Claiming his secret heir—and his bride!

Dr. Ellie Carson once married her secret prince, but then duty tore their whirlwind marriage apart—only, Ellie was also pregnant!

Now surgeon and crown prince Marc Falken is soon to become king—and he’s discovered he has a son! Claiming his heir means seeking out Ellie—the woman he’s never stopped loving. But can Marc convince Ellie that she can be a doctor and his queen, and that finally they can become the family they were always meant to be?

Marc paused, overwhelmed by what he had to tell her.

Ellie rose and opened the sideboard. She poured two whiskies. Large ones.

“I don’t drink this except in emergencies,” she told him. “I suspect I need it now. Maybe we both do. So tell me.”

He took the glass and drained it, and then he looked at Ellie. He could still see the girl he’d loved behind those tired eyes. He could still see the laughter, the fun... But he could also see the care and the responsibility.

He watched her shoulders brace yet again, and he hated it.

“Ellie, I’m now the crown prince of Falkenstein and Felix is my son. It takes a year to formalize a divorce in Australia so Felix was born while we were still legally married. This may mess with all our lives in ways I can’t imagine, but once I’m crowned, Felix will take my current title. Your son—our son—will be the new crown prince of Falkenstein.”

Dear Reader,

What is it with royalty? The combination of tradition, power and wealth is a heady mix that I suspect would be difficult to handle in real life, but as a writer I love playing with ‘what ifs?’. What if an entire royal family was wiped out in one hit? That’s a theme that’s been explored before—an unimaginable tragedy, but to a fiction writer the idea’s gold. What if the unexpected heir to the throne is a doctor, dedicated to his calling, who wants nothing to do with royalty? And what if, years ago, that doctor had a secret son, who’s suddenly the new crown prince?

The situation had me wiggling my toes in the sand in delight as I took my dog for her daily beach walk. I love a good ‘what if?’, and if it combines the pageantry of a royal coronation, a feel-good romance and a secret baby thrown in for good measure, hooray! The dog and I needed to walk our legs off in order for me to sort out all the complications, but we loved how it all turned out. At least I did. Sadly, Bonnie was too busy chasing seagulls to care.

Marion

Reunited With Her Surgeon Prince

Marion Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Books by Marion Lennox

Mills & Boon Medical Romance

Wildfire Island Docs

Saving Maddie’s Baby

A Child to Open Their Hearts

Meant-to-Be Family

From Christmas to Forever?

Falling for Her Wounded Hero

Mills & Boon Cherish

His Cinderella Heiress

Stepping into the Prince’s World

Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

Praise for Marion Lennox

“This is a wonderful book, full of the trademark warmth, soul-searching and cheer Marion Lennox brings to all her books.”

—Goodreads on From Christmas to Forever?

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

Booklist

Praise

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE BRAND-NEW Crown Prince of Falkenstein managed three hours of nightmare-filled sleep. He rose at dawn, desperate for coffee and a walk to clear his head. Instead, he found the Secretary of State waiting. The massive palace dining table was covered with newspapers, and their front pages all screamed versions of the same.

Entire Royal Family Killed in Plane Tragedy!

‘This is what you get for breaking rules,’ Josef said in greeting, and Marc wanted to thump him. At such a time, to be thinking of rules...

He headed for the huge silver coffee pot before deigning to answer. Being Crown Prince had to count for something. Half a cup of coffee in, his head was clear enough to respond. ‘How did breaking the rules cause this?’

‘Heirs in succession to the throne should never travel in the same plane,’ Josef told him. ‘Your uncle and his wife, your cousin, his sons and their assorted mistresses. All in the one small plane, on one indulgent holiday—and at vast expense when so much needs to be done at home. No consideration for rules. It’s all part of the same. Your grandfather was a warlord. Your uncle was a playboy. Your cousin was a wastrel, and his sons were already mixing with women of the worst kind.’ Josef heaved a sigh and laid the newspaper aside. ‘Now it’s up to you, boy, to fix the mess.’

‘I have messes of my own to fix.’

‘Not as big as this one. Your Highness—’

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘It’s who you are,’ Josef said simply. ‘You’re Marc Pierre Henri de Falken, Crown Prince of Falkenstein. After your coronation you’ll be His Majesty.’ He hesitated but then forged on. ‘And, might I say, this tragedy is appalling, but for the country it may well be a force for good.’

‘I’m no prince,’ Marc exploded. ‘I’m a surgeon and I need to stay a surgeon. If you look at the mess our country’s health system is in...’

‘That’s why you have no choice but to take the throne.’ There’d been hours now to take in the news, and the country’s chief administrator obviously saw the path ahead as being without obstacles. ‘You’ve been doing your best with rundown hospitals, fighting for funds from a royal family who doesn’t care. Now the reins are yours. Think of the bigger picture. The schools. The courts. Our welfare system. If you refuse the throne then it goes to Ranald de Bougier, and heaven help us if that happens. He’ll propel us back to war.’

‘But I don’t want it.’

Marc took his coffee and stood at the vast bay window of the King’s private dining room. Though it was the informal part of the palace, even this part was intimidating.

Marc’s father had been the ignored younger son of the King. He’d been a pacifist who had hated his father’s warlike tendencies. He’d studied medicine, he’d struggled to build the country’s health system and he’d been appalled when the King propelled the country into a meaningless border conflict.

Marc had only been in this palace once, as an awed seven-year-old, brought to be introduced to a family his parents had little to do with. There’d been continual fights about health funding and then an epic fight when war broke out. Marc had never been back. Until now.

Marc raked his long surgeon’s fingers through his dark hair and stared into the future with horror.

He glanced through to the family’s ‘informal’ sitting room. It was an opulent display of gilt, brocades and priceless furniture.

He wanted nothing to do with it.

The huge mirror above the dining room’s massive fireplace showed Marc as he was, a thirty-five-year-old surgeon, a man who was weary from operating until midnight and who’d been brought to the palace straight from Theatre. After four hours of horrified discussion, he’d fallen asleep in his clothes. He was wearing faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt. He hadn’t had time to shave.

A king? Ha!

‘I can’t,’ he said simply. ‘I love my work.’

‘You have no choice,’ Josef told him, and Marc thought of the mess the country’s healthcare system was in, of the theatres without equipment, of the rundown hospitals, of the endless waiting lists.

If he turned his back on the throne, he could do more of what he was doing now. He could save lives, one patient at a time. If he accepted the throne...how many more could he save?

Josef was right. He had no choice, but he felt ill. He dug his hands into his pockets and kicked the heirloom rug at his feet.

‘We need to move on,’ Josef was saying, gently now, obviously knowing his argument had been won. ‘You need to face the press. We need to get you shaved, dressed in something...’ he eyed Marc’s clothes with distaste ‘...more fitting. And we need to have a statement ready. The country’s in uproar. We need reassurance of continuity. Even at this time we need the implication that this tragedy might make things better.’

‘Why? Surely there’s no need to talk of the future yet?’

‘There is a need,’ Josef told him. ‘The country’s desperate for a lifeline. You know there’s no one fit to form government. Marc, we need steadiness and the promise of a better future. Moving on, we need to find you a wife. Get you a son. I believe you’ll make a great king, and your sons after you.’

And that made Marc think of something else. Something that had played on his mind many times these past ten years. Something else that made him unfit to be royal.

He hesitated but it had to be said.

‘There may be another...issue.’

‘Yes?’ Josef looked as if nothing could surprise him, but Marc knew this would.

‘I have a son.’

He was right. To say Josef looked stunned would be an understatement.

Marc refilled his coffee mug and realised this was the first time ever that he’d said those words.

I have a son. The words seemed unreal in this situation that was already unreal. Having a son was part of another world. And yet, when it was said out loud it assumed a reality that shocked him as well as Josef.

He watched the colour drain from the old man’s face. His grandfather’s and then his uncle’s reign had been marred by scandal after scandal, Marc knew, and now he was asking Josef to cope with more. He was under no illusions as to the old man’s role in the royal household. Somehow Josef had kept the royal family intact, holding the country together. He’d served his country with honour. He didn’t deserve to have to cope with this.

‘A son...’ Josef whispered. ‘Where? When?’

‘You knew I was married, briefly?’

‘I...yes.’ The old man was struggling to regroup, sifting long-forgotten information about a Marc he barely knew, a doctor on the outer fringes of the royal family. ‘I had heard that,’ he said. ‘It was just after you qualified as a doctor, wasn’t it? In Australia. A momentary aberration. You came home when war broke out. The divorce was almost immediate?’

‘It was,’ Marc said heavily. ‘The marriage was...a mistake. I didn’t know Ellie was pregnant when we separated, and the child was born well after I returned. A son.’

‘It was never said.’

‘There was no need. Neither of us was in a position to keep a child. I was flying back into a war zone. Ellie was a second-year medical student and she wished to continue. The baby was adopted at birth.’

‘Formally adopted?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know the adoptive parents?’

‘No. I had nothing to do with the adoption.’

He watched Josef think through the ramifications while he considered a third coffee. Josef’s background was legal, Marc knew, and he’d spent a lifetime getting the royal family out of trouble. Scotching scandals was his principal skill. Marc could almost see the cogs whirring.

‘There should be no concern,’ he said at last. ‘This was a child conceived in an impulsive marriage when you were little more than a child yourself. If he’s been formally adopted, there can be no claim on inheritance. That can be explained to him if there’s ever contact. But then...’ he hesitated ‘...there may be more immediate repercussions. As the unexpected heir to the throne, you’ll face media scrutiny of the worst kind. The country hardly knows you, so the media frenzy will be extraordinary. They’ll dig out this old marriage. Where’s your ex-wife now?’

‘I presume she’s still in Australia. I haven’t spoken to her in years.’

‘Tell me about her.’

He was too tired for this. He was too tired for everything. To be dredging up memories of Ellie...

But, strangely, it was easy. She should have been a distant memory. Instead she was a vivid reality, a warm, vibrant woman, curvy, laughing...

Except when he’d last seen her, ten years ago, standing in the airport lounge. She’d been wan with what he’d learned later was morning sickness, but she’d been resolute in the direction they had to take.

‘We’ve been stupid, Marc, but you know what we need to do.’

He did. The senseless war was bringing his country to its knees. He was a qualified doctor—just—but his place was at home. Ellie was only two years into her medical course. Even after he’d learned of the pregnancy, they’d both known there was no room in their lives for a child.

‘Ellie’s a doctor too,’ he told Josef but he didn’t even know that for sure. Their separation had been absolute. She’d reluctantly allowed him to provide funds to keep studying—because of the pregnancy—but the amount she’d decided was ‘over the top’ had been returned and he hadn’t heard from her since.

‘Our marriage was a mistake by both of us,’ she’d told him. ‘I have no intention of profiting by it.’

And he’d had no choice but to agree. He’d been desperate to be with her for the birth but the conflict at home had escalated. The need for doctors had been dire, and by the time her—their?—baby was born, getting out of the country had been impossible.

Her email telling him of the birth had been businesslike, informing him only of the bare fact that she’d given birth to a boy. The feeling he’d had then was indescribable. Pain. Helplessness. Anger at a situation which made it impossible for him to claim his son.

And when he’d finally found a way to phone, her response had been curt.

‘Leave it, Marc. He’ll have a good home, I promise. You’re needed where you are and so am I. Our marriage was a fantasy, and we need to put it behind us. Good luck, Marc, and goodbye.’

Their son was no longer their son, yet the anger and helplessness had stayed. And guilt. Disconnecting from that phone call had seemed the hardest thing he’d ever done, and there’d been many times since when mother and child had been in his dreams.

‘She’s intelligent enough to be discreet?’ Josef asked, dragging him back to the present.

‘Of course.’ It was a snap, inappropriately terse.

‘Has she married again? Has she told her new husband?’

‘I have no idea. She made it clear she wanted no further contact.’

‘And the divorce? It was amicable?’

He thought of Ellie’s face that last time. They’d both known the impossibility of their situation. There’d been no argument, just bleak acceptance. ‘Yes.’

‘That’s a help.’ Josef wasn’t seeing Marc’s emotion. He was thinking ahead, anticipating trouble. ‘But you don’t know where the boy is?’

‘Ellie never shared adoption details.’ He hadn’t asked. In the midst of the chaos of war, he hadn’t had the energy to ask questions, and it had seemed unfair—even cruel—to question Ellie’s judgement.

‘Then that’s how it must remain,’ Josef decreed. ‘For the child’s sake, it’s imperative his adoption records remain confidential. There’s no problem with inheritance but the media would love it.’

‘I can’t guarantee—’

‘We need to guarantee,’ Josef said flatly. ‘If the media finds him, can you imagine the headlines? We need to contact this woman before the media does. Press the need for silence. Pay her if necessary.’

‘She won’t accept payment.’

He remembered that last conversation almost word for word.

‘You have a disaster to deal with. How many people dead, Marc? What’s the adoption of one child compared to that? Marc, you’ve helped enough. I don’t want to continue contact. It’s over.’

‘We’ll do what’s necessary and do it fast,’ Josef was saying. ‘If she’s remarried and hasn’t told her husband, then it could become messy. I’ll brief one of our best lawyers. We’ll research her background while he’s on the way to Australia. He’ll meet her face to face, tell her exactly what’s involved, tell her she has to keep her mouth shut. Most countries allow contact between adoptive parents and birth mothers. If she has that contact then she needs to be silent about where he is. Did she name you as the father?’

‘No.’ That was down to him too. She’d asked him in that first curt email:

‘Do you want your name on his birth certificate?’

The choice he’d made was wrong.

In his defence, he’d been stressed to the point of breaking. The war had been going badly. He’d been overworked past exhaustion, doing work far beyond his range of expertise, but there’d been no choice. For every patient he’d treated there’d been three more waiting. He’d also been gutted by the thought of Ellie having the baby alone. He couldn’t bear the thought of what he’d lost. He’d made an instant decision then that he still regretted.

‘Leave it blank,’ he’d told her. ‘I can’t be there for him. I have no right to be his father. The adoptive father should have all the rights.’

It still hurt but Josef’s face cleared. ‘There you are, then,’ he said. ‘Even if the media finds out, it can be implied he wasn’t yours. What better reason to end the marriage?’

‘That’s not fair to Ellie.’

‘We’ll pay her enough to compensate.’

As if that would work.

He turned and faced out of the window again, across the manicured palace gardens to the mountains in the distance. Somewhere, on the other side of the world, Ellie was making a life for herself, without him and without their son. It was a decision they’d made together.

Ellie was tough. She’d had to be, with her background. She called life as she saw it.

And now? A legal expert would come blustering in from her past, offering her bribes. Even asking her to swear a child wasn’t his.

He thought of the Ellie he’d known. She was feisty, opinionated...moral. She also had a temper.

‘No,’ he told Josef. ‘It could turn the situation into a disaster.’

‘There’s no other way,’ Josef told him.

‘There is,’ he said heavily and he saw his path clear. This part, at least. ‘If this is as important as you say, then let me do it. I must be able to fly under the radar for a few days. I’ll face the media this morning and then I have a week’s grace until the funeral. Say I’m stricken with grief, incommunicado. If I board a plane this morning no one will notice—the media surely won’t expect me to be leaving the country. I’ll go to Australia and talk to Ellie myself. I’ll make sure the child’s privacy is protected and there are no cracks the media can chisel open. And then...’

He put down his coffee cup. It was fine china with the royal coat of arms emblazoned on the front, and he found himself thinking almost longingly of the paper cups he grabbed after all-night Theatre shifts. That part of his life was over and he had to accept it. ‘Then I’ll come home,’ he said heavily. ‘I’ll bury my family and I’ll accept the throne.’

CHAPTER TWO

LIFE AS BORRAWONG’S only doctor was sometimes boring, but just as often it was chaotic. If one person went down with the flu, the whole town usually followed. Kids never seemed to fall out of trees on their own. Ellie had a great team at the hospital, though. Usually she could cope.

But not with this.

Two carloads of kids had been drag racing on a minor road with a rail crossing without boom gates. Maybe the drifting fog had hidden the crossing’s flashing lights and the sight of the oncoming train until it was too late. Or maybe alcohol had made them decide to race the train. Whatever the reason, the results had been disastrous.

The train had just left the station so it had been travelling slowly, but not slowly enough. It had ploughed into one car, pushing it into the car beside it.

If the train had been up to speed, every occupant of the cars would have been killed. Instead, Ellie had seven kids in various stages of injury, distress and hysteria. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins—practically the whole town—were crammed into the waiting room or spilling into the car park outside.

Air ambulances were on their way from Sydney but the fog was widespread and there were delays. The doctor from the neighbouring town was caught up with an unexpected traumatic birth.

She was the only doctor.

Right now, she was focusing on intubating seventeen-year-old May-Belle Harris. May-Belle was the town’s champion netballer, blonde, beautiful, confident. At least she had been. Her facial injuries would take months of reconstruction—if Ellie could get her to live past the next few minutes.

Ellie’s team was fighting behind her, nurses and paramedics coping with trauma far beyond their training. But while she fought for May-Belle’s life, she had to block them out.

‘You can make it,’ she told May-Belle as she finally got the tube secure. At least she now had a safe air supply. The girl was deeply anaesthetised. She should have an anaesthetist to watch over her before she could be transferred to Sydney for specialist reconstructive surgery. Instead of which, she had Joe.

‘Can you take over?’ Ellie asked the seventy-year-old hospital orderly. ‘Watch that tube like a hawk and watch those monitors. Any change at all, yell. Loud.’

‘Louder than these?’ Joe said with a wry grimace. There were six others kids waiting for attention, plus the injuries and bruises of the train crew who’d been thrown about on impact. Some of these kids—the least injured—were...well, loud would be an understatement. One of the girls was having noisy hysterics and the very junior nurse allocated to her couldn’t quieten her.

With years of experience, Ellie knew she could quieten her in a minute but she didn’t have a minute.

‘Grab me by the hair and pull me over here if you need me,’ Ellie told Joe. Block everything out and focus on that breathing.

Moving on...

A boy with bubbling breathing also needed urgent attention. There had to be a punctured lung.

A girl with a shattered elbow needed her too. She risked losing her hand if Ellie didn’t re-establish a secure blood supply soon. The lung had to be a priority but that elbow was at an appalling angle. If the blood supply cut...

And what if there were internal injuries?

Focus, she told herself. Do what comes next.

* * *

He was heading for Borrawong’s Bush Nursing Hospital.

Marc hadn’t been surprised when Josef’s discreet investigators had told him Ellie was back working here. This was where her mother had lived, the town Ellie was raised in.

The last time he’d seen her she’d been heading home to care for her mum.

Borrawong was a tiny town miles from anywhere. A wheat train ran through at need, hauling the grain from the giant silos that seemed to make up the bulk of the town. The train felt like the town’s only link with civilisation.

He’d never been there. ‘As long as Mum stays well, I’m never going back,’ Ellie had told him. She was jubilant at having escaped her small-town upbringing, her childhood spent as her mother’s carer. Until those last days when their combined worlds had seemed to implode, she’d put Borrawong far behind her.

But now Josef’s investigator had given Marc the low-down on Borrawong as well. ‘Population six hundred. Bush nursing hospital, currently staffed with one doctor and four nurses, servicing an extended farming district.’

To be the only doctor in such a remote community, to have returned to Borrawong... What was Ellie doing?

Had her mother died? Why had he never asked?

Because he had no right to know?

He landed in Sydney, then drove for five hours, heading across vast fog-shrouded fields obviously used for cropping. It was mid-afternoon when he arrived, and midwinter. The time difference made him feel weird. The main street of Borrawong—such as it was—seemed deserted. The general store had a sign: ‘Closed’ pinned to the door. The town seemed deserted.

Then he turned off the main street towards the hospital—and this was where everybody was.

The tiny brick hospital was surrounded by a sea of cars. There were people milling by the entrance. People were hugging each other, sobbing. Two groups were involved in a yelling match, screaming abuse.

What the...?

He pulled up in the far reaches of the car park and made his way through the mass of people. By the time he reached the hospital entrance, he had the gist. A train had crashed into two carloads of kids.

How many casualties?

The reception area was packed. Here, though, people were quieter. This would be mum and dad territory, the place where the closest relatives waited for news.

He made his way towards the desk and a burly farming type guy blocked his path.

‘Can’t go any further, mate,’ the man told him. ‘Doc Ellie says no one goes past this point.’

Ellie. So she was here. Coping with this alone?

‘I’m a doctor,’ he told him.

The man’s shoulders sagged. ‘You’re kidding me, right? Mate, you’re welcome.’ He turned back to his huddled wife. ‘See, Claire, I told you help’d come.’

He was the help?

There was no one at the reception desk, but double doors led to the room beyond.

A child was sitting across the doors. He was small, maybe nine or ten years old.

He was in a wheelchair but he didn’t look like a patient. He was seated as if he was a guard. He had his back to the doors and he held a pair of crutches across his chest. Anyone wanting to get past clearly had to negotiate the crutches, and the kid was holding them as if he knew how to use them.

Right now he seemed the only person with any official role.

‘I’m here to see Dr Carson,’ Marc told him. The kid’s expression was mulish, belligerent. The crutches were raised to chest height, held widthways across the doors. ‘I understand there’s been an accident,’ Marc said hurriedly. ‘I might be able to help.’

‘No one goes in,’ the kid told him. ‘Unless you’re Doc Brandon from Cowrang, or from the air ambulance. But you’re not.’

‘I’m a doctor.’

‘You’re not a relative? They all want to go in.’

‘I’m not family. I’m a doctor,’ he repeated. ‘And I might be able to help.’

‘A real doctor?’

‘Yes. I’m a surgeon.’

‘You have a funny accent.’

‘I’m a surgeon with a funny accent, yes, but I do know how to treat people after car accidents. I knew Dr Carson back when we were both training. When she was at university. Believe me, if she needs help then she’ll be pleased to see me.’

Pleased? That was stretching it, he thought grimly, but right now didn’t seem the time for niceties.

The crutches were still raised. The kid was taking a couple of moments to think about it. He eyed him up and down, assessing, and for a moment Marc took the time to assess back.

And then...

Then he almost forgot to breathe.

The kid was small and skinny, freckled, with dark hair that spiked into an odd little cowlick. He was dressed in jogging pants and an oversized red and black football jumper. One foot was encased in a worn and filthy trainer. The other foot was hidden by a cast, starting at the thigh.

He could be anyone’s kid.

His hair was jet-black, his brows were thick and black as well, and his eyes...they were almost black too.

And those freckles! He’d seen those freckles before, and the boy’s chin jutted upward in a way Marc remembered.

He looked like Ellie. But Ellie had glossy auburn hair that curled into a riot. Ellie had green eyes.

The kid had Marc’s hair and Marc’s eyes.

Surely not.

And then, from the other side of the door, someone screamed. It was a scream Marc recognised from years of working as a trauma surgeon. It spoke of unbearable pain. It spoke of a medical team without the resources to prevent such pain.

Shock or not, now wasn’t the time to be looking at a kid with dark eyes and asking questions.

‘You need to let me in,’ he told the boy, urgently now, as he pulled himself together. ‘Ask Dr Carson if she needs help.’

‘You really are a proper doctor?’ The boy’s voice was incredulous.

‘I am.’

‘Then go on in.’ There was suddenly no hesitation. He peeped a grin at Marc and there was that jolt again. He knew that grin! ‘But you’re either in or out,’ he warned. ‘If another doctor ever walks into this town Mum says we’ll set up roadblocks to stop them leaving. That’s me. I’m the roadblock. No one gets past these crutches.’

* * *

‘Ellie!’

Chris was Ellie’s best trained nurse. While Ellie was treating the kid with a suspected pneumothorax she’d put Chris in charge of the girl with the smashed elbow. Lisa Harley had smashed a few other things as well, but it was her elbow that was Ellie’s greatest concern. The fracture was compound. She’d found a pulse on the other side of the break but it was faint. The blood supply was compromised.

But the kid with the pneumothorax had taken priority.

‘I’ve lost the pulse,’ Chris called urgently. ‘And I’m worrying about her blood pressure. Ellie...’

She couldn’t go. She had to release pressure in the chest of the kid under her hands. One lung had collapsed—she was sure of it. Any more pressure and she’d lose him.

A life or a hand...

‘Five minutes,’ she called back to Chris. Could she close this in time? No matter. She had to focus on what she was doing.

The door swung open.

It was too soon to expect the air ambulance from Sydney. It was too soon to expect the doctor from the neighbouring town, but Felix wouldn’t have let anyone in unless they could help. Unless they were a doctor.

So she looked up with hope—and then felt herself freeze.

Marc.

He was older. There was a trace of silver in his jet-black hair. He looked taller, broader...more distinguished.

But he was still Marc.

Marc, here!

Her world seemed to wobble. If she’d had time she would have found a chair and sat down hard.

The boy she was treating needed all her attention. A smashed rib piercing the lung meant air was going in and not getting out. The pressure would be building. The second lung could collapse at any minute. She needed to insert a tube to drain the air compressing the lung and she needed to do it fast.

Marc was here.

‘Where can I help?’ he asked and somehow she forced her world back into focus. No matter why he was here; the one thing she knew was that he was a skilled doctor. A surgeon. Every complication that had suddenly hit her world had to give way to imperative.

‘Chris needs help,’ she told him, gesturing towards the nurse. ‘Lisa Harley, seventeen, smashed elbow—I’m sure it’s comminuted. There must be fragments of bone cutting the circulation. Feeble pulse in her fingers until a moment ago, but now nothing. Chris says blood pressure’s dropping too, but I haven’t had time to figure out why. I’ve given her morphine, ten milligrams. She probably also has alcohol on board.’

Marc’s attention switched instantly to Lisa, lying wanly on the trolley. The morphine had kicked in but the kid looked pallid.

‘I’m on it,’ Marc said, in his perfect English with that French-plus-something-exotic accent that had made Ellie’s toes curl all those years ago. He crossed to Lisa and touched her fingers. He’d be feeling for the pulse, Ellie knew. Even though it was Marc, she could only feel relief.

‘You’re right,’ he said calmly, smiling down at Lisa in a way that would be medicine all by itself. ‘Hi, Lisa. I’m Dr Falken. We need to get your arm sorted, but it’s your lucky day. I treat hurt elbows all the time.’ He checked her blood pressure and frowned. ‘We might also check your tummy and see if there’s anything else going on.’ He flicked a glance back to Ellie. ‘Lisa’s priority one?’

‘I’m coping with a pneumothorax but I have it under control,’ she told him. She hoped. ‘We also have a severe facial injury but I’ve intubated and she seems stable. Nothing else seems life-threatening. Chris, can you assist Marc? Everyone, this is Dr Marc Falken. He’s...he’s an old friend from university and he’s good. Give him all the assistance he needs. Marc, sorry, but you’re on your own.’

* * *

There was no time for shock or questions. There was only time to work.

With Chris’s help he did a fast X-ray. The elbow was a jigsaw of shattered bone fragments.

It wasn’t the greatest of her problems, though. Lisa’s blood pressure continued to drop. Chris helped him set up an ultrasound and that confirmed his fears.

Ruptured spleen. She’d have internal bleeding. This was life or death.

Ellie had far more than she could cope with already. This was his call.

He’d like a full theatre of trained staff. He had Chris.

But, even though Chris looked as if she could be anyone’s mum, the nurse was cool, efficient and exactly what he needed.

‘I can give an anaesthetic,’ she told him. ‘I’ve done it before when Ellie’s been in trouble. We can take Lisa into Theatre and go for it if that’s what you want.’

He’d worked on battlefields with less help than this. ‘That’s what I want.’

From the next cubicle, Ellie must have heard. She was focusing on the kid with the punctured lung but she must have the whole room under broader surveillance.

‘You can’t just straighten for the time being?’ she called.

Marc moved so he could talk without being overheard. The last thing Lisa needed to hear was a fearful diagnosis. ‘There are bone fragments everywhere,’ Marc told her. ‘I can re-establish blood supply but if something moves it’ll block again. It’s not safe to transfer her without surgery. But priority’s the ruptured spleen. I’ll need to go in to check for sure but her blood pressure’s dropping fast and the symptoms fit.’

She swore. ‘You can do it?’

‘I can.’ His gaze swept the room, seeing the mass of trouble she was facing. ‘You have enough on your hands.’ More than enough.

‘I can’t help,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘Then do it. Chris, give him all the help he needs.’

And Chris was already wheeling Lisa’s trolley through the doors marked Theatre.

He had no choice but to follow.

* * *

The cavalry arrived two hours later. Helicopters with skilled paramedics. The doctor from the neighbouring town. Everyone and everything she needed was suddenly there, and Ellie was able to step back and catch her breath.

The door to Theatre was still closed. There hadn’t been time to investigate. She’d had to trust that Marc knew what he was doing.

Now, though, as paramedics fired questions at her, as each of these kids got the attention they needed, she was able to think of what—and who—was behind those doors.

‘I have a kid with a shattered elbow and possible ruptured spleen,’ she told the senior paramedic. ‘A visiting surgeon was on hand. He’s in Theatre now.’

‘Here?’ the guy said incredulously, and Ellie thought again of the mixed emotions his arrival meant for her.

Marc was behind those doors. Her old life was a life of secrets. A life that now had to be faced.

She took a deep breath and opened the door to Theatre.

Chris was at the head of the table. She smiled and gave Ellie a swift thumbs-up, then went back to monitor-gazing.

Chris was magnificent, Ellie thought, not for the first time. Ellie had needed to talk her charge nurse through an anaesthetic more times than she could count and she’d coped magnificently every time. She should be a doctor herself. She practically was.

But her attention wasn’t on Chris.

Masked and gowned, Marc could be any surgeon in any theatre anywhere in the world. He was totally focused on the job at hand.

‘Nearly closed,’ he growled and his voice was a shock all by itself.

She’d never thought she’d hear it again.

‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

‘We’ve stabilised the elbow, removing bone fragments that could shift. The circulation should hold until she receives specialist orthopaedic attention. The worst risk was the spleen. It was a mess. There was no choice but removal. Sorry, Ellie, to leave you with everything else. I had Chris slip out and tell Joe to call if there was any priority you couldn’t cope with, but then we went for it.’

‘He’s done the whole thing,’ Chris breathed. ‘He’s removed the spleen but he’s done so much more. He’s stopped the internal bleeding completely. Blood pressure’s already rising. And the elbow! Look at the X-rays, Ellie. To get the circulation back. He’s saved her life and he’s saved her arm. Oh, Ellie, I can’t tell you...’

‘Thanks to Chris,’ Marc growled, still focused. ‘You have a gem of a nurse, Ellie.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ she said a trifle unsteadily.

This was surgery way beyond her field of expertise. Maybe she could have diagnosed and removed the spleen but the pneumothorax had been just as urgent. She would have lost one of the two kids, and how appalling a choice would that have been? But the elbow... She glanced at the X-ray, saw the mess, and knew without a doubt that Lisa would be facing amputation if Marc hadn’t been here.

Marc’s battlefield training had come to the fore. She never could have done this alone.

A bullet had been dodged. Or multiple bullets. She wanted to sit down. Badly.

It wasn’t going to happen.

‘I’m just applying an external fixator and then I’m done,’ Marc told her. ‘Ten minutes? I gather the air ambulance is here. I’d like Lisa transferred to Sydney as soon as possible. The elbow will need attention from a specialist. I’m not an orthopod.’

‘You could have fooled me,’ Chris muttered, and Ellie looked at Marc and thought, What good fairy brought you here today?

And then she thought of the repercussions of him being here and she stopped thinking of good fairies.

She didn’t have time to go there. She had to face the relatives.

But there was no longer any urgency. She had room for thought.

Marc was here.

Good fairies? She didn’t think so.

* * *

The first chopper took the most seriously injured, including Lisa, but the boy with the pneumothorax left by road. Air travel wasn’t recommended when lungs were compromised. The road ambulance also took the driver of one of the cars and his girlfriend. The pair had suffered lacerations; the girl had a minor fracture. They could have stayed, but feelings were running high in the town and a driver with only minor injuries could well turn into a scapegoat.

The second chopper, a big one, had places to spare and the battered train crew chose to leave on it. They, too, could have been cared for here, but their homes, their families, were in Sydney. Borrawong Hospital was suddenly almost deserted.

But Marc was still inside and, as Ellie watched the second chopper disappear, that fact seemed more terrifying than a room full of casualties.

‘You can get through this.’ She said it to herself, but she was suddenly thinking of all the times she’d said it before. During the trauma of being the kid of a defiant, erratic single mum with cystic fibrosis. The roller coaster of a childhood living with her mother’s illness. The relief of her mother’s first lung transplant and then the despair when it had failed.

And then the moment the doors had closed at Sydney Airport and Marc was gone for ever. The moment she’d looked at the lines on the pregnancy testing kit. The moment she’d seen her baby’s ultrasound.

The day she’d made the decision to keep her baby, to stay here, to cope alone.

But it was no use thinking of that now.

The sun was sinking behind the town’s wheat silos, casting shadows that almost reached the hospital. Somewhere a dog was barking. This was Borrawong’s nightlife. Marc was about to see Borrawong at its best.

Why was he here?

‘You can get through this,’ she said again but heaven only knew the effort it cost her to turn and re-enter the hospital.

Felix was still in the waiting room. He’d pushed his wheelchair behind the reception desk and was engrossed in a computer game but he looked up as she entered and grinned.

‘Got rid of them all?’

‘We have. Felix, you were wonderful.’

‘I know,’ he said, his grin broadening. ‘I kept ’em all out. Except the doctor with the funny accent. He’s still in there now, helping clean up. Joe says if we have a doctor who cleans we should lock the doors and keep him. He said he’s your friend?’

‘I...yes. He’s someone I knew a long time ago. When I was at university.’

And Felix’s face changed.

Uh oh.

Felix was smart. He was also right at the age where he was asking questions, and the questions had been getting harder.

‘So you met my dad when you were at uni. Why won’t you tell me his name? The kids at school reckon he must have been married to someone else. Or he was a scumbag. Otherwise you’d tell me. Why can’t I meet him?’

And now Felix had met a strange doctor three hours ago while he’d been bored and had time to think—a guy who’d appeared from the past, a man his mum had never talked about.

A man with hair and eyes exactly the same as his.

‘Is he my father?’ Felix demanded and Ellie closed her eyes.

And when she opened them Marc was in the doorway.

He’d ditched his theatre gear. He was wearing casual chinos and a white open-necked shirt.

His dark hair, wavy just like her son’s, was rumpled. He’d raked it, she thought. He always raked his hair.

Felix looked like him. Felix was Marc in miniature—except for the freckles. And the wheelchair.

But there was no use denying it. Felix’s face was bristling with suspicion, but also with something else. Hope, perhaps? He wanted a father.

How wrong had it been not to tell Marc what she’d done?

She glanced at Marc again. His face was impassive. Shuttered.

She thought of the first time she’d met him. She’d been nineteen, a second-year university student, working her butt off to put herself through medicine. Marc had been twenty-four, just completed training, headed to Australia for a gap year before he started surgical training.

He’d intended working his way around Australia’s coastline, but in his first week in Sydney there’d been an international conference on vascular surgery. He’d cadged an invitation because, gap year or not, he was interested.

She’d been there as a waitress. On the edges. Soaking up knowledge any way she could. She’d been working the crowd, carrying drinks.

An eminent vascular surgeon had been holding forth to a small group of similarly esteemed professionals, talking of the latest cardiovascular techniques. She’d paused to listen, intrigued by the discussion of a technique she’d never heard of.

And then one of the group had caught her eye, maybe suspecting she was eavesdropping. Uh oh. If she lost this job it’d be a disaster. She’d spun away fast—and crashed into Marc.

Her tray had been loaded with red and white wine and orange juice. The whole lot had spilled down his front. Glasses smashed on the floor. The attention of the whole room had suddenly been on her, and she’d stood, appalled, expecting to be sacked.

But Marc had moved with a decisiveness that had taken her breath away. He’d stopped people moving onto the broken glass, and he’d talked to her boss before she could say a word.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he’d said in his lovely broken English. ‘So stupid. I was caught by something Professor Kramer was discussing, and it seemed important to catch it. So I turned suddenly and I hit your waitress hard. Mam’selle, are you hurt? A thousand apologies. Sir, may I make recompense? The cost of the glasses? The wine? Something extra for your work? And, mam’selle, I will pay the cost of your cleaning...’

He’d charmed her right back into her job—and that night, when she’d finished work, he’d been waiting for her at the staff entrance.

‘I messed with your night,’ he said simply. ‘The least I can do is take you to supper.’

‘It was my fault.’

‘The fault is immaterial. It was my body you crashed into. Therefore my body will propel you to supper.’

He’d been irresistible. His looks, his accent, his smile... His kindness.

She’d fallen in love right there and then and, amazingly, he’d seemed to feel the same.

And now he was here.

‘Ellie?’ he said gently, but there was no smile.

He was waiting for an answer.

Felix was waiting for an answer.

She looked from one to the other. Her son. Her ex-husband. The man she’d loved with all her heart.

Once. Not now.

Is he my father?

There was nowhere to go.

‘Felix, this is Marc Falken,’ she managed and was amazed at the way her voice sounded. It was almost steady. ‘He’s from Falkenstein, near Austria, in Europe. Marc’s a doctor. He and I met at university and for a few short months we were married. But then there was a war in Marc’s country, a disaster that lasted for years. He was needed. I’d imagine he’s still needed. But, for whatever reason, he’s here now, and yes, Felix, Marc is your father.’

CHAPTER THREE

AFTER THAT, THE NIGHT seemed to pass out of her control. Felix was excited and full of questions. Marc seemed calm, courteous and kind.

She could stay silent—and she did.

Between Marc and Felix, they sorted that Marc would have dinner with them. The hospital cook was making bulk fish and chips, so they ended up at the kitchen table in Ellie’s hospital apartment with a mound of fish and chips in front of them.

Ellie simply went along with it. She didn’t have the strength for anything else.

She ate her fish and chips in silence and was vaguely grateful for them—how long since she’d eaten?

There was a bottle of wine in the fridge. She offered it to Marc but he refused. ‘Jet lag,’ he told her and she nodded and reflected that that was how she herself was feeling. She was pretty much ready to fall over now.

And Marc? He must be shocked to the core, but he was being kind.

For Felix was hammering him with questions. One part of Ellie was numb, but there was still a part of her that was taking in Marc’s responses.

‘Are you really a surgeon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you work in a big hospital?’

‘I travel a lot, Felix. I’m in charge of the country’s health system. I do operate when I’m needed, but a lot of my time’s spent checking our remote hospitals are up to standard.’

‘What’s remote? Like the Outback here?’

‘We don’t have deserts,’ he told him. ‘But we do have mountains. Lots of mountains and many of our tiny hospitals are cut off in bad weather. Like your mum’s hospital here, they’re a long way from anywhere and it’s my job to see they’re not cut off completely.’

‘But you still operate.’

‘I love my job so yes, I operate, whenever I can. I have an apartment in one of the city hospitals and I operate there when I’m needed.’

‘Like this afternoon.’

‘Like this afternoon.’

And then the questions got personal.

‘Are you married?’

‘No.’ He glanced at Ellie and Ellie concentrated fiercely on her pile of chips.

‘Why not?’

‘I guess I’ve been too busy.’

‘You weren’t too busy to marry my mum.’

‘I wasn’t,’ he said gravely. ‘But your mum and I were both students then, so we had more time. We hadn’t realised just how many responsibilities we faced. There was a war in my country and I had to go home. Your grandmother was ill and your mum was needed here. There wasn’t time for us to stay married.’

And finally Felix fixed his eyes on his father and asked the question she’d been dreading. ‘There was time to make me,’ he said flatly. ‘Didn’t you want me?’

If ever she wanted to turn into a puddle of nothing, it was now. What had she been thinking, not telling Marc what she intended?

It had been for all the right reasons, she told herself, but her silent reasoning sounded hysterical. It sounded wrong.

And Marc? He’d respond with anger, she thought, and he had every right. He could slam her decision of nine years ago. He could drive a wedge between her and her son, give Felix a reason to turn to her with bewilderment and betrayal.

Marc glanced at her, for just a moment. Their eyes locked.

She saw anger, but underneath there was mostly confusion. And concern.

All that she could see at a glance. Why?

Because she knew this man. She’d married him. Three glorious months...

‘Felix, this takes some understanding,’ Marc said, and whatever betrayal he was feeling seemed to have been set aside.

But she hadn’t betrayed Marc, she told herself. She’d told him the truth.

Sort of.

‘Your mum and I were very young when we met,’ Marc continued. ‘We were not much more than kids. We fell in love and we got married. It was all very fast and very romantic. But sometimes you do things that you hope might work out, even if they probably won’t. Have you ever done that?’

‘Like riding Sam Thomas’s brother’s bike down the hill at top speed,’ Felix said. Marc was talking to him as an adult and he was responding in kind. ‘It was too big for me and I couldn’t make the brakes work but there was a grassy paddock at the bottom so I sort of hoped it’d be okay.’

‘It wasn’t, huh?’

‘No,’ Felix said but he peeped a cautious smile at Marc, obviously looking for a reaction. ‘I broke my leg. Getting married was like that? Getting on a bike with no brakes?’

‘I guess so,’ Marc said and Ellie saw a faint smile in response. ‘Only in this case we didn’t break our legs. A war started in my country. A big one. There were many, many people killed and more hurt. And your grandma was ill here. So your mum and I had to part.’

‘You didn’t write to me.’

‘No,’ Marc said softly and Ellie thought, Here it comes.

But it didn’t.

‘I didn’t write,’ Marc continued. ‘And I’m very, very sorry.’

And, just like that, he’d let her off the hook. Of all the things he could have said, the anger, the blame...

He could be telling Felix it was his mother’s fault, his mother’s deception. Instead of which, he was simply apologising.

‘When I left I didn’t know your mother was pregnant,’ Marc said. ‘And when she told me, I was in the middle of a war zone, helping people survive. But I should have come back for you and I’m very sorry I didn’t.’

All the questions Felix had been firing at her had been becoming increasingly belligerent. Increasingly angry.

She’d known that she’d have to face that anger some time. Now, Marc had taken it all on himself. He’d let her off the hook.

She’d been staring into her water glass sightlessly, numbly. Now she looked up and met his gaze.

Not quite. She wasn’t off the hook. There were still questions she had to answer. Accusations to face.

But not from her son. For that, at least, she was so grateful she could weep.

‘So, the wheelchair,’ Marc said, and she thought, He hasn’t asked it until now. That was a gift in itself. For most people it was the obvious focus, and now he asked. ‘What’s the matter with your leg?’ And it was a simple follow-up on the preceding conversation. ‘That was the bike, huh? Bad break?’

Felix hated the questions. The sympathy. The constant probing from a small community. ‘How are the feet? Does it hurt? Oh, you poor little boy...’

Felix routinely reacted either by pretending he hadn’t heard or by an angry brush-off. Now, though, for some reason he faced the question head-on.

‘I was born with club feet,’ he told Marc. ‘Talipes equinovarus. You know about it?’

‘I do,’ Marc told him. ‘Rotten luck. Both feet?’

‘Yeah, but the left’s worse than the right. I had to have operations and wear braces for years and now the right one’s almost normal. But my left leg won’t stay in position and it’s been shorter than the right one. Then I broke it and the surgeon in Sydney said let’s go for it and see if we can get a really good cure for the foot as well as for my leg. So it was a big operation and I’m in a wheelchair for another two weeks and then braces again for a bit. But Mum reckons it should be the last thing. Won’t it, Mum?’

‘We hope so.’ Ellie was having trouble getting her voice to work. Somehow she had to make things normal.

As if they could ever be normal again.

She had to try, but she had a moment’s grace. It was well past Felix’s bedtime. ‘You have school in the morning,’ she managed. ‘Bed.’

‘You weren’t at school today?’ Marc asked.

‘The doctor who did my leg had a clinic at Wollongong,’ Felix told him. ‘Mum and I drove down early and got the first appointment. We only just got back when the accident happened.’

‘Which is why you need to go to bed now,’ Ellie said, struggling to sound firm.

‘But you’ll stay?’ Felix looked anxiously at Marc. ‘You’ll be here when I get home from school tomorrow?’

‘I’m booked into the motel.’

‘So you will be here.’

Marc met her gaze and held it. Questions were asked in that look. Questions she had no hope of answering.

But obviously Marc was more in charge of the situation than she was. He knew what he was here for, even if she didn’t.

‘Yes, Felix, I will.’

‘Cool,’ Felix told him. ‘I might bring my mate to meet you. He’s always ragging me about not having a dad. You want to meet him?’

‘Of course.’

‘Cool,’ Felix said again and yawned.

‘You did a great job today, by the way,’ Marc told him and Ellie found herself flushing. You compliment my kid, you compliment me. It shouldn’t happen like that but it did. And then Marc added, ‘Both of you.’

‘You didn’t do too badly yourself,’ Ellie muttered. She could feel herself blushing but there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. ‘Are you heading back to the motel now?’

‘In a while,’ Marc told her. ‘You and I need to talk.’

‘Felix and I usually read. His leg often aches and reading helps him sleep.’

‘Would you mind if I read to my son tonight?’

And what was she to say to that?

My son.

Her world had changed.

* * *

Felix was obviously exhausted, too tired to ask any more questions but, under instructions, Marc sat on his bed and read. This wasn’t a storybook, though. What he and Ellie were obviously halfway through was a manual on the inner workings of the Baby Austin—a British car built between nineteen-twenty-two and nineteen-thirty-nine.

The back axles of spiral bevel type with ratios between 4.4.1 and 4.6.1 5.6:1. A short torque tube runs forward from the differential housing to a bearing and bracket on the rear axle cross member...

It was enough to put anyone to sleep, Marc thought, but as he read Felix snuggled down in his bedclothes and his eyes turned dreamy.

‘One day I’m going to find one and do her up,’ he whispered. ‘Do you know anything about cars?’

‘A bit. I don’t know much about short torque tubes.’

‘But you could find out about them with me,’ Felix whispered. ‘Wouldn’t that be cool?’

And then his eyes closed and he was asleep.

For a few moments Marc didn’t move. He sat looking down at the sleeping child.

He had a son.

A kid who coped with club feet with courage. A kid who guarded doors with crutches. A kid who wanted to introduce his dad to his mate and who needed help with something called short torque tubes.

A son to be proud of.

The feeling was almost overwhelming.

He’d known of Felix’s existence for years but it had always seemed theoretical rather than real. He hadn’t been with Ellie when she’d found out she was pregnant. He hadn’t been here for the birth.

He hadn’t questioned her decision to put the baby up for adoption.

Maybe he should feel anger that she’d kept this from him for so long but all he managed was sadness. It had been an appalling time. His country had had to come first, but what a price he’d paid. He’d missed out on nine years of Felix’s life.

Walking away from Ellie had been the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his life. He’d felt it had broken something inside that could never be repaired. And when she’d told him she was pregnant, and he couldn’t go to her...

The nights he’d lain awake on his hard bunk and thought of her; the fantasies he’d had of his dream life, where they could be a family...

But the dreams had been just that. Fantasies. He hadn’t been able to go to her. He’d been in no position to be a husband or a father.

He’d lost his family. He’d lost Ellie.

He thought of her now, out in the sparse little sitting room she called home. She’d changed after work, into faded jeans and an old windcheater. She looked tired. Worn.

He’d thought he’d had to cope with trauma. How much more had she had to deal with?

Felix was deeply asleep. He touched his son’s face, tracing the cheekbones. His son who looked like him. But who also looked like Ellie.

Back in the kitchen, Ellie was waiting for him. She’d cleared the dishes and was standing with her back to the sink, hands behind her back. She looked...trapped.

‘Marc, I’m sorry,’ she managed. ‘I should have told you that I kept him.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ He wasn’t sure where to go with this. There were accusations everywhere.

‘You didn’t want him.’ But she shook her head. ‘No. That’s unfair to you. At the time, neither of us wanted him. We were kids. The pregnancy was a mistake, Marc, as was our marriage. We should have known that it was never going to work. Our backgrounds were so different it was impossible.’

‘If it hadn’t been for the war...’

‘And if it hadn’t been for my mum’s illness...’ She shrugged. ‘But even without, there were responsibilities. You never told me how important your role was at home. And maybe I didn’t tell you how much my mum needed me.’

‘So when did you decide to keep him?’

She tilted her chin, like a kid facing the headmaster. Defiant.

‘I came back here after you left,’ she told him. ‘As I told you I had to. Mum’s lung transplant had failed. She loved the freedom the transplant gave her, the illusion of health, but she didn’t take care. She refused to follow the doctors’ instructions and maybe I can understand why. For the first time in her life she felt healthy and she made the most of it. Until she crashed. Then, you knew I had to put my studies on hold to care for her. When I found I was pregnant, life became even more impossible.’

He remembered. He’d received the email after a day coping with massive trauma wounds, when he was so exhausted the words had blurred.

Ellie was pregnant.

What could he do? Where he was, he couldn’t even phone her.

But the email had been blessedly practical. She couldn’t support a baby and care for her mother. She still—eventually—wanted to study medicine. There were so many good parents out there desperate for a baby, she told him, so the logical answer was surely adoption. Did he agree?

He’d felt gutted but there seemed no choice but to accept her decision. The war looked as if it would drag on for years. Ellie would have to cope on her own, so what right did he have to interfere?

‘So I was back here and pregnant,’ she told him. ‘Mum was totally dependent. I had your funds which kept us, but there was no way I could go back to university. University, our marriage, they seemed like a dream that had happened to someone else. Mum seemed to be dying and the pregnancy hardly mattered. When I thought about the pregnancy at all, it was just a blanket decision that adoption was the only answer.

‘Then, when I was thirty weeks pregnant, Mum was so bad she had to be hospitalised. And one of the nurses asked if I was looking after myself—if I’d had my check-ups, my scans. It was the first time anyone had asked, and it sort of shook me. So the nurse got bossy. She sent me for scans and the radiographer told me to take a few deep breaths and relax. And I lay there and listened to my baby’s heartbeat, and suddenly it was real. I was having a baby.’

‘Our baby,’ he said softly.

There was a long silence. Our baby. How loaded were those two words?

‘I think that was in the mix too,’ she whispered at last. ‘Yours and mine. What we had...it was good, Marc.’

‘It was.’

‘But I was still planning on adoption,’ she told him. ‘I remember lying there thinking, He’s real. He was conceived out of love. He has to go to a wonderful home. And then the radiographer’s wand reached his feet.’

‘Which were clubbed.’

‘I could see them,’ she whispered. ‘I could see how badly they were clubbed. And of course I’d done two years of medicine. I knew what he’d be facing, but I also knew there was the chance of more.’

Marc did too. Of course he did. Club feet were sometimes associated with other problems. He thought them through and they weren’t pretty. Trisomy 18 syndrome. Distal arthrogryposis. Myotonic dystrophy. The chance of each of those was small, but real.

‘I know it’s only twenty per cent of cases,’ she told him. ‘Club feet are usually the only presenting condition, but that was enough. I lay there and watched his image and thought, Who do I trust to look after my baby? Because suddenly he was my baby. And there was no need to answer, because by the time I walked out of that room no one was going to have the chance.’

He understood. He hated probing more, but he had to have answers. ‘So you decided to keep him—but you also decided not to tell me?’

‘How could I? I’d been following the situation in Falkenstein. I’d seen the war shattering your country. I’d even seen you on the news, working in a field hospital, talking to reporters of the struggles you were having after so many months, with the international community losing interest, with winter coming, with so many homeless. I knew you felt guilty about me anyway, so why hang more guilt on you? You’d agreed to adoption so why not just let you think he was adopted? What’s the difference, Marc, between someone unknown taking care of our son and me?’

‘For a start I would have funded you.’

‘I didn’t need funding. You sent me two years’ income and paid the rest of my university fees. You insisted I keep that. What more could I ask?’

‘That I care for my son!’ The shock, the frustration, the rage that he’d kept at bay all day suddenly vented itself in those six fierce words. He slammed his fist on the table so hard that the salt and pepper shakers toppled and rolled to the floor.

Neither of them noticed.

His rage was so great he could scarcely contain it, but it wasn’t rage at Ellie. It was rage at himself.

He hadn’t enquired. He hadn’t followed up.

What sort of low-life left a woman with a baby and didn’t find out how she was—for nine years?

‘Marc, you did ask,’ Ellie whispered, and her response shocked him. It was as if she guessed what he was thinking. ‘You rang after Felix was born.’

He remembered the call.

He’d spent the night operating in a field hospital after yet another bomb blast had shattered lives. He’d come back to his quarters to find the email, telling him that he had a son. He’d driven for hours to the nearest place there was reception, trying to put a call through. When he’d finally reached her, Ellie had sounded tired, spent, but okay.

‘He’s a beautiful little boy, Marc. You can be proud. He’ll have a good home, I promise. Yes, I’m okay and amazingly Mum’s okay too. She’s had another transplant and this one looks like it’s taken. My plan is to go back to university and Mum’s promised to help. No, there’s nothing you can do. Would you like me to send you a photograph of your—? Of the baby?’

And, idiot that he was, he’d said no. He’d wanted no picture of his son. How many times had he regretted it? But after having said it—that he didn’t want the hurt of seeing what could have been—how could he turn back?

The events of the last few days—the royal tragedy, his ascension to the throne, things that had seemed overwhelming—were suddenly nothing.

He’d walked out on his wife, she’d borne him a son and she’d kept him. She was here now, and his son was right through the door, dreaming of splash-lubricated crankshafts and magneto ignition...and a father who might share his life.

Ellie was looking at him as if she was scared. What, that he’d hit her? Sure, he was angry. He had every right to be, but he wasn’t angry at Ellie.

He’d been a doctor for years. How many times had he seen the grief of a lost baby? How could he not have guessed that a decision taken when Ellie had first learned she was pregnant couldn’t be carried through when she’d held her son in her arms?

Once she’d known her baby had formation issues she could never have given him away. She’d have fought for him to the death.

But that was the Ellie he’d known then. The Ellie he looked at now seemed as if the fight had been knocked out of her.

‘Marc, why are you here?’ she whispered and he struggled to swallow self-loathing and answer.

‘Why did you call him Felix?’ he asked tangentially.

‘It means lucky. Blessed. When I first saw him, I swore that’s what he’d be.’

‘If he has you for a mum, that’s a given.’

But she shook her head. ‘Marc, don’t. I don’t need compliments. What was between us was over nine years ago. I haven’t heard from you since our divorce. I assumed you’d have a wife and kids by now and be ruling the health system of Falkenstein. I’ve searched for you on the Internet from time to time,’ she confessed. ‘You seem to have been doing really well. I’m sorry about your dad, by the way. Heart attack?’

She’d been keeping tabs on him while he’d blocked her out completely. That made him feel even worse.

What did he know about her?

Involuntarily, he checked her ring finger. There was nothing there.

He thought of the ring that had once lain there—his great-grandmother’s, a ring of beauty and antiquity. Ellie had returned it after the divorce but he’d sent it straight back.

‘I want you to keep it, Ellie. You’re a woman of honour and I’m sure my great-grandmother would be proud if you kept wearing it. Move it to another finger and wear it with pride.’

Why would she still be wearing it?

No reason at all.

What had she asked? His father. A heart attack. ‘Yes. It was sudden. He was still working full-time.’ He hesitated. ‘Your mum?’

‘She died five years ago. The first transplant lasted three years, the second one four. It was a good four years, though. She loved Felix and helped me care for him.’

‘And you managed to get through university.’

‘Somehow. We eked out your money. I had a room in Sydney where we all stayed. Mum looked after Felix as best she could. When she couldn’t, I’d bring them both back here. I made a deal with the town—if they helped me with Felix and Mum, I’d come back and be the local doctor.’

‘But you wanted to specialise.’

‘Family practice is a specialty.’

‘But it’s not what you wanted.’

‘So I’ve learned we can’t always have what we want.’ She looked directly at him. ‘What do you want, Marc?’

And how much would he have given to be able to say he didn’t want anything? That this was a spur-of-the-moment visit, popping in to visit his ex-wife who he hoped could still be a friend.

Ha.

‘I needed to see you,’ he tried.

She looked at him directly and shrugged. ‘No. We’re over that long since. Didn’t we figure need was another name for lust?’

‘What was between us wasn’t just lust.’

‘No. It was a juvenile love affair. But I’m asking again, Marc. Why are you here? I thought it must be that you learned about me keeping Felix, but by your reaction it seems it’s not. So, you happened to be visiting Australia and decided to see how much your ex-wife has aged? What?’

There was no easy way to say this. Just say it, Marc.

‘I came because the entire Falkenstein royal family died in a plane crash. Three days ago I was fourth in line for the throne. Now the crown is mine.’

Her face creased in shock. ‘That’s appalling. Why wasn’t it on the news? Or maybe it was. I’ve been so busy.’ And then her face softened. ‘They’re your family. Marc, I’m so sorry.’

‘I don’t need sympathy,’ he said roughly. ‘There’s never been any love lost between us. I’ve always kept as far from the palace as possible. But now...’

‘Now?’ She took a moment to take in the full implications of what he’d said. ‘You’re...you’re the new King?’

‘Yes.’

Her face changed again, becoming wary. ‘And that means...what? Why are you here?’

There was no way to soften what needed to be said.

‘I travelled all this way, fast, to ask you to keep Felix’s adoption records quiet,’ he told her. ‘There’s already intense media interest in an obscure doctor who’s suddenly their monarch. Enough people know of our short marriage that it can’t be hidden. I hoped, however, that the birth would go unnoticed, or at least you could hide the adoption details.’

‘Why?’

‘Because adoption is accepted as legal abdication,’ he said heavily. ‘According to our constitution, if Felix had been formally adopted at birth he’d have no rights to succession but the media interest could still be upsetting. Now...’

Marc paused, overwhelmed by what he had to tell her.

Ellie rose and opened the sideboard. She poured two whiskies. Large ones.

‘I don’t drink this except in emergencies,’ she told him. ‘I suspect I need it now. Maybe we both do. So tell me.’

He took the glass and drained it, and then he looked at Ellie.

He could still see the girl he’d loved behind those tired eyes. He could still see the laughter, the fun... But he could also see the care and the responsibility.

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