‘Well, I did.’ The man beamed, recovering. ‘And, of course, after we got the kiddy back…after seeing those great jaws chomp on that hat…but we had him safe… Well, I guess I clean forgot that I’d phoned, but I’d imagine that’s why they’re coming, to look for us.’
‘I guess they are,’ Gina said, and all of a sudden she cheered right up.
The sight of CJ floating downstream on a log, and then the huge teeth rearing up and snapping down on Bruce’s hat wasn’t something she’d forget in a hurry. She was holding CJ tight and he was still shaking, and she’d been thinking she badly wanted to go home. But suddenly the helicopter was overhead and she thought maybe, just maybe, home was coming to her.
Don’t hope, she told herself. It wouldn’t be. It wouldn’t…
But Bruce was winding the canopy back so they could see up, and the helicopter was right above them, the whirling of its rotor blades causing white water. She could see…
Cal.
He was looking down at her and his face-dear God, his face.
What had he thought?
She knew exactly what he’d thought. The expression on his face matched how she’d felt as she’d seen CJ slide overboard.
Well, why wouldn’t he look like that?
He was family.
Home had come to her.
CHAPTER TEN
IT TOOK them ages-ten minutes at least-before the boat could reach a place where the helicopter could land. They steered back along the river, and the helicopter stayed with them every inch of the way.
Up in the chopper, the crew were all crowded into the cockpit, probably breaking every safety rule in the book, Gina decided. Mike and Hamish and Cal. They were watching CJ. The moment the little boy had looked up at them and given a tentative, shaken smile and a tiny wave…well, the expression on all of their faces would stay with Gina for ever.
How had she ever thought she could go back to Idaho?
Home was here.
And then they were mooring at a jetty near a picnic ground. The helicopter was landing. Bruce and the tourists were climbing off the boat, but Gina didn’t move. She sat still, holding CJ. The vision of the croc coming toward her son was still with her. Her legs weren’t moving. She couldn’t get her legs to move.
But she didn’t need to.
Cal was out of the chopper and running toward them. He was climbing down into the boat, oblivious of the Americans climbing upward onto the jetty, oblivious of Bruce.
He was gathering her into his arms. He was gathering his son into his arms, and by the way he held her she knew that this man would never let her go again.
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he murmured.
‘It was CJ who fell.’
‘It makes no difference which,’ he told her, pressing his lips into her hair. ‘You and CJ. My loves. My two loves. I thought I’d lost my family.’
The nursery lights were dim when they returned.
Equanimity restored, CJ had headed to the hospital kitchen to tell Rudolph and Mrs Grubb all about the very exciting adventures of his hat. Hamish and Mike had disappeared to tell everyone the good news-though the radio call to Charles would have done the same thing. Cal and Gina fell behind, but somehow, because it seemed the right thing to do, the obvious thing to do, for this was who had brought them together in the first place, Cal and Gina ended up beside Lucky’s crib.
Lucky was the only baby in the nursery, and he certainly had medical attention. Em, Mike, Hamish, Charles, Jill, and now Cal and Gina. They were all there.
‘There’s nothing wrong?’ Gina asked, startled at the mass medical gathering.
‘No,’ Jill said, and tried to look busy. ‘I was just checking Lucky’s obs had been done.’
‘And I was doing the obs,’ Em said.
‘And I was checking that Jill had checked that the obs had been done,’ Charles said, and grinned.
‘Hey, I’m the paediatrician,’ Hamish said. ‘I’m in charge of all of this. You can’t trust underlings these days.’
‘And I’m here in a paramedic capacity,’ Mike told them, also smiling. ‘When there’s so many people packed into a small room, there’s a risk of crush injuries and fainting. Especially when emotions are running high.’ He smiled across at his friends, his brows rising as he noted their linked hands. ‘And emotions seem suddenly to be running a notch higher. Well, well.’
Gina blushed and tried to haul her hand away. Cal held it tighter.
‘But the baby’s OK?’
‘Lucky’s great,’ Jill said, smiling across at the pair of them. ‘He’s…lucky. And we were just talking…’
‘You were talking,’ Charles said. ‘Well, bossing, more like.’
‘I do not boss.’
‘Tell me what you were talking about,’ Gina said, taking pity on her.
‘We thought, seeing as this hospital has been so miserable…’
‘We’re not miserable,’ Cal said, and Gina gave her love a quelling look.
‘Shut up, Cal. You were saying?’
‘Tonight’s been declared a fire night.’
‘A fire night?’
‘We do it often,’ Cal told her, and there was such a smile in his voice that everyone heard it. Everyone saw it. Gina saw every one of their friends register his happiness, and her own joy increased because of it. ‘When we need to celebrate or commiserate or patch up a misunderstanding or whatever, we plan a fire night. We gather all the driftwood we can find on the beach and light it, like some sort of great tribal ceremony.’
‘Um,’ Gina said faintly. ‘Don’t tell me. You make sacrificial offerings and dance to the sound of didgeridoos, naked apart from three stripes of ochre on each cheek.’
‘Hey, I never thought of that,’ Hamish said, brightening.
‘We barbecue sausages,’ Jill said, quelling him with a look. ‘Much more civilised.’
‘Or prawns,’ Mike said, smiling down at their linked hands, ‘In times of high celebration we give sausages a miss and we barbecue prawns.’
‘I guess we are celebrating tonight,’ Em said softly. She put her finger through the access port in the incubator and stroked Lucky’s face. ‘We’ve had these awful deaths. We’ve had such awful…’ She paused for a moment. ‘Such awful things. But life goes on. CJ’s safe, and Lucky’s obs are completely normal. He’s wonderful. He really has been… Lucky.’
‘For more than just himself,’ Cal murmured, and Gina looked at her love and smiled.
‘He has.’
‘He’ll be loved to bits,’ Em said stoutly. ‘We’ll find his mum. I know we will. This little one was born to be loved. He’s just fine.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Cal said. ‘Everything and everything and everything.’
