frowned. There was another possibility.

      They both turned to look back at the space the dead man had filled.

      At the door that had been blocked by the body.

      It was Mac who moved to open it. He had to put his shoulder against it and push because it was blocked from the inside. And then Julia heard him curse, softly but vehemently, as he dropped instantly to a crouch.

      Her view was limited to what she could see over his shoulder because Mac filled the narrow doorway. She could see narrow shoulders and the back of a head covered with long, blonde hair. A woman, then. Had she been thrown to hit her head against the basin during the violent change of direction as the carriage had tipped? Except that there was no obvious injury to be seen from this angle.

      Mac had his hand on her neck, searching for a pulse.

      ‘She’s too cold.’ Mac’s voice sounded raw. ‘Been dead for a fair while.’

      At least there hadn’t been a child in here as well. Julia still had to swallow hard as she reached for the portable radio clipped to her belt. ‘I’ll let the guys know to bring the stretcher back.’

      ‘Wait!’ Mac was examining the woman, looking for an indication of what might have killed her. He found nothing.

      ‘Pelvis?’ Julia suggested.

      Mac put his hands on the woman’s hips and pressed. Julia knew it would have been a gentle test but she could see the movement. There were major blood vessels running through that area. If one was cut it was quite possible to bleed to death in a short space of time.

      It was also possible they might have been able to save her if they’d got to her first.

      Mac was pressing a hand to the woman’s abdomen now. It was distended. Even more distended than they might have expected from all the internal bleeding.

      ‘Oh, God!’ Mac groaned.

      Julia didn’t ask. She didn’t need to. The shape was too regular and obviously too firm to be simply an accumulation of blood. The woman had probably only been in the early stages of her pregnancy but there had been two lives lost here.

      Mac straightened. He didn’t meet Julia’s horrified gaze.

      ‘It’s time we went home,’ he said heavily. ‘There’s nothing more we can do here.’

      Chapter Three

      SOMETHING wasn’t right.

      They should have been able to debrief and put things into perspective on the long road trip back to headquarters courtesy of a military vehicle. They could have talked through how impossible it would have been to save that young woman. Even if they’d known she was there, they would still have had to evacuate all the mobile people and the time needed to shift the dead man and then extricate her would have put Ken in more trouble. And they couldn’t have known. There wasn’t even a window that Julia could have looked into from the outside.

      These were things that should have been said aloud. Dissected and come to terms with. And maybe then they could have congratulated themselves on a job well done. The fact that ten people had made it out alive when it could have gone in a very different direction and claimed even more victims.

      But Mac, for the first time Julia had known him, didn’t want to talk and that was confusing. He was the strongest, bravest man she had ever met. Six feet tall in his socks and without an ounce of fat on his body. His strength alone was enough to inspire confidence Julia couldn’t hope to impart as soon as he arrived on scene. But there was more to Mac than physical attributes. He was so open and honest and always smiling. Smiling so much that he had deep crinkles around his eyes and grooves on his cheeks. She had seen him tired beyond exhaustion. Frustrated enough to be angry. Sad, even, to the point of his voice sounding thick with tears, but she’d never seen him quite like this.

      ‘I’m stuffed,’ he said, when she tried to get him to talk at the start of their road trip home. ‘I need sleep. Let’s leave the talking till later, OK?’

      Which would have been fine, except that Mac didn’t sleep. Neither could Julia, Not after she’d noticed the way he was staring through the window on his side. Lost in thoughts he obviously didn’t want to share and looking so…bleak.

      He closed his eyes, later, but he was feigning sleep. Julia could tell because she could see the way his hands were clenched into fists. So tense.

      She wanted—badly—to touch him. To find out what was bothering him and—somehow—make it better.

      She cared, dammit. Too much.

      And so she said nothing. She kept to her side of the back seat and stared out of her window. Her body ached with weariness and more than a few bumps and bruises but her heart ached more.

      For Mac.

      Ten years.

      It had been a decade ago and Mac hadn’t even thought about it for eons.

      What was it about that moment that had brought it back so vividly?

      The long blonde hair?

      The early pregnancy?

      Or was it because Julia had been standing so close to him?

      It was like pieces of a jigsaw he hadn’t intended, or wanted, to solve had come together out of nowhere.

      Mac could hear the suck of heavy-duty tyres on water-soaked roadways along with the rumble of the engine and the background buzz of the radio station the driver was listening to. Runnels of water coalesced on the window and then streaked sideways but Mac wasn’t really watching. He was seeing an altogether different picture.

      No wonder he found Julia Bennett so damned attractive on so many levels. It wasn’t just that she was gorgeous and smart and brave. It was that full-on approach to life in combination with an ability to sidestep any hint of a meaningful personal relationship that did it.

      Presented the kind of challenge any red-blooded man would find irresistible, it was almost a matter of honour to have a crack at winning such a prize. Or wanting to.

      Why hadn’t he put two and two together before this?

      Because he’d done his damnedest to forget Christine, that was why. To forget the heartache of absolute failure. To move on and make a success of his life.

      ‘You OK, mate?’ Julia had asked when they were on the main road and settling in for their journey back to headquarters.

      ‘I’m stuffed,’ he’d growled. And he was. Exhausted both physically and emotionally. In pain, actually, because something raw had been unexpectedly exposed deep within. He’d never talked to anyone about it. Ever. And if he did, Julia would be at the bottom of any list of potential listeners. He wasn’t about to admit the kind of failure he was on a personal level. Preferably not to anyone but especially not to a woman whom he doubted had ever failed at anything and who would be less than impressed with a man who was nowhere near her equal.

      ‘I need sleep,’ he’d added tonelessly, turning away from her. ‘Let’s leave the talking till later, OK?’

      She