‘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