Pregnant Midwife On His Doorstep

by Marion Lennox

  Would she be able to ring her mother? Her dad would slam the phone down if she tried. Even her sister... She and Bridget had been so close all their lives, but Bridget had caved in, in the face of her father’s rage-filled bullying. When Hannah had tried to call, Bridget had whispered his reaction. ‘Your sister’s shamed us,’ he’d told her. ‘You’ll have nothing to do with her or you’ll leave this family as well.’ There’d been a few furtive calls but their closeness was gone.

  Desolation hit like a wall, but then Mick stirred. She needed to refill his mug—for every mouthful he seemed to spill three—and she went back into putting one foot after another mode.

  Finally Josh returned, and with that went any time for reflection. He brought a decent piece of wood, and carefully replaced the rough stick he’d used as a first urgent splint. He administered more pain relief, then they laid the truck’s front passenger seat down and manoeuvred Mick aboard.

  It sounded simple.

  It wasn’t.

  ‘Right,’ Hannah said at last as she squeezed into what was left of the back seat. ‘Home.’

  Home.

  It was a strange word. A strange concept. Josh was battling to keep the truck on the rutted track. The last thing they needed now was to overturn, but Hannah’s hand was holding Mick’s wrist and she was watching him, keeping tight obs on his pulse. He could stop being in doctor mode for a moment and let the strangeness of the word drift.

  He was going home.

  With hangers-on.

  When he’d left, Skye had been feeding the kids—there was nothing vegan in the way they reacted to Hannah’s pasties. She was staggering a bit, and still dead scared for Mick, but she had her filthy, sand-coated kids around the kitchen table and was doing her best.

  ‘As soon as you’ve eaten I want you all in the bath or shower,’ he’d told them. ‘I need to do a full check of all of you but not until the dirt’s gone.’

  He’d then done a swift dog check. Thankfully his laundry was big. The dogs had been less than impressed when he’d shifted them—Maisie had even given a low growl—but a couple of leftover sausages had done the trick. The last thing he needed was any of the kids venturing into the living room and facing a bitch with pups.

  Then he’d headed back to Mick—and Hannah. Now, waiting for him was Skye and three battered children, plus two dogs and four pups.

  At home? A sanctuary?

  He’d never thought of it as a sanctuary. He’d thought of it only as an escape. Now that escape would be crammed with people he didn’t know, kids, dogs, medical needs, dog needs.

  And Hannah.

  What was there in this woman that made his world seem to settle. That made him feel that, yes, this would be chaos but she’d be there.

  He glanced in the rear-view mirror and she saw, she smiled and she gave him a quick thumbs up before turning back to say something to Mick.

  She should be frightened herself. Instead she was calm and practical.

  When he’d asked her to stay with Mick—at eight months pregnant, the day after she’d almost drowned, after her aunt’s death, after terror, while crouching behind a sandhill being blasted by gritty wind, she’d simply said, ‘Yes.’

  Not even a falter in her calm demeanour.

  If he was in the market for a relationship... For a woman...

  Which he wasn’t, he told himself fiercely, astounded that such a thought could surface at such a time. He put a hand up and traced the scar on his face, as if to remind himself of consequences.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Hannah asked from the back seat. ‘Is your hand hurting? Would you like me to drive?’

  It took only that. After all this, she was concerned about him.

  ‘‘We’re nearly there,’ he said, too curtly, but she smiled.

  ‘That’s great, Josh. You hear that, Mick? We’re nearly home. Well done, us.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE NEXT COUPLE of hours were focused on medical need and little else.

  A clean Skye, draped in Josh’s bathrobe, met them as the truck turned into the garage and helped them lift Mick into the kitchen.

  ‘I’ve put the kids into the big bedroom,’ she said, apologetically. ‘I hope that’s okay. They’re asleep already. What can I do to help?’

  Her face was bleached white as she looked at her husband. With cause, Hannah thought. With the amount of blood loss he’d suffered, Mick looked dreadful.

  ‘Go to bed with the kids,’ Josh said roughly as they got the semi-conscious Mick into the kitchen, onto their rough operating table. ‘Skye, you know I’m a doctor and Hannah’s a nurse. We have everything we need and there’s nothing more you can do. Mick might need you when he wakes up, though, so the best thing you can do now is sleep.’

  She left, reluctantly, but she looked almost dead on her feet.

  Josh was already inserting a drip. Mick had been drinking but not enough. He needed fluid resuscitation—saline. Josh was swabbing everything three or four times over. The sand was insidious.

  The morphine combined with blood loss combined with dehydration was making Mick drift in and out of awareness. As Josh started removing what was left of his pants, though, he groaned and grabbed. Hannah caught his hand.

  ‘You’re okay, Mick,’ she told him, as she’d told him over and over in the past hour. ‘You’re safe. Dr O’Connor’s good.’

  ‘Mick, we’re going to put you to sleep for a wee while,’ Josh said. He was inspecting Mick’s legs, his face carefully impassive.

  Hannah had seen this look any number of times with medical personnel.

  Don’t scare the patient.

  His look scared her.

  ‘Fancy yourself as an anaesthetist?’ he asked, and sent her a look she read from years of experience.

  ‘I don’t need to fancy myself,’ she retorted. ‘I’m superb.’ She managed a grin and held Mick’s hand tighter. ‘You have two of the best medical personnel in Australia treating you, Mick. Skilled, professional—’

  ‘And modest,’ Josh said, rising to her smile. ‘Don’t forget modest. Mick, we might have to knock something off your Medicare funding for fixing your leg on the kitchen table instead of in a nice, shiny theatre, but never doubt our ability. Give us a minute to get the worst of the sand off us—we don’t want to be shaking sand into our neat handiwork—and we’ll have you to sleep and sorted in no time.’

  ‘It still hurts,’ Mick faltered. ‘And I can’t feel the toes on my left foot.’

  ‘That’s why we’re here, Mick. Leave it to us.

  A compound fracture. Multiple lacerations. Compromised blood supply to the foot.

  He should be in a major hospital with orthopaedic and vascular surgeons, plus a team of highly skilled nurses, Hannah thought.

  There was no such option.

  Almost as soon as they had everyone safe in the house the wind started rising again. The forecast was for another few hours’ blow. Josh made a fast call, placing them in the queue for evacuation, but there was no chance of that until morning.

  Which left Hannah working as anaesthetist while Josh fought to stabilise the fractured leg and, more importantly, to repair the compromised blood supply to the foot.

  How he did it with the equipment he had available to him, Hannah had no idea, and she couldn’t watch to find out. All her attention was on Mick’s breathing, on his thready pulse, on what she had to do to keep both things stable. Anaesthetics were not part of midwifery training. Luckily she’d been in a lot of theatres in her time. She’d paid attention, but still she was well out of her comfort zone. Josh was incorporating her in his scope of responsibility, though, giving curt orders, aware of her tenuous hold on the situation.

  Hannah concentrated fiercely on what she had to do—but on the tiny part of her brain that was still capable of other thought, she could only wonder at this man�
��s skill.

  He was working fast, obviously acutely aware of the need for minimal anaesthetic when not only was his anaesthetist a midwife, but he lacked any of the superb technology used in modern theatres to monitor the patient’s condition. And he was talking to Hannah as he worked, possibly aware that it settled her—at least made her as settled as anyone doing what she was doing could be.

  ‘There are splinters of bone pushing against blood vessels,’ he told her. ‘The fracture itself seems relatively easy to align but the splinters are doing the damage.’ There was a long silence with intense concentration on both their parts, and then a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Got it. You b... That one’s been kinking the main artery. There’s a surge to the foot already.’ Another silence and then... ‘It’s regaining colour. You beauty. I think we’re home and hosed, Hannah. Pulse?’

  ‘Still steady,’ she told him. Every sense was directed at Mick’s pallid face, his breathing, his heart rate.

  ‘Right, let’s get the leg splinted before it can shift again. There’s more I could do but I don’t want to keep him under for a moment longer than I can help. Though I reckon that drip’s already doing its job. Amazing what hydration can do.’

  That was aimed to make her feel better about the risks. It was true, though. She wasn’t imagining it. Mick’s colour was already improving.

  Josh was splinting, then turning to deal with lacerations. So many...

  He swabbed and cleaned and pulled them together with Steri-Strips. ‘They’ll need decent stitching when he gets out of here, but it’s too risky to keep him under for longer.’

  His leg was going to look like patchwork for ever.

  But there was a for ever, Hannah thought, and she felt almost light-headed. How lucky were they all that Josh had been on the island?

  He finished and helped her to reverse the anaesthetic.

  ‘Amazing job, Dr Byrne,’ he told her as Mick coughed and choked and then started breathing for himself.

  ‘It’s you who’s amazing,’ she told him. ‘To have the forethought to have this equipment here... To have the skills...’ She found herself blinking back tears. She thought of this little family and how they’d be if Josh hadn’t found them. She thought of where she’d be...

  She couldn’t help it, she put her arms around Josh and hugged. Hard.

  It was the most unprofessional action...

  She didn’t care. He held himself stiff in her arms but she didn’t care about that either. She knew enough of this man to know his ghosts, his pain, his need for isolation wouldn’t want her close, but, dammit, she needed to hug him. She buried her face in his chest, she wrapped her arms around as much of him as she could hold—which wasn’t as much as she’d have liked because her bump got in the way—and she hugged and she hugged and she hugged.

  He hadn’t been held since Madison had left, and he hadn’t enjoyed being held then. The guilt as his sister had held him had been almost overwhelming.

  There was no guilt here. There was only...fear? Fear to hug back? Fear to accept warmth and friendship—for surely that was all it was?

  It was also reaction, he told himself. Hannah had had an appalling couple of days. She’d risen to the challenge brilliantly. Her reactions to everything thrown at her had been little less than mind-blowing, and now she was hugging him.

  Like Madison, he thought. Madison hugged him to give him comfort and he didn’t deserve comfort.

  But as Hannah continued to hold he felt more. She was holding and holding, her face was buried in his chest and he realised she was taking comfort, as well as giving it. Almost involuntarily his arms wrapped around her and he found himself hugging back.

  He was still watching Mick, but the big man’s breathing was settling. His eyes hadn’t fluttered open yet but they would.

  Mick was safe. They were all safe.

  This woman had made it possible.

  His head seemed to bend of its own accord, and he found himself letting his chin rest in her hair. He wanted more. He wanted to bury his whole face in her tangle of curls. He wanted to lift her, hold her, protect her...

  Claim her.

  There was a dumb thought. Primaeval and sexist and wrong on so many levels. Stupid. She was nothing to do with him and she’d be gone tomorrow. He needed to get back to his solitude, to the way of life he needed to keep himself sane.

  But for one sweet moment he allowed himself to forget the fears, the promises. He allowed himself to savour the feel of her, the warmth and strength of her hold, the sensation of giving and receiving. Of almost merging.

  He could feel her heartbeat. She must be feeling his as well. It felt good. Right. Perfect.

  As if it was meant.

  But it wasn’t meant. It was shock and trauma that had created the moment, and sanity surfaced. He sensed rather than saw Mick open his eyes and he wasn’t sure if it was Hannah who tugged away or him, but either way suddenly they were separate beings. Emotion was put away.

  They were back to being professionals with a patient emerging from anaesthetic.

  ‘Skye...’ Mick croaked. ‘The kids...’

  And that’s what loving’s all about, Josh thought as he adjusted the drip and Hannah did the reassuring. It’s blind terror, exposure, where someone’s death can cut you in two and destroy more than your life.

  All he had to do was remind himself of that appalling moment when he’d realised Alice was dead. At the grief etched onto Madison’s face.

  Solitude.

  He needed to get back to it, fast.

  He needed to get all these people out of his house. Including Hannah.

  Hannah lay in bed and felt guilty. Josh O’Connor was starting to look hunted.

  Not only that, his house was filled to bursting. And he must be exhausted.

  Skye and the kids were in Josh’s big bed. She was in Madison’s. Mick was on the settee in the living room. The dogs had the laundry.

  Josh was keeping watch over Mick on one of the small fireside chairs. Hardly a base for sleeping. But when she’d demurred, offering to take the first shift, Josh had told where to go. ‘Get into bed and sleep,’ he’d told her. ‘The last thing we need is for exhaustion and stress to bring on early labour.’

  He was right, but now... She glanced at the bedside clock. Three a.m. She’d had almost seven hours’ sleep. Surely he’d let her now.

  But even as she thought it she heard footsteps padding along the corridor. Light footsteps. Skye?

  She might be in trouble. Josh had given them all painkillers but they’d be wearing off now.

  She could do this for Josh, at least, she thought, and tossed back her covers to intercept her.

  She didn’t make it. Skye already had the living-room door open and was looking worriedly across to the settee.

  The room was lit only by firelight and one small lamp. Hannah could see a shape on the settee—and Josh sitting upright by the fire. He rose as he saw Skye.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ he told her gently. ‘I’ve just put more morphine into his drip but he’s sleeping naturally. Everything’s okay.’

  ‘I know,’ Skye said, faltering. She was wearing one of Josh’s T-shirts, Madison’s knickers, and nothing else. Her hair was still tangled and wild and she had sticking plaster across one side of her face, but she looked across at her husband and her expression firmed. ‘That’s why I’m here. I’ve slept solidly. The kids are okay. They’re such a bundle of arms and legs in that bed that they’ll comfort each other if they wake. Now I’d like to take a turn watching over Mick.’ And then, as Josh hesitated, she held out her hands as if in supplication. ‘Josh, I need to.’

  And Josh got it. Hannah saw his face soften and she understood. Skye must have thought they could all could die. Mick had covered her and her children with his body. He was her husband and she loved him.

&
nbsp; She needed to take a hand in his care.

  Josh rose, smiling. ‘That’s great, Skye. Do you need painkillers yourself? No awards for bravery, now. Yes or no?’

  ‘I could use something,’ Skye admitted. ‘But nothing that’ll make me sleep. I want—’

  ‘To watch over Mick. I understand.’ He bent over his truly impressive box of medical supplies and produced a couple of pills. ‘Take these with water. There’s a pitcher here and a glass. If Mick wakes up, see if you can encourage him to drink. The drip will be keeping him hydrated but his mouth was dry so long it’ll be like sandpaper. Yours too, I’m guessing. And if there’s anything you need, if there’s anything worrying you at all, come and fetch me. I’ll be in the kitchen.’

  ‘I promise.’ She took the pills like an automaton and sank down beside Mick. She took his hand and held it and Hannah and Josh might as well not have been there.

  With one last, long look, Josh slipped out of the room. Hannah had backed into the passage.

  ‘In the kitchen, huh?’ she said as he closed the door, and she saw him start.

  ‘Hannah...’

  ‘I was coming to offer what Skye’s providing,’ she told him. ‘I’ve been usurped. But no kitchen for you. You must be dead on your feet.’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘You’re not okay. Is your hand hurting?

  He’d almost forgotten his hand. ‘No.’

  ‘That’s great. Bed, then.’

  ‘There’s not—’

  ‘A bed? There is. Madison’s bed’s a double. In you go and sleep. I’ll tell Skye where you’ll be if she needs you, but she can find me first.’

  ‘Hannah, you need sleep more than me.

  ‘I’ve had it. I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re not fine. Hannah, I will not sleep while you sit up.’

  ‘Ditto for me,’ she said serenely. ‘Which leaves one option. We share. I’m going to make myself some tea and toast first, though. Would you like some?’

  ‘I...’ He hesitated and then shrugged. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good boy,’ she said, and he blinked.