Her baby was dead.

‘There’s a baby behind my rock.’

Gina closed her eyes in frustration and tried hard not to snap. CJ’s need for the toilet was turning into a marathon. The coach left the rodeo grounds in ten minutes and if they missed the coach…

They couldn’t miss the coach. Being stranded at Gunyamurra in the heart of Australia’s Outback was the stuff of nightmares.

‘CJ, just do what you need to do and come on out,’ she ordered, trying hard for a voice with inbuilt authority. It didn’t work. Dr Gina Lopez might be a highly qualified cardiologist who worked in a state-of-the-art medical unit back home in the US, but controlling one four-year-old was sometimes beyond her.

CJ was just like his daddy, she thought wearily. Even though those big brown eyes made her heart melt, he was fiercely independent, determined to follow his own road, whatever the cost.

Like now. CJ had taken one look at the portable toilets and dug in his heels.

‘I’m not using them. They’re horrible.’

They were, too, Gina conceded. The Gunyamurra Rodeo had come to an end, the portable toilets had accommodated a couple of hundred beer-swilling patrons and CJ’s criticism was definitely valid.

So she’d directed his small person to where the parking lot turned into bushland. Even then she had problems. Her independent four-year-old required privacy.

‘Someone will see me.’

‘Go behind a rock. No one will see.’

‘OK, but I’m going behind the rock by myself.’

‘Fine.’

And now…

‘There’s a baby behind my rock.’

Right. She loved his imagination but this was no time for dreaming.

‘CJ, please, hurry,’ she told him, with another anxious glance across the parking lot where the coach was almost ready to leave. She was too far away to call out, and she hadn’t told the driver to wait. If they missed the coach…