The Doctors’ Baby

by Marion Lennox

  She wanted to be as independent as he was himself! As they’d both taught themselves to be.

  Damn, he couldn’t take much more of this. His family had twisted his emotions since he was tiny, and he hated it.

  Which was why it was important to keep the rest of him heart-whole and fancy-free, he told himself in the dark. He needed more involvement-emotional involvement-like a hole in the head.

  So why did his confused thoughts keep drifting to Em?

  His bed was hard against the wall-her wall. He turned over and surveyed it in the dark. What he desperately wanted was to communicate in some way-maybe tap Morse Code messages in the dark.

  He gave a wry smile. She’d think he was crazy if he did.

  Was her hair unbraided?

  Oh, great, now what was he thinking? He stirred in his bed, easing his long frame around on his too-short mattress. Hell!

  Leave Emily Mainwaring alone, he told himself firmly. You play with her and you play for keeps. And the last thing you want in your life is a woman.

  But two women were there in his thoughts, and both seemed as needful.

  Em and Anna.

  His sister and his…

  And my temporary partner, he told himself fiercely. My medical partner. Nothing else.

  The phone rang at midnight.

  Jonas was out in the hall to answer it by the third ring, but Em must have had an extension by her bed. As he lifted the receiver he could hear her already talking, and she’d obviously recognised the voice before the caller had identified herself. Jonas caught the urgency in her tone, and he unashamedly listened in.

  ‘Lori? Is that you?’ Em was saying. ‘Lori, I can’t hear you until you pull yourself together. Take two deep breaths and tell me what’s wrong.’

  How had she picked up that it was her friend? The voice down the telephone was a terrified series of gasps, and to Jonas it could have been anyone.

  But Em was right. It was Lori. There was a sharp intake of breath and then, finally, she made herself coherent.

  ‘Em, it’s Raymond. He…he came to dinner and we were watching television. He got up to go and then… Em, he’s collapsed and stopped breathing. He’s on the floor…’

  ‘Then you know how to do CPR and artificial respiration,’ Emily snapped. ‘Do it, Lori. Don’t think about anything else but keeping him alive. I’ll be there in two minutes. Lori, keep your head and move!’

  Formula One drivers had nothing on Emily Mainwaring, Jonas decided. He’d hauled pants and a sweater over his pyjamas, and he’d only just reached the car as she gunned it into action. Then they were screaming down the street, Em’s hand flat on the horn to warn oncoming traffic. Her car was making enough noise to waken the dead.

  They should be driving his Alfa, Jonas thought grimly, instead of Em’s battered sedan. But presumably she had everything she needed packed into her car, and he wasn’t arguing. Not that she had time to listen.

  And he couldn’t get out of her car now-not at the speed she was moving. She hadn’t even acknowledged his presence as he’d launched himself into the car, and Jonas knew all her thoughts were on getting to her friend’s assistance as fast as possible.

  ‘Can I ring the ambulance?’ he asked as her tyres screeched around the first corner. She nodded, her eyes not leaving the road.

  ‘Yes.’ She motioned to the cellphone on the console. ‘Hit one. Tell them we have a cardiac arrest at Bay Beach Home Two. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what it sounds like. Then hit three. That’ll connect you to the air ambulance. If we pull him around he’s going to need critical care and we can’t give him that here. They’ll fly down from Sydney to collect him. Blairglen’s not big enough to support a major coronary care unit.’

  ‘Are you sure we’ll need them?’ Jonas was lifting the cellphone as he spoke.

  ‘No,’ she said grimly. ‘Of course I’m not sure. But if we’re lucky, we will. Tell them to be on standby anyway-and cross your fingers and toes and anything else you have at the ready.’

  ‘Right.’

  But using the cellphone was harder than he’d thought. Em was cornering like her car was on rails-as it definitely wasn’t-and Jonas was hurled against the side of the car as she spun.

  She wasn’t the least sympathetic. ‘Tighten your seat belt,’ Em snapped, still not looking at him. ‘I can’t slow down, and if you hit the door that hard again it could fly open. That’s all I need. A road casualty.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Whoops! He tightened his seat belt, ruefully acknowledging that if he’d been hurt it would have been his own stupid fault. Then he concentrated on contacting the ambulances.

  Once again, Em’s attention was solely on her driving.

  And finally he did it. The ambulance radio operators must have heard the desperation in his voice, caused by trying to stay upright in the face of Em’s frantic driving. He had no trouble convincing them their need was urgent, and by the time he was finished Em had halted in front of the Bay Beach Home.

  And she didn’t stop. She didn’t even switch off the engine-just left the car standing open at the front door, flung herself out-she was wearing some sort of pale blue jogging suit that she must have worn to bed-and then she was gone.

  Hell!

  Jonas was accustomed to calls for the crash cart at hospital, and knew the speed with which the staff mobilised. She’d beaten even them, he thought dazedly. They’d have been lucky to have got here faster if Raymond had collapsed in a bed in a ward two floors below them in a major hospital.

  He took a little longer than Em to go inside the house, though. He prioritised. Trusting Em to keep Ray’s breathing going, he took the time to switch off the engine, open the boot, grab the cardiac gear and follow.

  The scene that met his eyes inside was dramatic. Raymond was slumped unconcious on the living-room floor, with Em working furiously on him and Lori looking on. Raymond’s face was as grey as Lori’s was white.

  He must be in total cardiac arrest, Jonas thought, asking no questions and setting the gear up fast. The man was in his late thirties or early forties, and he was definitely portly. He was wearing a business suit. Lori or Em must have hauled his tie away and ripped his shirt open, but he had every appearance of a businessman who’d spent too much time behind his desk and not enough time in the open air.

  There was no more time for appraisal. Em looked up from pushing breath into Raymond’s chest and saw him. Her face cleared as she saw he was setting up what she needed most, and she moved to make room for him.

  ‘CPR’s not working,’ she told him. ‘Lori can do it like a professional, and she has been, but she’s had no response.’

  So it was the paddles. A replay of Charlie.

  But not with the same results. Please?

  They worked hard and fast, with Lori taking over Raymond’s breathing, which left the doctors free to work on his chest.

  One jerk.

  Nothing.

  ‘Come on. Come on!’

  It was a prayer, muttered aloud by Em after the second jerk, and then, magically, Raymond’s chest heaved of its own accord.

  For a moment everyone else in the room stopped breathing. Waiting…

  And then there came a searing, ragged gasp that had Lori collapsing in a sodden heap over her boyfriend’s chest. ‘Oh, Ray. Don’t die. Come on, Ray, you can do it.’

  ‘Move back, Lori,’ Em said, tugging her friend gently away so the paddles were clear if they needed them again, but there was hope written all over her face. She looked around to find what she needed, but Jonas, once again, was anticipating her needs.

  There was oxygen waiting. Once Ray was breathing for himself, they could get on a mask. They could set up an intravenous drip and begin to dissolve the clot with medication.

  And they could hope like hell that no long-term damage had been done, and his heart kept right on beating.

  There was a siren in the distance, and Em allowed herself to close her eyes for a fraction of a second. She was
saying thank you, Jonas thought as he watched her. She was so involved with her patients.

  Hell!

  It was hell. Being a family doctor in a community like this must be just that, he thought. Being involved with every patient you treated…

  His own resolution flashed through his head. He’d been hurt so badly in childhood he’d resolved never to become emotionally involved with anyone other than Anna. And here was Em, taking on the heartaches of an entire community.

  She’d go crazy, he thought as he watched the conflicting emotions playing over her face. She couldn’t keep doing this, year in, year out, for the rest of her life. She’d burn out.

  So maybe she was here for the short term-just as he was.

  Only he’d go out voluntarily, but she’d go out in a state of near collapse.

  Not while he was here, she wouldn’t, he vowed. He could at least give her a few months’ respite. The only thing was-he had to keep his level of detachment on track.

  Which was really, really hard. Like now…

  ‘Stand back for a bit, Em,’ he told her, and his voice sounded gruffer than usual, even to him. She needed breathing space to get herself together. Maybe she even needed to do what he suspected she might wish to-as Lori was doing-which was burst into tears.

  As an emotional outlet it had a lot going for it, he decided. Strangely, he could use a few tears here himself!

  ‘Go out and radio the air ambulance,’ he told Em. ‘Tell them to upgrade because the need is urgent.’ What they needed here was a cardiologist, and intensive-care facilities. ‘Will you go on the plane with him?’

  ‘I can’t.’ It was an instinctive reaction, but then Em caught herself, thinking it through. Why not? Jonas was here now. She had another doctor to take over! ‘I guess I can,’ she said slowly. ‘If you’ll cover me.’ She looked ruefully down at her pale blue ensemble, and gave a wry smile. ‘Just lucky I go to bed decent. Will you feed Bernard? I’ll come back on the train in the morning.’

  ‘Go and pack, Lori,’ Jonas said, taking command as if he’d been born to it. ‘The hospital will provide gear for Raymond, and more things can be sent on later, but you’ll need a change of clothes and toothbrush for yourself. And, yes, Em, of course I’ll feed Bernard. It’ll be a pleasure to see if he’s actually alive.’

  But Lori was looking wildly from Raymond to Jonas and then back to Raymond. At that moment, Ray’s eyes fluttered open. He saw her, his hand moved feebly and Lori’s hand caught his. And the thing was settled.

  ‘You need to go,’ Jonas said.

  ‘But there’s still Robby,’ Lori whispered, her eyes not leaving Ray’s. ‘The baby…’

  Jonas sighed. A dog. A baby. What next? ‘I can cope,’ he told them both, and he made his voice firm.

  Which was more than he felt. He could cope with a dog, he thought, but a baby?

  What on earth was he letting himself in for?

  Em arrived back at Bay Beach at midday on the following day.

  Exhausted from the events of the previous night, she’d slept the entire journey. She woke as the train pulled into Bay Beach station, and when she emerged to daylight she was still feeling fuzzy and confused.

  She was even more fuzzy and confused when she saw what was waiting for her on the platform.

  Jonas was there, holding baby Robby. And with him were Sam and Matt and Ruby, and behind them, standing up like he hadn’t stood up in years, was one woolly Bernard.

  Here, then, were Anna’s kids, and Em’s tiny burns patient. And her dog!

  Jonas was standing in their midst like a modern-day Pied Piper. Robby was cradled in the crook of his left arm, looking around him with wide-eyed interest. Four-year-old Ruby was clutching her uncle’s spare hand as if her life depended on it, and Matt and Sam, six and eight respectively, looked just plain bewildered. But they were clutching Em’s dog in the same way Ruby was clutching her uncle.

  Bernard was being useful?

  ‘Hi,’ Jonas said as if there was nothing abnormal in this reception in the least. ‘Nice train trip?’ He smiled at what she was wearing-the plain blue jogging suit he’d sent her off in last night. ‘Still wearing your pyjamas, I see.’

  Em flushed. ‘I don’t own pyjamas. They only get me into trouble. And, yes, thank you, I had a very peaceful train trip, which was just what I needed.’

  She looked down at the children and then back at him, but he’d stopped smiling and his face was inscrutable. In truth, he was having trouble with his emotions here. She looked so darned pretty-flushed from sleep and slightly dishevelled-and that damned jogging suit did look like pyjamas.

  Concentrate on medicine, he told himself. Concentrate on the things which were really important. Which didn’t include his emotions!

  ‘Ray?’ It was a whole medical interrogation in the one word.

  ‘He’s still in Intensive Care.’ Em’s face clouded as she thought of her patient. ‘We got him safely to Sydney, but it was just as well I flew with him. He arrested again on the flight. There’s been some damage.’

  ‘Neurological problems?’ Had they reached him soon enough? Jonas wondered. He’d stopped breathing for about five minutes-long enough for there to be a lack of oxygen to the brain. Long enough for there to be real damage.

  But Em was shaking her head. ‘There’s some heart scarring obvious, but no brain damage that we can see.’ Her face lightened with the thought. ‘That’s the one bright thing in this mess. He’s able to talk to Lori, and he knows what’s happened. But I suspect he’s in for a bypass at the very least.’

  She sighed. ‘And I did warn him. For as long as I’ve been practising medicine here, I’ve been warning him. His cholesterol levels were way too high. He kept coming in for check-ups as if the check-ups themselves might help.’

  ‘And now he’s nearly lost everything.’

  He had. The thought still made Em’s heart twist, and the urge to share it with Jonas was impossible to resist. She, who normally kept things to herself, found Jonas was a man to confide in. A friend?

  Or something more.

  ‘Ray…Ray asked Lori to marry him,’ she told him, still taking in the sight of the children and dog around him, and with only half her mind on Lori and Ray back in Sydney. Jonas with children was enough to give any woman pause.

  And so was the way he made her feel.

  Concentrate on Ray and Lori…

  ‘He proposed half an hour before he collapsed,’ she said, and her voice was suddenly shaken with unexpected emotion. ‘But Lori knocked him back. She told him her kids came first. He’d brought her an engagement ring. It was in his pocket when he collapsed, and now she’s sitting beside him in Coronary Care wearing the damned thing like her life depends on it.’

  ‘Sometimes you have to nearly lose something to realise how much you value it,’ Jonas said gravely, and she looked sharply up at him. There was something in his voice that wasn’t right. He was under strain, too. Of course.

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘Anna’s being operated on as we speak.’

  ‘Oh, Jonas, you should be there with her.’

  ‘I can’t be in two places at once,’ he told her. He looked down at the kids and managed a smile. ‘Can I, kids?’ Then, as he got shaky smiles in return, he kept on speaking. ‘When Lori left, Anna decided to put off the operation. It was only by giving her my absolute assurance that we’d look after the children that she agreed to go ahead.’

  He paused to let this sink in.

  ‘We?’ Em said carefully-and waited.

  Another pause. And then those dangerous eyes twinkled.

  ‘We have a big house.’ He said it sort of hopefully-like an overgrown Labrador puppy might have spoken if it could speak-and Em couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘A big house?’ she repeated as if she didn’t understand what he was getting at. Although she understood only too well, and her heart was sinking. What had he let them in for?

  But Jonas was assuming an air of innocence-and
of virtue. ‘It’s a really big house,’ he said firmly. ‘Far too big for just you and me and Bernard.’

  ‘How did you get Bernard to his feet?’ Em asked, fascinated, and Jonas grinned.

  ‘The kids did that. They simply refused to take no for an answer. He’s been sighing like you wouldn’t believe, but every time he sits down the kids simply hoist him up again.’ His smile widened. ‘So you see-Bernard needs company.’ His smile faded then, assuming an air of uncertainty. ‘And I knew you’d want to look after Robby, anyway, Dr Mainwaring. So how could I not offer to look after everyone?’

  Everyone. Bernard and Sam and Matt and Ruby.

  And Robby.

  There was the rub. Em looked at the little boy in Jonas’s arms and her heart twisted with pain for him. She was tired and confused. So much had happened. She needed space to think this through.

  But Jonas was holding Robby out to her, and he was so little. He’d been so dreadfully injured, and he was so…

  So much a part of her!

  Help!

  She didn’t mind offering to take on Anna’s children, she thought desperately, and she didn’t seem to have much choice about having Jonas in the house, but Robby was a different matter.

  Robby was…well, Robby was just Robby.

  Which was why she’d discharged him from hospital! Because this little one was bonding to her-and she was bonding right back. And here was Jonas stating calmly that they’d taken responsibility for him.

  And for his sister’s children as well!

  ‘Have you contacted the head of the orphanage?’ she asked cautiously. ‘I’d assume their administration will have definite ideas on how Robby’s cared for.’

  ‘The other homes are full,’ Jonas told her. ‘Tom, the homes director, contacted me this morning. He says the only answer is to transfer Robby-and Anna’s kids if they need accommodation-to a home in Sydney.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘And I knew you didn’t want that,’ Jonas said blandly. ‘Neither does Robby’s aunt. She says cram him into another of the homes, but Tom refused to do that. So I thought if I offered to help you with Robby and Bernard…’