LITMIR.BIZ

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Emily said as she left, and Cal could only agree.

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘Charles said you knew her five years back.’ Em was still concentrating but she had room to cast a curious glance at her friend. ‘He’s saying she’s your lady-rat.’

      ‘Leave it, Em.’ Dammit, he couldn’t think of what else to say. And it was none of her business.

      Since when did privacy considerations ever stop anyone in this place sticking their nose in anyone else’s business? It certainly didn’t stop Em now.

      ‘Charles says there’s a little boy.’

      ‘Leave it, Emily,’ Cal snapped again—harder—and Emily had the temerity to grin.

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘Is he yours?’ Grace asked from behind them, and Cal groaned.

      ‘Look, this is my business.’

      ‘Hey, we’re your housemates,’ Emily told him. ‘And Mike says there’s something really funny going on. He’s laying odds on this being your son—but no one’s taking bets until we’ve seen him. So tell us, Cal. Save us our betting money. Is it true?’

      They were still working, but the atmosphere in the room had lightened by about a thousand per cent. Something about a tiny heartbeat that was steady and growing stronger by the minute was making even such a serious subject sound frivolous.

      ‘You might as well tell us. You know we share all your dearest concerns,’ Emily told him, and Grace choked.

      ‘That’s another way of saying we have a right to stick our nose into whatever we like.’

      ‘I don’t know how you do it, Cal.’ For once Jill was also smiling, the nursing director’s tight personality unbending a little in the face of this shared triumph. ‘Having all your concerns shared. Ten medicos living in the same house…’

      ‘Eight as of Tuesday,’ Grace reminded her, and Emily winced.

      ‘Thanks very much.’

      ‘He was a creep, Em, and you know it,’ Grace retorted. ‘I refuse to concede that you can possibly mourn the guy.’

      ‘I’ll mourn anyone I like.’

      ‘Why don’t you have an affair with Cal?’

      ‘Cal’s got an affair,’ Emily retorted. ‘As of now.’ She managed a smile. ‘Actually, an affair and a bit. A bit about three feet high. So concentrate on Cal’s love life. Leave mine alone.’

      ‘OK,’ Grace said obligingly. ‘If you insist. And Cal’s affair is fascinating. A woman and a son arriving out of nowhere, when we all thought he was a fusty old bachelor…’

      ‘Thanks a lot,’ Cal managed, and even Jill chuckled.

      ‘But here he is, with a son…’

      ‘Is he really your son?’ Jill asked, wondering, and Cal groaned.

      ‘Jill, at least you can keep out of what’s not your business.’

      ‘We love you, Cal,’ Emily said solidly. ‘Get used to it.’

      ‘I don’t think I ever will.’

      ‘It’s called living,’ Em told him, and she turned from the monitor to look down at her little patient. ‘Something this little man is about to do. Oh, well done, us. Now all we need to do is find you a mummy and a daddy.’

      ‘And find out whether Cal’s a daddy, too,’ Grace said mischievously.

      ‘Enough.’ Jill had been jolted out of clinical efficiency but her flashes of humour never lasted long. There was levity in her operating Theatre and levity was to be squashed. ‘Back to work.’

      ‘Yes, ma’am,’ they said in unison.

      Where was Gina? All Cal wanted to do was to find her, and he couldn’t.

      There were myriad things to do before he was finished. Blood tests to order. Harry Blake to be contacted—the police sergeant who’d be in charge of trying to find the mother. A mass of paperwork that had to be done—now. ‘Because this case will hit the national press unless I’m mistaken, and I want everything done right,’ Charles had growled.

      Charles himself wheeled into Theatre at the end and stared down at the little one in concern.

      ‘Do we have any clue who the mother could be?’

      ‘None at all,’ Cal told him. ‘We’re sifting through obs and gynae records now, looking at who’s pregnant in the area.’

      ‘One of our tribal people? Maybe some kid who’s got herself pregnant out of tribal boundaries?’

      ‘Take a longer look, Charles. I’m guessing this baby’s all white. Mum and Dad both.’

      ‘Surely we have pregnancy records.’

      ‘Unless it was someone who’s itinerant. Someone who came for the day.’

      They stared at the baby for a moment longer, searching for answers.

      There were none.

      ‘I guess we have to leave that to Harry,’ Charles said reluctantly, spinning his chair in a one-eighty-degree turn and shrugging as he talked of handing things over to the police. ‘I hate not knowing as much as you do. Harry’s just rung in to say they’re searching the area and I’ll tell him to increase the manpower. To think there’s a kid out there who’s only hours from giving birth…’

      ‘And she may be suffering from von Willebrand’s disease,’ Cal told him, outlining his concerns.

      Charles’s face stilled. ‘So she’s likely to be bleeding. She could be in huge trouble.

      ‘Von Willebrand’s could be inherited from the father. If indeed I’m right. It’s only that the baby’s bleeding too much, too fast. I’m only guessing the diagnosis here.’

      ‘Then keep on guessing,’ Charles said heavily, ‘Guess as much as you can and as fast as you can. I want her found.’

      ‘Right.’ Cal hesitated. ‘Do we move him down to Brisbane?’

      ‘Not yet,’ Charles said heavily. ‘I’m calling in Hamish from leave. If the mother’s found I want this little one right here, where she has the best chance of bonding with him—or making any decision she needs to make. It’s a risk, but if I can persuade Gina to stay then it’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’

      Cal nodded. Hamish, Crocodile Creek’s paediatrician, was out game fishing but it should be possible to call him back. If this base had both a paediatrician and a cardiologist, then it was reasonable to leave this little one here. Good, even.

      But would Gina stay?’

      ‘Charles, I also need to find Gina.’

      ‘Sure you do, Charles agreed. ‘Get these tests organised, talk to Harry and then go find her. She’s over at the house, out on the veranda.’

      Of course. Charles knew where everyone was, all the time.

      ‘I’ll go, then.’

      ‘You do that.’

      She was alone.

      Cal walked out the back door of the doctors’ residence and Gina was sitting on the back step, staring out over the sea.

      The old hospital used now as doctors’ quarters and the new state-of-the-art Remote Rescue base were built on a bluff overlooking Crocodile Cove—a wide, sandy beach with gentle waves washing in and out of the gently sloping shallows. In the foreground lay the Agnes Wetherby Memorial Garden. The garden was fantastic—a mass of tropical plants such as the delicately perfumed orchids, creamy, heady frangipani, crotons with their vividly coloured leaves, and more.

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