Australia: Handsome Heroes: His Secret Love-Child

Rudolph had raced back down to his new would-be owner. Now he squatted in pounce position, leapt at CJ, knocked him down, licked his face, then galloped back to Gina. Gina backed fast but he jumped up, the backs of her legs caught the veranda steps and she sat down. Hard.

Rudolph licked with a tongue that was roughly the size of a large facecloth.

‘Ugh,’ Gina said, stunned. She wiped her face and watched the dog gallop over to Cal.

‘Sit,’ Cal said.

Rudolph sat.

The tail was going ballistic.

‘CJ, we can’t keep this dog,’she said, and if her voice sounded desperate, who could blame her? ‘For a start there’s no way we can take him home. He can hardly sit on my lap on the plane.’

‘He can sit on mine,’ CJ said stoutly, and Cal choked.

‘You laugh and I’m going to have to kill you,’ Gina said conversationally, and focussed on CJ. Or tried to focus on CJ. ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ she told him. ‘Did you mind sleeping at Mrs Grubb’s?’

‘No, because of Rudolph,’ he told her. ‘Mom, Mr Grubb says he has to take a dead tree to the rubbish tip and I can go in his truck if I want, and Rudolph can come, too, but I have to ask you first so Cal said we should wake you up.’

‘Gee, thanks, Cal,’ she said, and glowered.

‘Think nothing of it,’ Cal said, smiling blandly. ‘But Mr Grubb’s waiting. Can CJ go? Grubb’s very reliable.’

There were three faces looking at her in mute appeal. CJ’s, Cal’s, Rudolph’s. She was so out of her depth she was drowning.

‘Fine,’ she told them all, and was rewarded by a war whoop and the sight of her small son—and dog—flying away across the lawn to the dubious attractions of Crocodile Creek’s rubbish tip.

‘I haven’t even thought about when we’re leaving,’ Gina said, staring after her son in dismay.

‘Good,’ Cal told her.

‘You’re not still on about Townsville?’ she snapped, and he had the grace to look a bit shamefaced.

‘No. Gina, I’m sorry about last night.’

‘Good.’

‘I pushed you for my own ends.’

‘So you did.’

‘And I never meant that I didn’t want CJ to have been born. Of course I didn’t.’

‘Fine.’ She glowered. It seemed to be becoming a permanent state.

‘But it would be good for CJ to be raised where I could have some access.’

‘So move to the States.’

‘My base is here.’

‘No,’ she said, and her anger faded a bit as she turned to face him square on. ‘You don’t have a base.’

‘I’ve been here for four years.’

‘Yes, but you don’t love anyone here.’

‘That’s irrelevant.’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘Gina…’

‘You don’t need any of these people,’ she said. She’d gone to bed last night thinking of Cal, thinking of what was happening with him, and this discussion seemed an extension of that. It might be intrusive—none of her business—but him pushing her last night seemed to have removed the barriers to telling things how they were. ‘Cal, you’re spending your whole life patching people up, picking up the pieces, in medicine and in your personal life. Like with me. I came out here five years ago desperately unhappy and you picked up the pieces and you patched me up and I fell deeply in love with you. But then you don’t take the next step. You never admit you need anyone else. Is there anyone here you need? Really, Cal?’

‘I…’

‘Of course there’s not,’ she said, almost cordially. ‘Because of what happened with your family, you’ve never let yourself need anyone again.’

‘What is this?’ he demanded, startled. ‘Psychology by Dr Lopez?’

‘I know. It’s none of my business,’she told him, gentling. ‘But it’s why I have to go home. Because I’ve admitted that I need people. I need my family and my friends.’ More, she thought, and the idea that swept across her heart was so strong that she knew it for absolute truth. She needed Cal. But she wouldn’t say that. She’d said it years ago, and where had that got her?

‘For me to calmly go and live in Townsville would hurt,’ she told him. ‘Sure, I’d have a great job…’

‘You’d meet people.’

‘So I would,’ she told him. ‘But not the people I love.’

‘You’d learn…’

‘You really don’t understand the need thing, do you, Cal?’ she said sadly. ‘I need my friends and I need my family and I’m not too scared to admit it.’

‘You’re saying I am?’

‘I’m not saying anything,’ she said wearily. ‘But Townsville’s not going to happen.’ She regrouped. Sort of. ‘And Rudolph’s not going to happen either,’ she told him, ‘so stop encouraging CJ.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Just stop it,’ she said. She closed her eyes for a moment, still trying for the regroup. ‘The baby. Lucky. How is he?’

‘He’s still holding his own,’ Cal told her. They’d both moved back into the shade of the veranda—in this climate you moved into the shade as if a magnet was pulling you. ‘There doesn’t seem any sign of infection. His heartbeat’s settling and steady.’

‘I’ll do another echocardiogram now.’

‘We thought you’d say that, so we waited for you to wake up.’

‘You should have—’

‘There was no need,’ he said gently, and she flushed. She hated it when he was gentle. She hated it when he was…how she loved him. ‘What about the bleeding?’

‘The results of yesterday’s blood tests should be in soon,’ he told her. ‘Alix, our pathologist, is working on them now.’

‘I haven’t used any clot-breaking medication,’ she said. ‘Usually after a procedure for pulmonary stenosis I’d prescribe a blood thinner but I’ve held off. There’s a fair risk of blood clots in infants this tiny, but if he’s a bleeder…’

‘Hamish concurs,’ he told her. ‘He’s saying von Willebrand’s is a strong possibility.’

She nodded, flinching inside as she thought through the consequences.

Von Willebrand’s was a treatable condition. A similar disorder to haemophilia, any cut or major bruising could be life-threatening, but treated it was far less dangerous. In fact, given this baby’s condition, it was a bonus in that it made it less likely that Lucky would get a clot.

But it left an even deeper sense of unease about the mother. A woman, or more likely a girl, who’d had no medical help during a birth, who had possibly told no one about the birth, who was on her own.

Was she right in her surmise that the girl wasn’t a bleeder? If she’d haemorrhaged afterwards…

‘Has there been any news about the mother?’

‘Nothing,’ Cal told her, and she could see by his face that he was following her train of thought and was as worried as she was. ‘The police and a couple of local trackers have been right through the bushland round the rodeo area. They’re sure that she’s no longer in the area. She must have come by car and left by car.’

‘Or by bus.’

‘Or bus.’

‘And maybe she has von Willebrand’s disease. Maybe she’s a bleeder.’

‘She or the father,’ Cal said.

‘I’m not worrying about the father right now,’ Gina told him. ‘I’m worrying too much about the mother. To give birth in such a place, to leave thinking your baby was dead…What she must be going through.’

They fell silent. Each knew what the other was thinking. Suicide was a very real possibility. If only they knew where she was. Who she was.

‘There’s no matching prenatal mothers in our records at all,’ Cal told her. ‘No clues.’

‘I thought everyone knew everyone in this district.’

‘No one knows who this is.’

‘Someone must,’ Gina said, and Cal nodded.

More silence.

‘Charles says his father had von Willebrand’s,’ Cal said, and Gina frowned.

‘Charles?’

‘Our medical director. The guy in the wheelchair.’

‘I know who Charles is,’ she snapped. ‘Charles’s father has von Willebrand’s?’

‘Had. He’s dead.’

‘Charles is a local?’ Gina was still thinking it through. ‘Von Willebrand’s is a rare blood disorder. In such a small community there has to be some connection.’

‘We talked it through last night,’ Cal told her. ‘After you and I…’ He broke off. ‘Well, when I came back to the house Charles was still awake and we ended up talking things through till almost dawn. Like you, when he said that I thought there must be a connection. But it seems unlikely.’

‘Why? Tell me about his family.’

‘Charles is a Wetherby. The Wetherbys own one of the biggest stations in the state—Wetherby Downs. Charles’s brother runs the station now.’ Cal hesitated. ‘I’m not sure why, but Charles and his family don’t get on. Charles was hurt in a shooting accident when he was eighteen. He went to the city for medical treatment, ended up staying to do medicine and only came back here to set up this service. He hasn’t had much to do with his family for years. But as for the von Willebrand’s…. Charles himself doesn’t have kids. His brother doesn’t have von Willebrand’s, and his brother’s two kids are only fourteen and sixteen.’

‘The sixteen-year-old?’ she said quickly. ‘That’d fit. A girl?

‘Yes, but—’

‘A teenager in trouble and desperate not to tell her parents?’

‘Charles checked it out this morning,’ Cal told her. ‘She’s in boarding school in Sydney and hasn’t been home for a month.’

‘So we’ll cross her off the list,’ Gina said reluctantly. ‘Is there no other family?’

‘Charles’s only other sibling is a sister who moved to Sydney over twenty years back,’ he told her. ‘It was a lead worth following but it’s going nowhere.’

‘It just seems such a coincidence,’ she murmured. ‘It’s so rare.’

‘Charles’s father was not exactly a man of honour,’ Cal told her. ‘Charles volunteered that last night. The man was filthy rich, and used to get what he wanted. There’s more than an odds-on chance that he played around.’

‘But he’s dead,’ Gina said. ‘So we can’t ask him if he fathered anyone who might or might not have fathered someone who’s just had a baby. We’re clutching at straws here.’ She sighed. ‘OK. Enough. I’ll go and see the baby now.’ She hesitated. ‘But last night…The accident, the repercussions…’

‘Will be felt throughout the district for ever,’Cal told her heavily. ‘I’m going out to the aboriginal settlement later this afternoon.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Now, where had that come from? She hadn’t meant to offer. It had just slipped out.

‘I’d like that,’ he said gravely, and she cast him a sideways look of suspicion.

‘Maybe I shouldn’t.’

‘Gina, you would help,’ he told her. ‘You’re good with people. You know what to say.’

‘So do you,’ she said bitterly. ‘The Dr Jamieson specialty. Picking up the pieces.’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry. I’m not going there any more. But I will come to the settlement with you. I might as well be useful now I’m here. OK, Dr Jamieson. Let’s move on.’

Cal had patients booked to see him. He had to leave her—for which Gina was profoundly grateful. Sort of. With CJ happily carting junk and Cal disappearing, she was left on her own.

She spent a few minutes calming down and then went to find a pharmacist.

She wanted to see the baby but she had priorities of her own first.

The hospital dispensary was deserted. Open at need, she thought, and tried to figure who to ask. Not Cal. But as she turned away Charles was behind her in his wheelchair and she jumped almost a foot.

‘Do you mind?’ she asked breathlessly, and he grinned.

‘Sorry. I’ve tried to get a wheelchair that does footsteps but they don’t make them.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. My speciality’s scaring people. And I’m sorry about last night. Talk about throwing you in at the deep end…’

‘It was awful,’ she admitted. ‘But maybe less awful for me who doesn’t know the people and who won’t be round to cope with the consequences.’

‘Cal reminded me you used to run a kids’ group at Townsville.’

‘So I did,’ she told him.

‘You don’t fancy doing it again?’ he asked mildly. ‘There’s a screaming need here.’

‘Cal suggested that,’ she told him. ‘But he suggested I do it at Townsville.’

Charles’s face stilled. He looked at her for a long minute and then he grimaced.

‘Cal’s a fool.’

‘No.’ She shrugged. ‘Not a fool. And I’m going home. There’s no place here for me.’

‘There’s always a place here for you,’ Charles told her forcibly. ‘Your reputation from Townsville was that of a splendid doctor and we’d be honoured to have you stay. Apart from really, really needing a cardiologist.’

‘And where does that leave Cal?’

‘Having to face what he should have faced five years ago,’ Charles told her.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. ‘Leave it, Charles.’

He looked up at her for a long minute—and then he sighed.

‘OK, We’ll leave it.’ He glanced up at her face once more and then through to the empty dispensary. ‘Were you looking for something?’

‘A pharmacist.’

‘We don’t have such a thing. We get what we need when we need it. Do you need something?’

‘Insulin.’

There was an even longer pause. ‘For you?’ he asked at last, and Gina thought, Yes, the man was fast. He’d have figured it couldn’t have been for CJ. She’d never have been able to leave him with strangers if it had been CJ.

‘Yes. For me.’

He frowned. ‘Does Cal know you’re diabetic?’

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