CHAPTER ONE

      YES...

      This was all shaping up to be even better than Georgia could have imagined.

      While she was well aware that she was a part of the growing percentage of women succeeding in demanding careers like paramedicine, there were hundreds and hundreds of people here and it seemed like the majority of them were men.

      The kind of men that had always stood out from the crowd for her. Intelligent, confident men who were caring enough to devote their working lives to caring for others. Born leaders who could wear a uniform like a second skin rather than an advertisement of achievement or authority.

      One of them could be exactly the kind of man she would choose to be the father of her child.

      The sense of unease that touched the back of her neck and rippled down her spine was becoming familiar but Georgia had come up with a way to shrug it off with what seemed a perfectly feasible argument in her defence. She wasn’t the only woman who was prepared to embrace the decision to bring a child into the world without a partner.

      She could have taken what was becoming an accepted route to parenthood by paying for the services of a sperm bank and the initial part of that process would be to peruse the profiles of available candidates. She would be making judgements based on physical attributes like height and colouring. Academic qualifications and profession could indicate levels of intelligence and determination and interests in things like sport or music could offer an insight into attitudes or talents.

      She could well end up doing exactly that but what put her off that route to parenthood was the fact that it would be recorded. Traceable. The risk of that knowledge being used to interfere with her life was probably small enough to be insignificant but Georgia knew only too well how damaging that interference was capable of being. Why take the risk if it was possible to eliminate it completely?

      She had convinced herself that all she was planning to do was to peruse profiles in a much less clinical fashion, by means of personal interaction.

      The thornier issue of consent was more difficult to shrug off, of course, but there wasn’t any point in facing that one unless she found a suitable candidate. Given her list of requirements, it was quite possible that even this best-case scenario of potentially great men wouldn’t provide exactly what she was looking for.

      What with getting through the registration protocol and transferring their luggage to their accommodation, the time since she and Kate had arrived at the rally had been a bit too busy to get more than a very general impression of their fellow competitors but that had just changed. Standing in a crowded dining hall, holding her dinner tray, Georgia found herself joining Kate’s attempt to locate two empty spaces at a table. Except that it was the array of faces capturing her attention instead of any empty chairs. Surprisingly, many of those faces were looking back at them and they didn’t seem to be simply curious glances that might be assessing competitors. There were smiles to be seen, along with raised eyebrows that suggested friendliness, if not interest.

      Like that very tall guy, with a mop of sun-streaked blond curls and a cheeky grin. The tilt of his head was an unmistakeable invitation to claim the extra space at his table.

      Georgia smiled back.

      ‘There’s some space on that table,’ she told Kate, leading the way. She smiled again as they got closer. ‘Do you mind if we join you guys?’

      ‘Please do.’ He looked delighted. ‘I’m Dave. This is Ken and that’s Sally, who’s stuffing her face there.’

      ‘You’re from Australia, right?’

      ‘No. New Zealand.’ Dave sighed heavily. ‘Everybody thinks our accent is the same but it really isn’t.’ He grinned at Georgia. ‘No mistaking yours. You’re Scottish.’

      ‘I am.’ Georgia took the empty seat right beside Dave.

      New Zealand... It was a country that conjured up images of clean, green forests and pristine beaches—like advertisements for healthy lifestyles. Even better, it was a country on the opposite side of the globe. About as far from Scotland as possible. It was impossible not to register that that fact ticked one of the first boxes on the list of requirements she had drawn up on her potential master plan.

      The plan that had suddenly become rather more than just a half-baked idea, in fact.

      The dumplings on her plate were rather dense and speckled with something green that could be parsley. Dave appeared to be enjoying his meal and Georgia was never fussy with her food so she took a large bite and found that the dumplings were actually better than they looked, especially with a covering of the gravy they were swimming in.

      She glanced sideways as she loaded her fork again. ‘I like your uniforms. Are you paramedics?’

      ‘Yeah...you guys?’

      ‘I’m a paramedic. Kate’s a doctor. Is this your first time here?’

      ‘Sure is. Never seen anything like it.’

      ‘Where are you based at home? City or country?’

      ‘Auckland. Biggest city in the country. And up there in the top cities of the world to live in. You should come and visit sometime.’

      ‘Oh? What’s so great about Auckland?’

      The attractions seemed to focus on fabulous beaches, a great night life and the best food and coffee the world had to offer. Sally and Ken were keen to tell her about what a great place it was to work in the ambulance service as well, but Auckland wasn’t a likely destination to add to any future travel plans, as far as Georgia was concerned.

      Especially if any more boxes on that mental list were going to get ticked and that was apparently happening without her even consciously thinking about it. Dave was tall, which made a good genetic balance for her own slightly below average stature. He was definitely good looking and there was a gleam in those blue eyes that suggested intelligence. As a bonus, his camaraderie with his teammates told her that he wasn’t any kind of sociopath.

      Dave seemed, on first impression, to be a very nice guy and Georgia experienced another pang of guilt that she could even be thinking along these lines. Was she really planning to cultivate a friendship enough to use someone for such a selfish purpose? Getting pregnant accidentally was common enough to be almost normal but it was more than a little disturbingly immoral to plan such an event.

      She glanced at Kate, almost hoping that enough telepathy existed between them that her friend would sense the secret list-ticking and deliver a hint of shock with some raised eyebrows and then a frown, or perhaps a headshake, of total disapproval.

      But Kate wasn’t even looking in her direction. She seemed to be focussed on her meal and wasn’t joining in with the conversation around her. Maybe she was more out of her comfort zone than Georgia had anticipated when she’d persuaded her to come to this competition. Kate was incredibly clever and hardworking and the best friend Georgia had ever had, but nobody could say she was overly adventurous. Or even spontaneous. If there was going to be a break in her normal routines, Kate liked to be able to plan how to cope with it. Making a plan that would turn her whole life upside down would be so unthinkable that Georgia had known instantly that it had been a mistake to even voice her idea of bypassing the