Pregnant with Her Best Friend's Baby
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Maggie’s grip on his hand, as Tom moved the probe over her belly, was so tight it was hurting but Joe was barely aware of the pain. He was holding Maggie’s frightened gaze so he saw the emotion that flooded into her face when the sound of the baby’s heartbeat was caught and magnified for all to hear. The rapid, blurred, underwater thump of the sound was well within normal limits. Fast, regular and strong. The most reassuring drumbeat ever.
‘You’ll need electronic monitoring for a while,’ Tom told them. ‘At least twenty-four hours, I reckon. But that’s a healthy heart rate and you’re not bleeding. For now, it looks as if baby’s been cushioned well enough to escape harm. Let’s concentrate on getting you sorted out, Maggie.’
Joe was still listening to the heartbeat that was the background to Tom’s speech. Still struggling to draw in a normal breath. Maggie seemed to be having the same difficulty and her eyes were filling with tears as she broke that eye contact with Joe and turned her head away. She sucked in a breath that was more like a sob, which made her cry out in pain and wrench her hand free of Joe’s.
‘No X-rays,’ the consultant in charge of Maggie was saying. ‘But they’re ready for her in CT.’ He caught Joe’s concerned glance. ‘We’re just doing a scan of her chest, not her abdomen. Don’t worry. We’re not draining any blood so it looks like a simple pneumothorax but we need to assess the underlying damage and make sure that surgery isn’t needed.’
Joe leaned closer to Maggie. ‘Want me to come with you?’
She shook her head—a slow side-to-side roll that made a tear trickle down the side of her nose. ‘It’s okay... I’ll be okay. You need to get back to work. I’ll text you later, Joe. I’ll let you know what’s happening.’
Maggie closed her eyes as she was wheeled from the room.
He knew that Maggie would be okay without him because she was surrounded by a great team who were completely focussed on her wellbeing. But he wanted her to need him. As much as he needed her.
Joe had never felt more alone in his life.
CHAPTER TEN
HOW LONELY WAS THIS?
The only light in this private room in the Royal’s maternity wing was coming from the screen of the foetal monitor beside Maggie’s bed. The steady blipping sound had been turned down so as not to disturb her sleep but she could still hear it clearly and, even in the early hours of the next morning, she was listening just as intently as she had when they’d first checked for her baby’s heartbeat in the resuscitation area. The monitor would also record any contractions if the worst happened and the accident triggered premature labour, but Maggie couldn’t feel anything happening in her belly other than the weight of the transducers strapped to her skin by the two wide belts.
The loneliness felt like punishment. One that she was convinced that she probably deserved. Telling Joe not to come with her to that scan—to go back to work, even, as if nothing major had happened—had been so hard when all she’d wanted to do was cling to his hand for every minute of that ordeal. To have him hold her and repeat the reassurances that all the doctors had given her that the news was good. She didn’t need surgery. Her baby seemed to be fine. Her chest drain could come out within a day or two and she could go home and recuperate with nothing more than sore ribs for a while. She had been very lucky.
But Maggie wasn’t feeling lucky right now.
She wanted Joe to be here. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was. For derailing his life, even though it had been completely accidental. For not being prudent enough to have stopped riding her motorbike as soon as she knew she was pregnant. When he’d arrived at the accident scene, he’d looked more shocked than she’d ever seen him look and that had been almost as frightening as not being able to breathe properly, as well as the fear that something terrible could have happened to the baby.
And she’d seen tears in his eyes when he’d heard the healthy beat of the baby’s heart on the Doppler. It would have been understandable if there’d been an element of relief in the idea that the disruption she’d caused in Joe’s life might have vanished but what she had seen in his face in that moment was something she would never have expected.
He’d looked as if their growing baby was the most precious thing in the world.
As if she was just as important.
It would have been so easy to believe that look. To trust it. But the rational part of Maggie’s brain had ordered her not to. Had spelled out how much harder it would be—when the drama of this event was over—to get back to normal. The normal that she and her baby’s father were no more than friends. That they could never be more than friends.
She’d already been struggling, in the wake of that kiss the day she’d gone with him to view the house that he’d bought shortly after that. That had been a physical longing doing its utmost to pull her in and she’d managed to deal with it by staying away from Joe as much as possible since then. To actually believe that he cared so much would not be nearly as easy to escape from. It would be in her head, and her heart, every second of every minute.
That was how she’d found the courage to tell him not to come with her. That she would be okay.
But she wasn’t okay.
Maggie was trying hard not to cry because any sharp intake of breath gave her a stabbing pain in her ribs so she concentrated very hard on keeping her breathing regular and careful. She didn’t seem to be able to do anything about the tears rolling slowly down her face, however.
‘I’m sorry, Joe,’ she whispered aloud into her empty room.
She would tell him again, as soon as they had any time alone together.
* * *
It seemed impossible to get any time alone with Maggie over the next week.
Everybody knew that they were no more than just good friends, so it probably didn’t occur to anyone that they might want time alone together. In the few days that Maggie was kept under observation in hospital, Joe always had Cooper or Jack or even Andy and Nick going with him to visit her. Or there would be staff members from the Royal dropping in. People like Tom. Or Fizz, who took every opportunity to spend her breaks with Maggie.
‘To be honest, it’s starting to get harder to stay on my feet all day.’ Fizz was looking very comfortable in the only armchair in Maggie’s room, the day after the chest drain had been removed. ‘You’ll find out in a few months. Thank goodness...’ Her smile said that she knew exactly how scary the accident had been for her friend.
Joe wasn’t included in that smile. Were people uncomfortable to assume that he was just as invested in this unborn baby’s welfare? That it was Maggie that needed the support because she was the one who’d always wanted children?
It was a can of worms that Joe was not about to open. ‘How are the ribs?’ he asked.
‘It only hurts if I laugh,’ Maggie told him. ‘Don’t make me laugh.’
It occurred to Joe that it was a long time since he’d actually heard Maggie laugh properly. Or laughed himself, come to think of it. How sad was that? He shrugged, a smile tilting one side of his mouth.
‘When have I ever made you laugh? Serious workmates, that’s what we are.’
Fizz snorted. ‘Yeah...right...’
Maggie said nothing. She wasn’t even smiling as she caught his gaze. Was she remembering what was racing through the back of Joe’s mind? There’d always been so much laughter between them. The banter that always provided a chuckle of amusement or two. Jokes that came from nowhere. Tears that came with laughter when they’d discovered just how hot that new variety of chilli sauce was. The way Maggie laughed when she was just excited about life, like the time they’d been bounced around in rough seas on that outing with the coastguard. The laughter that came from pure fun and sheer enjoyment that he’d never, ever expected to be part of a sexual relationship.
Yes...maybe they were thinking about the same thing. Maybe that was why they both turned away from eac
h other at the same moment.
‘I get to go home tomorrow,’ Maggie said brightly. ‘And Don’s going to give me a desk job so I can probably go back to work in a week or so. How good is that?’
After she was discharged home, she had her flatmates looking after her and usually had Laura’s son, Harrison, cuddled up on the couch with her. The famous taco nights, which had been largely abandoned after Cooper had moved out, got reinstated but Maggie had apparently gone off chilli.
‘It’s giving me indigestion now,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t think the baby likes it. Oh...’ Her eyes widened. ‘Just talking about it was enough to make him kick.’ She grinned at Fizz. ‘I haven’t got used to feeling him move yet. It’s so weird...’
‘Can I feel?’ Fizz went to sit beside Maggie on the couch, her hand out to touch Maggie’s belly, but Harrison was there first.
‘I want to feel,’ he said. ‘And how do you know it’s a boy, anyway?’
‘We don’t,’ Maggie admitted. ‘Not yet.’ She looked up, catching Joe’s gaze, and he felt included in that ‘we’. There was a softness in her gaze that made him feel more than simply included. As if he was welcome?
He so wanted to be included in the excited quest to feel the baby move but he couldn’t ask. Not with the crowd of other people around. That needed to be a private moment. He wanted to be alone with Maggie. To feel his baby moving. To tell her how things had changed in the way he felt about becoming a father now. Maybe even to tell her how things had changed in the way he felt about her because...because he could almost believe, in this moment, that things had changed for her as well.
That something was different.
Something huge...
But how, and when, could he arrange to get that time with Maggie?
‘You all packed up yet?’ Cooper carried an oven tray with warmed taco shells past Joe. ‘It’s this weekend that we’re all coming to help you shift, isn’t it?’
‘Yep. I’m good to go. I’ve hired a van to shift the bigger stuff.’
‘I’ll be there,’ Jack promised.
‘I won’t be lifting too much,’ Fizz said. ‘But I’ll provide the food.’
‘I could help with that,’ Maggie offered.
There was a general sound of disagreement. ‘It’s not as if you haven’t already seen the place, Mags,’ Fizz reminded her. ‘And we know you. You wouldn’t be able to stop yourself carting boxes around or something or shoving a couch because it’s in the wrong place. You’re under doctor’s orders to rest, okay?’
‘Wait till the housewarming party,’ Cooper added. ‘You’ll be right as rain by then.’
That was it, Joe decided. Once the chaos of the move was over and Maggie had had more time to rest and recuperate, he could invite her to a housewarming party.
A very private one.
* * *
This was strange.
Maggie couldn’t see any vehicles she recognised parked in the street outside Joe’s house. She checked the text message on her phone again.
Spur-of-the-moment housewarming party tonight. 7p.m. Hope you can make it.
She’d texted back to ask what she could bring.
Just yourself.
He’d added a smiley face to his reply that had made Maggie smile as well. A beat of excitement made her realise how much she was looking forward to seeing him. She’d felt left out of the moving process and that had been days and days ago.
It was a bit after seven p.m. because she’d waited for Laura and Harrison or Jack to get home so that she could get a ride with them but they were late so in the end she’d grabbed a taxi. And now she was standing on the road on a warm, early summer evening and it looked very much as if she might be the first of Joe’s friends to arrive for this impromptu party.
Maggie hadn’t seen the house since the day of the first viewing and she’d forgotten how gorgeous it was. Magical, almost, with that romantic turret. Late afternoon sun was kissing the faded wooden floor of the veranda and the front door was open a little, as if she was expected. And welcome...
She climbed the steps to the veranda and pushed the heavy door open a little further.
‘Joe?’
There was no answer, so Maggie kept walking down the wide hallway of this side of the house that contained the larger of the two apartments. It didn’t look like Joe had got very far with his unpacking yet, because there were stacks of boxes in one of the rooms she passed and nothing more than a bed in another room. The big sitting room with its amazing harbour view needed far more furniture than the small couch in the corner and the kitchen benches were covered with crockery and cutlery that needed to be tidied away in a cupboard somewhere.
Maggie shook her head. Why was Joe having a housewarming party when he wasn’t anywhere near settled into his new home? And where was he, anyway? The kitchen door was also open so she walked towards that and looked out into the garden. Joe was there, tying a bunch of balloons to the post of a grapevine-covered pergola that shaded the terraced area adjacent to the house. There were tartan picnic rugs on the grassy area beyond the terrace and more balloons tied to the surrounding trees.
Much closer, there was a rustic wooden table that must have been left by the previous owners and Maggie blinked at the plate of food that was taking centre stage. Small triangles of white bread that had been buttered and sprinkled with brightly coloured hundreds and thousands.
Fairy bread?
What sort of strange housewarming party was this? It looked far more like a child’s birthday party.
And then it hit her. She remembered telling Joe about her friend Suzie’s birthday party, when she’d been explaining why she wanted to have lots of babies. She’d said that there had been balloons tied to trees and fairy bread and chasing games and everything was so much more fun because she’d been part of a big family.
Joe was re-creating that childhood memory but Maggie couldn’t understand why. Or maybe she could, but it was too much to hope for. Too much to trust. Maybe that was what kept her standing there silently, simply absorbing what had been created. For her. Feeling her heart expanding with love for this man who’d gone to so much effort on her behalf. And, as if he could feel that love coming towards him, Joe turned and his face lit up with that slow smile that just kept on growing.
‘You’re here,’ he said unnecessarily, walking towards Maggie.
‘I am.’ Her smile wobbled. ‘I heard there was fairy bread.’
Joe was getting closer. Close enough for Maggie to see the way his eyes were crinkled at the corners with his smile and how much warmth was coming from his gaze.
‘Am I the first one here?’ she asked.
‘You’re the only one here,’ Joe told her. ‘I didn’t invite anyone else.’
He was right in front of her now. Looking at her like...like he had that day of the house viewing, when they’d both realised they still wanted each other so much, even though they’d agreed that their friendship was not enough of a foundation for anything more. Looking like he had during that rush of pure relief when they’d heard the healthy beat of their baby’s heart and she’d felt like she was the most precious thing in the world for Joe. Looking as if the only thing in the world he wanted to do was to kiss her senseless.
‘Oh... Joe...’ This was just overwhelming. There were hopes and dreams and fear and a bubble of sheer joy all trying to mingle deep inside her.
Maggie burst into tears.
‘Oh, no...’ Joe put his arms around her instantly. ‘I thought you’d like this. Here...’ He led her to the bench seat beside the big wooden table. ‘Sit down. Are you all right?’
Maggie tried to nod.
He hadn’t let go of her hand yet. ‘And the baby? What did the doctor say today? Is everything okay?’
Maggie nodded again. ‘She’s confident that it’s all good.’ It was much easier to ta
lk about something clinical than venture onto personal emotional territory that was a complete minefield, so Maggie took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘Sorry about that...it’s just these pesky pregnancy hormones.’
‘Doubt it,’ Joe said. ‘I’m not pregnant and I was worried sick about you and the baby after that accident.’
‘I’m fine,’ Maggie told him. ‘But... I’m still worried about the baby. What if...what if lack of oxygen has caused brain damage or something?’
‘You weren’t without oxygen for that long.’
‘But I was in respiratory arrest. I stopped breathing.’
‘So did I.’ Joe picked up Maggie’s other hand as well. ‘And I was holding my breath until you started breathing again.’
She could believe that. It was something she’d done when she’d been learning to intubate a patient. Holding her breath once they stopped breathing to be confident that she’d secured an airway in plenty of time to prevent damaging oxygen deprivation.
‘It wasn’t long enough to do any damage,’ Joe added. He was holding her gaze and Maggie could see the golden brown of his hazel eyes darken with some strong emotion. She could feel that emotion in his hands holding hers. A faint thrum of energy that ran up her arms and straight into her chest to squeeze her heart.
‘It was just long enough for me to realise that I don’t want to live without you,’ Joe said softly. ‘That I love you.’
Maggie tried to smile but her lips were trembling. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘We’re mates. Best mates.’
Joe’s eyes darkened even more. ‘No. I’m trying to tell you that I love you, Maggie. I’m in love with you.’ He sucked in a breath. ‘And I know that you might not want to hear that. And that you can never feel like that about me because you would have known if that was possible a very long time ago but...but I had to tell you. It’s been doing my head in.’
The squeezing sensation around Maggie’s heart had become a tingle that was going in the opposite direction now. All the way out to the tips of her fingers and her toes.