by Lilian Darcy
He wondered how much he actually cared about the wretched turtle, and how much he’d seized on its loss as an excuse to see Emma so that he could mend fences a little and hopefully get back to the easier relationship they’d begun to build while she’d been away. He didn’t want this awareness.
He didn’t want to find himself backpedalling either. Backpedalling too far and too fast, the way he had when he’d so stiffly told her that it was dangerous to care about baby Alethea. He didn’t want this new way that her body captivated him…The changes in the way she looked—her ‘makeover’—that he kept trying to pinpoint were too powerful.
It wasn’t the hair or the dress. She looked alive, and happy with who she was. It was new, he thought. She hadn’t been happy when her stepmother had been living here, and she’d struggled through the death of her father before that, having moved home to help her stepmother care for him in his final illness.
But he couldn’t afford to notice these things about her, couldn’t afford to respond to them so strongly. He had to get things sorted out with Claire and the girls before he had any room in his life for even the glimmerings of casual male desire.
As for a new relationship…friendship, involvement, affair, it didn’t matter what you called it…No! Out of the question! He was far too bruised and raw. He had to find a safe middle ground.
The repetitive thoughts kept churning in his head, with nowhere to go.
‘We’ll go,’ he said aloud. ‘If you do find—’
‘Turtie!’ Jessie suddenly exclaimed. ‘Daddy, he’s been hider-nating! Under a leaf!’
What a relief!
‘Thanks,’ he said to Emma.
‘No problem. I’m glad he was only “hider-nating,” and not permanently lost.’ She gave that warm, dazzling Audrey Hepburn smile again, and he loved the fact that she thought a child’s cute mistake with language was worthy of her amusement. ‘If I find anything else…’
‘You’ve got my address?’
‘No, actually, I don’t. You forgot to leave it.’
‘Look, I’ll phone and give it to you. I won’t stop now. I’ve taken enough of your time.’
‘It’s fine,’ she insisted, so they both stopped at the antique roll-top desk she kept on the enclosed back veranda-cum-sunroom and he scrawled it down while she stood beside him, frowning a little.
Pete made an adequately polite escape through the house with the girls moments later.
Did he think I meant I was showing off the dress to him? Emma wondered as she followed him to the door.
Her whole body had wrapped itself in coils of awareness that would have been warm and sweet and delicious if they’d been remotely appropriate. But they weren’t appropriate at all. She knew his divorce wasn’t through and, with twin daughters to bind them, it was possible he and Claire would still reconcile their differences.
Could Nell and Kit and Caroline detect the stiff aura of embarrassment he wore? It seemed to come and go, at the different times they saw each other, as if he couldn’t find the right level on which to relate to her.
And it was embarrassing. For both of them. His erstwhile landlady—they didn’t really have a friendship, for heaven’s sake, they’d exchanged a handful of silly emails!—confronting him at her front door at four-thirty on a Sunday afternoon in a Paris evening gown. No wonder he’d been a little taken aback.
And then she’d made that stupid announcement about showing off, and it would have been hardly surprising if he’d thought she’d meant she was showing off to him. Had he guessed how aware of him she’d become?
‘You should have invited him in for a cuppa,’ said Caroline, after he and the girls had driven away.
‘Heavens, no!’
‘Dr Croft, right? He sends us his pathology, but I’ve never met him face to face. He looks nice.’ Caroline paused for a second, then added, ‘Cute.’
‘He was a good tenant,’ Emma answered carefully, then let her voice rise. ‘But I don’t want to talk about Pete Croft, ladies, I want to talk about my dress!’
They did talk about the dress, and her friends said the right things. Its purchase had been a form of therapy for her, and even cynical Nell understood that now. It was all about the pampered feeling she’d had while trying on creation after creation in the exclusive Paris boutique. The fuss that had been made of her as expert suggestions were made as to how it could be altered to fit her even better. The dizzy extravagance of handing over her credit card and thinking, I don’t care how much it costs. Every moment of it had nourished her in some vital way.
Emma changed again into casual clothes, and the four women cooked and ate, listened to music and drank wine, laughed and talked, and she didn’t think about Pete again until bedtime, after her friends had gone, at which point he pitched a tent in the camping-ground of her mind and wouldn’t leave, even when she reminded him that his lease had run out.
What? Tents and camping grounds?
I must be dreaming, she realised, as part of the dream.
And since it was just a dream, and it seemed like a wonderful idea at the time, Emma let him pull her into the tent and kiss her deeply and sweetly, with no words, until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
CHAPTER FIVE
AT WORK on Tuesday, Emma paid dearly for the folly of letting Pete make love to her in her dreams.
With Lucy McNichol now safely at home with her mother, and Alethea Childer scheduled for her lifesaving surgery that morning in Melbourne, Emma was rostered on the post-partum side of the unit where Pete currently had a pregnant patient on hospital bed rest.
Liz Stokes was resigned to two or three more weeks in hospital. She was a local real-estate agent, part of the same agency through which Emma had rented out her house, and she was determined to keep involved in her business with minimal disruption.
Now aged thirty-six and taken by surprise with this, her first pregnancy, Mrs Stokes had been a heavy smoker for years. Although she’d stopped as soon as she’d discovered her pregnancy, the damage had already been done.
The fertilised egg had implanted low in the uterus, and the placenta had grown to cover the cervix completely. It was a condition affecting roughly six out of a thousand pregnancies, and was almost twice as likely amongst heavy smokers.
Liz Stokes had had a heavy but painless episode of bleeding in her fourth month of pregnancy, at which point an ultrasound had revealed the poor position of the placenta. At home, in the weeks that followed, however, she’d found herself unable to maintain the bed rest Pete had advised.
‘I kept cheating to see if something would happen, but nothing did,’ she’d said. ‘So I cheated a bit more, and then…’
A second bleed had taken place, heavier and more dangerous this time. Liz had been rushed to hospital, needing a blood transfusion and intravenous infusion of fluids. Pete had refused to send her home after that, and a chastened Liz had agreed.
‘I just can’t seem to slow down, can I, Warren?’
‘Real estate’s a killer of a profession,’ her husband had agreed. ‘Liz was the top agent at Bryant and Wallace last year.’ He was obviously very supportive of his wife.
Now, as Emma prepared to make a routine check of blood pressure, temperature, pulse and baby, Liz was surrounded as usual by laptop, folders, telephone, papers, pens and calculator.
‘Sorry to disrupt your office hours,’ Emma teased. ‘But I’m here again.’
Liz laughed. ‘I’d go nuts if I didn’t have this to do. Our trainee agent at the office is cursing me, though. She has to do all my leg-work and my open houses. I got a new listing this morning, which she’s going to just love!’
‘Well, your blood pressure is good,’ Emma said. ‘Even if hers isn’t destined to be. Shall we listen to the baby’s heart? No one’s brought the machine in for a few days, have they?’
‘No, they haven’t. Yes, let’s, please!’ Liz lifted her top and Emma slid the portable Doppler device over her taut, pale abdomen.
She was at thirty-five weeks now, and it had been seven weeks since the dangerous episode of bleeding. Every time she tried to get out of bed, however, she would feel pain and there would be minor bleeding, so they knew Pete’s approach had been by no means too conservative.
The baby was now a good, healthy size, and Pete would probably order an ultrasound in a couple of weeks to check that lung maturation was complete, before scheduling the Caesarean delivery that was essential in a case of complete placenta praevia like this one. Liz, very vocally, could hardly wait for the remaining days to pass.
The Doppler crackled with static but didn’t pick up the heartbeat both Emma and Liz were listening for. Moving the receiver higher, Emma heard the slower, louder beat of Liz’s own heart, and Liz pricked up her ears.
‘Is that it?’
‘No, that’s you.’
Emma felt for the position of the baby—head down, facing forwards—and adjusted the Doppler’s receiver again. She massaged it quite firmly against Liz’s abdomen, but still couldn’t hear anything.
Liz was looking concerned. ‘Why can’t we hear it?’ She sat up higher. ‘It’s been getting stronger all the time. We should be able to hear it, shouldn’t we?’
Please, don’t let there be a problem, Emma prayed.
There’d been enough of those lately, with Patsy McNichol’s difficult delivery and small baby, and Alethea Childer’s serious heart defect. Like most midwives, Emma preferred the warm, relaxed pregnancies and deliveries that produced healthy babies. Obstetricians might need to stretch their skills with regular challenges, but she didn’t, thanks!
Although Emma knew that the foetal heartbeat could actually become harder to pick up as the baby drew closer to term, when its larger body sometimes blocked the Doppler’s reception of sound, Liz’s anxiety trespassed into her own rational attitude.
The baby had moved perceptibly, just a few minutes ago. There was no reason to suspect that anything was wrong, and yet…
‘These portable things aren’t very sensitive or reliable,’ she said, but it sounded feeble.
‘They’re crummy,’ said Pete in the doorway, and she turned, bathed in heat at once. He was clean-shaven, crisply dressed, hair still a little damp at the ends from his shower. He came forward with a brisk stride, confident and alert. If he was tired and stressed, it didn’t show today. ‘Can’t you find anything?’
‘No.’
He took the little device from Emma, and their fingers touched, just a brief brush, like cool paint. He drew his hand back quickly after the moment of contact, as if he’d noticed it and didn’t want it.
I kissed him, Emma remembered.
Two nights ago, in her dream, with deep, lingering heat and silent passion.
She felt as self-conscious about it as she would have done had the endless kiss been real. The dream Pete had been a powerful enough presence, but the real man was even more so. He gave off an aura of confidence and authority and reliability that she knew she wasn’t the only one to feel. Liz had relaxed markedly already.
‘Let’s see if we can get this thing to behave,’ he said.
Behave? I need to do that! Emma thought. I can’t keep thinking of him this way! It’s got nowhere to go.
She stepped aside, to take herself safely out of the aura of his male body.
‘Everything else looks good?’ he said.
‘Yes, her obs are all fine.’
‘I’ll measure the height of the uterus in a minute, Liz,’ he said.
As Emma had done, he felt the position of the baby and placed the Doppler accordingly, then he fiddled with the controls, slid the receiver back and forth across the hard mound of the pregnancy and at last got a result.
‘Thank goodness!’ Liz said. All three of them listened for some seconds in silence. The beat was strong and fast and steady, over the persistent crackle of the machine.
‘There you go,’ Pete said, smiling. He pulled a tape measure out of the pocket of the doctor’s coat he wore that day, and made a quick measurement. ‘And he’s grown. Not long now, Liz.’
‘To you, perhaps! To me it still feels like half a lifetime.’
He smiled at both women once more, and then he left, and Emma hated the turbulence of her emotions in his wake. She couldn’t afford to feel like this. It was clear that, even during the moments when he felt it too, he didn’t want the awareness between them, and wasn’t ready to act on it in any way.
‘I’m such an idiot!’ she muttered to herself as she returned to the nurses’ station.
The phone rang just as she reached it and, after identifying that this was the post-partum ward, she heard Nell’s voice. ‘Would Dr Croft be in the unit?’ she said in her briskest, coolest tone.
‘Nell, it’s Emma and, no, he’s just left.’
‘When? Because I phoned his surgery and they said—’
‘A minute ago.’
‘Can you chase him?’
I feel as if I already have been. Capturing his soul in my dreams, without his knowledge.
‘It’s urgent, Emma.’ Nell’s voice sharpened. ‘I need him down here in the department right now.’
‘Right. I’ll go after him.’
She dropped the phone, gabbled an explanation to Mary Ellen Leigh and hurried to the stairs—quicker than the lift, since a glance at the lit-up number above it told her that it wasn’t currently on this floor. She caught up to Pete as his car was about to turn left to reach the main hospital driveway, and she had to wave madly to get his attention. She was breathless when she leaned down to the driver’s side window, which had slid down at his press of a button.
‘What’s the problem, Emma?’ He leaned towards her a little, his shoulder tightening and his elbow resting on the sill.
‘Dr Cassidy wants you in A and E immediately. I don’t know why.’
They could both see the accident and emergency department’s ambulance bay from where they were, and they could see a vehicle approaching. It wasn’t flashing lights and there was no siren. It wasn’t even an ambulance but a police car, and when it pulled in and the rear passenger door opened, Pete gave a shocked exclamation.
‘That’s Claire! Hell, what’s wrong?’ His dark-haired wife was weeping and struggling in the arms of the two police officers, clearly distraught. ‘Nell must have been told she was on the way in, and wanted to…’ He stopped.
‘She did sound very concerned,’ Emma said.
‘Where are the girls?’ He let go of the steering-wheel and pressed his hands to his head. ‘Claire’s supposed to have them today. I dropped them off there this morning. Where the hell are they if she’s here, like this?’
‘I have to go back to the unit, Pete.’ Emma didn’t even know if he’d been talking to her, let alone if he expected a reply.
‘Yes, yes,’ he said absently. ‘Go.’ His voice dropped to a harsh rasp. ‘Dear God, what’s Claire done with the girls?’
He was already reversing the car, twisting to look behind him as he manoeuvred the steering-wheel with one hand. He’d found a parking space between two other cars, but he’d approached it a little crookedly in his haste.
Emma opened her mouth to yell, You’re going to hit. But at the last moment he veered again and got safely in, pulling the handbrake on with a jerk. The left taillight of his car came to a stop just a few inches from the adjacent vehicle.
Emma relaxed a fraction. Pete slammed the car door, aimed the key fob roughly at the vehicle and pressed a button. The car gave an obedient whoop, and he began walking rapidly towards the A and E entrance. As she watched, he broke into a loping run, his urgent, angular movements suggesting a strong and capable man at the end of his tether.
Emma could do nothing. She couldn’t even watch him until he disappeared. She’d already stood here, frozen, for too long, and how would that help him anyway? How would this sick feeling in her stomach and this pounding of her heart be of any use to Pete now?
She had a newborn bathing demonstration
to give in five minutes, and she didn’t have any of the equipment set up yet. She would need to coax one of the three mums to attend as well, as Meg Snow had had a tough delivery, under Gian Di Luzio’s care, and was more concerned with her own aches and pains at this stage than with learning to care for her big, healthy boy.
Emma gave her demonstration in a distracted state. She was haunted, in particular, by Pete’s distraught, repeated questions about the safety and whereabouts of his daughters. Surely they would be all right! Was it possible that Claire could have harmed them in any way? She’d looked so irrational and out of control, struggling in the arms of the police.
Meanwhile, Meg Snow’s one-day-old son Nicholas did not co-operate with the bathing procedure. He cried and kicked and was so slippery that Emma almost lost hold of him twice.
Mrs Snow was critical. ‘You’ve got soap in his eyes.’
‘Well, as I explained, this isn’t soap,’ Emma answered patiently. ‘It’s very mild and it shouldn’t sting.’ She wiped the baby’s red, wrinkled face with a soft cloth anyway, although she didn’t think he had anything in his eyes.
Where were Pete’s girls? What was happening to Claire?
There was no message from the A and E department when she’d finished the baby’s bath but, then, she hadn’t been expecting one. Nell was hardly going to phone her to gossip about Claire Croft’s emotional state and the reason for her dramatic arrival at the hospital in the hands of the police. Issues of patient confidentiality were, if anything, even more important in a growing, community-minded town like Glenfallon than they were in a large city, and the whole thing was none of Emma’s business.
That didn’t stop her from thinking about it, however, and from worrying about Pete and his daughters far more than she had right or reason to do. Her Paris makeover hadn’t been just in her appearance. It had been far more in her heart. She’d gone away thinking of Pete as a colleague, and she’d returned to discover that she’d…
Yes, admit it. Be honest about it. Look it in the face.
She’d developed a serious attraction, with a rapidity which frightened her.
