“All right,” she said wearily. “I give in. I’m not pregnant, Alex, but I am thinking about having a baby.”
He looked horrified. “What on earth for?”
“I’ve decided I want one. Soon.”
“How soon is soon?”
“As soon as possible.”
Alex looked dazed. “And who is the father of this baby going to be? You’ve got someone in mind already, haven’t you? Who is it?”
The smile had been bottled up too long. Given the chance to escape, it rushed onto Sam’s face in what could only be described as a beam.
“You, of course. Alex, who else?”
Sometimes inspiration for a new story can come from very unexpected places. The book I wrote before Emergency Baby was based on the premise of the hero donating a kidney to the heroine and how this was both a catalyst and complication for their relationship. The Surgeon’s Perfect Match was a very emotional experience to write as I was caught up in creating characters based on people that I have incredible admiration for—who struggle with life in the face of debilitating illness and who are heroic enough to put more than their hands up to help.
I felt I needed a change of atmosphere for this story. Something a bit lighter. Kidney donation had left a very distinct impression on my mind; however, it was almost a joke to think about a sperm donation. Hmm. It was certainly different. The more I thought about it, the more I could see the potential to provide an interesting conflict or two.
So that’s how Emergency Baby came about. I have no idea where my next story might appear from, but I won’t be complaining if it’s as pleasant a surprise as getting to know Sam and Alex and following their story.
Happy reading!
Love,
Alison xxx
Emergency Baby
Alison Roberts
CONTENTS
IT HAD finally happened.
Echoes of all the voices that had ever informed Samantha Moore she was crazy; the expressions on the faces of people who learned what a young, intelligent and perfectly presentable looking young woman did for a living; memories of physical pain and the aftermath of trying to deal with experiencing real fear—all came home to roost in a single moment.
She was crazy.
She was also stuck.
Don’t panic, Sam reminded herself automatically. Don’t fight the rock. You can’t win.
It was easy to close her eyes for a moment. To breathe evenly and wait for a well-rehearsed protocol to override the jangled messages her brain was flashing as some basic survival instinct tried to take control. It was easy because Sam felt indescribably weary.
Fed up.
Having reached this point, Sam realised that the normal adrenaline rush had been missing ever since the start of this mission. The call to scramble SERT—Specialist Emergency Response Team—for the second time that day had been less than thrilling. The fact that this was an unusual call for a team that could be deployed to anything from an armed police operation to a shipboard emergency on the high seas hadn’t even been enough to spin Sam’s wheels today.
Abseiling down the sinkhole in an area popular with cavers had been a breeze. It would have been enjoyable had it come earlier in the shift. Crawling through increasingly narrow spaces in the underground rock formation was a lot less fun, however, and trying to squeeze through the ridiculously narrow gap that Sam was now firmly stuck in was just plain crazy.
She tried to inch herself back the way she had come. A trickle of water on the rock beneath found a way to breach the flap of her overalls that covered the front zip and the measure of environmental discomfort slipped into a new level. Sam’s helmet scraped on the rock above and her knuckles dug painfully into her ribs as she tried to free the hand wedged under her body.
‘You OK, Sam?’
The deep rumble of the male voice came from beyond this tunnel designed for some nasty, slithery underground creature. How the hell had Sam’s partner, Alex, managed to get through here, anyway? He was well over six feet in height and his shoulders had to be twice as wide as hers. It simply wasn’t physically possible.
Sam’s response was a noncommittal grunt. She turned her head to point nose down again as she tried to flatten and relax her body and wriggle back another few millimetres. The tip of her nose touched the icy runnel of water and she jerked up, only to crack her helmet on the unyielding ceiling.
‘Does it ever occur to you, Alex,’ she said through gritted teeth, ‘that we might be nuts?’
A deep chuckle was amplified by the confined space. ‘All the time, mate.’
He was still enjoying himself, though, wasn’t he? Getting a kick out of overcoming the odds to render assistance to someone in trouble. More than one person in this case. The reminder of why they were here was enough to make Sam try again. And try harder. The effort and pain of a scraped elbow elicited a grunt this time.
‘You’ve got your elbows too far behind