Australia: Handsome Heroes. Alison Roberts
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Of course not. When had he ever?
But she had a baby to take care of. Cal’s emotional entanglement, or lack of it, had to wait.
Mike was waiting for her to make a decision. He was looking interested—as interested in the chemistry between them as he was in the baby—and that made her flush. She remembered how intimate working in this sort of environment could be. She even remembered enjoying it, but she didn’t relish the questions she saw forming in Mike’s eyes now.
‘I’ll wait for an hour and reassess,’ she said, trying to make her voice calm and professional. ‘We need to get him fully warmed and make sure the shock of delivery has worn off. Maybe once he’s settled we might get better circulation.’
‘But probably not,’ Cal said.
‘No,’ she said heavily. ‘Probably not.’
‘So Gina’ll need to stay.’ Mike wasn’t sure what was going on—his eyes were still asking questions—but he was certainly prepared to be friendly while he found out. He gave Cal a rueful smile. ‘Just lucky we have plenty of room in the doctors’ quarters, eh?’
Cal’s face tightened. ‘She can’t stay in the doctors’quarters.’
‘Why not?’ Mike was confused.
‘I’ll stay in town,’ Gina said hurriedly, but Mike shook his head. He was obviously a skilled paramedic, accustomed to making hard decisions, fast decisions, and he made one now.
‘No way. I’m sorry, Gina, but this baby is sick.’ He cast a dubious glance at Cal—as if he thought Cal might just be losing his mind. ‘We all know this baby’s high risk. It seems to me that we need our cardiologist on hand, right here. Wouldn’t you say, Cal?’
‘Of course.’ The words were tight and blunt. Cal turned away to pack equipment and Mike shook his head at his friend. He was obviously still confused.
‘Cal’s being a bore,’ he told Gina, with another dubious glance at his friend. ‘He’s tired. Too much work. But there’s plenty of us around here who are gentlemen.’ He tried a smile. ‘Especially me.’ He waited to see if he’d teased a reaction from Cal, but a reaction wasn’t anywhere in sight. ‘OK.’ He sighed. ‘Let’s find your son and find you a bedroom.’
‘I’ll stay here and monitor the baby,’ Cal told them, still without turning around.
‘Of course,’ Mike said politely. ‘How did I know you were going to say that?’
‘The baby needs monitoring.’
‘Of course he does, Dr Jamieson,’ Mike agreed. He compressed his lips in disapproval and then he turned to Gina. ‘OK. There’s obviously just me being a gentleman, but I’m all yours. Take me or leave me.’
Charles entered the nursery silently, wheeling his chair across the smooth linoleum until he came to rest against the incubator under the overhead lights. Cal was gazing down at the baby and, seeing the look of his face, Charles thought, Uh-oh.
‘Will we lose him?’
Cal turned and stared, almost unseeingly, down at his friend.
‘I don’t know. He has a chance.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘Gina’s here.’
‘I heard.’ Charles hesitated. He’d met Gina before, just the once. He’d been astounded by the change the relationship had wrought on his reserved friend, and when it had gone pear-shaped he’d felt ill. Now Mike had given him a quick update on what was happening, and he was even more concerned. He’d suspected Cal’s past would catch up with him sooner or later but, damn, he didn’t want him to be presented with it now.
From a selfish point of view they were too many doctors down already. He couldn’t afford to have another of his staff in emotional crisis.
‘Are you coping?’ he asked, and Cal shrugged.
‘I’m coping. You’ve seen the kid?’
‘I’ve seen the little boy, yes.’
‘Dammit, Charles, he looks like me.’
‘Could you be his father?’
It was a direct question and it jolted Cal. He stared at the question from all sides and there was only one answer.
‘Yeah,’ he said heavily. ‘I could.’
‘And that makes you feel—how?’
‘How do you suppose it makes me feel?’ Cal turned and faced his friend square on. ‘If it’s true…She got pregnant and left? Went back to the States to her husband?’ He closed his eyes. ‘Hell, Charles, I don’t want to think about it. I can’t think. I don’t have time. We need to get this baby viable. He needs urgent surgery and we’re stuck with Gina to do it. No one else has the skills.’
He stared down into the crib and his mouth twisted. ‘We’ll do the best for him, poor little scrap. He’s been abandoned, too. People…they play games. They have kids for all sorts of reasons. Who knows what the reason is behind this little one and who knows what the reason is behind the child who’s out in Mrs Grubb’s kitchen, waiting for his mother to take him home? I can’t face any of it. Just…Let’s stick to medicine. It’s all I know. It’s all I want to know.’
There was a moment’s silence. Move on, Cal willed Charles, and finally he seemed to decide that was all there was to do.
‘Emily will do the anaesthetic,’ Charles said mildly, his voice carefully neutral, not giving away any of the anxiety that someone who knew him well could detect behind his eyes. ‘She’s contacting a paediatric colleague in the city who’ll stay on the phone throughout. Do you want to assist, or will I find someone else?’
‘Who?’ He was the only surgeon, and both of them knew it. But he shrugged. ‘It’s OK. I want to assist.’
‘So you can bear to be in the same room as her?’
‘I thought I loved her,’ Cal said heavily. ‘Once. I was a fool—but sure I can stay in the same room as her. I need to be able to. If that’s really my son…’ His voice trailed off.
‘Well, let’s get on with it,’ Charles said, and there was still heavy anxiety behind his eyes. ‘We need to save this life. For now, Cal, that’s all we can think about.’
CHAPTER THREE
SHE was good.
There was no doubting Dr Gina Lopez’s skill. Cal could only watch and wonder.
Not that there was much time for wondering. To operate on a child so young, to insert catheters into such a tiny heart, putting pressure on the faulty valve—that was something that in an adult heart would be tricky but in this pint-sized scrap of humanity seemed impossible.
Emily, the anaesthetist, was at the limits of her capability as well. This procedure should be done by an anaesthetist specialising in paediatrics, but Emily was all they had. She was sweating as she worked, as she monitored the tiny heartbeat, treading the fine line of not enough anaesthetic, or too much and straining this little body past more than it could bear.
Jill, the director of nursing and their most skilled Theatre nurse, was assisting Emily. She was sweating as well.
It was Cal who assisted Gina.
He watched her fingers every step of the way, trying to figure what she was doing, trying to anticipate so there was no delay between her need for a piece of equipment and the time she had it. He was organising, swabbing, waiting for the pauses in her finger movements to reach forward and clear the way for her. Holding things steady. Watching the monitor when she couldn’t, guiding her with his voice, and holding catheters steady when she had to focus on the monitor herself.
Grace, their second nurse, was behind him, and