Surprise Twins for the Surgeon

by Sue MacKay

  ‘Hi, you made it.’ She was waiting outside the entrance to Radiology, relief beaming out of those beautiful eyes.

  And drilling into his gut. Reminding him of how well they fitted together. Not only physically, but also they seemed to agree on the most important things. Suddenly the stress of getting here, of even having to be here, fell away and he reached for her hand. ‘Let’s go do this.’ He wanted the first glimpse of his son or daughter more than anything.

  Her fingers slipped between his; warm, soft, Alesha.

  ‘Now, there’s a surprise.’ The girl pushing her scanner into Alesha’s stomach grinned. ‘There are two in there.’

  ‘What?’ The word exploded out of Kristof. ‘Twins?’

  ‘Two?’ squeaked a stunned Alesha. ‘Two babies. Oh, my.’

  The girl nodded as she studied the screen in front of her. ‘That explains your exhaustion, I’d say.’

  Alesha murmured, ‘Are you sure?’

  Kristof wrapped an arm over her shoulders, held her tight. This was colossal. One baby in their situation was big, but two? They had a lot to consider. Not that anything had really changed. ‘Do we know what we’re getting?’

  ‘Do you want to?’ The girl looked from him to Alesha.

  Alesha nibbled her bottom lip. ‘I think I do. When it was only one baby I thought I’d like to be surprised, but two? I want to know.’

  The scanner pushed against her belly and the images on the screen showed two tiny figures. ‘How can you tell whether they’re boys or girls?’ Kristof asked. A dumb question. The woman was well qualified for this, but right now that picture seemed fuzzy to him and those babies so tiny they blurred before his eyes. He rubbed them and his hand came away damp. He was crying? Hadn’t done that since he was a kid. He slashed harder at his face. It didn’t do to be seen sniffling.

  Alesha had no problems with crying. Buckets were needed to collect her tears. The tissues the girl passed her were quickly turned into a sodden ball and another box had to be found. Then she turned into him, buried her face against his shoulder, and saturated his shirt as well.

  A boy and a girl. It was as though fate had caught him out and was playing a full hand in case it didn’t get another chance. His lungs weren’t coping. His heart had lost the ability to do slow and steady. Those images told him what Alesha hadn’t been able to, what he hadn’t been able to grasp fully. ‘I’m going to be a dad.’ As in raise, mentor, play with, cherish for ever, those babies. Love them regardless. ‘Want to share those tissues?’

  * * *

  ‘I might have to agree to that apartment around the corner,’ Alesha told Kristof over a cup of tea back at his place. ‘Two babies are going to be a handful and if you’re close by that’d help.’

  ‘We’ll get a nanny.’

  Oh, Kristof. ‘No, we won’t. I am going to bring up my children. I will not leave them in someone else’s care.’ All the angst over being abandoned roared up through her and she was on her feet staring into Kristof’s startled eyes. ‘Never.’

  ‘Whoa. Take it easy. I was only trying to make things better, not worse.’ He sank onto a kitchen stool so he was at her level when she returned to her seat.

  ‘Well, you weren’t. Never, ever, suggest that again. You hear?’

  ‘I think the whole street heard.’ Then his lips flattened. ‘Sorry. Not the right time for flippancy. But I’m out of my depth here. What do you want?’

  He was trying to help. She had to drop the anger. It wasn’t his fault her parents did what they did. ‘My turn to apologise.’ She retreated to her stool and tried to pick up her cup without sloshing tea everywhere. That was a fail.

  ‘Talk to me, Alesha. How are you going to manage? Financially, for one. Raise two children while working, for another. There’s something more going on here that I have no clue about.’

  ‘I have my grandmother’s money. She died when I was eleven and I couldn’t touch the money till I was twenty-one. The lawyer she appointed invested very wisely for me.’

  ‘There’s more to this. Someone’s hurt you, haven’t they?’

  As if he told her things about his past? But they’d get nowhere if they both kept this up. One of them had to start letting go and revealing what made them tick. It wouldn’t be Kristof. He was too tight, too removed once the fun stopped. But could she talk to him about her family? Could she not? Her babies were depending on her getting things sorted before they arrived. Sorted properly, not doing a shoddy job that they’d all live to regret.

  This time the tea didn’t go over the edge of the mug when she picked it up, though it was now lukewarm. Guess she couldn’t have it all. Sipping, she hoped her stomach didn’t choose now to make a nuisance of itself. ‘My brother died of AML when I was ten.’ She hesitated. Took another sip. ‘It was horrible. My parents couldn’t deal with it.’ She blinked, stared all around the room but not at Kristof. If his eyes filled with sympathy she’d fall apart.

  His hand covered her one on her thigh. He didn’t say a word. She still nearly fell to shreds.

  More tea, more deep breathing. Then, ‘They were lost in their grief, and I—from the day Ryan’s bone-marrow result was delivered I didn’t have parents any more. Not ones who were there for me. I was nine.’

  ‘Who took care of you?’

  ‘I did. I ate when I was hungry, shopped with the money Dad left lying around when the cupboards were bare, attended school to get away from the gloom pervading our house. I didn’t go without, but it wasn’t fun either.’ No one asking how did school go, or questioning why she wanted to change schools. No acknowledgment she existed.

  No love.

  She could’ve handled everything else if her parents had only shown her half what they gave Ryan, even after he died.

  Were those swear words spilling from Kristof’s mouth? For her?

  Finally Alesha looked at him. A mix of anger and sorrow twisted his mouth, darkened his eyes. He leaned closer, both hands held out to her.

  It would be so simple to lean in against him and let go of her own anger and disappointment, let Kristof take charge. Too easy. Because ultimately she had to be strong for herself, and those babies. Leaping up, she paced across the room, back and forth, back and forth.

  ‘Alesha, go easy. Let me help you. Now, and later with the babies.’

  Babies. Not one, but two. She’d thought it would be hard raising one, now there was another one to think of. Could she do this?

  She had to. Wanted to. But now she was afraid. Double trouble was what people said of twins. Double worry that she’d get it right. Twins. ‘Are there twins in your family?’ As far as she was aware there weren’t any in her family.

  ‘I don’t recall any. Guess we managed them all by ourselves.’ His light tone was forced, as though trying to pacify her.

  It wasn’t working. The agitation churning her insides got faster, harder, meaner. She had to get out of here. ‘I’m going home.’ Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she headed for the front door. Until her stomach warned it had other ideas. A quick detour took her to the bathroom.

  * * *

  Kristof left Alesha alone, knowing full well he was not welcome this time. But he was biting to get in there and hold her. Except no amount of caressing or soothing was going to work. Her story about her family appalled him. They’d done a lot of damage to Alesha, back when she was a child, and again tonight as she’d laid out the bare basics.

  He was furious for her. How could parents do that to their daughter? Grief could paralyse a person, but to cast their child adrift? When she was so young? Actually, it didn’t matter what age she was; it was wrong, and horrid, and totally incomprehensible. No wonder she never talked about her past.

  Ten minutes ticked by. He couldn’t stand waiting any longer. A light tap on the bathroom door and he let himself in. His heart hit his boots.

  Ale
sha looked so forlorn he felt as though he’d been slapped by a raging elephant. Having lowered the lid of the toilet she sat huddled with her arms around her knees, drowning in tears. Silent ones streaming all over her face and onto her arms.

  She didn’t raise her head when he said, ‘You are going to be the best mother ever.’

  Not a movement, not a whimper. Just those blasted tears.

  Kristof sank down onto his haunches beside her and held the tissue box at the ready. How he hated tears. He didn’t know what to do about them. How to stop them. How to obliterate the pain that caused them. He was useless. He waited some more.

  Until a shaky hand reached for the box and tugged out a handful of tissues.

  He watched as Alesha began mopping up her face, her chin, the backs of her arms. He handed her more tissues and removed the sodden ball from her hand.

  She yawned. Her eyes were swollen and dull, exhaustion drew at her cheeks. Another yawn made up his mind.

  ‘Come on. You’re going to bed.’ Leaning down, he lifted her into his arms, ready to put her down gently if she tried to get away.

  Instead she snuggled into him, surprising the breath out of his body. Hope soared. She’d turned to him, not away. They might be able to work something out where Alesha had all the help she needed and he was there in the background to look out for her and the babies. She was right. Everything had got harder now that there were twins on the way. Solo parenting, even with him there for her, was hard, and that was with one child.

  In his bedroom he toed the bedcover aside and laid Alesha down.

  Another of those enormous yawns pulled at her.

  Pulling the cover up to her chin, he kissed her hot cheeks. ‘Get some sleep.’

  Her hand snatched his. ‘Twins. It’s too much. I won’t cope.’

  ‘It’s okay. We’ll cope.’

  Shuffling up the bed, she leant back against his headboard. ‘No. I have to. I have to fight for my children. I can’t fall apart when the going gets rough. I have to fight for them, no matter what tries to knock me off course.’

  ‘You don’t think you’re already doing that?’ He parked his butt on the edge of the bed and reached for her hands again.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She pulled them away and tucked them on her stomach under the cover. ‘Maybe I should go home.’

  ‘You want to ride a train now?’ What was wrong with staying here with him for the night? Disappointment slayed him.

  ‘Back to New Zealand.’

  Forget being disappointed. Try shocked. Hadn’t she been adamant there was nothing for her back there? ‘Why?’

  ‘Smaller city, a health system I understand.’

  ‘No family or friends to support you. No father of the babies you’re going to have there to take his turn at feeding and changing nappies.’ She couldn’t take his children to the other side of the world. Could she? Would she?

  Her smile did nothing to lift the chill settling over him. ‘How often do you think you’re going to be doing that? You’ll be at work all day, dashing back to the hospital to check on a patient even when you do come home. Get real, Kristof. We’re not going to be playing happy families. It might start out all right, but what happens when you’ve got a girlfriend in tow? Is she going to want to be second fiddle to bottles and potties?’

  Go for the throat, why don’t you? ‘I don’t have girlfriends. Only occasional enjoyable flings. Nothing permanent.’ The words were out before he’d thought them through. ‘As we had,’ he added as his brain scrambled to rectify his blunder, only making things worse.

  ‘There you go. A fling. Not a relationship. Not a lifelong commitment.’ Alesha tossed the cover away and her feet hit the carpet.

  ‘This is different. We’ve got a lifetime commitment.’ It felt as if they were going round and round with neither one of them saying exactly what needed to be said. Standing up, he reached out, placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘Alesha, look at me.’

  Instantly her face lifted and those big, sad eyes locked on him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Marry me.’ The words were out before he knew he was going to say them.

  Take them back. Can’t. Won’t. I don’t want to marry again, especially when there’s no love between us.

  Something like a rock nudged him. Wasn’t there? No, of course not.

  ‘Say that again,’ Alesha demanded.

  ‘It makes sense. That way we can make this work as a proper family. We’ll get a bigger house with space for the children and our own rooms that the kids can go between as they want.’

  All colour drained from her face. ‘I...’ Gulp. ‘That’s not a marriage. That’s a contract to keep the kids happy, except they won’t be when they realise their parents don’t share a life like their friends’ parents do.’

  ‘I thought we were trying to come to a workable arrangement where the children will be safe and happy.’ Got it wrong again?

  ‘You seem to have forgotten your reaction to that idea the night I told you I was pregnant.’

  No, he hadn’t. He’d had to time to weigh it all up and see there were positives about being married in this situation.

  Nothing to do with loving Alesha?

  He did not love her. Did he?

  Sure this feeling of being turned inside out by Alesha isn’t love?

  It couldn’t be. He’d been in love once, and that had been different.

  Yeah, and she turned out to be the wrong woman for you.

  What if he did love Alesha? Was in denial about it? His heart slowed as that thought took up residence in his head. No. That wasn’t possible. He’d feel different, light, happy, excited. Not worried and concerned for Alesha and the babies, not trying to get everything right for them all. No, he’d be leaping in, boots and all, and to hell with the consequences. Wouldn’t he?

  Bending down, she picked up her bag from the floor and headed for the door. ‘I know you really care about these babies, and maybe even me, but I do not want to add a half-hearted marriage into the mix.’ In the kitchen she slipped her feet into her shoes. ‘Thank you for the offer, but it’s a no from me.’

  His heart returned to his toes, and it had only just managed to climb up from there.

  I want this.

  Shock jerked him backwards. To have Alesha as his wife. In his life. All the time. ‘Would you at least think about it?’

  She paused, cupped his cheek with her palm. And sent shivers of need rattling through him. ‘Thank you for asking. I know it means a lot to you, but it isn’t right for us.’

  Even in a moment like this he wanted her, could feel the desire ramping up and overtaking all else. Act on that and he was a dead man. Or an idiot, which he doubted. ‘We’ll leave things as they stand for now.’ When her hand dropped away he wanted to snatch it up and place it back against his skin. ‘I’m not pushing you into anything you don’t want. It’s another option, that’s all.’

  ‘An option?’ She shuddered. ‘I understand.’ Did she say ‘all too well’ under her breath?

  ‘I don’t think you do.’ He didn’t, so why would Alesha? All he knew was he’d proposed when the idea had not been there minutes before. She’d given him a reprieve—one that he did not want now he’d put the idea out there. She was the reason he’d turned down the blatant offer one of the bridesmaids had made at the wedding two weeks ago. The woman had been hot and willing, and he’d said no, thanks. Which said more than just about anything could about his state of mind. Confused, worried, and also waking up.

  I want to marry Alesha, and not for the babies’ sake.

  He was ready to try again. Because of Alesha and her beautiful nature, her sense of right, her fun, her—her everything. ‘Alesha?’

  Sadness softened her lips, dulled her eyes further. ‘I’m going home, London home, that is. I need to be alone.’

  ‘I’ll g
ive you a lift.’ He wasn’t taking any argument on that score. Alesha was shattered and upset. Riding a train was not on tonight.

  ‘I appreciate the offer.’ That came with a small, wry smile.

  There was no understanding this woman. Seemed he could never get it right with her.

  * * *

  ‘Kristof proposed.’ Alesha swallowed the lump in the back of her throat. ‘I turned him down. How mad was I? I love him so much I hurt and I said no.’

  It was the right thing to do.

  He didn’t love her, would one day come to regret it, especially when he met a woman he did want the whole commitment shebang with. Then he’d thank her for tonight.

  Her stomach growled. Nothing to do with nausea though. It was hungry. The last thing she’d eaten had been hours ago in the canteen at work. Lunch had been a bread roll with salad and cheese—and a distant memory.

  Padding out to the kitchen, she put a pan of water on and dropped in two eggs to poach, popped some bread into the toaster.

  Somehow she’d managed to walk away from Kristof when her heart had been crying out to accept his proposal. She’d been strong. For her and the babies. They didn’t need to grow up in a loveless family. Her love for Kristof overwhelmed her sometimes, it was so big and wonderful. But it hurt not to get any love back. Men had always dropped her when she got too serious about them.

  Yeah, and this time was different. Kristof wants to marry me.

  The toaster popped and the toast flipped onto the bench. Not waiting for it to cool, she plastered a good dollop of butter over it.

  I pushed him away, just like he said I did with others.

  Hardly. Other men left her, not the other way round.

  Why did they back off? Why hadn’t Kristof? That was easy. She was having his babies. He was a stayer, took responsibility seriously. Look at how he wanted to buy her a place to live near his apartment so he could be there for them all. He’d always make sure she had everything she wanted.