if she was perfect. The thought of injections, the thought of not being able to eat everything she wanted and the thought of her body being less than perfect… Well, as I said, I think she was a little bit mad. It was as if she saw diabetes as a bar to her perfection and if she ignored it, it’d go away. Only as a doctor you’d know that that’s a disaster.’
He was horrified. Why hadn’t he guessed any of this? He’d never even known she’d been diabetic. And not to control it… ‘That’s practically suicide.’
‘Yes.’ She gave a grim little nod. ‘It is—and by the time she’d finished medical school the effects were starting to show. Then our mother died. Mum and Fiona had fought about Fiona’s diabetic management. Fiona had rebelled but Mum’s death just seemed to make things worse. Things weren’t going right in Fiona’s world and she reacted with anger. Her specialist told her that if she couldn’t keep her diabetes under control then at least she shouldn’t get pregnant. She must have been pregnant within minutes of him saying that. With Cady.’ She shrugged and her eyes seemed to shadow with remembered pain. ‘And her decision to have Cady tore our lives apart.’
Our lives? There was a desperate bleakness in her words and she looked as though she was staring back into a chasm that she couldn’t quite escape.
‘And?’ Nate prodded, and Gemma seemed to shake herself back to reality. To the harshness of now. Her voice became brisk and carefully businesslike.
‘And she darn near died having him. When she didn’t it was as if she was mad at the world. As if she’d been cheated. She was furious that she didn’t die and from then on she was on a downhill spiral of neglect.’
By now Nate was thoroughly confused. He shook his head, trying to reconcile what he was hearing with the vibrant, lovely doctor who’d swept into his life twelve months ago. ‘She seemed fine. I didn’t get any of this when she was here.’
‘No.’ She met his look, her eyes steady and challenging. ‘I guess you only saw what most men saw—the gorgeous Fiona. Fiona the irresistible. But there was another Fiona—the Fiona who walked a fine line between sanity and madness. She had Cady and she walked away from him. She knew…she knew that I’d take care of him. How could I not? But I kept working. After what she’d done to me… I barely managed it but there were glimmers of my former life left.’
He still didn’t follow. ‘That sounds as if she was angry with you.’
‘Of course she was.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘She was supposed to be the perfect one,’ Gemma said wearily. ‘And she was. My mother loved her to distraction and I was sidelined. But she was jealous even of that. She was jealous of me from the moment she was born—as if I could ever compete with her. It was crazy, but like a cuckoo in another bird’s nest she’d push aside any sibling that competed for her attention. And when our mother got sick she leaned on me. That drove Fiona crazy—that Gemma, the plain one, should now have what she wanted. Health. And our mother’s dependence. So she fixed me right up. She saddled me with a baby and then…and then when I managed to cope and still have a life—of sorts—she gave me another. And she died doing it.’
Dear heaven…
Nate sat back in his chair. He let what she’d said drift slowly though his mind, trying to assimilate it. He raised his hand and ran his fingers through his thatch of burnt-red curls, fighting for some sanity. Fighting for some reason.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t think.’
‘There’s not much to think about.’
‘Well, that’s a crazy statement,’ he snapped, shock giving way to anger. ‘Not much to think about! When you come in here and present me with the fact that I’m a father…’
‘If you slept with Fiona you must have known fatherhood was a possibility.’
‘Of course I didn’t.’
‘You’re a doctor,’ she snapped back, as angry as he was. ‘You know very well that no contraceptive is perfect. Unless it’s abstinence. And you and Fiona didn’t practise abstinence.’
‘No, but—’
‘But nothing. She’s your baby.’ She rose again and proffered her bundle. ‘Are you going to take her—or are you intending to arrange an adoption? Fiona had this baby to punish me for not being ill. I’ve thought it through. It worked with Cady. I’ve taken him in and I’ve cared for him and I love him to bits. But with Mia…every time I look at her I get angry. That’s no way to rear a child, Dr Ethan. She deserves better than that. So…you’re her daddy. Will you take her—or will you find someone else who’ll love her?’
He did have an option, he thought incredulously. He could just say take her away and she would. She’d hand her over to adoptive parents.
But no. She was way ahead of him.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she told him flatly, and it was as if she had read his mind. ‘I’m not arranging the adoption. For a start that’d mean taking care of her for longer—and I daren’t take the chance that I’ll grow to love her. And even if I wanted to, I can’t. There are no official documents naming me as her parent. There’s only the birth certificate. Cady’s birth certificate…well, Cady’s certificate landed me right in it, but Mia’s certificate says her mother is deceased and her father is Nate Ethan. You. So as of this moment you’re her sole guardian. Like it or not.’
Carefully, deliberately, she set the sleeping baby on the desk in front of him.
She’d been well cared for, Nate saw in some deep recess of his brain that could still note such things. She was rosy and chubby and beautifully dressed. She’d been loved.
‘How…how old did you say she was?’
‘Four weeks. She should be smiling soon.’
‘And…how long since Fiona…?’
‘Fiona never regained consciousness after the birth. She lapsed into a coma at thirty-eight weeks and the doctors performed an emergency Caesarean. It was all horribly too late. She died the day after delivery.’
He closed his eyes. This was all far too much to take in. Fiona dead?
And he had a daughter.
No! ‘You can’t leave her here!’
‘Watch me.’ She tilted her chin in a gesture of defiance and then handed over a business card. ‘This is where you can find me.’
‘If I need you?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m tired of being needed, Dr Ethan. Cady needs me and that’s all the responsibility I can handle. But if…in future…you want Cady to meet his half-sister…’
Hell. The future stretched before him, vast and unknown. Ten minutes ago his future had been the Terama Jazzfest. Now…
‘You can’t do this.’
‘I can.’ She leaned over the little boy and took Cady’s hand in hers. ‘That’s a great tower,’ she told the little boy. ‘But we need to go.’
‘You’re leaving town?’ Nate’s voice was an incredulous croak and she smiled, not without sympathy.
‘That’s the plan. We live in Sydney and it’s a long drive.’
‘But what the hell am I meant to do?’
‘What I’ve been doing,’ she told him. ‘Shoulder your responsibility. You are a doctor after all. I assume you know baby basics and I’ve checked your background. You have a nice little bush nursing hospital on hand. They’ll have everything you need.’ She laid a bag on the desk beside the sleeping baby. ‘This contains formula, bottles, clothes—everything you need. And now, Dr Ethan, you’re on your own.’