A Month to Marry the Midwife

by Fiona McArthur

  Oh, yes. Next came the friendly sharing of history, all the warm and fuzzy excitement of mutual attraction, pleasant sex and then bam! She’d be hooked. The smile fell off her face.

  Not this little black duck.

  Ellie dragged the stethoscope from around her neck and fiercely wiped it over with a disposable cleaning cloth. Without looking at Sam, she held out her hand for his stethoscope. She felt it land and glanced at him. ‘Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Dr Southwell.’

  She watched his smile fade. Hers had completely disappeared as she’d looked up at him with the same expression she’d met him with this morning. Polite enquiry. He straightened his shoulders and jammed his hand back in his pocket to jingle his keys again.

  ‘Right,’ he said evenly. ‘I’ll go check into my guesthouse.’ Without another word, he strode away to the front door and she sagged with relief.

  Lucky she’d noticed what she’d been doing before it had gone too far. But at this precise moment she didn’t feel lucky. She felt disheartened that she couldn’t just enjoy a smile from a good-looking man without getting all bitter, twisted and suspicious about it. Wayne had a lot to answer for.

  She did what she always did when her thoughts turned to her horrific marriage that really hadn’t been a marriage—she needed to find work to do and maybe Josie or her baby could give it to her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THREE NIGHTS LATER, alone in her big oak bed on top of the cliff, Ellie twisted the sheets under her fingers as the dream dragged her back in time. Dragged her all the way back to primary school.

  Her respirations deepened with the beginning of panic. The older Ellie knew what the dream Ellie didn’t. Her skin dampened.

  Then she was back.

  To the last day of compulsory swimming lessons she’d used to love. Now school and swimming lessons made her heart hurt. Mummy had loved helping at swimming lessons, had even taught Ellie’s class the first two years, but now all they did was remind young Ellie how much she’d lost, because Mummy wasn’t there anymore. Daddy had said Mummy would be sad that Ellie didn’t like swimming now, but it made her heart ache.

  And some of the big boys in primary school were mean to her. They laughed when she cried.

  But today was the last day, the last afternoon she’d see the grey toilet block at the swimming pool for this year, and she pushed off her wet swimming costume with relief and it plopped to the floor. When she reached for her towel she thought for a minute that it moved. Silly. She shook her head and grabbed for it again so she could dry and get dressed quickly, or she’d be last in line again and those boys would tease her.

  Something moved out of the corner of her eye and then she felt the cold shock as a big, green frog leaped towards her and landed on her bare chest. She screamed, grabbed the clammy bulk of it off her slimy skin and threw it off her chest in mindless revulsion, then fought with the lock on the change-room door to escape.

  The lock jammed halfway. Ellie kept screaming, then somehow her fingers opened the catch and she ran out of the cubicle, through the washroom and outside through the door—into a long line of stunned primary school boys who stared and then laughed at the crying, naked young Ellie until she was swooped on by a scolding teacher and bundled into a towel.

  She wanted her mummy. Why couldn’t she have her mummy? It should be her mummy holding her tight and soothing her sobs. She cried harder, and her racking sobs seemed to come from her belly, even silencing the laughing boys...

  Ellie sat bolt upright in bed, the sob still caught in her throat, and shuddered. She didn’t know why frogs were so linked with her mother’s death. Maybe it was something she’d heard about her mother’s car accident, coupled with her childhood’s overwhelming sense of loss and grief—and of course that incident at the swimming baths hadn’t helped—but she couldn’t hear a frog without having that loneliness well back up in her again. It had become the spectre of grief. All through her childhood, whenever she’d been lonely and missed her mother, she’d had the frog nightmare. She’d eventually grown out of it. But, after Wayne, it had started again.

  She hadn’t had the dream for a while. Not once since she’d moved here a year ago—and she hoped like heck she wasn’t going to start having it repeatedly again.

  She glanced at the window. It was almost light. She’d have time for a quick walk on the beach before she’d have to come back and shower for work. Find inner peace before the day.

  Then she remembered the new doctor. Sam. Day four. One more day and then she’d have the weekend off and wouldn’t have to see him. Was that why she’d had the dream? The problem was she liked him. And every day she liked him more. He was lovely to the women. Great with the staff. Sweet to her. And Myra thought the sun shone out of him.

  Ellie didn’t want to like Sam. Because she’d liked the look of Wayne too, and look where that had ended up.

  * * *

  Of course when she went down to the beach the first person she saw was Dr Sam. Funny how she knew it was him—even from the spectacular rear. Thankfully he didn’t see her because he was doing what his father had done—watching the ocean. Sam’s broad back faced her as he watched the swells and decided on where to swim. Then he strode into the water.

  She walked swiftly along the beach, her flip flops in her hand, waves washing over her toes while she tried not to look as his strong arms paddled out to catch the long run of waves into the shore that delighted the surfers.

  She couldn’t even find peace on ‘her’ beach. She stomped up the curve of sand and back again faster than usual, deliberately staring directly in front of her. If she hadn’t been so stubborn she would have seen that he was coming in on a wave and would intercept her before she could escape.

  He hopped up from the last wave right in front of her. ‘Good morning, Ellie Swift.’

  She jumped. She glared at his face, then in fairness accepted it wasn’t his fault she was feeling crabby. ‘Morning, Sam.’ Then despite herself her gaze dropped to the dripping magnificence of his chest, his flat, muscled abdomen, strong thighs and long legs, and her breath caught in her throat. Even his feet were masculine and sexy. My goodness! Her face flamed and she didn’t know where to look.

  Sam said, ‘The water’s a nice temperature,’ and she hoped he hadn’t noticed her ears were burning.

  ‘Um...isn’t it warmer in Queensland?’ Her brain was too slow to produce exciting conversation.

  He shrugged and disobediently her eyes followed the movement of his splendid shoulders despite her brain telling her to look away. He said, ‘Don’t know. I haven’t swum in the ocean for years.’

  That made her pause. Gave her a chance to settle down a little, even wonder why he hadn’t been to the beach back home. She needed to get out of here. Create some space. Finally she said, ‘Then it’s good that you’re doing it here. I have your father’s surfboard up at my house. I’ll arrange to get it to you. I’m late. See you soon.’

  * * *

  Sam stood there and watched her leave. He couldn’t help himself and he gave up the fight to enjoy the sight. She had a determined little walk, as if she were on a mission, and trying hard to disguise the feminine wiggle, but he could see it. A smile stretched across his face. Yep. The receding figure didn’t look back. He hadn’t expected her to. But still, it was a nice way to start the day. Ellie Swift. She was still doing his head in. He had to admit it felt novel to be excited about seeing a woman again. Could it be that after only these few days here he was finding his way to coming back to life?

  * * *

  He hadn’t made any progress as far as breaking through her barriers went. Maybe he was just out of practice. But the tantalising thing was that, despite coming from different directions, he sensed the rapport, their commonalities, the fact that inherently they believed in the same values. And he was so damnabl
y attracted to her. He loved watching her at work and would have liked to have seen the woman outside work hours. He didn’t understand her aversion to having a friendly relationship with him, but that was her right and he respected it. Thank goodness for work. He’d see her in an hour. He grinned.

  Ellie disappeared from sight and Sam strode up the beach to scoop up his towel from the sand. He rubbed his hair exuberantly and stopped. Breathed in deeply. Felt the early sun on his skin, the soft sea breeze, and he glanced back at the water. The sun shone off the pristine white sand and the ocean glittered. He’d needed this break badly. He hadn’t enjoyed the world so much as he had since he’d come here. Life had been grey and closed off to him since Bree’s death.

  The only light in his long days had been the progression of his patients’ pregnancies to viable gestation—so that, even if the babies were born prematurely, it was later in the pregnancy and, unlike his and Bree’s children, they had a fighting chance. Other people’s surviving children had helped to fill the gaping hole of not having his own family.

  Now this place was reminding him there was a whole world outside Brisbane Mothers and Babies. He really should phone his dad and thank him for pushing him to come here.

  * * *

  Thursday night, the nightmare came back again and Ellie woke, breathless and tear-stained, to the phone ringing.

  That was a good thing. She climbed out of bed and wiped the sweat from her brow. She grabbed for the phone, relieved to have something else to drive the remnants of the nightmare away. ‘Hello?’ Her voice was thick and wavered a little.

  ‘Sorry, Ellie. Need you for a maternity transfer. Prem labour.’

  Her brain cleared rapidly. ‘Be there in five.’ That sounded much more decisive. She was in no fit state to walk in the dark but she’d have to. Hopefully a frog wouldn’t do her in. Ellie dragged off her high-necked nightdress and pulled on a bra and trousers. Her shirt was in the bathroom and she stumbled through to get it, glancing at her face in the mirror. Almost composed.

  But her hands shook as she buttoned her shirt all the way up. Damn nightmares.

  She dragged her thoughts away from the dream. ‘Who’s in prem labour?’ Ellie muttered as she ran the comb through her hair. The fringe was sweaty and she grimaced. It wasn’t a fashion show and she’d find out who soon enough.

  When she reached the hospital, swinging her big torch, she saw the Lexus. Dr Southwell. Trina had called him in as well.

  If she thought of him like that, instead of as Sam, there was more distance between them and she was keeping that distance at a premium. That was what she liked about midwifery—nothing was about her. She could concentrate on others, and some ‘other’ must be well established in labour for Trina to call the doctor as well as Ellie.

  She made a speedy pass of the utility vehicle parked at an angle in front of the doors as if abandoned in a hurry. Her stomach sank.

  She recognised that car from last year because it had the decals from the fruit market on it.

  Marni and Bob had lost their first little girl when she’d been born in a rush, too early. It had all happened too fast for transfer to the hospital for higher level of care, too tragically, and at almost twenty-three weeks just a week too early for the baby to have a hope to survive. Marni had held the shiny little pink body on her skin, stroking her gently, talking through her tears, saying as many of the things she wanted to say to her daughter as she could before the little spirit in such a tiny angel’s body gently slipped away.

  There had been nothing Ellie could do to help before it was too late except offer comfort. All she’d been able to do was help create memories and mementoes for the parents to take home because they wouldn’t be taking home their baby.

  Ellie had seen Marni last week. They’d agreed about the fact that she needed to get through the next two weeks and reach twenty-four weeks, how she had to try not to fear that she was coming up to twenty-three weeks pregnant again. That a tertiary hospital couldn’t take her that early if she did go into labour. This was too heartbreaking. When Ellie walked into the little birth room her patient’s eyes were filled with understandable fear that it was all happening again.

  She glanced at Bob chewing his bottom lip, his long hair tousled, his big, tattooed hand gripping one of Marni’s while the other hand dug into the bed as if he could stop the world if only it would listen. Old Dr Rodgers would have rubbed their shoulders and said he was so sorry, there was nothing they could do. So what could they do?

  Marni moaned as another contraction rolled over her.

  Sam looked up and saw Ellie, his face unreadable. He nodded at the papers. ‘We’re transferring. Marni’s had nephedipine to stop the contractions and they’ve slowed a little. I’ve given IV antibiotics, and prescribed the new treatment we’ve just started at our hospital for extreme prematurity with some success, but we need to move her out soon before it hots up again. Are you happy to go with her?’ There was something darkly intense about the way he said it. As if daring her to stand in his way.

  ‘Of course.’ What did he mean? If he was willing to try to save this baby and fight for admission elsewhere, she’d fly to the moon with Marni. But he knew as well as she did that most of the time other hospitals didn’t have the capacity to accept extremely premature labour because they wouldn’t be able to do anything differently when the baby was born. Too young to live was too young to live. ‘They’ve accepted Marni?’

  His face looked grim for a moment. ‘Yes,’ was all he said, but the look he gave was almost savage, and she blinked, wondering what had happened to him to make him so fierce.

  ‘Ambulance should be here soon,’ Trina said. She’d been quietly moving around Marni, checking her drip was secure, removing the used injection trays. She kept flicking sideways glances at Sam, as if he was going to ask her to do something she didn’t know how to do, and Ellie narrowed her eyes. Had he done something to undermine her friend’s confidence? She’d ask later.

  Her gaze fell on the admission notes and she gathered them up to make sure she had the transfer forms filled out. She heard the ambulance pull up outside and didn’t have the heart to ask Bob to move his car. They’d manage to work around it with the stretcher.

  She rapidly filled in the forms with Trina’s notes, added the times the medications were given and waved to the two female paramedics as they entered.

  ‘Hello, ladies. This is Marni. Prem labour at twenty-three weeks. We need a quick run to the base hospital. I’m coming as midwife escort.’

  One of the paramedics nodded at Marni. ‘Hello. Twenty-three?’ Then a glance at Sam that quickly shifted on. ‘Okey-dokey.’ She said no more.

  Ellie finished the transfer forms and disappeared quickly to pluck the small emergency delivery pack from behind the treatment room door just in case Marni’s baby decided otherwise. She sincerely hoped not.

  * * *

  Four hours later Sam watched Ellie for a moment as she filled in paperwork at the desk. He had slipped in the back door from the main hospital and she hadn’t seen him arrive, which gave him a chance to study her. Her swanlike neck was bent like the stalk of a tired gerbera. His matron looked weary already and the day had only just started. His matron? Whoa, there.

  But he couldn’t help himself asking, ‘What time did you get back?’ He knew the answer, but it was a conversation opener.

  He watched the mask fall across her face. Noted he was far too curious about the cause of that wall around her and kept telling himself to stop wondering. Dark shadows lay beneath her eyes and her skin seemed pale.

  She said steadily, ‘Five-thirty. It was a lovely sunrise.’

  Sam had thought so too—a splash of pink that had blossomed to a deep rose, and then a bright yellow beam soaring out of the cluster of clouds on the horizon over the ocean. The bay itself had already captured him, though he prefe
rred to walk down on the pristine sand of the beach rather than along the cliff tops.

  He hadn’t been able to sleep after the ambulance had left so he’d sat well back from the edge on the small balcony that looked over the road and across to the headland. He’d spent time on the creakingly slow Internet catching up on his email.

  By the time the ambulance had returned past his boarding house to drop Ellie back at the hospital, the sky had been pinking at the edges. She still had an hour before she started work and he’d wondered if she’d go in or if someone else would replace her after a call-out.

  Now he knew. He was ridiculously pleased to see her and yet vaguely annoyed that she didn’t have backup.

  ‘How was Marni after the trip?’

  Her face softened and he leant against the desk. Watched the expressions chase across her face whenever she let the wall down. He decided she had one of the most expressive faces he’d seen when she wasn’t being officious. No surprises as to what she was thinking about because it was all out there for him to see.

  ‘Of course, she was upset it was happening again. But the contractions slowed right off.’ Concern filled her eyes and he wondered who worried about her while she worried about everyone else. He doubted many people were allowed to worry about her.

  Her voice brought him back. ‘How do you think she’ll go?’ She looked at him as if he could pull a miracle out of his hat. It was harder doing it long distance but he’d damn well try. Marni would have the benefit of every medical advance in extreme premature labour from his resources he could muster, every advance he’d worked on for the last four years, or he’d die trying. He wouldn’t let her down.

  ‘My registrar will arrange for the new drug to be forwarded to Marni and they’ll start her on that. The OG at the base hospital will put a cervical suture in tomorrow if she’s settled. And she’ll stay there in the hospital until she gets to twenty-four weeks, and then after a couple of weeks if everything stays settled she can come home and wait. I’ll phone today and confirm that plan with the consultant, and will keep checking until she’s settled and sorted.’