Their Newborn Baby Gift. Alison Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ of time. Just enough to suck in a single breath but the silence seemed charged.

      And then it was broken.

      Not by this man saying anything. Or Evie saying anything. Or the footfalls of anyone else arriving in the car park. It was broken by another sound. High-pitched and wobbly. Like a kitten mewing.

      Except that Evie spent enough time around babies to think it was very unlikely to be a kitten.

      ‘Did you hear that?’ Her head turned so that she could look in the direction the sound had come from—that bank of wheelie bins tucked out of sight at the back of the hospital. The bin on the end was one of those wire mesh ones that took folded cardboard for recycling but someone hadn’t bothered to squash one of the boxes and put it in the bin. This box was tucked between the recycling bin and a solid bin but it was poking out far enough to make it easily noticeable.

      Another tiny mew cut through the still air and Evie turned her whole body now, her necklace completely forgotten. She was aware that the stranger was following her as she ran towards the box but it didn’t matter. Any tension between them had been forgotten along with the necklace, in the face of something far more concerning.

      * * *

      Ryan dropped the necklace into his pocket with a sigh as he followed this suddenly rather irritating small woman.

      He wanted to get to his bed and sleep off his jet lag so he could be on form for his first day on the new job tomorrow. When he’d spotted the glint of jewellery on the way back to his car, he’d known instantly that it probably belonged to her. It had been a surprise to find the car that he’d seen her open was still there, parked alongside his, so he’d been waiting and thinking about what to do. Take the necklace into Reception? Hang onto it in the hope of seeing her somewhere around the hospital? He’d certainly recognise her easily. He’d finally come up with the solution of tucking it under the windscreen wipers of her car when he’d seen her coming into the car park, her head bent as she walked slowly, clearly looking for her lost property.

      Why hadn’t he said anything? Or walked to meet her? What had been with that odd urge to simply watch her getting closer to him? To let the anticipation build until she noticed him and met his gaze?

      And what on earth could explain that really weird moment when she’d touched his hand and jerked away as if it were a hot coal? He’d felt the heat, as well.

      She was ahead of him so she reached the box first, crouching down beside it. She was wearing scrubs under her coat so he assumed she was a nurse at Hope Hospital and that was a pleasing thought. He’d probably see her again, then...

      ‘Oh, my God...’ She was peering into the box. ‘I knew it had to be...’

      ‘What?’ Ryan crouched beside her. ‘Good grief...a baby?’ He lifted the box, moving to where he could catch some light from the nearest lamp. He didn’t like the colour of the baby’s face and it was clearly in some respiratory distress because it could barely summon the strength to cry. Without hesitating a moment longer, he began striding towards the back entrance of the hospital.

      ‘Where are you going?’ She was almost having to run to keep up with him.

      ‘I need to examine this baby properly. It’s not well.’

      ‘You need to examine it?’

      ‘I’m a doctor here. Or I will be tomorrow.’ He kept moving. ‘My name’s Ryan Walker.’

      ‘Oh... You’re the new surgeon? The Australian?’

      ‘Yep.’ Ryan had reached the door. Unlike the main entrance, this one needed a security pass to open it from the outside.

      ‘I’ll do it. I’ve got a card.’ She leaned past him. ‘I’m Evie Cooper. I work here.’

      ‘Where’s the emergency department? Oh, I don’t suppose there is one, with this being a private hospital?’

      ‘I work in Intensive Care,’ Evie told him. ‘Let’s take him there.’

      Ryan nodded as he followed her inside. ‘Lead the way. And let’s hurry.’

       CHAPTER THREE

      JANINE LOOKED SHOCKED, as well she might, when Evie hurried into the neonatal intensive care unit accompanied by a man in a tuxedo who was carrying a cardboard box. One of the intensive care specialists, Susie, was sitting beside Janine at the central station and her jaw dropped as well.

      ‘A baby’s been abandoned in the car park,’ Evie explained. ‘A neonate.’

      ‘I’ll take him.’ Susie was on her feet now.

      ‘Procedure room?’ Janine asked.

      ‘I’d like to examine him myself,’ Ryan told them. ‘I don’t think this baby is well. And I don’t think it’s simply hypothermia.’

      Both the women behind the desk stared at him.

      ‘This is Ryan Walker,’ Evie said. ‘Our new neonatal cardiac surgeon?’

      ‘Oh...’ Susie blinked. ‘Pleased to meet you. You’ve been at the gala, I guess.’

      ‘Yes.’ Ryan’s smile was tight. He clearly didn’t want to waste time on introductions. ‘Where is this procedure room?’

      ‘Right this way.’ Janine was back to her normal calm efficiency in the face of any emergency.

      There was no real reason for Evie to go with them but nobody stopped her and she didn’t even pause to think about whether it was appropriate. She was the one who’d heard this infant and discovered him. She was already involved. Connected. Worried sick, even.

      ‘I’ll get the heaters on,’ Janine said, as soon as they entered the clinical space, which was equipped with everything they could possibly need, including ventilators and an empty, state-of-the-art incubator. ‘Where did you find him? Just out in the open in the middle of the car park?’

      ‘No. He was kind of hidden between the wheelie bins near the ambulance bay,’ Evie said, and the squeeze around her heart was almost painful.

      Ryan put the box down and then reached inside to carefully lift the baby out. It was wrapped in a piece of clothing as a blanket. A well-worn hoodie.

      ‘It’s a girl,’ Susie murmured. ‘And very recently born. Within the last hour or two, I’d say. Oh, my...is that a hair tie on the cord?’

      ‘How long has she been outside, do you think?’ Janine had switched on both overhead and mattress heaters. ‘It’s freezing out there.’

      ‘It has to be more than half an hour,’ Ryan said, stripping off his tuxedo jacket and throwing it into a corner of the room. He started to roll up his shirtsleeves, stepping towards the sink to wash his hands. ‘I was standing not far away for at least that long and I would have seen somebody leaving the box.’

      He turned his head to glance at Evie, which made her blink and then catch her bottom lip between her teeth. СКАЧАТЬ