Maternal Instinct

by Caroline Anderson

  Oh, lord, the woman definitely hated her, and Hugh thought she was a silly little optimist. Damn. Resigning herself to failure—again—she tried to find an intelligent and comprehensive answer, and wondered how long they’d torture her before they told her someone else was getting the job.

  ‘I think we should give her the post.’

  ‘What about Dr Meadows?’ Julia said. ‘He was good.’

  ‘David Meadows was arrogant and opinionated. Eve Spicer isn’t arrogant.’

  ‘We all know what you see in her, Hugh,’ Julia said a touch shrewishly, and he had to bite his tongue. Ever since she’d come on to him six months ago and he’d gently but firmly turned her down, she’d been distinctly chilly towards him. This time, though, he wasn’t going to make any concessions to her hurt pride. It was his post, his registrar’s job, and he had the final say. Besides, he could still hear Eve saying she’d lost the last two posts to a man. Well, not this time, not if he had anything to do with it—and he did.

  ‘I want her,’ he said, meeting Julia’s eyes straight on, ‘and I intend to have her.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Sam murmured, just too low for Julia to catch, but she shot him a quelling look nonetheless.

  ‘Oh, well, be it on your own head. I don’t think she had enough confidence but, no doubt, with your hand to guide her, she’ll come on in leaps and bounds. Her last post seems to have gone well, and her references are certainly excellent, but I’m concerned about her attitude to sick people. I hope she doesn’t think this is going to be all cooing babies and happy mums, because she’s in for a rude shock. And I’m also worried about this sexual harassment thing. Just make sure your hands are only guiding her surgical skills.’

  ‘I don’t think we need to worry about that,’ he said bluntly. ‘I don’t mix business with pleasure—as you well know.’

  The remark hit home, and Julia sucked in her breath. Sam looked away, and Julia glared at Hugh, shoved back her chair and stood up, her furious eyes skewering him. Hell hath no fury, he thought, and braced himself, but it was a dignified if ruffled retreat. For now.

  Her voice was crisp. ‘Well, you’ve obviously made your mind up. Have her if you want her. I just hope you don’t regret it.’

  ‘I do want her—and I won’t regret it,’ he said, hoping to heaven he was right, and turned to Sam. ‘If you agree?’

  ‘Excellent choice,’ Sam said, not bothering to hide his smile. ‘I liked her, too—nice, uncomplicated girl, and her academic record is stunning. If her practical skills match up she’ll do well, I think.’

  ‘I think so. I’ll go and call her in—and I’ll try and resist the urge to grope her on the way back,’ he said drily, drawing a huff of outrage from Julia which he ignored with the ease of long practice.

  He stood up, opened the door and forced himself to walk slowly down the corridor. He pushed the door open, caught Eve staring nervously out over the car park with her hands locked together, and as she turned, he felt desire kick him firmly and unexpectedly in the groin.

  ‘Dr Spicer?’

  ‘I know,’ she said, her eyes resigned. ‘You would have given me the job, but it was out of your hands…’

  He grinned, taken with her honesty, which managed to struggle to the surface despite the nerves. He admired that immensely. Real guts. ‘Not at all,’ he hastened to assure her. ‘If you want the job, it’s yours—but you’d better come back and let Julia Fry make you the offer, or she’ll get all bent out of shape and we couldn’t have that, now, could we?’

  Her jaw dropped. ‘Me?’ she whispered, then her voice changed to a little shriek and she threw herself into his arms and—hugged him!

  Dammit, she actually hugged him, pressing that delectable little body firmly up against his and squeezing the life out of him. So much for sexual harassment! Then abruptly she let him go, coloured furiously and pressed her hands to her face.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry! I can’t believe I did that.’

  ‘Forget it,’ he said, wondering if he ever would, but her eyes were searching his as if it still hadn’t sunk in.

  ‘Are you sure? Really? I got the job?’

  Her eyes were sparkling with tears of joy, and he had to bite the insides of his cheeks to keep the smile in. ‘Really, Eve. If you can do it at such short notice, we’d like you to start on Monday.’

  ‘Monday! Oh, thank you so much! Oh, good grief! I can’t believe it, especially after that rubbish about liking obs because people are well. You must think I’m a complete airhead—I can’t believe you still want me.’

  ‘Oh, we still want you,’ he said, wondering if it was as obvious as it felt.

  ‘You won’t be sorry. I promise I won’t let you down.’

  ‘I’m sure you won’t,’ he said, his own smile refusing to stay trapped in the face of such enthusiasm. ‘Come on, let’s go and do this properly.’

  He ushered her through the door, manfully resisting the urge to put his hand on that delicate hollow in the small of her back and wondered how in the hell he was going to keep his hands to himself while he was working with her. No wonder the old professor had succumbed to temptation. The woman was enough to tempt a saint, and Hugh hadn’t been a saint in his entire life. He was just too busy to do anything about it, and now was certainly not the time!

  Eve couldn’t believe she’d done that!

  Flung her arms round him and hugged him, for goodness’ sake!

  Madness. Of all the undignified, stupid things to do—but it hadn’t been the great Hugh Douglas she’d been hugging it had been the man she’d met before, the man who’d smiled at her and put her at her ease, who’d said he’d give her the job—and had, bless his heart.

  And all that talk about the professor groping her, and she’d gone and flung her arms round him and squashed herself all over him like a rash!

  She groaned inwardly, wondering if it was too late for him to change his mind because of her stupidity, but he didn’t seem inclined to dither, just strode down the corridor, ushered her back into the room and stood there without contradicting while Julia offered her the job and welcomed her to the department.

  So it was real.

  She couldn’t believe it. She’d actually got the job! Even if it wasn’t a unanimous verdict, which it clearly wasn’t. Julia, summoning a smile that was meant to be welcoming but failed, shook her hand and congratulated her.

  Sam, warm, generous and much more genuine in his welcome, did the same.

  And then Hugh pulled his bleep out of his pocket, frowned at it and excused himself.

  ‘So, Dr Spicer—will you be able to start on Monday?’ Julia asked, and Eve nodded.

  ‘Yes. It’ll be a bit of a rush, but so long as I can sort accommodation—’

  ‘You can stay with us for a bit if necessary,’ Sam volunteered. ‘If you can stand the kids. I’ll prime Molly to look out for you, so you can meet her. She’s a midwife in the department. She’s easy to spot—she’s waddling at the moment.’

  ‘Waddling?’

  ‘Thirty-four weeks down, six to go.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said, answering his wry smile. ‘That kind of waddling.’

  The door opened and closed behind her, and without preamble Hugh said, ‘Eve, what are you doing now?’

  ‘I don’t know—nothing. Why?’ she asked, puzzled. Was this his way of dismissing her?

  Apparently not. ‘My SHO’s off sick and my specialist registrar’s running my antenatal clinic. He’s just seen one of my mums and he’s worried—query antepartum haemorrhage from a placenta previa. He’s sending her up to Theatre as a precaution and I need to get up there fast. If I have to do a section I’ll need an assistant and he’s up to his eyes. Want to scrub in and help me?’

  She felt her eyes widen. ‘Me?’

  ‘If you have time.’

  She swallowed, then nodded. ‘Um…sure. I only put two hours on my car park ticket, though.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. It’ll be fine. Come on�
��we need to hurry.’

  ‘What about insurance and stuff? I mean, I’m not on contract till Monday.’

  ‘Hugh, this is most irregular.’

  ‘You want the baby to die, Julia? Sam, fix it, please. Locum or something?’

  ‘Consider it done,’ Sam said, and that was that.

  Hugh whisked her up to the theatre suite, threw a set of theatre blues at her and pointed her towards the female changing room. Then, without bothering to move, he stripped off his clothes and tugged on the scrubs right then and there.

  Oh, boy. She tried not to look. She really, really tried not to look, but he was just too gorgeous to miss, all that hard, lean muscle and his legs—oh, lord, his legs…

  ‘Boots or clogs are over here, help yourself to any that haven’t got a name on. Here—have a locker for your things,’ he said, pointing out a spare one, and she forgot about his body and shot into the changing room, ridding herself of the strangling suit and hated tights and diving into the top, pulling up the trousers of the scrubs, tightening the drawstring with fingers that were starting to tremble.

  Was this op part of the interview? she wondered as she stuffed her clothes into the locker. Another sneaky, devious test, like their little chat at the top of the stairs? No. She’d been offered the job. They couldn’t take it away, could they? Although the professor had, but she’d been on the point of lodging an official complaint about him, so it hadn’t been surprising.

  As for the pre-interview subterfuge, she was still contemplating whether or not to forgive Hugh when their patient was wheeled in, eyes fearful even though she was clearly trying not to panic, and Eve forgot all about it, her attention totally engaged by the way he soothed and calmed his patient with his gentle manner and a few reassuring words.

  ‘Trying to keep me on my toes, Jeannie?’ he said with a wry grin, his hands already moving over her, asking for details, nodding as he heard them.

  Her pulse was up, her blood pressure down, she was on 100 per cent oxygen to help the baby and for now, at least, the little one seemed to be OK. They could hear the foetal heartbeat on the monitor, sounding very fast to Eve’s ears, and the monitor showed the heart rate to be over 150. The baby was tachycardic, and if it wasn’t delivered soon, it would be in real trouble. At thirty-seven weeks it was certainly viable and would probably be fine without any extra help or support—so long as they could get it out soon enough.

  Eve watched Hugh examine the patient quickly, confirming what they already knew from the information he’d been given, then he straightened up, the woman’s hand in his.

  ‘OK, Jeannie, let’s get this baby out for you now. Paul, I’m sorry, you’re going to have to wait outside, but it won’t be long and we’ll bring the baby out to you as soon as possible.’

  The husband nodded nervously, and as the anaesthetist started to work on Jeannie, Hugh scrubbed, held his arms out for the gown, snapped on his gloves and headed for the operating room, with Eve scarcely a second behind him.

  ‘Right, let’s move,’ he said. ‘Knife?’

  Jeannie was draped and ready, and with the first slice of the blade Eve felt the tension rise.

  ‘This shouldn’t be too hard, because the placenta’s lying against the back wall, so at least I won’t have to go through it—OK, suction please—Eve, can you hold the retractors? Thank you. Fundal pressure, please.’

  And in a whoosh of blood and amniotic fluid he eased the baby out and handed her to the waiting neonatal team, clamping and cutting the cord without delay. As the baby was carried off, a furious little wail from her brought a sigh of relief from everyone.

  Except Hugh. He was stern-faced and silent, bar the odd snapped instruction for syntocinon or suction, and as Eve assisted he scooped out the placenta, dropped it in a bowl and the well of blood slowed to a trickle.

  Then he let his breath out on a sigh, his shoulders dropped and he grinned, his eyes crinkling over his mask.

  ‘That’s got it,’ he said, and everyone relaxed.

  Everyone, that is, except Eve, because with the next breath he said, ‘OK. I’m happy with that. You can close. Let’s see your suturing at first hand. This is Eve, by the way, everybody. My new registrar. Dr Spicer, meet the team.’

  There were a few polite murmurs of welcome, and that was it. In at the deep end. But he kept his mouth shut for the most part while she sutured, and she forgot about him after the first couple of stitches and just got on with it, following his suggestions for the kind of closure to use for each layer. Finally she was done.

  ‘Well done, very neat,’ he said as she snipped the last suture. She looked up into his gorgeous brown eyes and they locked with hers and she was suddenly thrown into confusion, her smile fading. Something fierce and elemental and dangerous crackled between them, nearly taking her legs out from under her, and she wondered if she wouldn’t have been safer with the old professor’s roaming hands.

  Then he stepped back, tugged off his gloves and mask, dropped them in the bin with his gown and turned to her with a smile, his eyes back to normal so she wondered if she’d imagined it.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go and see the proud father and have a look at this baby. Then I owe you lunch—and since I haven’t even had breakfast yet, I won’t take no for an answer.’

  Oh, yes. Much, much safer with the old professor. Apart from anything else, she could outrun him, and she had a horrible feeling that the only direction she wanted to run in with Hugh was straight back into his arms!

  And there was no way on God’s green earth that that was going to happen.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘WHY didn’t you tell me who you were?’

  Hugh paused, his fork hovering in front of his mouth, and met her eyes over the salad. ‘I don’t know. I just wanted to talk to you without you knowing who I was—get a glimpse of the real you. And, anyway, hearing about my great reputation did wonders for my ego.’

  Eve groaned and coloured fiercely, burying her face in her hands and shaking her head from side to side, so that the loose, soft curls—yes!—swirled around her shoulders like waves breaking on a shore.

  ‘You are a louse—even if you are my boss and I shouldn’t say that.’

  He dragged his eyes off her hair and pulled a rueful face. ‘Say what you like. I agree. I shouldn’t have done it, and I’m sorry, but I’d probably do it again.’

  She grinned, a wry, twisted little grin full of understanding. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ She sipped her drink, poked a bit of lettuce around her plate and looked up at him again. ‘Do you think the bright theatre lights hurt babies’ eyes?’

  The question surprised him but, then, he was beginning to learn that his new registrar was full of surprises. ‘Possibly. I like all the deliveries in my charge to be done in the lowest practical light, so the babies aren’t blinded. I’d hate to think their first view of the world damaged them in any way, but it isn’t always possible.’

  ‘Does it? Damage them?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I just think it’s unnatural, and even with an intervention like a section I like to make it as natural and quiet as possible, which it usually is for an elective procedure. This kind of thing’s different. It’s bad enough that the mother isn’t conscious and can’t bond with the baby immediately, but, in the case of an antepartum haemorrhage, it all gets a bit frantic. With an APH there isn’t time to worry about anything but getting the baby out fast and getting control of the bleeding. There certainly isn’t time for niceties.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘No, there isn’t, but I agree with you about keeping it nice and natural as far as one can. That makes sense.’

  ‘I try to. It can be hard. So much of what filters through to me is tricky. I only get them if it’s gone wrong, and by definition that means it’s not straighforward.’

  ‘Like Jeannie?’

  ‘Like Jeannie,’ he agreed. ‘But that could have been much worse. The placental separation was only slight and the syntocinon she’d be
en given had almost stopped the haemorrhage. And the position of the placenta helped. If it’s across the front of the uterus we have to go in a different way, making it up as we go along, really, and that can be much harder in an emergency. She was lucky. They both were.’

  His bleep interrupted them, and he pulled it out of his pocket, frowned at it and wondered if he could leave his specialist registrar to manage.

  Probably not, unless he was going to abandon the clinic patients for hours, and tempting though it was…

  ‘That’s Oliver again. I’m going to have to go. My clinic’s overrunning, and if we don’t get on top of it my afternoon list will be delayed. I’ll see you on Monday—and if there’s anything else you want to know, ask Maggie. She’s expecting you this afternoon—you need to sign a locum form, I expect, for today, and then she’ll give you a guided tour and answer your questions. And when you’re done with Maggie, Molly Gregory, Sam’s wife, wants to meet you and she’ll give you the midwife’s side of it. She’s also one of my mums, so take note. We’ll be delivering her soon.’

  ‘Sam said something about kids at home. Is it their third or something?’

  He laughed. ‘Or something’s just about it. Their fourth, but it’s more complicated than that. She’s a fascinating woman. She’ll probably tell you all about herself.’ He drained his coffee, stood up and held out his hand. ‘It’s good to have you on board, Eve,’ he said, and felt the warm touch of her fingers all the way to his soul.

  He had the hardest job letting go.

  After her whirlwind tour of the hospital with Maggie, Hugh’s secretary, she was handed over to Molly Gregory for a slower, more in-depth tour of Maternity.

  Slower because, apart from any other consideration, Molly was, as Sam had said, waddling just a little.

  ‘When’s it due?’ Eve asked her sympathetically, although Sam had already told her.

  Molly gave a wry grin and sighed. ‘Five weeks and six days. I can’t wait. I thought it would be fine because I’m only working part time, but struggling around on the floor—’