LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘You might as well stop acting up,’ they’d told him. ‘Kicking holes in the walls isn’t going to change anything. You’re not going anywhere, son. We’ve adopted you and that’s that.’

      But, yes. He did want to sell. There was nothing here for him now. There hadn’t been, ever since the death of Eric Gilmore had revealed that he’d been covering the signs of his wife’s dementia for some time and the heart breaking decision that Dorothy Gilmore needed specialist care had had to be made. He’d found the best home available as close as possible to where he was living and working.

      A shame it was in Sydney, Australia, because it meant taking Dorothy away from the area she’d been born and raised in but the alternative was in Auckland and the biggest city in this country had been just as foreign to Dorothy as Sydney and he certainly couldn’t have made his twice-weekly visits. And it hadn’t been long before she didn’t know who he was any more so it really didn’t matter what city was outside the walls of her haven.

      And—after five years of being cared for so well—Dorothy had died, at the grand old age of ninety-five, just six weeks ago.

      It hadn’t been a surprise to find that he’d inherited this property that had been rural when he’d arrived about twenty years ago but was now within easy commuting distance of what was touted as one of the most desirable cities in the world to live in. What had been a surprise was the distant cousin, Brian Gilmore, a man in his late sixties, who’d emerged to contest the will.

      ‘You were only a foster kid,’ he’d informed Lucas. ‘Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Eric never formally adopted you. You’ve got no right to inherit anything.’

      Brian dabbled in property development. This house and its sprawling garden covered an area of land that had enough space for half a dozen properties. Or a retirement village, perhaps, with this perfect, peaceful location and amazing views of the sea and all the islands in the Gulf.

      That would only happen after the house was demolished, of course. And probably more than half the native forest bulldozed.

      He’d reached the kitchen. A long room with a slate floor and French doors between big windows that looked out over the garden that Dorothy had loved so much. Down to the huge vegetable garden that had been Eric’s pride and joy. Amongst other outdoor jobs, his contribution to family chores had been to help Eric manage that garden.

      He’d hated it, at first.

      He’d actually set fire to the potting shed one evening but even that hadn’t been enough to persuade his new parents that they’d made a mistake.

      The wash of loss was hard enough to make Lucas pause and take in a long, slow breath. Dorothy and Eric might have been old enough to be his grandparents when they’d taken him in but they were the only real parents he’d ever had and he’d come to love them fiercely. They’d been so proud of him when they’d come to watch his graduation from medical school.

      ‘We knew you could do it, son. We knew you were special.’

      ‘This is nice...’ Mike was looking up at the beamed ceiling and then his gaze ran swiftly over the old cooking range and the arched doorway into the big pantry that had once been a creamery for the original farm. He frowned at the masking tape crisscrossing one of the windows where a pane of glass was badly cracked and he was making rapid notes on a tablet device. ‘Good thing you left it fully furnished. It looks like someone’s living in it and these antiques look original.’

      ‘Some of them probably are,’ Lucas agreed. ‘And it certainly is a lovely home. It needs to be sold to a family that will love it.’ As the Gilmore family had. ‘I’m not selling to anyone who wants to demolish this house.’

      Brian’s words still stung. Maybe Dorothy and Eric hadn’t realised what was involved in a formal adoption process. They’d changed his name before enrolling him at his new school and somehow that had been enough and he’d slipped through the system. He’d been Lucas Gilmore ever since.

      He’d been their son.

      And he wasn’t about to let cousin Brian destroy any part of the miracle that had turned his life around so completely. He had his solicitor working on the legality of the unexpected claim and he was hopeful he could have it overturned in court.

      A family of his own was never going to happen—he knew too well the nightmare of things going wrong—and even if he had been planning one, it wouldn’t be here—where the ghosts of what had gone so wrong in his own early life were never very far away.

      But that was what this house needed.

      A family. Laughter echoing through the rooms and love to be celebrated in meals taken at this old, scrubbed pine table.

      Hopefully, what was left of the three months he had signed up for at Auckland General would be long enough to see that happen. As if prompted by the thought, he turned his head to where the grandfather clock in the hallway was ticking again. A slow, steady sound that had always been the heartbeat of this old house.

      ‘How ’bout I leave you to have a look around at the rest of the place, Mike? If you pull the front door closed, it’ll lock itself. I’m due to start my shift in Emergency in less than an hour and you never know what the traffic’s going to be like on the motorway. I’d better get my skates on.’

      * * *

      If she hadn’t been so frightened, Ellie would have been mortified, arriving at any emergency department like this, let alone the one she worked in herself!

      She was on a narrow ambulance stretcher. On her knees, with her head on her hands and her bottom up in the air.

      Knowing she was bleeding had been enough to scare her. The speed with which the paramedics checked her out, got an IV line in and fluids running and then headed for the nearest hospital using lights and sirens told her they were just as worried about the situation as she was. And, moments before they had arrived at the hospital, her waters had broken and, in the wake of the rush of fluid, she knew things had just become a whole lot worse.

      ‘Something feels weird,’ she told them. ‘I think I might have a cord prolapse.’

      A quick glance by the lead paramedic confirmed her fears.

      ‘As soon as we get you out, we’ll get you head down, on your knees and use gravity to take pressure off the cord. We’ll support you and move slowly, okay?’

      ‘Okay.’ She felt the clunk as the wheels of the stretcher came down and locked. With help, she turned to get on her knees, putting her elbows on the mattress and lowering her head between her hands.

      The warning not to start pushing even if she felt the urge had been unnecessary. Ellie knew how dangerous this was. If the baby’s head put too much pressure on the cord, it would cut off the oxygen supply and lead to a stillbirth. She couldn’t let that happen. Ava and Marco would sort things out. They had really wanted this baby. They’d all gone to that first ultrasound appointment together and there had been tears of joy all round. Surely nobody would really plan to bring a new life into the world just to fix a failing relationship?

      The contractions were at increasingly shorter intervals but she hadn’t felt any urge to push.

      Yet.

      The hospital would have had advance warning of her arrival and the problem with blood loss but there hadn’t been time to warn them about this new complication. Would there be a specialist obstetrician waiting for her in one of the resuscitation rooms already?

      In this undignified position, Ellie couldn’t see anybody’s faces. Just their legs, as she was wheeled carefully past the triage desk, with the paramedics on either side of the stretcher, both with one arm over her body to support her balance.

      She could recognise voices, however.

      ‘Cord prolapse,’ one of the paramedics said. ‘Waters broke about two minutes ago.’

      ‘It’s okay, Ellie. We’ve got this...’ That was

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