‘Um… I’ve never met you before,’ he ventured, and she nodded.

‘No.’

‘Then how-’

‘Hey, she’s not my baby,’ she told him, meeting his eyes and holding them with a look that was direct and strong. Challenging. ‘She’s yours.’

‘I don’t-’

‘My sister is…’ She caught herself at that and she bit her lip while the shadows under eyes seemed to darken. ‘My sister was Fiona Campbell. She was a locum here until last December. Do you remember her?’

His eyes widened. Fiona Campbell. He certainly remembered Fiona, and he remembered her with a certain amount of horror. ‘Yes, but-’

‘You went to bed with her?’

To bed. His gut gave a stupid lurch. You went to bed with her. Fiona…

Dear God, this was the stuff of nightmares. ‘Yes, but-’

‘There you are, then,’ she said wearily. ‘One and one make three. Fiona had your baby a month ago and she died the day after delivery.’

This time the silence seemed to reach into eternity. The woman didn’t say another word-just sat and watched, giving him time to take it in. The child by her side was silent as well. The little boy held onto her shirt fiercely, as if keeping in contact with her was the only important thing in his life. And the baby was sound asleep, nestled in a swathe of pink blankets and oblivious to the world around her.

Fiona Campbell.

Hell.

She’d been the flightiest locum. Graham, his uncle and his partner in this tiny country medical practice, had been ill and Nate had been desperate. Fiona had been the only doctor who’d answered his advertisement.

So she’d bubbled into his life, sparkling with life and totally fascinating. She had been gorgeously, stunningly beautiful.

She had also been a little bit…mad?

It had taken him time to see it. She’d lived her life to the full, hardly sleeping, partying, accepting dates with anyone who’d asked her and running on sheer adrenalin.