‘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.
She hadn’t been stabbed in the chest. She hadn’t died.
Luca had pulled her out of the way.
But it didn’t stop the trembling from spreading to all her limbs and then to her insides. She took a couple of deep breaths, desperately trying to quell the outbreak.
It was a reaction, that was all. It would settle.
But the longer she sat, trying to get control of her breathing and the shaking, the more vulnerable she was to her emotions and thoughts. And she hated that—she’d learned long ago they didn’t get you anywhere.
But tonight she didn’t seem to be able to stop them.
Was that how her own father had felt when he’d found out about the paternity of her stillborn sister? Like Stan? Desperate and enraged? If there’d been a knife or a gun handy, would he have used it on her mother?
He’d walked away from them that day but she hadn’t known why until years later. Years of blaming him for abandoning them, years of hating him, only to find out that it had been her mother’s infidelities that had driven her father away.
Mia shook her head. Stop it. Stop it!
This situation tonight had come too close to home but there was no need to fall apart. She wasn’t ten years old any more. She was an adult.
Clean yourself up and get back out there again!
Mia forced herself to action. To tend to the wound. Open the dressing pack, pour in some antiseptic lotion, pick up the gauze, work away at the dried blood.
It was awkward and hurt like the blazes but she welcomed the distraction from her thoughts and her shaking hands settled with a familiar routine.
Two minutes later Luca strode through the door. Mia glanced up at him, feeling strangely naked with her blouse discarded. Which was ridiculous—she was more than adequately covered. She ignored him, returning to the task at hand.
Luca lounged against the table and smiled to himself as Mia barely acknowledged his arrival. ‘You’re making a mess of that,’ he mused.
Mia glared at him. ‘It’s a little difficult.’
‘I do believe I told you I would attend to your wound.’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘But you don’t like asking for help, do you, little Mia?’
His slight accent gave his deep baritone a very sexy