Marion Lennox
His Secret Love-Child
© 2006
Dear Reader,
As many of you know, I’m from Australia, home of Truly Scary Wildlife. I write fiction, but sometimes real life is scarier.
Some months ago, an extended family camped by one of our northern rivers. During the night a crocodile entered one of the family tents and grabbed a young father. Crocs don’t mess around. Once a croc has you, there’s little you can do to fight back. When the croc started dragging the young man toward the river, he knew what his fate would be, but as he was dragged away he screamed to his wife to save the baby.
But the croc reckoned without Grandma. Grandma woke, assumed the croc had the baby, and promptly jumped on its head. Despite being savagely bitten, despite her arm being broken, she stayed where she was until someone found a gun.
Everyone lived to tell the tale.
This wonderful true story led to four of us Down Under authors thinking what a fantastic setting the harsh north of Australia would be for a story-or a bunch of stories. We thought about the men and women of the Outback Medivac services and what drama they see every day of their working lives. The idea of CROCODILE CREEK: 24-HOUR RESCUE was born.
So, what better way to start a series than with an abandoned baby and a house full of medical rescue personnel, young doctors from around the world finding excitement and passion-oh, and crocodiles?
I’ve loved writing my CROCODILE CREEK story. I hope you love reading it, and you follow us as we take you to our exciting fact-meets-fiction world.
Marion Lennox
CHAPTER ONE
THIS old house had seen it all.
He should find somewhere else to live, Cal decided as he sat on the back veranda and gazed out over the moonlit sea. Living in a house filled with young doctors from every corner of the world could sometimes be a riot, but sometimes it was just plain scary.
Like now. Kirsty-the-Intern and Simon-the-Cardiologist had disappeared into the sunset, protesting personal concerns so serious they needed to break their contracts. They’d left a house agog with gossip, two bereft lovers and a hospital that was desperately understaffed.
Crocodile Creek, Remote Rescue Base, for all of far north Queensland, was notoriously short of doctors at the best of times. Two doctors were away on leave, a third had somersaulted his bike last week and was still in traction, and a fourth-unbelievably-had chickenpox. The two doctors who’d left so hastily hadn’t considered that when they’d started their hot little…personal concern.
Dammit, Cal thought. Damn them. Now there was a bereft and confused Emily, and Mike, whose pride at least would be dented. Both were wonderful medics and fine friends. In such a confined household even Cal would be called on for comfort, and if there was one thing Dr Callum Jamieson disliked above all else, it was getting involved. All Cal wanted from life was to practise his medicine and commune with his beer.
And not think about Gina.
So why was he thinking of Gina now? It had been five years since he’d seen her. She should be forgotten.
She wasn’t.
It was just this emotional stuff that was making him maudlin, he thought savagely. The old bush-nursing hospital that now served as Crocodile Creek’s doctors’ residence seemed to be a constant scene for some sort of emotional drama-and dramas made him think of Gina.
Gina walking away and not looking back.
He had to stop thinking of her! Gina had been his one dumb foray into emotional attachment and he was well out of it.
Maybe he should find Mike and play some pool, he thought. That’d clear his head of unwanted memories, it’d stop him swearing at the sea and maybe it’d help Mike.
But there wasn’t time. He’d have to take another shift tonight. There might be no surgery to perform, but with the current shortage of doctors Cal could be called on to treat anything from hayfever to snake bite.
That meant he couldn’t even have another beer.
Damn Simon. Damn Kirsty, he thought savagely. Their sordid little affair was messing with his life. His friends had loved them and he didn’t want his friends to be unhappy. He wanted the Crocodile Creek doctors’ house to be as it had been until today-a fun-filled house full of life and laughter, a place to base himself without care while he practised the medicine he loved.
The door opened and Emily, of the now non-existent Simon-and-Emily partnership, was standing behind him, pale-faced and tear-stained. Emily was a highly skilled anaesthetist. He and Emily made a great operating team.
Right now Emily looked about sixteen years old.
He didn’t do emotional involvement!
But he moved on the ancient settee to let her sit beside him, and he put an arm around her and he hugged. OK, he didn’t do emotional involvement but Emily was a sweetheart.
‘Simon’s a rat,’ he told her.
‘He’s not.’ She hiccuped on a sob. ‘He’ll come back. He and Kirsty aren’t really-’
‘He and Kirsty are really,’ he told her. It wasn’t helping anything if she kept deceiving herself. ‘He really is a rat, and you can’t love a rat. Think about the life they lead down there in the sewers. Gross. Come on, Em. You can do better than that.’
‘Says you,’ she whispered. ‘You lost your lady-rat five years ago, and have you done better since Gina left? I don’t think so.’
‘Hey!’ He was so startled he almost spilled his beer. How did Em know about Gina? Then he gave an inward groan. How could she not? Everyone knew everything in this dratted house. Sometimes he thought they were even privy to his dreams.
‘We’re not talking about me,’ he said, trying to sound neutral. ‘We’re talking about you. You’re the one who needs to recover from a broken heart.’
‘Well, I’m not going to learn from you, then,’ she wailed. ‘Five years, and you’re still not over it. Charles says you’re just as much in love with Gina as you were five years ago, and for me it’s just starting. Oh, Cal, I can’t bear it.’
Gunyamurra. Three hundred miles south. A birth and then…a heartbeat?
No. It was her imagination. There was nothing.
Nothing.
Distressed beyond measure, the girl stared down at the tiny scrap of humanity that should have been her son. Maybe he could have been her son. Given another life.
How could she have hoped this child would live? She was little more than a child herself, so how could she have ever dared to dream? How could she have ever deserved something so wonderful as a baby?
Now what? Living, this child might well have made her life explode into meaning. But now…
It would all go on as before, the girl thought drearily. Somehow.
Her body ached with physical pain and desolate loss. She was weighed down, sinking already back into the thick, grey abyss of the last few months’ despair.
She put out a tentative finger and traced the contours of the lifeless face. Her baby.
She had to leave him. There was no use in her staying, and this quiet place of moss and ferns was as good a place as any to say goodbye.
‘I wish your father could have seen you,’ she whispered, and at the thought of what might have been, the tears finally started to flow.
Tears were useless. She had to get back. The cars were leaving. She’d slip into the back seat of the family car and her parents wouldn’t even question where she’d been. They wouldn’t notice.
Of course they wouldn’t notice. Why would they? Her life was nothing.
Her baby was dead.