It poleaxed her. It was the first time she’d felt anything other than a horrendous ache, but this was different. This was strong, and powerful, much bigger than her, and it took her over completely.
‘Fran?’
‘Bed,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Now.’
And Mike peered down at her, stopped flapping and turned into the father, stockman and one-time-maybe vet that he was, scooped her up and carried her up the stairs.
He dumped her on the edge of the bed, grabbed the plastic sheet they’d had for Sophie out of the airing cupboard, spread it over the mattress, covered it in thick, soft towels and lifted her into the middle of it.
She couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything to help him, but she didn’t need to. He was doing fine, his smile reassuring, his hands slow and steady and confident as he stripped off her wet underwear.
‘In a bit of a hurry, I think,’ he said, rubbing her back gently and smiling at her.
She suddenly realised why the livestock trusted him so much, why his cows were so content and relaxed around him.
‘I’ve called an ambulance,’ he told her, but they both knew she wasn’t going anywhere till she’d had the baby, and she felt a great peace steal over her. Generations of his family had been born here, in this room, and their baby would be the next in line.
‘Help me out of my clothes,’ she said, struggling to get out of them. She didn’t know why, she just wanted to get rid of them, get rid of anything that wasn’t natural, anything tight, anything constricting that would come between her and nature, because nature was taking her over and she was following her instincts blindly.
Mike eased the dress over her head, pulled off her T-shirt, unclipped her bra and took it off, then drew her naked body into his arms and held her, rubbing her back through another contraction.
‘I need to push,’ she said a minute later, shoving him out of the way and struggling to her knees. ‘Now!’
She couldn’t have done it without him. She locked her hands around the back of his neck and hung on him, whimpering, and he knelt there in front of her and cradled her, then turned her so she was lying over the pillows, hanging on to the headboard for dear life while he concentrated at the business end, and as the baby let out a lusty howl, she turned and sagged back onto the bed, her empty arms outstretched.
Mike lifted their son, slippery and shuddering with rage, and put him into her waiting arms. ‘It’s a boy,’ he said, his voice unsteady, and his hand came out, trembling, and he brushed the back of his knuckles gently over the soft, soft skin. ‘We’ve got a boy, Fran. A son.’ And his tears welled over and splashed onto her hand.
She stared down at them, the tears he’d shed, and the child they’d made together, the child they’d feared they’d never have, and she looked up at him, her own eyes flooded with tears.
‘Come here,’ she said, and he covered them both with the quilt, lay down beside them and drew them into his arms. The baby was nuzzling now, and she looked up at Mike helplessly. ‘I don’t know how to do this,’ she confessed.
‘Yes, you do. Remember the classes?’
And wrapping his big hand round his son’s tiny head, he steered him in the right direction, brushed his cheek against her nipple, and as his mouth opened instinctively, Mike pressed him firmly against her and she felt the baby start to suckle.
‘Oh! It’s so strong!’ she whispered, and stared down at him in wonder. ‘Oh, Mike. He’s beautiful.’
‘He is. Incredible. Amazing. Our little miracle.’
His tiny fingers were splayed over Fran’s breast, the transparent nails so small she could barely see them, but he was strong, a real fighter. He was suckling hard, his tiny rosebud mouth making little sucking noises, and she looked up at Mike and laughed softly.
‘He’s got his father’s appetite,’ she said, and Mike chuckled and hugged her closer.
‘We haven’t talked about names,’ she said, remembering their reluctance to take that much for granted.
‘Sophie has,’ he confessed with a groan. ‘She’s been nagging me. She’s had hundreds of ideas, but her favourite seems to be Thomas.’
‘Thomas. I like that. Thomas Trevellyan. Sounds good.’
‘I think so.’
She stroked his tiny cheek. ‘I think we ought to let your sister name you, little man, don’t you? She’ll be so excited. You have to tell her, Mike.’
‘Not until we’ve got you sorted out,’ he said, easing away from her. ‘The ambulance is here. I’ll talk to her later.’
‘Daddy!’
‘Hello, pickle!’ Mike scooped Sophie up into his arms and hugged her. ‘How’s my favourite girl?’
‘I’m fine—Daddy, where’s Fran? I’ve got something really special to show her. Fran! Look!’ she yelled, catching sight of her. Fran hugged her close and took the little box Sophie was thrusting at her eagerly.
‘It’s a model—I made it at school!’ she said. ‘Look, it’s Brodie and her puppies!’
‘So it is,’ Fran said, smiling down at the little model nestling in its bed of cotton wool. ‘It’s lovely. Give it to your daddy, then.’
‘It’s not for him, it’s for the baby. Can I see him? I’m dying to see him. I can’t believe Mummy made me wait two whole days!’
She was beside herself with excitement and, taking her by the hand, Fran looked up at Kirsten, still in the car. ‘Coming in?’
She shook her head and smiled. ‘I’ll see him when I pick her up on Sunday,’ she said, and drove away, leaving them with Sophie.
Fran led her through the kitchen, past Brodie and her three little puppies all snuggled up together in her basket, into the sitting room to where Sophie’s brand-new little brother was lying sleeping in his crib.
‘Oh, he’s tiny!’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘Much smaller than Millie. Daddy, he’s just like you! All that black hair—and he’s got your nose!’
‘Poor kid,’ Mike said with a proud grin, wrapping his arms round Fran and hugging her close.
‘There’s nothing wrong with your nose,’ Fran told him, turning and kissing the tip of it with a smile. ‘Nothing at all. And there won’t be anything wrong with Thomas’s either. It’s just a bit squashed, but I’m sure he’ll grow into it.’
‘I’m sure he will,’ Mike said, staring down at his son with an expression of wonder and love so profound it brought tears to Fran’s eyes.
‘Can I hold him?’
‘Of course. Sit down.’
Sophie sat on the sofa, with Fran next to her just in case, and Mike slipped his big hands gently under his son’s small body and lifted him, resting him carefully on Sophie’s lap.
‘Hello, Thomas,’ she whispered, and kissed her little brother gently on his forehead. His eyes fluttered open and he stared at her, and they were both transfixed.
It was magical, Fran thought as Mike sat down beyond Sophie and put his arm around them all. Perfect.
Then Sophie looked up, her eyes shining and her smile as bright as the sun, and said, ‘We’re a proper family now.’
And Brodie, wandering in to see what was going on, rested her head on Sophie’s knee and thumped her tail in agreement…
SHEIKH SURGEON
CLAIMS HIS BRIDE
BY JOSIE METCALFE
Josie Metcalfe lives in Cornwall with her long-suffering husband. They have four children. When she was an army brat, frequently on the move, books became the only friends that came with her wherever she went. Now that she writes them herself she is making new friends, and hates saying goodbye at the end of a book—but there are always more characters in her head, clamouring for attention until she can’t wait to tell their stories.
Recent titles by the same author:
THE DOCTOR’S BRIDE BY SUNRISE1
TWINS FOR A CHRISTMAS BRIDE
A MARRIAGE MEANT TO BE
SHEIKH SURGEON, SURPRISE BRIDE
* * *
1 Brides of Penhally Bay
PROLOGUE
THE pain was unrelenting, but Zayed was almost used to that by now.
What hurt his pride was to admit that, by this time in the evening, he had little chance of disguising the unevenness in his stride as he made his way down to the stretch of water-smoothed sand at the edge of Penhally Bay.
Anyway, there was nothing he could do to switch off the agony that came with the end of a busy day, other than taking large doses of analgesia, and he wasn’t going to start down that path. If using those means to relieve his pain left him unfit to take care of one of his little ones, there would be no point to his existence.
He swore softly as his foot caught on the roughness of the granite steps and forced himself to concentrate a little harder. At least, at this time of an August evening, with the sun sliding towards the ocean, there were few people around to notice if he stumbled about like a drunk.
He smiled wryly at the thought, unable to remember the last time he’d tasted alcohol. It must have been back in the days when he’d been in medical school, indulging in that brief spell of belated teenage rebellion…before his world had become such a dangerous place, before everything had finally spiralled out of control.
‘But Penhally isn’t such a bad place to end up,’ he murmured as he paused long enough to scan his surroundings, the perfect picture postcard of a Cornish fishing village. It had been only fairly recently that the influx of summer visitors drawn to the better-than-average surfing beach had expanded the place into quite a thriving little town. He’d first visited the area one summer, in his other life, and the serenity of this little place, where almost every building looked out towards the vastness of the ocean, had called to him.
Perhaps that was because it was so unlike his own country. ‘Apart from the sand, of course,’ he added with a half-hearted chuckle, glad that there was no one at this end of the beach to hear him talking to himself.
He leant forward to deposit his towel in the sand and the renewed stab of pain was enough to take his breath away for several seconds while he waited for it to subside.
‘Stupid!’ he hissed as he stripped off his cotton shirt and trousers and started the stretching routine that began every visit to the beach, knowing that it didn’t matter how careful he was, by the time he finished, every nerve and muscle would be screaming for him to stop.
It was a great temptation to give in to it—it would be so much easier not to put himself through this agony. But that way his mobility and stamina would never improve, and that was unacceptable. If he didn’t make the fullest recovery possible, then he wouldn’t be able to help the children who needed him so badly.
Anyway, the pain was a necessary part of his life. It was a reminder…a penance…a payment he had to make for the fact that he had survived while Leika, Kashif and so many others…
Zayed deliberately blocked the thought before it went any further. His nightmares were vivid enough without allowing himself to recall those events by day as well.
It was enough for him to know that he was guilty of having allowed them to die. The pain he felt could never be enough to balance the loss of everything he’d once held most dear.
‘That is one of the good things about coming back to Penhally,’ Emily murmured aloud, mesmerised by the changing colours in the streaks of cloud against the horizon while she waited for the sun to sink into the sea at the end of another perfect summer’s day.
And there was another benefit to coming back to her home town, she added silently as a good-looking man stepped into view on the sand and proceeded to strip his clothing off.
‘Oh, yes!’ she breathed as the last golden rays outlined each new vista, from broad shoulders and a wide chest decorated with an intriguing swathe of dark silky-looking hair to a tautly muscled belly and slim hips, all covered by darkly tanned skin. ‘That is definitely a good reason for living near a beach.’
As she watched, he began an obviously well-practised routine of stretches before progressing to a seriously strenuous workout. For just a moment she wondered if he was putting on a show for her benefit, but there was no way that he could know she was there. This little alcove at the base of the rocks was one of the first places to be thrown into shadow as evening began to fall, and had been a favourite spot of hers ever since she’d come to live with her grandmother in her teens.
It wasn’t until the man finally turned to walk into the sea that she noticed that he was limping fairly heavily, and her professional interest was raised. Had he injured himself during that punishing drill he’d just put himself through, or could the disability itself be the reason for the routine?
The light level had fallen too much by now for her to see any evidence of an injury, and while he had probably come to the beach at this time so that he could have some solitude, the idea of leaving anyone to swim alone when they might get into difficulties and need assistance wasn’t something she could contemplate.
‘Well, it’s no hardship to sit here a bit longer,’ she murmured. The air was still warm and even though a playful breeze had started up as the sun began to go down, she was perfectly sheltered where she was. Then, of course, there was the fact that she would have a second chance to look at that beautiful body when whoever he was finally emerged from the water.
In the meantime, she had some serious thinking to do and a mountain of guilt to come to terms with.
She’d been away for such a long time while she’d gone through her arduous medical training and had only realised that it had been far too long when a visit had revealed the dreadful secret her grandmother had been hiding.
‘I didn’t want you to come home just to watch me die, not when you had all those exams to take,’ she’d explained stubbornly when Emily had arrived for a long weekend visit to give her the latest good news in person.
She’d been so looking forward to seeing Beabea’s face when she told her that she’d just been offered the plum job she’d been after at St Piran’s Hospital. Admittedly, it was only a six-month placement, but she had high hopes that there might be a permanent position she could apply for at the end of that time.
The taste of triumph had turned to ashes in her mouth when she’d realised just how little time she had left with the only family she possessed in the world.
With her grandmother’s permission, she’d spoken to the oncologist at St Piran’s the next day, hoping against hope that there was room for some glimmer of optimism—an operation, perhaps, or chemotherapy—but, if anything, the prognosis was worse than she’d thought.
‘She could have several months, but I really think it’s unlikely,’ the kindly man had said, leaving Emily feeling sick to her stomach. ‘With this sort of thing, the patient is usually fairly well, despite the devastation going on inside, right up until the last couple of weeks. That’s the point when she’ll need to come into hospital or transfer into a hospice—somewhere where they’ll be able to monitor the pain medication, because she’ll need it by then.’
‘If she’s put on PCA, couldn’t I take care of her at home?’ Emily had pleaded, knowing just how much her grandmother loved her little cottage. The place was full of years of love and so many happy memories, and if she was put on a morphine pump for patient-controlled pain relief, Emily wouldn’t have to worry that she wasn’t giving her grandmother the correct dose.
‘You could, initially,’ he’d agreed. ‘But we’ve found that it’s often far too stressful for the patient to stay at home right to the end, knowing that their relatives are having to do so much for them and watching them die by inches. In the end, the two of you will find that you’ll know when it’s time to make the move, for both your sakes.’
And in the meantime, Emily had started her new job under Mr Breyley and had obtained permission to spend her off-duty hours far further away than the immediate vicinity of St Piran’s.
Their little system had worked well, with Emily taking care of her grandmother’s needs before she drove the hour to St Piran’s, knowing that Beabea still had many frien
ds in the Penhally area, including several in the medical profession in one capacity or another, who would be dropping in throughout the time she herself was away on duty.
And while her grandmother slept for longer stretches each day, Emily took herself off for walks along the harbour, past the Penhally Arms and the Anchor Hotel. Each time she glanced in she saw that holidaymakers and locals alike were enjoying themselves, and it seemed somehow wrong that they were oblivious of the life-and-death battle that was going on just around the corner.
A time or two she’d sat at the café on the end of the row, sipping a long frothy latte while she watched the holidaymakers leaning on the parapet of the bridge, who were watching the waters of the river Lanson hurrying on the final stretch of their journey to the sea.
She’d stood there a time or two herself, gazing down at the chuckling, purling waters tumbling over the rocks while she’d pondered on the timelessness of the view. So little had changed from the first time she’d balanced on the parapet on her stomach as a teenager, risking a painful dunking if she’d gone head first over the edge. And yet, even though the stones and the water hadn’t changed, everything else had.
She was a different person from that teenager, a doctor, now, with the job of her dreams. And her grandmother, who had always seemed so ageless that she might live for ever, was now a shrunken old lady with thin grey hair and papery skin and barely enough energy to breathe.
In fact, apart from working under Mr Breyley, which was everything she’d hoped for and more, the one bright spot in her day was if she managed to make it to the beach to complete her mind-numbing run along the hard-packed sand before her mystery man arrived.
Several times she’d been tempted to speak to him, to let him know that she was there and to get her first good look at his face, but that would have spoilt the fantasies she’d been weaving about him, especially if she found out that he was only someone she’d gone to school with.
Caroline Anderson, Josie Metcalfe, Maggie Kingsley, Margaret McDonagh Page 16
