Pregnant Midwife On His Doorstep

by Marion Lennox

  ‘So I should put Dudley here and put you and your dog and her babies in the laundry? I can see Dudley agreeing, but not me. Besides, tonight Maisie and her pups need monitoring, possibly all night, which means shifts, and if you think I’m going to spend the night in the laundry...’

  ‘There’s no way you’re doing shifts. Josh, she’s my responsibility.’

  ‘She may well be,’ he agreed. ‘But I got very wet on your account. You then allowed yourself to be brought to my house, and you’re about to partake of my toast and cocoa. Which means you’re accepting that I’ve accepted responsibility for you. Hannah, you’re eight months pregnant and you’ve had one hell of a day. Back off now and let me take over.’

  ‘I think...’ she said unsteadily. ‘Maybe I already have.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he told her. ‘Then keep on with more of the same.’

  The kitchen was a mess. There was nothing for it but to go through it like a dose of salts. He missed the ‘good ole days’, he thought ruefully as he cleaned. As a neurosurgeon working in a major teaching hospital, he’d been able to walk from Theatre leaving a small army of hospital staff to clean up. Now he was it. Neurosurgeon and janitor all in one.

  The sad little bundle of dead puppies was his nemesis. He looked down at it for a long moment, feeling strangely gutted. Claire had told him to expect them all to be dead, but still...

  Since Alice’s death he’d been thrown by all sorts of things, some totally unexpected. Now, looking down at the tiny bundle, he felt the grey void surge back.

  Move on, he told himself harshly. He’d spent the last three years working out that the only way to rid himself of this void was to block out the world with activity. He’d dived into his research with a fierceness that left his colleagues stunned.

  But research wasn’t an option now. He carried the little bundle through to the garage. He’d bury it in the morning—or the morning after. By the sound of the wind he might be stuck inside for quite some time.

  With Hannah. Who needed feeding.

  Activity, he thought gratefully, and his freezer, his microwave and his frying pan co-operated. Half an hour later he was carrying dinner into the living room. Sausages, bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes and toast.

  He gave Hannah a plate and hauled a chair up to the fire to join her. She was staring at her meal with astonishment.

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Chef extraordinaire,’ he told her modestly, then spoiled the effect by grinning. He tackled a sausage but she was still watching him, open-mouthed.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Has anyone told you there’s a cyclone outside?’

  ‘Yeah, but not inside.’

  ‘So you have everything you need.’

  ‘I hate shopping,’ he said simply. ‘A once a month supermarket hit, big freezers and a cold store and I’m done. I have three more weeks before I need to worry about starving.’ He paused, reflecting. ‘Unless this cyclone hangs around. One stranded midwife, one lactating bitch and four puppies might cut our time frame down a bit. Ten days?’

  ‘I’m not staying,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Or no longer than I must. As soon as the wind dies I’ll take Maisie and the pups back to Moira’s.’ She hesitated. ‘Though Moira’s body...’

  ‘That might be complicated,’ he told her. ‘We’ll need to contact the authorities. Do you know if she was seeing a doctor?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘There’s a small clinic at Stingray Bay over the bridge,’ he said, thinking it through. ‘That’s where we all do our shopping, so I imagine it’s where she’d go if she did see anyone. We need to see if a local doctor’s prepared to sign off on her death on the basis of her medical history, or whether we need to call in the coroner. But, Hannah, it’ll have to wait. I’ve just checked the forecast and it’s not pretty. The cyclone’s moving slowly. You need to accept that you’re stuck here for a day or two.’

  She closed her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I’m sorry too—that your dinner’s getting cold. Eat.’

  She managed a smile and ate, but in silence. He could see cogs working. He could almost see plan after plan being inspected and rejected.

  There was no choice. She was truly stuck.

  And so was he.

  He didn’t enjoy visitors. Since Alice’s death he’d withdrawn more and more.

  ‘I hate to see you so isolated,’ Madison had said sadly as she’d left for New York.

  ‘It’s what I need.’

  ‘Yeah, but I hate that it’s what you need. Just remember there’s a world out there waiting for when you come out the other side.’

  ‘There isn’t another side.’

  ‘There is,’ she’d said resolutely, and given him the naff apron. ‘For when you’re ready,’ she’d said, and hugged him and left, and all he’d felt was relief at being alone where he could manage his demons in his own way.

  But being alone wasn’t in the equation now.

  ‘Is there anyone who’ll be worrying about you?’ he asked Hannah. He eyed her pregnant abdomen with a certain amount of caution. There must be a dad somewhere, but early in his medical training he’d learned to ask questions with care. ‘Do you have friends or family who’ll be anxious when you don’t get home tonight?’ He motioned to his phone. ‘My satellite phone can call normal numbers. If communications aren’t down on the mainland then you can use it.’

  But she shook her head. ‘It’s not a problem. I share hospital accommodation with other nurses, but they’ll assume I’ve hunkered down to stay with Moira.’

  ‘What about at work? If you don’t turn up...’

  ‘I won’t be missed. I started leave on Friday.’

  ‘Because of the baby?’

  ‘They wouldn’t let me work closer to my due date.’ She sighed. ‘The downside of working in the same hospital as my obstetrician meant I couldn’t lie about my dates.’

  ‘Would you have lied about your dates?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said simply. ‘I want all the leave I can get after the baby’s born.’ She grimaced. ‘I’m just a wee bit skint.’

  ‘Because you’re alone?’ he asked gently.

  She flushed. ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘But you’re skint. And you don’t have anyone worrying about you. So... You want to tell me why an Irish nurse with a hermit great-aunt is eight months pregnant with no one who’ll worry if she doesn’t come home at night?’

  But she didn’t react as he expected. Her green eyes flashed sudden defiance.

  ‘That sounds like a counselling type query,’ she said, softening her words with a tight smile. ‘I’ve already copped it from our hospital almoner. “So, Hannah, how are you feeling, facing pregnancy alone?” As if it helps, talking about it. So how about you, Josh O’Connor? You want to tell me why an Australian surgeon is hunkered down on a practically deserted island in a house that resembles nothing as much as Fort Knox?’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ he said, startled. ‘Fort Knox?’

  ‘I haven’t seen Fort Knox,’ she admitted. ‘But this building... Is this what architects call minimalist?’

  ‘Simple,’ he retorted.

  ‘Or austere, bleak, spartan. Every time I visit, this place seems to be blending with the rocks even more.’

  ‘That’s what I intended,’ he said, faintly pleased.

  ‘To be invisible?’

  ‘I... No.’

  ‘You’re hiding?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Neither am I, but I’m stuck. I can’t go back to Ireland. It’s here or nothing. So you...is it here or nothing for you, too?’

  ‘You’re channelling your hospital almoner?’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ she said, and grinned, then rose to gather the plates. ‘Sorry. I know it’s none of my business. Can I make you a cup of tea?’<
br />
  ‘That’s my job.’ He rose but he rose too fast. She’d stepped forward to take his plate. They were suddenly too close, standing with only a plate between them.

  She was still smiling, looking into his face. He saw freckles and wide green eyes and a tumble of fiery curls. He also saw defiance. And courage?

  There was a story here. He knew it. Maybe it was because he had ghosts of his own, but he knew them when he saw them.

  ‘Hannah...’ Involuntarily he put a hand on her shoulder but the movement was a mistake. She stepped back fast and his hand fell.

  ‘Sorry.’ He frowned, his impression of the ghost deepening. Just shadows, he told himself. Ghosts didn’t exist.

  Which meant Alice didn’t exist.

  Her smile had completely disappeared. ‘I just thought... I don’t need hugging.’

  ‘I wasn’t about to hug you.’

  ‘No. You touched my shoulder, that was all, but I’m touchy about touch. It comes from living with a bunch of carey-sharey midwives. Tell us how you feel, Hannah. No, really, let’s have a cup of cocoa and you can tell us all about it. When what I really want is a glass or two of good Irish whiskey and to be taken out to a pub with a decent band.’

  ‘It’s a bit awkward getting to a pub right now,’ he said apologetically. ‘And the whiskey...’

  ‘I know. This baby means I can’t drink alcohol.’ She sighed. ‘So cocoa it is, but not so much of the touchy-feely as we drink it, if you don’t mind. I’m over it.’

  ‘Aren’t we both?’ he said dryly, and her smile returned.

  ‘Then sit,’ she told him. ‘You’re on Maisie watch while I figure out your kitchen.’

  ‘I can make tea much faster.’

  ‘But I need to feel useful,’ she retorted. ‘You have no idea how much I want that.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WHEN SHE’D WALKED OUT, the kitchen had felt like an operating theatre but there was no sign of the drama that had played out here now. Josh would have had to clear things to make dinner but he’d gone the extra mile. World’s fastest scrub! The room was meticulously clean.

  And then she thought, The guy’s a neurosurgeon. Neurosurgeons were famous for being meticulous.

  A couple of times during basic training Hannah had been a gofer during neurosurgery, and she’d been blown away by the skill and intensity during microscopic surgery. She’d watched Josh deliver the pups and and she’d thought, The guy’s good. Now she looked around the gleaming kitchen and she thought, No, the guy’s a step above good.

  But he was a neurosurgeon with ghosts. There had to be ghosts, she decided. Why else was he hunkered down in Fort Knox?

  She’d wondered a couple of times about her great-aunt’s neighbour but Moira had put her firmly in her place.

  ‘I wouldn’t be impertinent enough to ask. There was a woman here when he first came,’ she’d admitted. ‘But that didn’t last. When did it ever? That scar...maybe she hit him. Good luck to her, I say. Men!’

  That had been all Hannah had been able to find out, and in truth she hadn’t been much interested. But now, thinking of Josh, she found herself very interested indeed.

  But it wasn’t about the way she’d felt when he’d put his hand on her shoulder, she told herself. Or the feeling when he’d carried her. Or when he’d checked her baby and reassured her, with all the gentleness in the world. Um...surely it wasn’t? It couldn’t be.

  ‘It’s just because we’re stuck here together,’ she said out loud. ‘We might be here for a couple of days. We need to get to know each other.’

  Then she grinned at herself. ‘Really? Hannah Byrne, you’re a terrible liar. He’s fascinating. But after these couple of days you’ll never see him again. His story’s none of your business.’

  But... a little voice said at the back of her mind. He asked about me so he wants to know. Fair’s fair. And if you’re staying, surely you need to establish he’s not someone a woman needs to defend herself from with a kitchen knife.

  Ooh, who’s being dramatic? she answered herself.

  She grinned, admitting ruefully to herself that she could be using thoughts of Josh to drive away thoughts of the terror she’d felt only hours before—of her great-aunt dead in the house a few hundred yards away, of the storm, and of the bleakness that seemed always just around the corner.

  Her great-aunt had been cold and uninterested, but she’d been family and in some ways that had seemed important. It had been a tenuous link to home, but a link for all that. Now it, too, was gone.

  She needed to focus on something else and Josh O’Connor seemed a good substitute. Even a great substitute.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘Let’s make tea and encourage the man to talk. See if you can. Go for it, Hannah Byrne.’

  Back in the living room, Josh was sitting on the floor, stroking Maisie’s ears. Maisie had pretty much recovered from the anaesthetic but the morphine would still be working. Her pups were nuzzling her teats with greedy contentment, she was settled in a nest of fuzzy towels and her eyes were half-closed as Josh’s hand worked its magic. She looked...

  Pretty close to orgasm, Hannah thought, and why not with a guy like this stroking her head? She bit back a grin and laid her tray on the coffee table.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Decision.’

  ‘Decision?’

  ‘Yep.’ She tossed cushions on the floor and settled beside him, because with cushions, rug, open fire, a contented dog and pups—and this man—where else would she want to be?

  ‘I’ve decided,’ she said as she settled. ‘You’ve asked about me and I’ve decided to tell you. On condition.’

  ‘On condition?’ He looked startled, and suddenly wary.

  ‘Tit for tat,’ she said blithely. ‘You want to know why an Irish midwife is stuck on Camel Island with no one to ring to say I won’t be home tonight? Then I want to know why a neurosurgeon with the skills you have is hunkered down on Camel Island with—as far as I know—no one even worrying that there’s a cyclone bearing down on you. Plus you have a very interesting scar on your face, which my Great-Aunt Moira supposed was put there by one angry wife. Or a lover. Either way, her dislike of men said you deserved it. In order to clear your name, I need your story. So here goes, Dr O’Connor. I’ll tell you mine and you tell me yours.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake... I have no intention of talking of past history.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ she agreed equitably. ‘Let’s do tea and silence. Or we can talk about the weather. There seems to be quite a lot of weather about lately.’

  ‘Hannah...’

  ‘I really don’t mind,’ she told him. ‘But it seems unfair to ask me if I can’t ask you.’

  His hand stopped its stroking and he turned to look at her.

  She gazed calmly back. He had lovely grey eyes, she decided. Deep and calm, but a bit bemused right now. As if he wasn’t used to being challenged.

  ‘I guess as a hermit you don’t get to talk about your past very much,’ she said kindly. ‘Maybe it’s horrid. But I’m betting it’s not so different from a thousand stories I’ve heard as a midwife. I imagine as a neurosurgeon you hear hardly any stories. Your patients will be nicely under anaesthetic while you operate. Me? I get to hang around women in extremis, sometimes for a long time, and, wow, the stories I hear would make your eyes pop. Not that I pass any on,’ she said hastily. ‘Button lips, that’s me. I take stories to the grave.’

  ‘I watched you try that tonight,’ he said, still wary but his mouth twitching into the beginnings of a smile.

  ‘So I did,’ she said cordially. ‘But I survived, and I wouldn’t mind adding to my store of gory tales to carry to the next dunking. So what about it, Josh O’Connor? I’ll go first if you like.’

  He stared at her for a long moment. He really did have amazing eyes, she thought. The way they
held... The way they searched hers, as if he was seeing inside...

  She wanted to look away, but she didn’t. She held his gaze and tilted her chin.

  ‘Both or none,’ she said.

  ‘You should give me yours for the free board and lodging I’m providing.’

  ‘That’s not playing fair.’

  ‘I can be mean when I want to be.’

  ‘You know, I’m almost sure you can’t,’ she said thoughtfully. And then she sighed. ‘But you have a point. That was a great meal and the bath was something else. If you really want to know...’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  ‘That is mean,’ she told him. ‘To ask and then act like you don’t want to know anyway.’

  He shrugged and went back to stroking Maisie.

  He really didn’t want to know? Well, stuff it, Hannah thought, because suddenly the need to tell him the reason she found herself where she’d never thought to be, why she felt so stupid, so isolated, so helpless... It felt overwhelming.

  He might not be the least bit interested, but something deep inside was insisting she needed to explain.

  He was interested.

  Okay, more than interested. He badly wanted to know.

  This interest went against everything he’d tried to instil in himself since Alice’s death.

  Cut yourself off. Don’t care.

  But Hannah was right. He’d asked, and his question had backfired.

  I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.

  She’d no longer demand but fair was fair. Already he was purging parts of his story in his head. He could give her a brief outline, no emotion, just facts.

  And then she started talking and he somehow forgot about focusing on his hang-ups and was caught in hers.

  So why was she alone?

  ‘I’m not here through choice,’ she told him. ‘If I had my druthers I’d be back in Ireland.’

  ‘Right,’ he said cautiously. ‘So why aren’t you?’

  ‘Because my family doesn’t want me.’ Her voice had turned bleak. ‘I’m not welcome.’