Lilian Darcy - The Australian's Desire - Their Lost-and-Found Family / Long-Lost Son - Brand-New Family / A Proposal Worth Waiting For

‘Look, this’ll be the first time I’ve driven on the left … I’m not covered. Insurance-wise, I mean. If anything happens to the kids …’

‘Here we go,’ Georgie said, and sighed. ‘American insurance paranoia.’ The ambos had already started carrying the stretcher to the door and she was moving with them. ‘Firstly, there’s no one around to crash into,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘It’s midday, and only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Or Yankee neurosurgeons. So the roads will be deserted and there’s no one to hit. Second, it’s a straight line from here to the hospital. You can follow the ambulance. If you’re nervous then move over and tell Davy to drive. He’s probably as competent as you are.’

And with that she left, leaving him to follow.

The hospital was just as he remembered it. Long and low and cool, open to the ocean breeze. Actually, the ocean breeze was more than a breeze at the moment. The surrounding palms were tossing wildly, and the sea was covered in whitecaps. But the place still looked lovely. If you had to be sick this was one of the best places in the world to be.

Alistair pulled up in the car park and took the two children inside.

The children hadn’t complained as their mother had left. Now they took a hand apiece, infinitely trusting. He felt really off balance, walking into Crocodile Creek Hospital Emergency with a child on each hand.

The ambulance was in the unloading bay, already unloaded. He hadn’t followed it closely, preferring to travel slowly and safely. For all Georgie’s reassurance, the left-hand-drive thing was a challenge, and having two small passengers made him careful.

There was no sign of Lizzie or Megan, but Georgie was in the emergency department, carrying Thomas. She was still in bare feet. He’d picked up her abandoned stilettos from the pathway—

they were still in the car—a monument to stupidity. But she didn’t look stupid now.

There was a nurse beside her. He recognised this woman from his last visit, too. Grace?

Grace gave him a smile of welcome but Georgie ignored him, bending down to greet the kids.

‘Dottie. Davy. Dr Alistair got you here safely, then? That’s great. Well done, both of you. And well done, Davy, for getting help so fast. Now, we’re just giving your mum a proper wash and getting her really cool. She hasn’t been drinking—that’s why she’s been sick. You know we popped a needle into her arm, and into Thomas’s, to get water in faster? We’ve done the same to Megan. Megan’s having a little sleep. But you guys will be thirsty as well, and probably hungry. So do you want to come and find your mum and Megan straight away or can Grace take you to the kitchen and give you some chocolate ice cream?’

It was exactly the right thing to say, Alistair thought. By the look of that hut, these kids must be starving. But Georgie wasn’t sending them away with Grace without their consent. They were being given the choice. Your mum is safe. You can see her now, or there’s ice cream on offer. The choice is yours.

‘How about you have the ice cream and then come back and see your mum?’ Grace said, tipping the scales. ‘You know Mrs Grubb, don’t you? She gave you ice cream when your mum was having the baby. She’s in the kitchen right now, getting out bowls. And I think she has lemonade, too.’

‘I really like ice cream,’ Dottie whispered, and she even smiled. It was a great little smile, the first Alistair had seen from the children. He released their hands and watched them go, but as he did so he was aware of a sharp stab of something that almost seemed like … loss? Which was crazy.

The door through to the hospital kitchens swung closed behind them, and he became aware that Georgie was watching him. She had the saline drip looped over her shoulder, holding Thomas low so it was gravity feeding. She needed a drip stand.

‘Do you want help with Thomas?’ he asked.

‘I’ll take him through to the nursery in a minute, but apart from horrible nappy rash he seems OK. You know Davy’s been dripping water into his mouth? What a hero.’

‘He is,’ Alistair said, and he thought back to the frail child sitting in the middle of the bridge and felt stunned. Awed.

‘You remember Charles Wetherby—our director? Charles has Lizzie in his charge,’ Georgie continued. She’d walked over to a drip stand and he moved with her, taking the saline bag from her shoulder and hanging it on its wheeled hook. ‘It looks like severe infection. Charles is continuing the IV antibiotics and the nurses are cleaning her up. She’s a mess.’

‘When did she have the baby?’

‘Four days ago.’

The image of Davy was still in the forefront of his mind. Lizzie, going home to the care of a six-year-old. ‘You let her go home to that?’ he demanded incredulously. ‘Did you know her circumstances?’

It wasn’t implied criticism. It was a direct attack.

Back home Alistair was head of a specialist neurosurgery unit. He had hiring and firing capabilities and he used them. The voice he had used then was the one that had any single subordinate—and many who weren’t subordinate—shaking in their shoes. At least cringing a little.

Georgie didn’t cringe. She met his gaze directly, as if she had nothing to search her conscience over.

‘Yes.’

‘What were you thinking?’

‘I wasn’t thinking anything. I was making the best of a bad situation. I spent the whole of Lizzie’s pregnancy convincing her to come to the hospital for the birth. She’s had the last three children at home. But this time I succeeded. She came in. I was hugely relieved, but when her partner insisted she go straight home I sent her with everything she needed. Including a course of antibiotics. No, at that stage she didn’t need it, but I knew the hut.’

‘It was criminal to let her go back there. You know the little girl’s been burned. That’s a cigarette burn.’

‘I know. That’s new. Up until now Lizzie would have stood up to him if he’d hurt the children. It’s a sign of how sick she is.’

‘But you let her go back.’

‘You think I should have chained her up?’

‘Surely a woman with sense—’

‘Lizzie is a woman of sense,’ she said, practically spitting. ‘She’s had a lousy childhood, she has a dreadful self-image and her partner …’

She broke off. Someone was coming into Emergency—no, two men, a uniformed police officer with a younger man in front of him. The young man was dark, but not the dark of the Australian indigenous people, as Lizzie was. He looked European. Mediterranean? He was dressed in filthy fishing clothes, he looked as if he hadn’t shaved for a week, and the smell of him reached them before he did.

He didn’t look like he wanted to be there, but the policeman was behind him, prodding him forward, giving him no choice. ‘Hi, Georgie,’ he said, but he didn’t smile. ‘You wanted to talk to Smiley?’

‘Smiley,’ Georgie said, and Alistair stared. Georgie was tiny, five feet two in her bare feet. She looked like you could pick her up and put her wherever you wanted. Not with that tongue, though. What she unleashed on the man before her was pure ice.

‘Thanks, Harry,’ she said, and nodded to the policeman with what was to be the last of her pleasantries. ‘Alistair, can you take Thomas for a minute?’ Before he could answer she’d handed over the sleeping baby, forcing Alistair to move closer to the drip stand. Then she poked her finger into the middle of Smiley’s chest and pushed him backward.

‘What the hell did you do with Lizzie’s antibiotics?’ she demanded, and although she spoke softly her words were razors. ‘And the supplies we gave her. The nappies. The canned food.’