The Midwife's Baby

by Fiona McArthur

  During the last four months Max had seen no signs of paranoia or depression—and anyone with a colicky baby could easily plead depression—so Winton had obviously had some hidden agenda.

  Still, she was away from him now and, theoretically, hearing about his hospital shouldn’t upset her too much.

  He dragged his thoughts away from his quandary and caught Georgia in the middle of a half-hidden yawn. She even looked cute when she yawned.

  ‘You must be tired,’ he said. ‘It takes a while to get used to shifts again.’

  She tucked her hand away from her mouth ruefully. ‘Not really. Do I look it?’ In fact, she looked a little crestfallen at his observation, and Max grinned.

  ‘You look positively haggard, darling,’ he drawled, and Georgia blinked before she realised he was joking.

  ‘Teaser.’ She shook her head at him and changed the subject. ‘How was the rest of your day?’

  Max tilted his head. ‘Actually, you look stunning.’ He watched her frown at him but he was darned if he shouldn’t say it when he meant it.

  He moved on when she grimaced at him. ‘Now, what was your question? My day? After our exciting morning?’

  He ticked off his fingers. ‘Del’s twin girls were born at midday and all are well. They weighed over twelve hundred grams each so I don’t know where she was hiding that weight. The girls are breathing for themselves and may start tube feeds tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s wonderful.’

  Before Georgia could ask more he went on hoping to change to another topic. ‘Even bigger news is that Tayla and my brother, Paul, have decided to get married. We’re invited to the wedding but guess who is not invited to be bridesmaid?’

  ‘Me?’ Georgia tried to look sad.

  He shook his head sadly. ‘I know you must be dreadfully disappointed.’

  Georgia put down her spoonful of pumpkin soup and looked up with a grin. ‘That’s wonderful. On both counts.’ Her eyes sparkled with laughter.

  She stirred her soup with a smile. ‘You know, I think they will do very well together.’

  She tilted her head. ‘Which hospital did you say had the neonatal beds? Del didn’t have to go to Canberra, did she?’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MAX should have known her empathy with her patients wouldn’t wane. She’d need to know Del was happy where she was.

  ‘No. I didn’t say.’

  Max hesitated and then answered. ‘Lower Mountains Base Hospital.’ He wondered if they were both going to pretend the connection to her ex-husband’s hospital didn’t exist.

  Georgia’s spoon stilled and then she took another mouthful. The colour had left her face and he cursed himself for not withholding the information.

  She swallowed slowly and then spoke to her spoon. ‘I’m glad all went well. I wonder how she’ll manage without Shannon to talk for her.’

  She went on without pausing but at least she looked up at him. ‘I hear Susie has recovered from having her baby in the car and wants to go home tomorrow morning.’ Her voice was extra-bright and his chest tightened in sympathy for her.

  ‘I’m sure that will be fine.’ Max was in a different dilemma now. He didn’t want to upset Georgia by bringing the subject up again but she needed to know he was happy to talk about how she felt if she wished.

  If she gave him the option. The silence lengthened and he guessed they were both going to pretend nothing was wrong.

  Georgia felt gutted. She wasn’t even sure Max knew it was Sol’s hospital.

  She tried to quell the pictures that rose unbidden into her mind. It’s OK, she told herself. The connection with Del wasn’t so bad. Was it?

  Sol would have to be the receiving consultant on duty to have had any contact with Del. Even then the registrar would probably have been the one to read the nurse’s notes.

  There really wasn’t much chance Sol would track them down, and she doubted Del would speak much about Meeandah except to nod.

  Georgia just wished she hadn’t been the one to sign and print her name on the nurse’s transfer letter—along with Max’s. She still signed her maiden name because of the rigmarole of changing names through the nurse’s registration board so Sol would recognise it.

  ‘We have the weekend before us. What can we do to put a smile on your face?’

  Georgia looked up at him blankly.

  ‘Would you like to go somewhere? For the weekend?’ This time it had been Max to change the subject and she was glad because her own brain still felt sluggish with shock.

  The idea of hiding away from the world appealed to Georgia greatly. ‘Let’s go away. Drive bush roads for the weekend. Follow where the tracks take us.’

  Nobody would find them and she would be able to push the thoughts of Sol far into the back of her mind again. She’d just begun to feel settled and happy but now the secure rock Max had built for her had crumbled away with only one obstetric transfer to Sol’s hospital. Her response in itself was disheartening.

  ‘Go camping, you mean?’ Max was looking at her as if to judge how serious she was.

  The idea promised sanctuary, Georgia thought, clutching at anything to divert her mind away from the past. ‘No phones, no people—just the bush and us.’

  ‘I think it’s a great idea to take some picnic supplies and get offroad,’ Max said cautiously, and she looked up in surprise. She’d thought he would have jumped at the chance to camp out.

  He went on. ‘How about we run back into the coast at night to sleep with civilised showers and comfortable beds? Away from the mosquitoes, for Elsa’s sake.’

  The urgency to hide loomed larger than comfort for Georgia. ‘Elsa will be fine. I thought you enjoyed roughing it.’

  ‘Logistically it’s a little easier for me to camp than you and Elsa. If you don’t fancy the coast there are fabulous mountain retreats in the Lamington National Park. We could slip across into Queensland and go up into the mountains and make log fires in the retreats at night when Elsa goes to bed.’

  She sighed with relief. They could still go. ‘That would be wonderful, Max. Could we?’

  ‘Sure.’ He stood to collect their plates. ‘We can decide where we’ll go after dinner. I’ll go online later and check it all out. I do have friends up that way who own a lodge.’

  She watched him head for the kitchen. She normally would have jumped up to help him. He was solicitous and she guessed he must have connected the hospitals, too.

  She felt like someone had dropped a boulder on her smooth life when she wasn’t looking. To get away this weekend would at least give her time to get her thoughts together without jumping at every sound.

  She hugged herself and the feel of her arms reminded her how it had felt when Max had first agreed to look after her. That first day that Sol had seen Elsa.

  She stood up, walked to the window and gazed out into the inky blackness. Far away on the ocean a container ship rode the horizon. Alone and undefended it could still look after itself.

  She wasn’t ready to do the same and she didn’t know what to do for the best.

  What if Max was in danger, too?

  Max entered the room and placed the dishes on the table, not trying to be quiet. He expected her to turn from the window but she didn’t seem to hear him return.

  When he touched her on the shoulder she flinched so violently that his hand pulled back and his own pulse rate soared.

  ‘Hey.’ He stepped closer now that she knew he was there and slid his arm around her shoulder. When she didn’t pull away he turned her into his chest and encircled her. She was shaking and his chest tightened. He would protect them both with his last breath.

  ‘You only need to tell me how you feel and I’ll share it with you,’ he said and teased her gently. ‘You’re not alone and I’m deeply offended you think you are.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Max.’ She sniffed into his shirt and his hand slid up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. Her expression of deep foreboding twisted his stomach.


  He wanted to snatch up Georgia and her daughter and carry them away from any chance of Sol finding them and that was when he began to realise she would never be free until the Sol issue was resolved.

  ‘Even if it is only for a year, I am your husband. Who better to protect you? I may seem a flipperty sort of fellow but I do have hidden strengths.’

  ‘You don’t seem flipperty at all. You’re wonderful.’ She glanced at his muscled arms and gave a twisted smile. ‘Your strength isn’t hidden and I don’t deserve your patience with my bogeyman.’

  ‘Cut it out, Georgia. If we are anything, we are friends.’ He lifted her chin. ‘Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded and buried her face back into his shirt.

  ‘So friends trust each other and your worries are my worries. But we do need to communicate. It is very hard to help you when you shut me out.’

  ‘I know.’ She straightened and he hugged her one last time before he forced himself to let her go.

  ‘Come and eat. Then we’ll talk. Unless we feed all this food to the dog, Mrs White will find out we didn’t enjoy her hard labour.’

  ‘I couldn’t eat a thing.’

  Max stared down at her and she looked so forlorn and lost that his heart ached to ease her pain.

  He leant forward again and kissed her gently on the lips with all the tenderness she inspired in him. She sighed against him and didn’t pull away, and when he drew back she turned her face towards him and leaned up to kiss him back. He forced back the desire to pull her into his arms and really kiss her so she could forget the man that stood between them.

  ‘I’m scared, Max.’ Georgia leant her head on his chest again.

  ‘I know, darling.’ He had felt her tremble beneath his lips when their lips had met. He couldn’t see how one man could inspire such dread but Georgia obviously could.

  ‘Hold me,’ she whispered.

  He’d imagined holding her in his arms many times, but not for this reason. Poor baby. ‘Any time you want, Georgia. You only have to give me a sign.’ He gathered her in and she rested her cheek against him. Then she turned to look up at him.

  When she closed her eyes and invited another kiss, he could no more stem his response than stop the waves on the beach he could hear in the distance.

  He cupped her chin and traced the pure lines of her face with his mouth as he’d longed to do since Monday night. Her skin felt like velvet and glowed like cream, and he wanted to taste both. He brushed her eyebrows with his lips and then the tip of her nose before settling on her lips in homecoming.

  She tasted divine, as he’d known she would, and he searched deeper, always waiting in case she pulled away, but she responded with a hunger that smouldered like his own. Her response tore at him so strongly it was difficult to remember he had to hold back.

  When he raised his lips from hers to stand back, she murmured in denial, still with her eyes closed, so he leaned forward and took her mouth again in a kiss that left them both breathless and stunned by the connection between them.

  They stood, wrapped in each other’s arms, breathing as one, and for Max it was as if he were standing under the full brunt of a waterfall, and he could no more hold back the water than he could hold back the urge to carry Georgia to his bed and make her his.

  ‘I need you to take me, Max.’ Her words echoed his own desire, but the need in her voice inflamed him as nothing else could have. When he lifted her into his arms her head lay back to expose the soft column of her throat, and he brushed his face against the tender skin there to inhale the perfume of her skin before straightening.

  She sighed into him with such softness and warmth he pulled her against his body and whisked her up the stairs before either of them came to their senses.

  When he placed her gently on his bed she reached up for him without hesitation, but a brief moment of sanity stilled his hand before she tugged at him and he lowered himself down beside her.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Kiss me, Max.’

  He’d dreamed many times that he would hold her in his arms and protect her from the world. Yet though he wanted to make her his, he needed to ensure her own feelings of self-belief were restored. That was more important than anything. For him this was right, but what of her?

  For Georgia, all intrusion from Sol had vanished with the safety of Max around her. Somewhere in the distance her brain disagreed, but the last time Max had lowered his mouth she’d felt the leashed force of his need and that had made her forget. She wanted that again. She pulled him closer and answered the call without permission from any inner voice.

  She slaked his hunger with her own and when, peripherally, she felt her clothing move and then his bare skin against hers, she could no more stop her response than she could stop her own heart beating.

  His chest was rock hard against her and flattened her breasts gloriously against him. Her fingers skimmed the V of hair on his belly and she exulted in his caressing hands as she caressed him.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Suddenly there was no time for niceties, neither did she want them. She wanted Max.

  She wanted Max over her, in her, joined to her, and she wanted him now. She’d never felt a need as strong and overpowering as this before, but the need was ancient and she demanded his response to wipe out all that had come before.

  She could feel Max try to slow the pace but deep inside her a dark fear despaired that something would prevent their union, that some sinister force would tear them apart, and the very least she wanted was this consummation to make her whole again.

  Max rose above her and she stared up at him. His strong throat soared above her and his chiselled features were outlined in the darkened room. His golden eyes stared down at her with all the fierce need for possession she’d stoked in him with her own need.

  Their eyes locked and she reached up to savour the bulge of taut muscles in his arms as he lowered himself gently against her. Her eyes widened as he entered her, slowly, intimately questing, deeper and deeper, until his whispered name escaped her.

  He stared down and the adoration in his face made the tears slip beneath her lids and then he withdrew until she protested. He smiled and entered her again. Slow and steady and deep until again she moaned his name and only then did he quicken the pace.

  Georgia clutched at his back to stay with him and they rose and fell together in a long slow erotic dance that drove everything out of their minds except the feel of each other in union.

  When it was over they lay together, her head on his chest and his arm encircling her as if he’d never let her go.

  She knew the moment he slept and she turned her head and kissed his chest. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe there is hope. We’ll see.’

  Through the night they joined again, but this time in a slow dance of discovery that scaled the heights again in a different way until much later they slept, entwined.

  This time Max lay awake until the morning when he watched her wake up to see if he had been a fool.

  He’d promised he would keep her safe and what had he done at the first temptation but taken her like a caveman bearing his prize? He hadn’t been able to resist and now he scanned her precious face for any sign of regret.

  At least he couldn’t make her pregnant. He winced with the pain that reflection brought, but the pain was nothing to the thought of losing Georgia.

  She’d been mind-blowing and incredible but even in the midst of their magical storm he’d feared she’d only wanted to escape from her memories and that he’d taken advantage of her when he should have waited for the right time.

  Now he was afraid he had created more dilemmas for her, which was the last thing he had intended.

  He knew he loved this woman above all things but he also accepted he had to create an out for her if that was what she needed. No matter that it would rip out his heart to put distance between them again—a greater risk was destroying any chance of their future
.

  Not when he’d found the one woman he’d never known had been out there. He could not taint that again with her regret.

  ‘Good morning?’ He couldn’t help the question mark at the end of his greeting and inside his head a devil mocked him.

  ‘Good morning, Max.’ Georgia chewed her lip.

  Max’s stomach plummeted and he forced himself to smile. He’d known she would regret it.

  ‘There is something I need to tell you,’ she said and his gut twisted.

  At least she hadn’t said she regretted the night, yet. Max brushed her cheek with his hand and then reached for her fingers to hold in his. ‘So tell me.’

  She searched his face and what she saw there encouraged her to go on. ‘When I moved back in with Sol to protect my friend…’ She paused and closed her eyes for a second as if compelling the words to come, ‘He overpowered me and forced himself on me in a horrific night I thought would never end…And that is how Elsa was conceived.’ She shook her head at her own stupidity. ‘I hadn’t foreseen him doing that.’

  Max’s voice was low with shock and how he would have done things differently if he’d known. He didn’t know what to say. ‘Did you go to the police?’

  ‘Who would believe me when he was my husband? He’s respected and I was supposed to have paranoia. They’d say that I went back to him and cried rape. I was shattered and the whole situation was a nightmare.’

  Max felt the words hammer into his brain and unconsciously he squeezed her hand. He could tell there was more. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I ensured my friend was safe from him and I left. I vowed no man would ever do that to me again. I never wanted to think about sex again. Last night all that changed. I needed you and you answered my need.’ She smiled crookedly. ‘Handsomely. You’ve taught me to trust my instincts again.

  ‘I’m sorry if you think I used you but suddenly I needed you to wipe the slate clean and show me that making love is just that. And you showed me how it should be and I can never thank you enough for restoring my faith and my self-esteem. But last night was not the beginning for us.’