CJ might well be right.

‘Someone must be here,’ she said, trying to sound assured. She tucked the baby underneath her T-shirt, against her skin, hoping the warmth of her skin would do the same job as an incubator. ‘Come on, CJ. Let’s go find someone.’

CJ was looking at her as if he wasn’t quite sure whether he wanted to accompany her or not. ‘Is the baby OK?’

‘I think so.’ She hoped so.

‘You’ve got blood on your shirt.’

She had. She grimaced down at her disgusting T-shirt but she wasn’t thinking of her appearance. She was thinking of how much blood the baby had lost.

Why had he bled so much? And newborn babies had so little… He couldn’t afford to have lost this much.

He whimpered a little against her and she felt a tiny surge of reassurance. And something more.

Once upon a time-four and a half years ago-she’d held CJ like this, and she’d made the vows she found were forming again in her heart right now. She’d loved CJ’s daddy so much. Cal had taught her what loving could be, and she’d pass that loving on to CJ.

And even though Cal no longer came into it-even though Cal was no part of her life and had nothing to do with this baby-she found herself voicing those same vows. She’d protect this baby, come what may.

What mother could have left him here? she wondered. How much trouble must a woman be suffering to drag herself away from her newborn child?

She thought of how distressed she’d been when CJ had been born-how much she’d longed for Cal and how impossible it had seemed that she raise her son without him. But the bond to her tiny scrap of a son had been unbreakable, regardless.

He’d been her link to Cal.

She’d thought of Cal so much as her son had been born, and suddenly, achingly, she thought of him now.