The Surgeon's Doorstep Baby (10 page)

There was a deathly silence. Then, ‘He’s been in floodwater?’

‘I... Yes.’

‘To save calves?’ It was practically a screech.

‘Yes.’ She was trying to be polite—but this was hurting her ear.

‘You won’t look after the baby—
and you expect him to save cows?
’

‘They’re his cows,’ she said mildly. ‘And it’s his baby.’

‘It’s not his baby.’

‘He’s taking responsibility for her.’

‘He has no right—’

‘It’s his sister’s baby,’ she said gently. ‘He has more right than most.’

‘You’re the midwife. He says you won’t—’

‘Be professional? I’m being exceedingly professional. I don’t take patients home.’ She glanced behind her and winced at the mess the kids had made of Blake’s fabulous, faded living room—and thought actually she’d brought everything else home.

‘Blake needs help,’ she snapped. ‘He’s ill. If you’re a nurse, help him.’

‘I’m doing what I can.’ She’d coped with belligerent patients before—and their relatives. She was deliberately keeping her voice calm, unruffled—but implacable. ‘I don’t believe there’s any need to worry. I’d prefer not to wake him, though. If you give me your name, I’ll tell him you called.’

‘Miriam Donnington,’ she snapped. ‘Dr Donnington. Blake’s fiancée.’

Why did her stomach lurch? No reason at all.

Or lots of reasons. How stupid did she feel? How had her hormones led her down a path she didn’t know she was treading until right now?

Blake belonged in another life. He was a city doctor with a city fiancée. He was trapped here. The kiss they’d shared had been the result of adrenalin, from shared danger and from victory and nothing more. She’d known it. She just...knew it better now.

So why was she standing silent, she demanded of herself, as if she was in shock? Get over it, she told herself harshly—and sensible Maggie emerged, as sensible Maggie always did.

‘I didn’t know he was engaged,’ she managed, and somehow she kept her smile firmly in place. ‘Congratulations. I can see why you’re concerned. I’ll let him know you’ve called. I suspect his phone might still be out of action even when it’s dried, but you can usually raise him on this number. Unless he’s asleep. I’m trying my best to keep him in bed.’ She listened to how that sounded and decided maybe she’d better lighten it. Make it even more professional. ‘He’s not a very co-operative patient,’ she confessed, nurse to doctor.

‘Blake knows what’s good for him,’ Miriam snapped. ‘He doesn’t need a nurse telling him what to do. What he needs is peace, not a nurse and a baby complicating his life.’

‘Plus my four kids,’ she said, letting her temper emerge just a little, deciding why not tell it like it is? Even wind it up a little.

He’d kissed her. He had a fiancée. Toe rag!

‘Four kids?’

‘Blake doesn’t mind,’ she said cheerfully. ‘All my kids are here. Pete says Blake’s even been playing his computer games with him. Now, was there anything else you wanted?’

‘I... No.’ She sounded stunned.

‘Goodnight, then,’ Maggie chirped, still managing to smile, and she put the phone down—and turned to find Blake watching.

* * *

He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, bare chested, bare legged, ruffled from sleep—simply watching.

He destroyed her professional detachment, just like that.

Nurse, midwife...woman? With Blake around she was all woman, and her body reacted accordingly.

Fiancée. Fiancée.

Keep your head. Get off that dratted path.

‘Miriam?’ he asked, and she nodded.

‘Your fiancée.’

‘That’s what she told you?’

‘She wanted me to wake you. I refused. I’m sorry. You can ring her back.’

‘I will.’ His eyes searched her face. ‘She gave you a hard time?’

‘For not looking after you—which might be justified. If you were being flown out right now with internal bleeding, I’d be to blame.’ She was sounding so calm she was proud of herself.

‘As you said,’ he said mildly, ‘they’re my cows. My choice. And, yes, Maggie, Ruby’s my niece.’

‘Will Miriam help you take care of her?’ It was none of her business, she thought. She shouldn’t ask, but the question was out there now, like it or not.

‘Someone has to,’ he said. ‘Unless I take Pete’s way out and bury the nappies.’

She managed a half-hearted smile back at him. ‘Pete’d bury dishes, too, if it was up to him. But good luck. You should ring her back. She sounds genuinely worried.’

‘I will. And, Maggie...’

‘Mmm?’ He was too close, she thought. Too close, too big, too bare.

‘I’m sorry she upset you.’

‘She didn’t.’ How was that for a lie? ‘I’m accustomed to my patients’ worried relatives.’

‘I’m not a patient,’ he said, so softly that she shivered.

‘You ought to be,’ she managed. ‘It’d be a whole lot easier if you were.’

And before he could retort she’d turned and headed into her own small apartment, closing the door very firmly behind her.

* * *

He should ring Miriam right back. Instead, Blake stood and watched the closed door for a very long time.

Maggie was behind that door.

She’d be in bed with her ten-year-old sister. His father’s two dogs would be under her bed. She was surrounded.

Miriam would be at her desk in their cool, grey and white apartment with a view of the harbour.

His fiancée?

She wasn’t. Why had she said it?

To protect him, maybe? To stop Maggie thinking she could take advantage?

Was she taking advantage?

No. Ruby would be here even if Maggie wasn’t—and he’d invited her siblings to stay. As well as that, he’d talked to the doctors who’d cared for his father. Without Maggie the old man would have been hospitalised far earlier. Bob had been no one’s idea of an easy man but Maggie had worked to make his last months as good as they could be.

She was not a woman to take advantage...

Fiancée...

He rang and Miriam answered on the first ring. ‘Blake...I knew you’d be awake. That woman wouldn’t fetch you.’

That woman
. It sounded...wrong.

That woman was Maggie.

‘She’s doing a hell of a job,’ he said mildly. ‘She’s taking care of the whole valley.’

‘Not you. Were you really dumb enough to stand in floodwater?’

‘If I hadn’t, eighty calves would have drowned.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Blake, what’s worth more? All that skill, all that training...’

‘Not to mention me,’ he said mildly. ‘Even without the medical degree I’d still have missed me.’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ she snapped.

And he thought...he thought...

Fiancée?

They’d drifted into this relationship. They’d competed against each other at university, studied together, pushed each other. They were both driven.

He wondered suddenly whether, if he didn’t have his medicine, would he have Miriam?

Would she want him?

Would he want her?

It was a crazy thing to think at midnight, when his feet were cold on the floorboards and he could hear Ruby starting to stir in the background, but think it he did.

‘When the water comes down,’ he said, speaking slowly, thinking it through as he spoke, ‘I’d like you to visit here before I come back. I’d like you to get to know Ruby. Help me make a decision about her.’

There was a sharp intake of breath.

‘What sort of decision?’

‘She’s my family, Mim.’

‘I’m not Mim.’ Suddenly her voice was almost shrill. ‘I’m not taking on anyone else’s baby. I don’t even know if I want one of my own yet.’

‘Of our own?’ he queried.

‘I... Yes.’

‘Fiancée?’

There was a moment’s pause. It turned out longer. It ended up stretching a very long time indeed.

‘I said it for your benefit,’ she said at last. ‘I thought you might need it. If you’re staying in the same house...’

‘We have five kids staying here now,’ he said gently. ‘They’re chaperons enough. But...are you thinking I’d need them?’

‘I don’t care what you do,’ she said fretfully.

There was another silence at that. ‘Really?’ he said at last, and he looked at the closed door and thought of Maggie in bed with Susie and the dogs underneath and he thought...Maggie was a woman who cared.

‘Look, this is a dumb conversation,’ Miriam snapped at last, regrouping. ‘What we have is sensible, Blake. Do you want to mess it up?’

‘Would it mess it up if I was unfaithful?’

‘If I were to know about it, yes.’

‘And if you didn’t?’

‘Look, I don’t care,’ she snapped. ‘I’m tired and I have a long day tomorrow and if you want to have a torrid little affair with your tenant/nurse—
who has how many children
?—then it’s fine by me. But there’s no way I’m coming down there.’

‘No,’ he said bleakly, and he glanced behind him, to his open bedroom door, where he could see Ruby’s bedclothes wriggling. Any minute now she’d open her mouth and yell.

And then, suddenly, he was thinking of Maggie again, and Christopher, and his television rules. Boundaries. And he thought...if ever he had an affair with Maggie she’d give him boundaries—and they wouldn’t be do what you like but don’t tell me about it.

‘I’ll be moving apartments when I get back to Sydney,’ he said, and he heard Miriam’s breath draw in with shock and with anger.

‘So it’s true. Your stupid little nurse...’

‘It has nothing to do with Maggie,’ he told her, though maybe it did, and it was simply too soon to acknowledge it. ‘But it has to do with family. You and me, Mim...we’re friends. Colleagues. But we’ve never been family and it’s too late to start now. Our relationship needs to stop. It’s going nowhere and it’s time we acknowledged it. I’m sorry, Mim...Miriam, but it’s over.’

‘So you’re starting...what, a family? Down there?’ The viciousness in her voice was appalling.

‘I have no idea where or what I’m starting,’ he told her. ‘All I know is that we’re wrong. Thank you for trying to protect me, Miriam, but I don’t need a fiancée. I’m not sure what I need. Oh, actually, yes, I am. I need to make one bottle for one baby and then go back to bed. Right now, I’m not capable of thinking further.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
HE
river stayed impassable. The rain was interminable. There was nothing for it but for the valley to hunker down and wait.

If anyone had told Blake he could spend a week trapped in a farmhouse with five children and be...almost content, he’d have labelled them crazy, but that’s exactly what he did.

Maggie was frantically busy. That rush of water through the valley had caught everyone unprepared. There’d been stock loss—nothing dire, but farmers had been caught by surprise and there were sprains and bruises from rushing to save stock, grazes that had turned septic from floodwater, leg abscesses that had got wet and stayed wet too long, back problems as people heaved belongings higher than the water.

Blake helped when he could, relishing the times he could go out with her to the outlying farms, helping to debride ulcers, double-checking her diagnoses, or just plain giving reassurance that Maggie was right, they didn’t need evacuation to the hospital over the river.

To his surprise, he was enjoying it. He’d never thought of country medicine, but its variation was almost...fun.

But frustrating for Maggie.

‘What is it about having doctor in front of your name?’ she demanded. She’d spent an hour telling Maisie Goodall her leg was starting to heal and the antibiotics were taking effect, but Maisie was still frightened. Blake had walked in, examined the ulcerated leg for a whole two minutes and smiled his reassurance.

‘This is healing beautifully, Miss Goodall. See the faint film over the edges? That’s slowly working its way in to form a seal. Try and keep it elevated and dry, watch lots of telly, cuddle your cats—’ the woman was surrounded by them
‘—and I reckon by the time the water’s down you’ll be good as new.’

Maisie almost purred as loudly as her cats, and Maggie climbed back into her car beside Blake and glowered.

‘I can speak until I’m blue in the face,’ she muttered. ‘But you walk in with your doctor-ish bedside manner and you don’t do a single thing and suddenly Maisie doesn’t want a helicopter, she just wants another visit from you tomorrow.’

‘Basic Bedside Manner,’ Blake said smugly. ‘Taught in med school. Kept secret from nurses for generations.’

‘You mean you’re good looking, you’re male and you smile at her,’ she snapped.

‘There is that.’ He looked smug and she had to chuckle.

‘Okay, it’s useful,’ she conceded. ‘If I could just bottle you and keep you in my medical kit...’

‘I won’t be put.’

‘No.’ She sighed. ‘You shouldn’t even be out here.’ She’d brought him out of desperation because Maisie had been so scared, but she kept reminding herself that he, too, was a patient. But he was recovering. He was moving with ease, the stiffness and the grimacing had gone and he was well on the way to recovery.

They had Ruby in the baby seat. Bringing her with them for the minor stuff meant Liselle could keep studying and, besides, patients liked it. Maggie had no doubt there’d be a pair of bootees from Maisie’s knitting needles by the end of the week. That was okay as well because it meant Maisie would sit with her leg up while she knitted. That’d help her healing—but healing was what Maggie should be organising for Blake, rather than letting him accompany her on her rounds.

But he seemed to enjoy it, she conceded, and he was very skilled, very efficient, very friendly—and very useful. Also accepted. Because of his links to the valley the locals treated him as one of them. Local boy made good.

Also local boy made interesting—and there was the complication. Interest meant speculation. The locals looked at Blake, they looked at Maggie, they looked at Ruby—and Maggie could see exactly what the valley was thinking. That made her think...and thinking was exactly what she was trying not to do. It was bad enough having Blake sitting beside her, but a girl didn’t need to think about it.

She glowered at the steering-wheel—and the ignition light lit up.

Excellent—a diversion.

Or maybe not excellent. Ignition light...trouble?

She should be driving a Health Services car on her rounds. Normally she would, but the bridge closure had happened earlier than expected, catching them all by surprise. Her dependable hospital car was on the other side of the river and she was left with her own.

Which wasn’t so dependable. She used it in emergencies, but patients had been known to groan when she pulled up in her battered wagon.

Ignition light...

‘What’s wrong?’ Blake asked as she pulled over to the verge.

‘Sister, farmer, nurse, mechanic,’ she said. ‘You’ve met three. Welcome to the fourth.’

She climbed out and hauled up the bonnet, and he climbed out after her.

Cars weren’t his thing. Yeah, he could drive them, but his garage was right by the hospital and apart from the odd tyre change he’d never concerned himself with them.

Underneath the bonnet looked as decrepit as the outside of the car, and a lot more mysterious, but Maggie was sighing and heading for the rear.

‘Panty hose,’ she said.

‘Panty hose?’

‘A girl’s best friend. Never go anywhere without them.’ She hauled out a pair of black tights that looked like they’d seen better days. ‘Can you find some scissors in my bag and chop the legs off?’ she asked. He did, while Maggie did...other stuff.

‘Fanbelt?’ he guessed, thinking he ought to try and sound intelligent. They were in the middle of nowhere. Where was the nearest tow truck?

But Maggie wasn’t thinking about tow trucks. ‘You’ve got it.’ She was head down in the engine, tossing out a very decrepit belt. ‘I did a course a while back to learn what to do. The fanbelt transmits drive from the engine to the alternator and water pump. Without it, the battery doesn’t charge and the engine overheats. It’s okay. I have a spare at home and the panty hose will get us there. I just need to make a smooth knot so it’ll spin. I’ll loosen the alternator mounting bolts and push the alternator towards the other pulleys. Then I’ll slip on my pantyhose, lever the alternator until the loop’s tight and do up the bolts. I’ll only use the crank and pump pulleys. It’s hard to make the panty hose tight when it’s fitted over more.’

‘Right,’ he said faintly, and she glanced back up at him and grinned.

‘So mechanic doesn’t fit in your job description.’

‘No.’

‘Lucky you.’ She straightened and took the chopped panty-hose leg from him. She had a smudge of grease on her nose. He thought she looked...she looked...

‘Hop back in the car,’ she said gently. ‘I can cope on my own. Miriam would have my hide if she could see me dragging you with me on my medical rounds—and I don’t need you to hold my spanner.’

‘Miriam’s not my fiancée,’ he said, and she paused and stared at him—and then bit her lip and dived under the bonnet again.

‘Not?’

‘She’s a colleague.’

‘She said—’

‘She’s been my partner. Sort of. We studied together at university. When we got jobs at the same hospital, we figured we could afford an amazing apartment if we got it together.’ He hesitated. ‘That doesn’t totally sum up our relationship,’ he said honestly. It’s drifted past friendship but the other night...I realised it needs to stop drifting.’

‘Because I was sharing a house with you?’ she said, not looking at him, concentrating fiercely on whatever it was she was concentrating on. ‘Because you kissed me? If you think I’m taking responsibility for breaking up your relationship...’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You want me to phone her and tell her there’s an oak door and five kids between us?’

‘I already have.’

‘Then it’s ridiculous.’

‘Is it?’

‘Of course it’s ridiculous.’ She thumped something with a spanner. ‘You’ve lost a potential fiancée. Why aren’t you sounding heartbroken?’

‘Because I’m not in love with Miriam. Neither of us has ever pretended to be in love with the other. Because, even though I’ve known you for less than two weeks, even though it makes no sense at all, the kiss we shared was electric and I’ve never felt that with Miriam. Ever. So moving on from Miriam...it had to be done. It’s not fair on anyone to continue.’

There was a moment’s silence. Deathly silence. Actually, it was more than a moment. It lasted for a very long time.

Then the spanner thumped again. She went back to work. He waited—and he thought...

Why had he said that? Confessed all?

Because her backside under the bonnet was really, really sexy? Because the smudge of grease on her nose made him want to wipe it away for her and then kiss it? Because the whole package of Maggie, woman, sister, farmer, nurse, mechanic was doing something to him he couldn’t understand and he couldn’t fight?

She was the most desirable woman he’d ever met.

He’d suggested what they had together was unique. One kiss?

He’d done this all wrong. He’d confessed he’d been blown away by a kiss, while the woman in question was covered in grease and doing something a guy would traditionally do but which he had no hope of doing.

Had he scared her?

He
had
scared her. He saw it in her body language. He saw it in the way she concentrated fiercely on doing what she had to do.

He’d been really, really stupid.

Why?

He thought up a barrage of excuses. Appendix. Floods. Baby. Maggie herself.

The kiss.

Together they were a package designed to knock any man off kilter, he decided—and maybe Maggie realised it. When she finally hauled herself back from under the bonnet she had her face under control.

She dropped the bonnet into position with a bang, wiped her hands on the remains of the panty hose, slid into the driver’s seat and waited until Blake had climbed back into the car beside her.

She started the car, watched the ignition go out with satisfaction, pulled back onto the road and finally, eventually she spoke.

‘I hope what you said back there was an aberration,’ she said.

‘It was...a fairly awesome kiss,’ he said, thinking caution was the way to go here.

‘Fairly?’

‘Okay, very,’ he conceded. ‘And just now... There was grease on your nose. You looked sexy as hell. I love a girl with a spanner.’

She managed a smile at that, but it was a wobbly smile.

‘Just as well I’ve put my spanner away, then,’ she said. ‘Blake...’ Her voice turned serious. ‘Don’t read anything into what happened between us, and for heaven’s sake don’t call things off with Miriam because of me. I come with a lot more encumbrances than a spanner, and I’m not in the market for a relationship. One kiss does not a relationship make.’

Where could he fit caution into this reply? He tried, but failed. When in doubt, opt for honesty. ‘One kiss makes me feel like I’ve never felt before,’ he said, and it felt okay. It felt right.

‘It was a good kiss,’ she conceded. ‘But don’t even think of taking it further. I’m heading for Africa.’

‘Africa?’ he said, startled.

‘And possibly Siberia. Not to mention Sardinia, Istanbul and Paris. All by myself. I have a bank account...’ She took a deep breath, glanced at him—quickly—and obviously decided to go on. ‘When I was a kid I used to collect drink cans,’ she told him. ‘Outside footy matches, from the richer kids at school, wherever I could find them. I squashed them and sold them by weight. They made me a pittance but it was
my
pittance. When things got bad at home I used to escape and search for cans. Even today I think of escape in the form of drink cans.’

She hesitated then, and he wondered why she was telling him this—why she was turning what must surely be a joking conversation—a mistake?—into a conversation about saving. But something in her expression told him this was important. And maybe it was something she’d told no one else.

‘Mum and Dad were always broke,’ she told him. ‘Desperately broke. If they’d known I had even a tiny fund they’d have used it in an instant and it’d be gone, so I kept hiding it and they never knew. All my life I hid it. As a teenager I babysat, like Liselle does. Some of the money I earned went into my secret fund. When I started nursing I kept doing it, squirrelling away my pittances. Ninety-nine per cent of all I’ve ever earned has gone to keeping me or helping the kids, but one per cent is mine. My tiny fund is almost enough to get me to Africa—but not back.’

‘But you will come back?’ he asked, startled, and she shrugged and grinned.

‘Of course I will. I suspect the family will always need me—Good Old Maggie. But I will go.’ It was a declaration, almost a vow. ‘The moment Susie leaves home, I’m off.’

‘Susie’s ten,’ he said faintly. ‘That’s seven years.’

‘I’ll have the return fare by then,’ she said resolutely. ‘More. The less they need me the more I’ll be able to save. I’m aiming to travel for at least six months. All by myself... Remember that backpacking dream I told you about? Sitting on the Left Bank in Paris drinking kir, with not one single person to answer to. Lying in the sun on a Greek island. Seeing a rhinoceros in the wild. I really do hope to turn that into a reality one of these days.’ She glanced across at him and bit her lip and turned her attention deliberately to the road again. ‘So don’t you—and Ruby—dare mess with my dream!’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Just so we understand each other.’

* * *

They drove on and he kept right on kicking himself. Of all the morons... Why had he frightened her? Why had he made a big deal out of one kiss? Why had he forced her to tell him her life dreams?

He’d known this woman for little more than a week. He’d kissed her once. To suggest it could be the foundation of a relationship...to tell her it was the reason he’d broken up with Miriam...

The whole thing was dumb.

He was a city surgeon, ambitious, career focussed, totally centred on getting as good at his job as it was possible to get. Maggie lived in Hicksville, surrounded by kids and cows and not even the scent of decent coffee.

And never the twain should meet.

It was cabin fever, he told himself. He’d been trapped with Maggie for a week now. Any more time in this place and anyone with an X chromosome would start looking good. Even a woman with grease spots on her nose.