The baby in the stroller…Identification?
‘I know who they are,’ Mary said. The elderly lady had lifted the toddler from the pram and was cuddling him. ‘If you want, I’ll come to the hospital and hold the baby until someone can come for him. I can give you details.’
‘And you?’ The ambulance officer turned to Maggie. ‘Do you need help?’
‘I’m f-fine,’ she managed, knowing she didn’t look fine. Nine months pregnant, soaked in blood, shocked.
‘I’ll look after her,’ Max said, and his arm came round her waist and she let herself lean into him.
‘I feel funny,’ Spike said suddenly, and there was another moment of drama where the paramedic moved fast before the kid’s knees buckled under him.
‘He’s a hero,’ Maggie said shakily as they loaded Spike, too, into the ambulance and the paramedic looked at her and then at Max.
‘It seems we have a surfeit,’ he said dryly. ‘We were lucky to get here as fast as we did-the power’s off all over the city and the traffic’s crazy. But in the meantime you guys seem to have saved a couple of lives.’
And then they were gone.
The police were taking statements and were collecting fragments of broken glass for forensics. Someone had started cleaning blood from the road.
In a few minutes all evidence of the accident would have disappeared. The stone had been tossed into the lake, it had splashed, the ripples were moving outward and in minutes life would be smooth again. Only Maggie didn’t look the least bit smooth.
‘Maggie, you know we agreed that shower wasn’t a good idea?’ Max murmured, and she looked up him and he saw her react to what he must look like. Which was a reflection of what she looked like.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, version two.
‘I’m not sure they’ll even let us into the apartment block now,’ she muttered, and her voice was shaky.
‘You should have gone with the ambulance.’
‘Why? My voice always shakes after drama. I’m fine.’ She shook her head. ‘Of all the criminal…’
‘Don’t think about it. Come and get clean.’
‘You’ll talk your way past my concierge?’
‘I’ll do whatever I must to get this off us,’ he muttered grimly. ‘But we did good, Maggie.’
‘We did, didn’t we?’ she said-and burst into tears.
She sobbed. She sobbed all the way back to the apartment, while Max told a stunned concierge what had happened. The power was out and the reception area was dim. ‘There’s been power outages a couple of times already this week,’ a shocked concierge told them as he ushered them toward the stairs. ‘That’ll be what happened with the traffic lights.’
Maggie was no longer listening. She was simply limp.
What was wrong with her? She’d done her share of stints in emergency rooms. She was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. What was she doing, collapsing like a sodden rag?
But collapse she had. She couldn’t stop shaking. If Max hadn’t been holding her up she’d simply have sat where she was and not moved until morning.
Her tears had stopped-finally-but the numbness was ongoing. She made no protest as Max propelled her into her apartment, into the bathroom and straight into the shower. Then, as she stood limply under the warm water, sagging against the far wall, he swore, pulled his shoes off and came into the shower with her. He tugged her close and held her while the water ran and ran, and the red slowly turned to pink and then slowly turned clear.
Max had ripped off the remains of his ruined shirt along with his shoes. He was wearing chinos and nothing else. She was wearing her sarong. It might be clean but it still felt bloody. Ugh. She didn’t want it on. She hauled it free and the water turned red again with the movement.
There was a crimson smear on her bikini top. She tugged at the strap and Max hesitated, then helped her unfasten it.
Then, as the shaking continued, as her bikini top fell to the floor, he swore and tugged her in hard against him.
What was she doing? She didn’t care. She didn’t have the energy to care. She let herself be pressed to Max’s bare chest, skin against skin.
She needed the contact so much. She needed him.
And something else.
She wanted to be beautiful for him, she thought through a haze of shock and tears. It was a silly, dumb thing to think but think it she did.
She wanted him.
‘Maggie…’
His voice was unsteady.
‘S-sorry,’ she whispered, trying to get her voice under control. Trying to figure out what on earth she was thinking. ‘I’m sorry. I…It’s just…It must be being nine months pregnant. Hormones or something. I’m not…It’s not exactly medical treatment you’re giving me here.’
‘I’m trying hard to feel like your treating doctor,’ he said, and she felt a fierce stab of denial. No.
‘You don’t feel like my treating doctor,’ she whispered.
The warm water was running over them. There was no light apart from the filtered daylight from the window in the bedroom beyond. She felt like she was in a warm, sheltering cave, held by her man.
She was so close…
Closer than she’d felt to William?
That was an impossible question, and the truth was she didn’t know. But it didn’t seem to matter.
Up until now, grief had been with her every time she thought of him. Now, shocked out of any trace of a comfort zone, thrown into such intimacy with this new man in her life, it seemed that William had become a memory that couldn’t be betrayed, a gentle ghost taking his rightful place in her life, watching her move on.
And with the thought-move on-came knowledge of where her heart was taking her, and the surge of self-knowledge made her gasp.
She made to pull away but Max was holding her against his chest. Against his heart.
Her bump was in the way. Apart from her tiny bikini bottom she was totally naked, but she was still huge. But Max was holding her as if he loved her; as if this child she was carrying was his.
No. He didn’t want this. How could he?
‘You don’t want this,’ she whispered.
‘Want what, Maggie?’
What did she want?
She knew exactly what she wanted. The unsayable. But she had to figure another answer.
‘You don’t want a pregnant woman stark naked against you.’
‘I don’t believe you’re quite stark naked.’
‘I might as well be. And I’m so…so…’
‘Beautiful,’ he said softly. And then as she looked up at him in confusion, he added, almost ruefully, ‘Pregnancy’s beautiful. I’ve seen this before, Maggie. I’m a doctor, remember.’
That got to her. No way was she going down that route. She pulled back from him, swiped water out of her eyes, tried to look up at him with determination. ‘You’re not my doctor.’
‘You needed someone. You sobbed.’
‘I didn’t need a doctor,’ she managed. ‘I needed someone who knew what I was feeling. Didn’t you feel like sobbing, too?’
He wasn’t answering. He was fighting to act as if this was professional care.
She didn’t want to be treated with professional care.
Why had she let herself sob on him? What sort of a baby was she?
Enough. She hauled open the shower and grabbed a towel. It was big but not big enough. Beautiful? Ha! Winding the towel round her as best she could, she backed into the bedroom, leaving Max looking after her.
Still not answering.
She’d fallen in love, she admitted as she towelled herself dry with grim intensity. With someone who saw her as a patient.
So get dressed. Get this finished with. Fast.
How had that happened?
Maggie had been covered with blood and she’d been distressed. She’d needed to get her clothes off. It was natural that he’d help her.
So? He was a doctor helping a heavily pregnant woman in distress. He should feel
professionally detached.
He felt no such thing.
She’d asked him if he felt like sobbing. The answer to that was easy. The way he’d felt…sobbing didn’t come close.
But what he was feeling was nuts. To look at a nine-months-pregnant woman and ache to take her to him…
It was inappropriate. It was mixed up with his memories of Alice.
If she wasn’t pregnant, would he still feel this desire?
He needed to get away, he thought, until after Maggie’s baby was born. Until he could see how much he wanted Maggie for herself.
He suspected it was a lot.
So don’t rush it, he told himself harshly. Leave her until you can see the whole picture. Get the emotion of pregnancy out of it.
Meanwhile, she didn’t need him.
But, damn it, he wanted her to need him.
There wasn’t even a light in this apartment. There’d been a couple of weeks of rolling power cuts-apparently there was a major problem with the city grid. If he wasn’t here she’d be by herself in the dark.
Maybe she had enough resourcefulness to buy herself a candle?
Of course she did, he thought, hauling off his soaking chinos and wrapping himself in a towel. It might be seductive to think of himself as a white knight on a charger, but she didn’t want that.
And maybe playing the protector now might mess with things later.
How much later?
Later she’d have a baby and a farm and friends. She still wouldn’t need him.
He came out of the bathroom and she was at the apartment door. Thanking the concierge. Not being needy at all.
‘They’ll get him home. Great.’
She turned and he copped another blast of how gorgeous she was. Her hair was still wet, her flaming curls clinging to her lovely face. She was standing in bare feet, wearing maternity smock and jeans, lit by the afternoon sun from the outside window. And as he watched her, the tangle of emotions surrounding him fell away. Hunger hit him with such force that he almost took her in his arms right then.
But she was holding out gym pants, measuring them for length. The gym pants acted like a shield, giving him pause.
Somehow sense prevailed. Just.
‘I’ve found you some clothes,’ she said, cutting across his thoughts with such brisk efficiency that he blinked.
‘Pardon?’
‘Don-the concierge-has loaned you his gym gear. You need to bring it back tomorrow. Clean.’
‘Um…thanks,’ he said. Resourceful? Yes, she was. Clinging? No.
‘You can hardly drive home in your towel,’ she explained, quite kindly. ‘We both need to get a bit of dignity back here.’
‘We do.’
‘Right, then,’ she said, and waited-politely-for him to disappear back into the bathroom. To get into another man’s gym gear and leave.
What else was a man to do?
Take her in his arms and kiss her senseless?
Let himself fall into that abyss?
He was so close-but not close enough. For as she turned away, he saw her put a hand to her back and wince. Backache in advanced pregnancy was common, but with that tiny gesture the pain he’d felt on losing Alice came flooding back. Maggie was beautiful, brave, intelligent-and vulnerable and pregnant and alive. How would he feel if he took her to him, if he loved her with all his heart and then…and then…?
No.
And she’d turned away. She was being sensible for them both.
By the time he was dressed in Don’s classy gym gear he was almost thinking clearly, but still he didn’t want to leave her. What had happened seemed too big. Outside, the sun had gone behind clouds and the apartment was gloomy.
‘Do you have candles?’ he asked, and she looked at him like he wasn’t very bright.
‘Of course I have candles. I have enough to light the whole apartment. We had power cuts for a while last night, too, if you remember, and the night before that. Did the lights go off where you were?’
‘No.’ But maybe they had. The hospital had its own generator and by the time he’d left work-at midnight-the power had been on again.
Work. That was the way to go, he thought. Get back to work and get a grip on your emotions. But to leave her here alone seemed wrong.
But maybe there was an alternative.
‘I do need to go back to work,’ he told her. ‘But I also want to check on Judith and Grace. The ambulance was taking them to Sydney South. Would you like to come with me? I can put you in a cab to come home afterwards.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, picking up her purse.
Just like that. ‘Yes?’
‘I’d decided I’d go before you offered,’ she admitted. ‘I know I should be professionally detached, but you’re looking at a woman who’s so undetached she just sobbed her naked heart out on your manly chest. And you know something? I might have sobbed even if it wasn’t manly so let’s not get too personal here. So, yes, please, Dr Ashton, I need to find out how they are.’
‘You should rest,’ he said, belatedly.
‘So I should,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m never going to rest until I know.’
‘Maggie…’
‘No more sobbing,’ she promised. ‘No more chests. Just two doctors checking on two patients. Let’s go.’
CHAPTER NINE
SO ONCE again Maggie got to ride in his seriously sexy little car, but despite her bravado she wasn’t feeling sexy, or brave, or anything other than totally disoriented. She was feeling disconcerted by the way she’d reacted over the last couple of hours. She was feeling…bereft.
Because she wanted this to be different?
For her mind had moved on from drama and was now playing tricks. Max was driving her to the hospital to see how two people they’d helped were faring. That was all that was happening but she was feeling sensation of warm wind in her hair, she was watching Max’s strongly boned hands-surgeon’s hands, she thought-on the steering-wheel, and she was feeling like she was part of a couple again. She felt cared for. She felt like she was a woman beside the man she loved.
The sensation was insidious in its sweetness-and it was a lie.
For Max was being efficient and kind. Nothing else.
But it didn’t stop her soaking it up. True or not, she was holding to the moment, thinking if this was all she had then she’d enjoy every minute of it.
But sadly it was only a short drive. At the hospital Max pulled into his personal parking place-impressive!-and her illusion of togetherness dispersed. It was back to being Maggie on her own.
But still she hesitated before getting out of his car, holding back for just a moment but long enough for him to come round to her side. He was holding the door wide for her, looking at her in concern. Proffering his hands to help tug her unwieldy body upward.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked uneasily. ‘Maggie, this is too much. Shall I take you home again?’
‘I’m fine. It’s just this car’s too low. I need a crane.’ She looked at his hands-thought about how she should refuse his aid. Contact with this man was doing dumb things to her head-and then she thought, no, dumb or not she’d take any contact she could get. She took his hands, he tugged her to her feet and she came too fast.
She was hard against him. Only she wasn’t. Her bump was in the way.
She had to get herself under control. Max was on the other side of her bump, holding on, waiting for her to steady herself. Looking at her in concern.
She steadied. Took a deep breath. Tugged her hands away.
Then…‘Spike,’ she said.
This was exactly what she needed. Not to look at Max. Not to let him see her need. Spike was on the far side of the car park, accompanied by a couple-a man in paint-spattered overalls and a woman in the uniform of one of the local supermarket chains. They looked about to climb into a battered family sedan.
‘Spike,’ Maggie yelled, and then, as he didn’t respond, she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled.
/> Max hadn’t seen Spike, and he hadn’t expected it. He was a whole eighteen inches away from Maggie, and the whistle came close to bursting his eardrums. It was a whistle a farmer might use to call a dog in the next county.
‘It’s Spike,’ Maggie said happily, and headed across the car park.
He followed. Bemused.
‘Where did you learn to whistle like that?’
‘Betty,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Great legacy, huh?’
Maggie had Spike’s attention now. Of course she did. He-and his parents?-stood by their car, immobilised by Maggie’s whistle.
The whole car-park looked immobilised by Maggie’s whistle, but Maggie’s sole attention was on Spike.
The kid still looked pale and subdued, dressed in the nondescript clothes that emergency departments give out after accidents. His spiked hair was sagging at the tips and he looked…smaller? But Max watched his face as he recognised Maggie, and thought this was a kid who’d had a life-or-death situation thrust at him and who’d reacted with courage and honour. It had left its mark.
Like Maggie, sobbing her heart out on his chest. Life’s tragedies were something that affected both them deeply.
‘Spike,’ Maggie said joyfully as she reached him, and she hugged him before he knew what had hit him.
‘I’m C-Colin,’ the kid managed, trying to sound defiant. ‘Not Spike.’
Maggie grinned and turned to Max. ‘He’s Colin,’ she said happily. ‘Our hero’s Colin.’
‘Hero?’ the woman beside Spike said faintly.
‘Hero,’ Maggie said definitely. ‘Is Colin your son?’
‘I…Yes,’ the woman said. ‘And this is his father.’
‘I’m really pleased to meet you,’ Maggie said warmly. ‘We helped at the accident, with your wonderful son.’
‘The hospital called us,’ the man told them, glancing at Spike as if the thought of Colin as wonderful was clearly ludicrous. ‘They said Colin had been in an accident.’
‘We were so scared,’ the woman added. ‘Only then we found out he wasn’t actually in the accident. He’d just seen it and fainted.’
Someone needed to explain, but even as Max thought it, Maggie was on the case. She was like a lioness with a cub, he thought, bemused. Maggie, fierce and loyal and true. He watched the indignation on her face and he thought this was a woman who, once she gave her heart, would give it for ever. Spike had earned her loyalty and she’d repay it a thousand times over.
City Surgeon, Small Town Miracle Page 12
