A wife for the baby doctor

by Josie Metcalfe

  She stood there in the doorway, cuddling her precious books, while she listened to Marion running up the stairs and watched the water steadily saturate everything in sight.

  ‘Magda!’ she heard her friend shout to the accompaniment of a volley of thuds on the door. ‘Magda Grayson! Open this door! There’s water flooding through your floor!’

  ‘I think I saw a stopcock in the laundry,’ suggested one of the people who had begun to congregate in the corridor outside her door. ‘I’ll see if that stops it.’

  Dani was now surrounded by exclamations of horror as her neighbours craned their necks to see the devastation growing by the minute in her room. She hated feeling helpless and it seemed to take for ever before someone answered the door upstairs, but finally she could tell that the water wasn’t flowing quite so quickly any more.

  ‘I found a stopcock. Did it do any good?’ panted a voice from the back of the gathering throng.

  ‘Something’s made a difference,’ Dani confirmed as the soggy sound of dripping finally began to slow, but whether it was the stopcock or the fact that someone had finally answered the door upstairs, she had no idea.

  ‘Let me through, ladies and gentlemen,’ Marion demanded as she bulldozed her way through the fascinated onlookers towards Dani’s door. ‘The water’s been turned off, now, darlin’, but I don’t think it’s going to do you much good tonight,’ she commented. ‘I think you’d better make some phone calls to find out if there’s another room available.’

  ‘How did this happen?’ Dani demanded as she gazed at her soggy belongings in disbelief. ‘Did one of the pipes spring a leak?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Marion said, and raised her eyes pointedly to the room above before she finished quietly, ‘Somebody…got distracted at the wrong moment and forgot that the shower was running.’

  ‘What? How could anyone forget that they’d left it on? Surely it’s automatic to turn it off when…’ The expression on Marion’s face was a picture and suddenly Dani realised exactly what had been going on in the room above hers to cause its occupants to forget they’d left the water running.

  ‘The show’s over, people,’ Marion announced briskly, and Dani could easily imagine her in charge of a busy midwifery unit. ‘Back to your own rooms—unless you’re offering to help Dani mop up and sort through her soggy laundry.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ Dani growled when she handed her precious books over into Marion’s hands for temporary safekeeping. ‘Could it possibly be a certain male who thinks he’s God’s gift to women involved in this fiasco?’

  ‘If you mean Tomasz, you’re exactly right,’ Marion said as she pushed her sleeves up and began to strip the bed. ‘Apparently, a towel fell over the waste pipe but he and Magda were too…caught up in what they were doing to notice when the water started pouring out into the room, especially with his favourite “Music to Seduce by” DVD playing.’

  Dani snorted, then caught Marion’s eye over the gathering mountain of wet bedding and clothes. And suddenly the two of them were chuckling like idiots.

  ‘I thought Magda was far too intelligent to be taken in by someone as obvious as Tomasz,’ Dani said when she finally caught her breath, then wondered if she would have been equally as oblivious if she had been showering with Josh. As if she’d ever get the chance!

  ‘There’s no accounting for taste,’ Marion said primly, and they were off again, but this time Dani knew there was a hint of envy in her own laughter.

  ‘It’s unlikely that the office will be open to find you another room at this time of night, so where are you going to stay?’ Marion asked when the room had finally been dismantled, the mattress standing on its edge in the corridor, waiting to be carried down for disposal. A frown of concern pleated her wide freckled forehead. ‘I’d offer to share with you but, small as you are, there’d never be room for you in a bed with someone of my comfortable proportions, and you’d never get any rest lying on the floor.’

  ‘I’ll make some phone calls,’ Dani said vaguely, crossing her fingers that Josh would be back at his flat by now…and that he wouldn’t be getting ready to go out on a hot date. Then she had to suppress the sudden surge of jealousy at the thought of Josh taking out some long-stemmed beauty.

  ‘Josh?’ she said tentatively when a husky male voice answered her call, the sound so sexy that she wondered whether he’d bothered taking his date out at all. Had they already made their way to the bedroom? Had she interrupted while they were…?

  ‘Dani?’ The voice sounded a little more like Josh, this time, but still…’ What’s the problem?’ he asked with a degree of resignation that stung.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but…What makes you automatically think that there’s something wrong?’ she demanded, piqued.

  ‘Because you wouldn’t have rung me otherwise—you’d have emailed,’ he said gruffly, and he was quite right. She’d been so embarrassed by her birthday disaster that she’d all but cut off communication with him, even though she’d hungered for any scrap of contact. Only when he’d begun emailing her had she realised that it provided the degree of separation that she could cope with.

  She would probably have chosen to email this time, if she’d been sure that she wouldn’t electrocute herself in the disaster zone her room had become.

  ‘Well, you’re right,’ she admitted grudgingly and found herself crossing her fingers that it wasn’t his date’s voice she could hear in the background.

  ‘So, what’s happened? Is it something on the unit? Everything was fine when I left, but I fell asleep in front of the news about a quarter of an hour ago.’

  He’d been asleep? Was that why his voice had sounded so husky and sexy? Did he always sound that way when he was in bed, or…?

  ‘No,’ she said, quickly cutting off that train of thought before she forgot the reason for this call. ‘As far as I know, everything on the unit’s fine. It’s a problem with my room,’ she said with a grimace at the understatement.

  ‘Another noisy party?’ he asked. ‘Are you angling for a free meal so you can get out of there until they turn the volume down?’

  ‘Nothing as simple as that,’ she owned up, even as she realised that she probably didn’t even have a set of dry underwear to her name. ‘My upstairs neighbour got a bit…absent-minded…And my room has been flooded.’

  ‘Badly?’ There was a sharper edge to his voice, telling her that his brain was once more firing on all cylinders. ‘How much damage has it done to your things?’

  ‘My books are mostly OK because I’d put a folder on top of the pile and it acted as an umbrella, but pretty much everything else is soaked…my bed, my clothes…But I think my laptop has escaped.’

  ‘You’ll have to come over here, then,’ he said decisively, and she breathed a sigh of relief that he’d offered. Somehow that felt much better than if she’d had to beg for a bed.

  ‘I’ll come straight over and collect you,’ he continued, briskly. ‘It shouldn’t take me more than ten minutes to get there. Can you be ready by then?’

  ‘No!’ she exclaimed, horrified by the idea that everyone would know where she was going if Josh turned up outside her door to collect her. That sort of gossip was the last thing she needed if anyone on the unit was going to take her seriously. ‘It’ll take me at least half an hour to collect my things and organise laundry and notify the caretaker that he needs to arrange for disposal of the mattress. I’ll get a taxi over as soon as I’ve finished, if that’s all right?’

  He was silent for so long that she began to wonder if the connection had been cut.

  ‘Have you got your mobile phone with you? Is it still in working order?’ he asked suddenly, taking her by surprise. Did he really think he’d need to check up on her to make sure she travelled safely? Did he think she was that incapable of looking after herself? ‘I’ll park in the public section of the car park—out of sight of any colleagues—and give you a ring to tell you where to find me. I take it that was why you didn’t want m
e to come and collect you?’

  Well, it had been, but she’d been thinking as much of his reputation as her own…not that he gave her the chance to explain that, because as soon as she agreed to his plan she was left with the sound of the dialling tone in her ear.

  BB: The newlyweds send their love, said the message on her screen when Dani finally switched on her laptop, and she gave a huff of laughter.

  She’d just gone through one of the most exhausting evenings of her life and there was that innocuous little line waiting for her.

  Over the last few days, even while he’d seemed to be keeping his distance from her, she’d often found a message waiting for her…a comment about something that had happened on the ward, perhaps, or a reminder of something she needed to do…almost as if he was deliberately reminding both of them of what he saw as his dual roles in her life, as professional mentor and big brother.

  The irony this time was that Josh had been sitting in this very room when he’d typed it, probably at the very moment that she’d been discovering the water pouring through her ceiling. And now here she was ensconced in his study-cum-spare room with her pitiful belongings piled in the corner and the washing machine already churning through the first load of soggy clothing.

  ‘Tea?’ Josh called through the partially open door, and when she turned and saw him standing there with a brace of steaming mugs in one hand and a packet of chocolate biscuits in the other she nearly burst into tears.

  This was just so very Josh.

  He’d always been the very best big brother any girl could have had—endlessly supportive and patient and resigned from the day she’d taken her first wobbly steps to picking her up and dusting her off—but she’d been determined that this time she would show him that she was all grown up now, and didn’t need rescuing any more.

  She sighed silently and turned to clear a corner on the desk that held what was left of her most important belongings.

  ‘How wet did your books get? Are they completely spoiled?’ Josh demanded as he deposited his burden and reached for the top volume…an extremely expensive manual of paediatric X-ray diagnosis that had cost Dani an arm and a leg.

  ‘They’re not too bad, thank goodness—just a few damp corners—but the file of notes on top of them was completely ruined.’ She pulled a face. ‘That’s going to take more than a few hours of solid slog to replace. They were the start of my revision notes for the next set of exams.’

  His answering grimace told her he understood the significance of the loss. He would know that study time was hard to come by on a busy ward like theirs, and that by the time she was off duty, she was often too exhausted to concentrate properly.

  ‘Didn’t you keep a copy on your computer?’ he asked, ‘or were they all handwritten notes?’

  ‘Some of each,’ she admitted wearily as she sat in front of her laptop. ‘I’d typed a lot of them up and printed them out, but I’ve no idea where or even if they are still on the computer as I only ever looked at the hard copy.’

  ‘It’s easy enough to find out.’ He leaned forward over her shoulder to tap a couple of keys and brought up his own message onto the screen but Dani hardly noticed, every scrap of her awareness centred on the clean soapy smell of his skin just inches away from her.

  ‘I didn’t get your message until I switched on, just now,’ she said hurriedly, gabbling the first thing that came into her head…anything to stop herself leaning towards him and breathing in the arousing combination of shampoo, laundry soap and potent male pheromones. ‘Are they both well?’

  ‘Mum is in seventh heaven cuddling all the grandchildren she’s just acquired,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘With half of them she’s not even sure there is a family connection, but she’s not letting that worry her.’

  ‘Well, she’s been angling for you to produce some grandchildren for her to spoil for a long time,’ Dani pointed out, aware, as ever, of the deep pang of jealousy that had clawed at her every time she’d thought of Josh having those grandchildren with one of the elegant women he’d dated from time to time. For so many years she’d ached with the need to carry those children for him, the perfect blend of his genes and hers joined together in one perfect baby.

  ‘Yes!’ he said, and for one crazy second she thought he was agreeing with her thoughts…until she saw the directory he’d pulled up on the screen. ‘Looks like they are here. It’s just the handwritten notes you didn’t type in that you’ll have to do again.’

  ‘Thank you for that,’ she said, disappointed when he immediately straightened away from her to retrieve his mug of tea, quite apart from her annoyance with herself at not knowing where she’d saved her notes. She hated seeming like the stereotypical dizzy blonde when she knew she had a good functioning brain under the hair…if only people would look beyond the unusual platinum blonde colour.

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to get settled in,’ Josh said briskly. ‘Give me a shout if you need anything. The bathroom’s through there…’ He pointed to the door in the corner. ‘The estate agent called it a Jack and Jill. Both bedrooms access the same bathroom from either side so you might need to check before entering, and there’s a little cloakroom just inside the front door to save arguments.’

  Dani was glad that he didn’t look back over his shoulder at her as he left the room, certain that her eyes must almost be eclipsing her face in response to that news. It had been bad enough contemplating settling down in her borrowed bedroom, knowing that Josh was lying just yards away from her, but the thought that he would be just the other side of the wall while he stood naked under the shower…well, that was enough to send her pulse rocketing up into the stratosphere. And as for trying to sleep…that was probably going to be impossible.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SHE’D been right, she grumbled silently as she let herself out of Josh’s flat the next morning.

  Not long after she’d settled into bed, she’d heard Josh enter from his side of the bathroom and had pulled her pillow over her head to try to disguise the sound of the shower. But even though she’d managed to dull the sound, she hadn’t been able to do anything about the flight of her imagination.

  Not that she needed much imagination where Josh was concerned. Having lived in the same house as him for most of her life, it meant that she knew only too well exactly how broad his shoulders were and how long and strong his legs. What she hadn’t anticipated had been the arousing detail that had appeared in her dreams, and the memories that had followed her into wakefulness were enough to make her blush.

  ‘So where does all this leave me in my grand plan?’ she mused under her breath as she strode briskly towards the hospital. ‘Does the fact that we’re now living together make things easier?’ She paused for a huff of laughter at the thought of what the hospital grapevine would make of that little detail. Living together! She and the gorgeous, much sought-after consultant Josh Weatherby were actually living together. Please, God, no one would ever find out about it or the whole situation would become impossibly complicated.

  Not that it wasn’t complicated enough already.

  She’d been determined that this six months’ position would finally draw a line under her feelings towards him, one way or another. Either she would have to come to terms with the fact that her love for him was never going to be reciprocated, or he would finally admit that she was the woman he’d been waiting for all these years.

  ‘As if,’ she mocked herself wryly. ‘The fact that the thought of him having a shower can rob me of a night’s sleep and make me blush is hardly likely to bowl him over with the realisation that I’m a mature woman, let alone that he’s been waiting impatiently for me.’

  But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t going to do her best to find out if there was any chance of her dreams coming true. As far as her career was concerned, she had an enormous amount to learn in the next few months and a decision to make about the future direction she was going to take in her career.

  As far as her day-to
-day relationship with Josh was concerned…well, she couldn’t really make any decisions about that. She could hardly force the man to fall in love with her, neither could she seduce him into…

  Her rambling thoughts came to a screeching halt with that single word.

  Seduce?

  Could she honestly see herself seducing Josh?

  Her imagination told her she could, but as soon as she started trying to picture exactly how she’d go about it, she could feel the heat of a furious blush spread all the way from her throat to her hair.

  You could, insisted an encouraging little voice inside her head, even as another, meaner one scoffed, If you could ever get up the courage. Remember what happened the last time you tried? that little voice continued. You didn’t even get past a kiss, so what hope have you got of achieving a full-scale seduction?

  Her shoulders slumped, knowing it was true. She’d read plenty of books and had her medical qualification, so she knew enough about the mechanics of sex to know what went where—‘insert tab Y into slot X,’ as one of her fellow students had described the process at its most basic level—but between her studies and the fact that she’d never been interested in any other man, she was woefully ignorant when it came to the practicalities and intricacies of what went on in the bedroom.

  And, anyway, did she really want to force Josh into marrying her by seducing him? Was that really the way she would choose to start their life together, knowing that he would only have offered marriage because his over-developed sense of honour would insist on it?

  No. What she wanted was for Josh to realise that, in spite of the fact he’d been taking care of her as the best of big brothers for the whole of her life, he loved her as the adult woman she’d become.