Luca's Bad Girl (2 page)

Mia was used to dealing with emotionally charged situations. Also drunks, drug addicts and a whole bunch of other people who didn’t respect the sanctity of a hospital.

But she was a doctor. And Rhiannon and the baby were her patients. It was her duty to protect them.

The man scowled at her and left, muttering to himself.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rhiannon apologised. ‘He gets so paranoid sometimes but he’s harmless.’

Mia smiled. ‘It’s fine.’

A midwife from the maternity ward chose that moment to arrive. ‘The team’s going to be another twenty minutes or so,’ she apologised.

‘That’s all right,’ Mia dismissed. ‘I think this little tyke’s going to be fine.’

The ugly incident with Stan was forgotten as the midwife tended to Rhiannon, delivering the placenta while Mia gave the baby a check over. ‘They’ll probably want to keep him for the night in Special Care, given his early arrival, just to be on the safe side,’ Mia pronounced, ‘but everything checks out so far.’

She stood aside for the midwife to wrap the little boy up in that special way they did with babies so they looked just like glowworms, with only their little faces showing. Then Mia picked up the precious little package and asked, ‘Would you like to hold your son?’

Rhiannon nodded and Mia was walking the baby over to her when the curtain flicked back a little and Stan stood there, looking slightly mollified. The time away seemed to have helped. Mia changed tack. ‘Would you like to hold him?’ she asked.

In Mia’s experience, babies melted even the hardest of hearts. What man could resist such a gorgeous package? Hopefully this little impatient cherub would help Stan focus on what was important in life.

He looked uncertain for a moment then looked at Rhiannon. ‘Can I?’

She smiled at him and Mia could see the love shining in the other woman’s eyes. ‘Of course.’

Mia eased the little bundle into Stan’s arms. He seemed more dazed than elated but Mia knew that for some new fathers it was a big adjustment. He walked up and down the length of the cubicle with the baby, rocking him as he went, his gaze fixed on his face.

‘What are you going to call him?’ Caroline asked.

‘I like Michael,’ Rhiannon murmured.

The tight swaddling had loosened a little from the rocking and the baby stirred, displacing the wrap covering his head. Stan stopped as he stared down at a shock of red hair. He whipped around to face his wife. ‘Is that his name?’ he demanded. The baby started to cry. ‘Michael? The man you’ve been sleeping with?’

Rhiannon groaned. ‘Stop it, Stan. I’m sick of these accusations. You know there’s only ever been you.’

‘I want a paternity test,’ he yelled.

Mia looked at Caroline then at a near-to-tears Rhiannon. ‘Stan—’

Stan swung wildly around to face her and the baby cried louder. ‘I want you …’ he jabbed the air with an index finger ‘… to do a paternity test.’

‘Stan this is ridiculous,’ Rhiannon wailed, a tear trekking down her face.

Stan swung back. ‘Are you refusing?’

‘Okay, Stan, enough,’ Mia said firmly. Stan turned abruptly and faced her. ‘That is no way to be talking and certainly no way to be flinging a baby around. Listen to him, you’re making him cry.’

She walked briskly towards Stan, her arms extended. ‘Give him to me.’

Stan leapt back, his eyes wild again as he pulled a pocket knife out of his back pocket, flicking the blade open with one hand while he clutched his son in the other.

‘Stay back,’ he screamed. Caroline gasped, Rhiannon wailed and Mia stopped in her tracks. ‘Don’t come near me.’

Stan swung wildly from side to side, brandishing the knife as he backed slowly away from Mia.

Oh, good Lord!
Mia felt a spurt of annoyance
. She did not have time for this.

‘Okay, Stan.’ Mia summoned her most placatory voice as she put her hands out to calm the situation. She didn’t think that Stan would harm anyone but that wasn’t the way to play it when he was holding a brand-new thirty weeker in one arm and a knife in the other.

‘Okay, I can do that for you,’ she soothed, deftly placing her own body between Stan and Caroline.

Caroline, bless her cotton socks, picked up on her cue and quietly crept out of the cubicle. Mia knew one push of the panic button located under the desk in the nurses’ station and every security guard rostered for the shift would be here in under two minutes.

‘But you’re going to need to give me the baby first.’ She took another step towards Stan, tuning out the lusty newborn’s cries and Rhiannon’s pleading.

Stan slashed the blade through the air. ‘No! Get back,’ he yelled.

Luca di Angelo, who was passing the resus bay, frowned at the raised voice, louder even than the squalling
baby. He strode in through the partially open curtain, surveying the scene rapidly.

A man with a knife. A bawling baby being held to ransom. A crying woman. A terrified nurse. And gutsy Dr Mia McKenzie—aloof, frosty little Mia—standing in the thick of it.

‘What the devil is going on here?’ he demanded.

Stan swung around again, slashing the air in Luca’s general direction. ‘Stay back,’ he yelled.

Luca stopped. ‘Dr McKenzie?’

‘It’s fine, Dr di Angelo,’ she said, a placid smile plastered to her face as she inched closer to Stan. Very soon there’d be maximum force at her disposal—she could do without the Lone Ranger potentially ramping the situation up in the mean time.

Even if he did look good enough to spread on toast
.

Mia’s stomach rumbled.

‘Stan here just wants a paternity test so he’s going to give me the baby and I’ll draw some blood. Right, Stan?’

‘No.’ Stan looked wildly between the two of them. ‘The baby stays,’ he insisted.

Luca watched Mia in his peripheral vision as she crept forward at a snail’s pace. ‘But how can we take blood when you’re holding a baby, Stan?’ Luca reasoned, distracting the man.

Mia, grateful if a little surprised that Luca had caught on really fast, took another step closer.

‘Stay back,’ Stan bellowed. The baby’s cries rose another octave.

‘I can’t take your blood from here, Stan,’ Mia soothed.

The adrenaline flowing through her system brought
everything into sharp focus. The sweat on Stan’s brow. The harsh suck of his breath as he heaved air in and out of his lungs. The white spittle forming at the corner of his mouth. The way he turned the knife over and over in his palm and constantly shifted his weight from one foot to the other as his gaze darted between the two doctors.

But she was probably even more aware of Luca. Somehow it was he who dominated the room, not Stan. He towered over the knife-wielding man, all lean and broad shouldered, in sharp contrast to Stan’s stocky stature. And despite the deceptive casualness of his hands-in-pocket stance, Mia could see the hard clench of his jaw and sense the coiled rigidity in those muscles barely contained behind the snug-fitting polo shirt.

She reminded him of a taipan, ready to strike. Swift and deadly.

Just then there was a commotion behind them as several security staff arrived at once.

Stan looked over Mia’s shoulder. ‘What are they doing here?’ he roared, his hold on the baby tightening and causing further lusty protest.

Luca held out his hand as Stan’s agitation increased. ‘It’s standard hospital procedure,’ Luca soothed, moving a little closer. ‘It’ll be all right, though. I’m going to ask them to stand back, okay?’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Doc,’ the chief security officer said.

‘Back! You heard him, get back!’ Stan shouted, brandishing the knife a little too close to the baby’s head.

The midwife gasped.

Luca turned to the security contingent. ‘It’s okay,’
he assured them. Then he turned back to Stan. ‘They’re going, see?’ Luca said as he heard the guards shuffling away.

Mia kept her gaze focused on Stan and the baby. ‘Okay, Stan, now we’ve done something for you, you’ve got to do something for us.’ She covered up her next step closer by holding out her arms. ‘Give me the baby. He’s scared and hungry. Listen to him. I’m sure a nice feed will settle him down and we can talk about this without upsetting him any more.’

And, frankly, the infant’s cries were getting on her last nerve. The situation was fraught enough without the distinct urgency of an escalating newborn baby’s cries.

‘She’s right, Stan,’ Luca agreed as he edged nearer too. ‘This isn’t something a baby should be part of.’

‘It’s not my fault.’ Stan’s voice cracked as his face beseeched them. ‘I work hard all day and she repays me by sleeping with half the neighbourhood.’

Mia felt a chill as if a ghostly hand from the past had stroked down her spine. She ignored it.

Luca nodded. ‘I know. Believe me, I know.’ And he did. He understood the desperation that Stan was feeling, the sense of betrayal.
Intimately.

Mia glanced sharply at Luca. There was empathy, real empathy, in his tone.

‘We can talk about all that, Stan,’ Luca continued. ‘Just give the baby to Dr McKenzie.’

Stan looked from one to the other and Mia saw the uncertainty on his face, saw that even Stan in his crazed state had registered Luca’s compassion. She took advantage and moved forward slowly, unsurprised to sense Luca doing the same.

‘It’s okay, Stan, you’re doing the right thing,’ Mia reassured him.

Stan shook his head from side to side. ‘I just need to know.’

‘Of course,’ Luca murmured. ‘Of course you do, Stan.’

They were close now and Mia could sense Stan weakening. His grip on the knife had slackened. But so had his hold on the baby. Everything inside her urged her to leap forward and snatch the bawling infant from him but she knew any sudden movements would be a bad idea.

‘Give your little boy to me, Stan,’ she implored quietly.

Stan looked down at the crying bundle, the red hair even more vivid against the white of the wrap. He shook his head, his grip tightening again.

‘He’s not my baby!’ he roared, lunging the knife at her.

Everything slowed as Mia watched it come towards her chest. She wasn’t conscious of anything else, just the hypnotic arc of the blade as its point drew closer to her heart.

‘Mia!’

Luca reached out and grabbed her, pulling her towards him. The sweeping slash of the knife missed her torso completely but sliced into the flesh of her upper arm. Mia gasped as bright, piercing pain stole her breath.

Luca swore in his native tongue as his hand shot out and crushed Stan’s wrist in a vice-like grip. Stan yelped and dropped the knife.

‘Security!’

His voice cracked like a whip into the charged atmosphere and in an instant five burly guards had entered the fray. The fight instantly went out of Stan at the sight of overwhelming force.

‘The baby,’ Luca demanded, and the midwife leapt forward, snatching the squalling infant.

‘Go easy,’ Luca ordered as the guards hauled a now passive Stan away. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked switching his attention to Mia.

She nodded automatically as the baby, now safe in his mother’s embrace, began to settle. ‘I’m fine.’ Even though the hand that had instinctively covered the wound to apply pressure was sticky with her own blood. It had quickly oozed through the material of her cotton shirt.

Luca looked at the dark red blood running down her arm and shook his head. Most women he knew would have been hysterical by now. But not Mia. She’d kept her head in the face of an emotionally overwrought father with a knife and had dismissed what looked like a substantial wound as if it were a paper cut.

‘Go to the minor ops room, I’ll take a look at it.’

‘It’s fine, just superficial,’ she said dismissively.

Luca pointed. ‘Blood is running down your arm.’

Mia looked down at the thick trickle, surprised to see it. ‘I’ll get Evie to look at it.’

‘I sent her home.’

‘Dr di Angelo?’ Caroline interrupted them. ‘The psych reg is on the phone. He wants to speak with you.’

Luca quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘I can’t have one of my staff expiring from blood loss. It wouldn’t look very good. Minor ops. Now. I’ll be along after the call.’

Mia watched him go, a well of resentment rising in
her. She’d been looking after herself for a lot of years, she didn’t need Mr Tall Dark and Handsome pulling the boss card and she certainly didn’t need him fussing over her.

No one had ever fussed over her.
And that was just the way she liked it.

A couple of steri-strips and she’d be fine.

A few minutes later, Mia pushed into the on-call room and plonked herself down at the table in the kitchen area, spilling her supplies on the cluttered top. Her arm hurt like hell and all she wanted to do was crawl into one of the private rooms off to her left and collapse on one of the pull-out beds.

The adrenaline had worn off and her earlier tiredness had taken hold and intensified.

And if she was asleep, the memories that Stan’s actions had unleashed tonight couldn’t bother her.

It was quiet in the room as she fumbled one-handed with the buttons of her blouse. The sleeves had a firm cuff that sat snugly around her biceps and couldn’t be rolled up enough to gain a good visual of the damage. She winced as she slipped the blouse off, every movement jarring though her lacerated deltoid.

She tossed it on the floor—that was going straight in the bin.

She inspected her spaghetti-strapped top, pleased to see that no blood had seeped into it. This kind of undergarment was a permanent fixture beneath whatever shirt she was wore on a night shift. The hospital air-conditioning seemed to reach freezing point at around four in the morning and, even in summer, the extra layer helped.

Mia was especially grateful for it tonight.

She looked down at the wound on her upper arm. The blood had dried and crusted, making it difficult to tell the extent of the laceration. It looked ugly, though, as she gently probed it with her index finger. It was quite long and for a moment she let herself think about what could have happened had Luca not pulled her out of the way.

She noticed her hand was trembling and she dropped it from the wound, clamping down on her thoughts.