Pregnant Midwife On His Doorstep

by Marion Lennox

  ‘Deal.’

  She was still dubious, worrying about it while they made up the bed, unpacked enough boxes to find the kettle and ordered in pizza. ‘And beer for me because I deserve it,’ Josh decreed.

  Then he decreed that she go to bed. She was, in fact, exhausted.

  ‘I’m heading out to the late-night supermarket to get provisions for breakfast,’ he told her.

  ‘I could come.’

  ‘Or you could sleep. What would you rather do, Hannah? Honest?’

  She looked into his face and what she saw there demanded honestly. This wasn’t a man she could lie to.

  ‘Sleep.’

  ‘Wise,’ he told her, grinning. ‘Though a bit more risky. If sometime in the night that bed decides it needs its full complement of nuts and bolts...’

  ‘Then I’ll descend a whole eighteen inches onto mattress,’ she told him. ‘Josh, thank you.’

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ he told her, and he leaned forward and kissed her on the tip of her nose. ‘Sleep. You need it and your baby needs it. Maisie and her babies are already asleep. Dudley and I are in charge of the maternity ward.’

  And he chuckled and left her, and she went to bed.

  It felt so good, to lie here knowing Josh was coming back, even if it was just to sleep on her living-room floor.

  He was leaving tomorrow. For ever?

  ‘Then I’ll take tonight,’ she told herself, and wished she could take more. Which was an entirely inappropriate thought. She shoved it away with reluctance, and finally she slept.

  With her finger just touching her nose.

  He came home and the place was in darkness. Dudley watched with interest as he unpacked groceries, but the two mums were asleep.

  Dudley got his reward, a bowl of chopped steak. Josh took the same in to Maisie, who woke enough to receive it with canine gratitude. Dudley settled beside her.

  Josh came back into the box-filled living room and surveyed the lumpy settee with misgivings.

  Cushions on floor, then. He could do this.

  Why was he doing this?

  Three years ago he’d made a vow not to get entangled with anyone. No one, period. The pain of waking up in a hospital bed to find Alice was dead, seeing the naked grief on Madison’s face, being helped into a wheelchair so he could go with her to identify Alice’s body in the morgue...

  Hearing his big sister’s sobs of utter, desolate loss...

  Then there were the bleak faces of his parents as they’d flown in for the funeral. The fixed cheerfulness of Madison as she’d determined to get on with her life...

  He’d caused it. It wasn’t just Josh who was hurting. Pain had washed outward like ripples in a pond. To get involved like that again... To care...

  He still cared for Madison—of course he did—but he’d never allow his actions to hurt her again, neither would he enmesh himself in anyone else’s life.

  The fact that Hannah needed him...

  She didn’t need him. She needed practical help, that was all there was to it. He’d be gone tomorrow, and she could get on with her independent life.

  She was like him, he told himself. She’d been hurt and she needed to build her own armour.

  In a foreign country, with a newborn baby, with a dog and four puppies...

  Only two puppies would be her responsibility, he told himself, and puppies could be rehomed. Hannah could exist with a newborn and a dog. Maternity payments were generous enough for an Australian citizen. She’d get by. She didn’t need him.

  He rolled over and buried his head into one of her pillows.

  Did it smell of her?

  He thought it did.

  Sleep was nowhere.

  She mustn’t need him.

  He lay in the dark and told himself over and over why what he was thinking was stupid, dangerous, impossible. He knew it was.

  And then the bed collapsed.

  One minute she was sleeping the sleep of the dead. The next there was a crack of timber and she was unceremoniously tipped sideways. The floor was carpeted. Her fall was little more a slide as the mattress slipped from the collapsing bed. The pillows fell after. Disoriented, she lay where she’d rolled, with a couple of pillows rolling on top of her.

  ‘Hannah!’

  Light from the living room flooded in. Her bedroom light was flicked on and she winced. It wasn’t so bad, here on the floor. What she resented more than being tossed unceremoniously out of bed was that light. She wasn’t hurt. She had her pillows. Left to her own devices, she’d simply close her eyes again.

  ‘Hannah!’

  She heard fear in his voice and it woke her right up. Josh...

  ‘I think I know where that bolt went,’ she managed, a trifle woozily. ‘You shouldn’t have left me in charge of the leg on this side.’

  ‘You’re okay?’ He was bending over her, his face etched with concern. ‘Hell. Hannah...’

  ‘I fell from eighteen inches,’ she managed. ‘Onto carpet and pillows. Call the fire brigade. Paramedics. Lawyers. I’m sure I can sue someone. This bed’s definitely faulty.’

  There was a sharp intake of breath and then silence. She heard him audibly regroup.

  Her head was still buried in pillows. She should wiggle round and face him but for some reason...well, for some reason she didn’t.

  ‘You’re sure you’re okay?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Oh, Hannah...’ His voice broke and as it did so a part of her seemed to break as well.

  How was it possible that she knew this man so little and yet so well? She heard his fear. She heard the history of anguish.

  ‘Hey, I really am okay.’ She turned and smiled up at him. He was bent over her, so near. So near... ‘Only I think the rest of the night’s going to be mattress on the floor.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, and he was suddenly in charge again. Surgeon with a plan. ‘Lie still.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘Lie still,’ he growled, and she subsided because, to be honest, lying in a tangle of bedclothes and pillows on the carpet didn’t seem such a bad fate. Especially when Josh was doing his ‘man in charge’ thing. She almost smiled.

  But he was already busy, hauling the broken bed out from under the mattress and propping the base against the wall, where it stood like a crazy art installation—Modern Man’s Technological Advances in Bed-Making. Then he stooped and started remaking the ‘bed mattress’ with her in it.

  He tucked in the corners of the bedding. He rearranged the pillows. Finally he tugged the sheet and blanket up to her chin and smiled.

  ‘Catastrophe averted,’ he told her. ‘We’ll buy you a new bed tomorrow.’ And his smile deepened and he leaned forward and kissed her on the nose.

  Again.

  On the nose.

  And her nose was still tingling from the last time.

  His eyes were warm and caring, twinkling with the ridiculousness of the situation but also...well, the caring went deep.

  It had no business going deep. She knew he didn’t want to care and she didn’t want him to care.

  Liar.

  But the caring wasn’t all one way. She looked up into his eyes and she saw concern behind the laughter, and also a trace of fear.

  He’d heard the bang as the bed had collapsed and he’d been with her in seconds. This man had seen fear close up and seen the after-effects of it.

  Josh...

  She was cocooned back in her neatly ordered bedclothes. Josh had ordered her world so she could drift safely back to sleep. While her man watched over her?

  Her man.

  He was no such thing but, oh, the way he smiled at her...

  Enough. A woman had only so much self-control and she’d reached the limit. If it was daylight, if she was properly awake, if this
didn’t seem like some hazy, amazing dream then maybe she’d have more control, but this was a dream. Josh was so close.

  She needed him closer.

  Josh.

  She put her palms on either side of gorgeous face and drew him down. Was he resisting?

  ‘Josh,’ she whispered, and there was no question.

  ‘Hannah,’ he whispered back, and then his mouth met hers and there was no space for words.

  There was no space for anything but each other.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SHE STIRRED AS the first rays of morning sunshine glimmered through the sagging venetian blinds. She needed to do something about those, she thought sleepily, but not yet.

  Nothing yet.

  She was cocooned in the arms of Josh O’Connor and in this space, in this time, who had cares for saggy blinds?

  She’d gone to sleep with her arms entwined around his neck—she was sure of it. At least, she thought she was sure. She’d lost herself, totally and surely, the moment his mouth had met hers. Their clothes had somehow disappeared. Skin against skin, they’d seemed to merge, fitting together like two halves torn apart by trauma and now magically come together.

  Twin souls.

  There was an overstatement, she thought sleepily, but she felt her face lift into a smile of warm, sated contentment. Her spine was curved against his chest. At some time during the night she must have turned away from him, which must surely have been sensible as her swollen belly surely couldn’t fit breast to chest. But she hadn’t been aware of it. She hadn’t been aware of anything but her need to be closer and closer and closer...

  Sense, though, had prevailed. Sort of. They were both sensible adults—sort of. Their mutual need for warmth, for comfort—for each other?—had only gone so far. Somehow they’d held onto a last vestige of sense.

  ‘I’ll not,’ Josh had murmured at some time during that sweet night. ‘No precautions. Eight months pregnant...’

  ‘You can hardly get me pregnant again.’

  He’d chuckled and held her closer, his mouth claiming her, his body doing the same, but the final joining hadn’t happened. They were medical professionals. They knew the rules.

  Rules, Hannah thought. Where were they now?

  They had to be reinstated.

  She was eight months pregnant with another man’s child. Josh had all but told her he wanted no commitment, ever. This was nothing but a night of comfort, a mutual taking and giving before reality inserted its ugly head.

  And it was still happening. It was still now. His arms still held her. For a few last glorious moments she could block out the world and let herself imagine this was how life was. For always.

  ‘Awake?’ His voice was scarcely more than a breath and she responded by a tiny stirring against him. Oh, if this was for ever... If this man loved her...

  He cared for her. That had to be enough, she told herself. He’d saved her, he’d helped her and this last night he’d held her in what was surely mutual need. He held her still and her body was responding with an almost animal instinct. Here was her place, here was her home.

  Here was her man.

  He wasn’t her man. They were lying on a tumbled mattress on the floor of a sparse hospital apartment. This was her home. This was her reality. But his hands were holding her spooned to his body, and his mouth was doing something delicious to the nape of her neck.

  Oh, the feel of him... The desire to turn and claim what they’d both somehow decided it wouldn’t be sensible to claim, to surrender her body totally to his magic...

  Except it wasn’t her body. It was already claimed, by the child of another man, and they both had the sense to know it. At least she did, but if his mouth kept doing...what it was doing...

  ‘Josh...’ she managed, and he released her just enough so she could roll in the cocoon of tumbled bedclothes and look at him.

  Mistake. He was so near. He was so... Josh.

  ‘I need to get up.’ It was so hard to make herself say the words, but indeed the words were true. She had to somehow tear herself from the fairy story. Someone was kicking her bladder.

  ‘Of course you do,’ he said, and smiled, and that smile was almost her undoing. ‘Let me help.’ He pushed the bedclothes back and rose—and the sight of him...

  Dear heaven, the sight of him... What would she give to be taken back in time, to be free, untrammelled, in a position to fight for what she wanted.

  She would fight for this man.

  Maybe she’d lose—probably she’d lose because he’d made vows for a good reason. Maybe his scars couldn’t be mended but, oh, she could try.

  But not now. He tugged her up, and as she rose she was achingly aware of the bulk of her body. As he pulled her up, breast to chest, she was still apart from him, pushed away by the bulk of her pregnancy.

  History that couldn’t be undone.

  You need to focus on your baby, she told herself, and as if on cue she felt her belly tighten, and a stab of pain ran across her back.

  It’d be a Braxton-Hicks contractions, common in late pregnancy. A reminder that this was no time to add complications to her life.

  Complications like Josh?

  She snagged the sheet and tugged it around her, then pulled back, aware of an overwhelming desire to weep. She wouldn’t. What sort of message would that give him?

  ‘That was some night,’ she managed, and somehow she even managed to lean forward and bestow a kiss on his gorgeous mouth. It was a feather touch, no more, a signal to both of them that she understood boundaries and now was the time now to restore them.

  ‘Hannah...’

  ‘Bathroom,’ she said, because those stupid tears were welling, like it or not, and she would not cry. ‘Then coffee? Have we unpacked coffee yet? There’s an imperative. And the dogs... They’ve been stuck in the laundry all night. Bathroom, coffee, dogs. We need to get this day started, right now.’

  And before he could respond she tucked her sheet tighter around her and fled. Into the bathroom where she could close the door, lean heavily against it and figure how to breathe again.

  He tugged on jeans and windcheater, wondering how the hell he’d ended up holding a gorgeous, naked Hannah in his arms all night. Wondering how he’d had the strength not to take her as his body had screamed to take her. All the way. Total commitment.

  Love?

  There was the nightmare. It was both an impossibility and the answer to all his questions.

  Quite simply, the way he felt about Hannah was the way he’d vowed he’d feel about no one. That he could love enough to hurt...

  He’d seen hurt in Hannah’s eyes then. Had she expected to be slapped?

  He could never slap her—but hurt her? ‘You already have,’ he said harshly, out loud. ‘You’re raising expectations you can’t meet.’

  So step away now?

  He hauled back the memory of opening his eyes after surgery, confused, dazed, seeing Madison’s face.

  ‘Alice,’ he’d said, and what he’d seen on his sister’s face was all the answer he’d ever need.

  ‘And Aisling?’ Somehow he’d asked that next.

  ‘She’s fine,’ Madison had whispered, and the look on her face was a mix he never wanted to see again. Despair. Heartbreak. Blame.

  He’d thought he and Aisling were a perfect pair but the risks... What price had his family paid for his stupidity? What price had he paid? Pain and pain and pain. Yet here he was, standing in the bedroom of a woman he hardly knew, feeling a tug he’d vowed never to feel.

  Be practical! He could help her—of course he could. He could finance a better apartment. He could make her life easier.

  She wouldn’t let him. It was all or nothing with Hannah—he knew that—and he’d let too much slip for her to forget his backstory. She had her pride. He’d had to work to convince
her to take this much.

  But he was a friend. Surely she’d let him help.

  A friend? The way she’d slipped into his arms last night? The way he’d felt as he’d held her? He could still feel...

  No. Memory slammed back, almost like a guillotine. Memory of searing loss. How could he expose himself to that risk again?

  A voice in the back of his head whispered, You already have.

  ‘Then back away.’ He said it out loud and the sound of his voice jarred him into the present, into practicalities. ‘Move on. Get this place organised and then get back to your island. You’ve played the good Samaritan and nothing else is needed. You can see by her face that she gets the boundaries. Tell her. Talk to her. But whatever you do, get out of here, Josh O’Connor, before every one of your resolutions turns to dust.’

  Hannah was still in the bathroom. He could hear the sound of running water.

  Hannah in the shower. Her naked body...

  ‘Cut it out!’ He said that out loud as well and headed for the laundry to let the dogs out. Hannah’s courtyard was minuscule. How could a bitch and four puppies use only this as their outside space? There’d be no lawn left for Hannah to sit in the sun and play with her baby.

  That was Hannah’s business, not his.

  He headed back to the kitchen and rooted through boxes until he found kettle and mugs and coffee. Muesli? Ugh. What he’d really like was a decent fry-up. He’d seen a convenience store last night, only a block from here.

  He headed to the bathroom door. The shower had stopped.

  ‘You feel like eggs and bacon?’ he called through the door. ‘Or would you like to go out for breakfast?’

  No answer.

  ‘Hannah?’

  ‘Josh...’ And the way she said the word had him pushing the door wide, regardless.

  She was bent over the hand basin, gripping it fiercely with both hands. Her sheet had fallen to the floor but she was in no mind to care. Her entire body was rigid.

  ‘Hannah...’

  ‘It’s coming,’ she managed. ‘Josh, my baby’s coming. So hard... So fast... Josh, please... Help me, Josh. Help...’

  And everything else was nothing.