Australia: Handsome Heroes: His Secret Love-Child

Great. That was another small weight lifted from her heart. All the time she’d been out here she’d been conscious of the tiny baby she’d left back at base, and now they had someone with paediatric training to take over. ‘You’ve seen Lucky?’

‘I have,’ he told her. ‘He’s looking stable. I’ll be heading back there fast to spend some more time with him. But you and Cal and Emily seem to have done a fine job. He has a fighting chance.’

‘I would have thought you’d have stayed while Em came out,’ she said, puzzled, and he grimaced.

‘Em’s in Theatre with Cal. He needs the best anaesthetist we have. Christina and Charles are with the two kids who arrived by road. That means we’re right out of doctors—apart from Alix, our pathologist, who’s just recovering from chickenpox. And we’ve even pulled her out of bed. So we had to take a chance on Lucky. Grace is specialling him. I came here. Sometimes in this place there’s not enough skill to go around and you need to make a hard call.’

‘I guess,’ she said, thinking bleakly of the number of times she’d had to leave her own son as she was leaving him now. As she’d have to walk away from Cal. So many choices…

Think of something else, she told herself fiercely. Anything.

‘Do you know Cal well?’

‘Cal’s a friend.’

‘I didn’t think Cal had friends.’ Why was she asking this, she wondered, in the midst of this horror? But the boys they were transporting now were the least injured. They were heavily sedated and they both had parents gripping their undamaged hands, as if that link alone could keep them safe. There was time and space for the two medics to talk.

And surprisingly Gina found she wanted to talk. In truth, she was desperate to talk. Anything but face the horrors of the night.

Anything but Cal?

But she’d asked.

‘Our Cal certainly keeps to himself,’ Hamish was saying. He cast an assessing look across at their patients but it appeared their respite could continue. ‘But…Gina, there’s things going on that I’m not understanding. I was barely back in town for two minutes before I was told you’ve produced Cal’s son. Cal’s son! Would that be right? Have you done that?’

‘Yes. But I’ll take him away again,’ Gina whispered. ‘I just wanted Cal to know he was alive. You don’t think I’m intending to cut in on his precious independence, do you?’

His eyes grew thoughtful. ‘You know,’ he said softly, ‘it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if you did.’

‘He’s getting along fine without me,’ Gina snapped. ‘He’s got a relationship with Emily.’

‘Has he, now?’ Hamish sent another assessing look across at their patients but both boys were breathing deep and evenly and there was no need to worry. One of the fathers had his head on his son’s hand, as if love alone could bring him through. ‘I wasn’t aware that he had such a thing,’ Hamish said softly. ‘And I know both Emily and Cal very well. Cal doesn’t have a relationship with anyone.’

‘But I thought…On the day I arrived here I found him…cuddling Emily.’

Hamish thought about that for a bit. ‘Emily’s fiancé has just walked out on her,’ he said at last. ‘He’s saying he wants space, but in reality he’s found another woman. Em knows in her heart what’s happening, no matter how much she’s denying it. If Cal was cuddling Emily, I’d be guessing that it was just Cal picking up the pieces.’ He hesitated. ‘You know, picking up the pieces is what Cal’s best at,’ he remarked thoughtfully. ‘It’s what to do with them afterwards where he doesn’t exactly shine.’

Gina blinked, and stared. Astonished. ‘You’re a paediatrician,’ she said slowly. ‘Not a psychiatrist.’

‘Everyone does everything at Crocodile Creek,’ Hamish told her, giving her a rueful smile. ‘There’s no such thing as delineation of roles. If we need a psychiatrist then I’ll be one. And I do consider Cal a friend. Even if it is a bit one-sided, if you know what I mean.’ He cast her a long, questioning look. ‘And I’m imagining you know very well what I mean.’

They fell into silence again. So much had happened in the last few hours. This sort of life-and-death drama always left her drained, Gina thought wearily, and tonight was no exception. She was exhausted. In a few minutes they’d land and they’d be thrust back into the hospital atmosphere where there’d be surgery to perform, appalled relatives to counsel and treat, Cal to face…

This was her two minutes to catch her breath and look squarely at her future.

She couldn’t. Cal…

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she whispered, and Hamish had to lean forward to hear. ‘I don’t know how to break through that barrier.’

‘It’s one heck of a barrier,’ Hamish told her. ‘You know his family history.’

‘I know what I’ve been allowed to know.’

‘He’s been betrayed by just about everybody in his life. It’s a miracle he’s a functioning human being.’

‘He’s not a trusting human being. So that makes him…’

‘Dysfunctional?’

‘Maybe,’ she whispered. ‘Yes.’

‘Then how far are you prepared to go to get him functioning again?’ Hamish asked, and Gina stared at the metal-plated floor and shook her head.

‘Not far at all. I’m just here to tell him of the existence of his son.’

‘You know, I doubt that,’ Hamish said gently. ‘I’ve known you, what—for about fifteen minutes? And even now, I doubt that very much.’

She’d been right when she’d assumed the hospital would be in chaos. The casualty entrance was mad.

Gina stood between the two stretchers that had just been wheeled in and took three deep breaths, trying for triage, trying to get some sort of priorities formed in her head. Grace appeared in the doorway, looking just as frazzled as she was feeling.

‘Where is everyone?’ Gina demanded.

‘Both Theatres are occupied,’ Grace said briefly. ‘Karen’s intracranial pressure is life-threatening. She has signs of a blood clot in association with her fractured skull and Cal’s drilled a burrhole to try and reduce pressure. Melanie has a collapsed lung and Christina and Charles are working on her. Alix is looking after path. needs and blood supply. That’s taken our full complement of doctors, except you and Hamish. Hamish, you need to check on Lucky. I came out to see if you needed any help here.’ She gazed around the mess that was the emergency ward. ‘I guess you do, huh?’

‘I guess we do,’ Gina said, mentally saying goodbye to the rest of the night. What a day. What a nightmare! ‘I guess we all do.’

They worked for two hours straight. Evacuation in the morning would see the compound fractures taken to Cairns for attention by orthopaedic specialists, but meanwhile blood supply had to be ensured, adequate pain relief had to be given, wounds had to be stitched. With only paramedics and nurses to help her, Gina had three incredibly sick and traumatised kids in her care. To say nothing of their parents.

But somehow she coped, and when Charles finally arrived to take over she was able to greet the medical director with a faint smile of reassurance.

Charles’s face twisted as he looked around the room. She had each patient settled and ready to be transferred to the wards—or to a flight out. Their appropriate relatives were settled with them. The inappropriate relatives or the onlookers who were simply there for drama had been sent home.

‘Is everything OK?’ he asked.

‘I’ll go through the case notes—’

‘There’s no need,’ Charles told her. Christina appeared in the doorway behind him and the complement of doctors had suddenly grown to three. Charles spun across to the desk and lifted the folders she’d started out at the crash site. ‘Christina and I can take over here.’

‘Lilly?’

‘She’ll be fine,’ Christina told her. ‘We’ll fly her out for plastic surgery tomorrow morning but she’s stable.’

‘And…Karen…?’

‘That’s your next job,’ Charles said grimly. ‘I’m sorry, Gina, but I can’t let you go to bed yet.’

‘You need help with Karen?’