Australia: Handsome Heroes: His Secret Love-Child

‘Apparently not.’

‘So what’s happened now to make things different? Marriage break up?’

‘Her husband’s dead.’

‘Dead?’

‘Quadriplegia. Complications.’

She winced. ‘Oh, Cal, that’s really tough.’

Tough? He didn’t want to think about tough, he thought bitterly. He didn’t want to think about what Gina must have gone through over the last few years.

He didn’t want to think about Gina.

‘Did she use you to get pregnant?’ Em asked, adjusting the drip stand so she could get a clearer view of the baby’s tiny face. ‘Because her husband was a quad?’

‘No!’ It was his turn to wince. OK, that was what he’d thought initially, but somehow…that someone else should think that of Gina was unbearable. ‘He was injured just after she discovered she was pregnant.’

‘Ouch.’ She flicked another glance up at him and then looked away. ‘So that’s why the loyalty. That’s why she went back to him.’

‘Em, could we leave this?’

She looked at him steadily then, her intelligent eyes turning thoughtful. ‘Maybe we can and maybe we can’t. So now her husband’s dead and she comes back—’

‘Em…’

‘It puts a different complexion on things,’ she said, unperturbed. ‘I always wondered how the guy would feel in such a situation. To be unexpectedly a full-fledged dad. And for Gina to front you now…It’d be so hard. But maybe she’s right.’ She cocked her head to one side, considering. ‘I wonder. Even if you’d done this via a sperm bank, maybe there’s a moral obligation to tell you that your sperm’s successful? That’s there’s a kid out there in your image?’

‘He wasn’t the result of any sperm bank. Em, we need to write up these notes.’

‘Yeah, Charles told me it was a really hot affair.’ Em grinned, refusing to be deflected. ‘Not a sperm bank at all. This is the one that gossip says broke your heart. Charles said she really cracked your armour and it’s the only time in your life it’s ever been cracked. Well, now.’

‘Em…’

‘Hey, but she’s here and you don’t have an excuse to be heartbroken any more.’ Em even looked cheerful. ‘You’ve been using the excuse that you loved and lost for five long years. You’ve been using it to keep the world and commitment at bay. Now you can take up where you left off. And she’s not married. You know, I’ll bet that was one of the things that attracted you to her in the first place. I can see letting yourself fall for a divorcée with as jaded a view of commitment as you have. But now…I wonder what you’ll decide to do now?’

‘What the—?’

‘She’s been an excuse, hasn’t she, Cal?’ Em said softly, boring right to the heart of the matter. There was something about this time, this place—the dim light of the nursery with only this one tiny baby between them—that made a conversation like this seem possible. Or less impossible. ‘All these years, you’ve been telling yourself that you haven’t got involved with anyone because Gina broke your heart. You’ve been letting us all think you still love Gina.’

‘I don’t,’ he snapped. But…Did he?

‘Then why haven’t you gone out with other women?’

‘I have. Look, can we leave this?’

‘Of course,’ she agreed. ‘But as for going out with other women…Sure you do, until they get the first idea that they might be able to expect some emotional return. Then you drop them like hot coals. And if you think the rest of the staff in the house will leave it, you’re very much mistaken. Are you taking over here at nine?’

‘Nine till twelve. Yes.’

‘There you go, then.’ She turned back to her little patient. ‘We’ll just have to keep you alive until then, won’t we, Lucky?’ Her face softened. ‘And then it’s Dr Cal’s turn to keep you alive. Or Dr Gina’s, or whoever else is on duty. But we will keep you alive.’

The intensity of her voice shocked him.

‘Of course we will,’ he told her, and she looked up and met his eyes. Her own eyes welled with tears.

‘There’s a mother out there who doesn’t have a son,’ she whispered. ‘It’s our job to keep our Lucky safe until we find her. But isn’t it strange that on this day, when we’ve found this unknown baby, you’ve found your own son?’ She smiled at him, a wavering smile that said as much about her own fragile emotional state as it did about her uncertainty over the little boy’s fate. ‘Go on, now, Cal. I have a job to do. And maybe you do, too. See if you can find CJ before you come back on duty. You have years of catching up to do.’

CHAPTER FOUR

THE house was still when Cal returned. Unusually still. Everyone must be out, he decided. Or busy.

Half their luck.

He grabbed a beer but then replaced it. With regret. He could really use a beer, but if he was to go back on duty at nine he had to leave it.

Why was the kitchen empty? And the lounge? Where was everyone? This house was always full of people. He needed people.

He needed people now.

The door swung wide and he turned, but it wasn’t the people he wanted. Or maybe it was.

‘Hi.’ It was Gina. And CJ. His son.

They’d been laughing, he thought. CJ was still smiling broadly and there was a trace of a smile fading from Gina’s face. Gina had showered and changed since he’d last seen her. Apparently her luggage was on the coach to Cairns, but someone had lent her jeans and a soft blue and white gingham blouse. She’d brushed her dark curls until they shone and she looked…she looked…

‘Did you have a good evening?’ he managed, but then he had to think for a minute to figure out what his words meant. Everything seemed disoriented.

Luckily CJ noticed nothing strange. He was more than prepared to chat. ‘Bruce took us to Athina’s for dinner ’cos he says Mrs Poulos makes the best food in town,’ he told him. ‘And tomorrow he says he’ll take us crocodile hunting again.’

‘I’m not sure whether we can go,’ Gina told him.

‘But we have to go. And he gave me this hat.’ This was obviously the highlight of the evening. The little boy was wearing a vast, battered Akubra Cal would have recognised from a mile away.

‘Bruce gave you his hat?’ Here was another astonishment. Cal knew Bruce well, and he knew the croc hunter lived in this hat.

But apparently no longer.

‘He says it’s time he got a new one,’ CJ said proudly, lifting it off his head to poke his finger through a hole, centrefront. ‘I asked him if this was from a bullet and he said it might have been.’

‘Bedtime, CJ.’Gina was steering CJ firmly toward the door.

CJ balked, planting his feet. Bracing himself.

‘Can Cal read me a story?’

‘Cal’s busy.’