‘We’re not normally this short-staffed,’ Cal told her. ‘We’ve had a couple of dramas.’

He sounded defensive, she thought. Good. It stopped her thinking about all sorts of things she should be defensive about.

‘Do you have an obstetrician?’

‘Georgie’s mother died last week. She’s flown down to Sydney with her little boy, and we don’t want to pull her back unless we have to. She had back-up-Kirsty was an obs and gynae registrar-but there was a bit of a dust-up and Kirsty and Simon left in a hurry. Emotional stuff.’

‘Emotional stuff?’ she demanded, astonished, and he looked even more discomfited.

‘Um, yeah. We don’t need to go there.’

Of course not. When had he ever?

But she had a baby to take care of. Cal’s emotional entanglement, or lack of it, had to wait.

Mike was waiting for her to make a decision. He was looking interested-as interested in the chemistry between them as he was in the baby-and that made her flush. She remembered how intimate working in this sort of environment could be. She even remembered enjoying it, but she didn’t relish the questions she saw forming in Mike’s eyes now.

‘I’ll wait for an hour and reassess,’ she said, trying to make her voice calm and professional. ‘We need to get him fully warmed and make sure the shock of delivery has worn off. Maybe once he’s settled we might get better circulation.’

‘But probably not,’ Cal said.

‘No,’ she said heavily. ‘Probably not.’

‘So Gina’ll need to stay.’ Mike wasn’t sure what was going on-his eyes were still asking questions-but he was certainly prepared to be friendly while he found out. He gave Cal a rueful smile. ‘Just lucky we have plenty of room in the doctors’ quarters, eh?’

Cal’s face tightened. ‘She can’t stay in the doctors’ quarters.’

‘Why not?’ Mike was confused.

‘I’ll stay in town,’ Gina said hurriedly, but Mike shook his head. He was obviously a skilled paramedic, accustomed to making hard decisions, fast decisions, and he made one now.