by Amy Andrews
She crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘It’s … something else.’ She stopped and wondered if it sounded like the complete hash it was. ‘It’s to do with work …’
It was. Sort of. Her career was going to have to take a back seat for a while. His would be affected too if he wanted to be involved with the baby.
She watched his frown deepen. Why did she have to fall for a man who was always so suspicious? ‘Look, it’s complicated, okay? Can you just say yes? Then I’ll promise not to bother you again.’
Finn wasn’t keen on a talk. In his experience women’s talks involved rings and dresses and happily ever afters. But it was work related … and the payoff sounded pretty damn good to him.
Never being bothered by her again was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
It was a futile hope, of course, because he dreamed about her too bloody much to ever fully realise that blissful state of Evie-lessness and every time he saw her a very distinct, very unevolved, caveman urge seemed to overcome him.
But if she could do her bit then he could master the rest. He was used to it.
‘After Khalid’s discharge?’ he suggested. ‘A few days? At Pete’s?’
Evie slowly exhaled her pent-up breath. ‘Thank you.’
Finn nodded. ‘I’ll let you know.’
He didn’t wait for her to answer. Just turned away, his mind already shifting gears.
After some rhythm complications, it was Friday afternoon before Khalid was discharged to a penthouse suite at one of the city’s most luxurious hotels. It was top secret but Finn knew and Khalid had his number. Along with round-the-clock private nurses, Finn was confident the prince would have a very nice convalescence with a world-class view.
He’d seen Evie around over the intervening days—with just one VIP patient on his books, he wasn’t exactly flush with things to do. In fact, glimpses of her here, there and everywhere were driving him more than a little nutty. And always, it seemed, she was deep in conversation with Marco. By the end of the week he was starting to wonder if perhaps there was something going on with them after all.
His idleness was driving him spare—giving him too much time to think. At Beach Haven it had been what he’d needed—but back in amongst the rush and hurry of the Harbour he needed to be busy. Eric, the CEO, had been the superior jerk he’d predicted and had refused to put Finn back on the surgical roster until after their VIP had been discharged.
But, as of Monday, he was back. Which would give him a lot less time to wonder about what Evie and Marco were up to.
To wonder about Evie full stop.
The prospect of the talk had kept her front and centre all week—with no surgery to do and just Khalid to see, there’d been nothing else to occupy his brain. He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket as he made his way to his outpatient rooms. It was time to get it out of the way.
Check it off his list.
Start the new week with a clean slate.
And it was an opportunity to lay down some ground rules with Evie. They couldn’t go on the way they had been prior to him leaving. He was different now—his injury was healed. He didn’t need anyone’s sympathy or pity or to cover for his lapses.
If they were going to co-exist peacefully in this hospital he had to start as he meant to go on.
Without Evie.
Evie breathed a sigh of relief as the electronic noise of the monitor grew fainter as the last patient from the pile-up on the motorway was whisked off to Theatre. They’d been frantic for hours and between the adrenaline buzz, the noise pollution and the baby dancing the rumba inside her she had a massive headache.
She could hear the soft plaintive beep of another alarm in the empty cubicle and it nibbled at her subconscious like fingernails down a chalk board. ‘Where the hell is that coming from?’ she asked irritably as her stomach growled and the baby kicked.
She looked around at the electronic gadgetry vital in a modern emergency department. The alarm wasn’t one she was familiar with as she approached the bank of monitors and pumps.
‘It’s the new CO2 monitor,’ Mia di Angelo, her ex-flatmate and fellow emergency physician, said. ‘It can’t be on charge.’
Evie scanned the machines for an unfamiliar one. She hated it when they got new equipment. It was great to keep their department up to date and stocked with the latest and greatest but it was hell assimilating all the new alarms and buttons.
When she located the unfamiliar piece of equipment with its little yellow flashing light she followed the cord at the back and noticed it trailing on the floor instead of being plugged into the power supply at the back of the cubicle. She squeezed in behind, not such an easy job any more, and the baby let her know it did not like being constricted by a swift one-two jab.
She sucked in a breath, her hand automatically going to her belly in a soothing motion as she bent over, picked up the plug from the floor and pushed it into the socket.
Instead of the instant peace she was hoping for, a loud sizzle followed by some sparks and the pungent smell of burnt electrical wiring rent the air. The point where her fingers touched the plug tingled then burned, a painful jolt cramped up her arm and knocked her backwards onto her butt.
‘Evie!’ Mia gasped rushing to her friend’s side. ‘Are you okay?’
Evie blinked, too dazed for a moment to fully understand what had happened. All she was aware of was a pain in her finger and the sudden stillness of the baby.
‘What’s wrong?’ Evie heard Luca’s voice. He was Mia’s husband and head of the department.
‘Help me get her up,’ Mia said. ‘She got an electric shock from the pump.
Evie felt arms half pulling, half guiding her into a standing position. ‘Evie, talk to me. Are you okay?’ Mia was saying, inspecting the tiny white mark on Evie’s index finger.
‘Let’s get her on a monitor,’ Luca was saying as his fingers palpated the pulse at her wrist.
Suddenly she broke out of her daze. ‘No.’
She shook her head. The baby. It was so, so still. She needed to see Marco. She had to know if the shock had affected the baby.
She had to know now.
‘I’m fine,’ she assured them, breaking out of their hold. ‘Really I am.’
Mia frowned and folded her arms. ‘You just got a zap that knocked you on your butt. You should be monitored for a while.’
Evie shook her head again and forced a smile onto her face even though it felt like it was going to crack into a thousand pieces as concern for the baby skyrocketed with every single stationary second. ‘I’m fine. I’m in the middle of a hospital. If I start to feel unwell, I’ll let you know.’
Luca nodded. ‘Her pulse is steady.’
Mia grabbed Evie’s hand. ‘This could do with a burns consult in case it’s worse than it looks. It’ll definitely need dressing.’
Evie thought quickly. ‘Yes. Good idea. It’s burns clinic today, right? I’ll pop in and see if they can squeeze me in.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Mia said.
‘Status epilepticus two minutes out,’ a nurse said to them as she dashed past.
And then the distant strains of a siren, a beautiful, beautiful siren, made itself known, and Evie had never been more grateful to hear the wretched noise.
‘You can’t,’ Evie said. ‘You’re needed here. You both are. I’ll be fine,’ she assured them again, a surge of desperation to get away, to get to Marco, making her feel impotent.
‘Okay,’ Mia acquiesced. ‘But I want to see you after you get back.’
Evie nodded. ‘Absolutely.’
By the time she scurried up to the outpatient department ten minutes later Evie was frantic. The baby hadn’t moved and an ominous black cloud hovered over her head. When she’d been hypothermic in the middle of the ocean her brain had been too sluggish to think of the implications for the baby. But today all her mental faculties were intact and totally freaking her out as all the horrible possibilities marched one by o
ne through her mind.
She was on the verge of tears when she finally located Marco, who wasn’t in his rooms but was chatting to a midwife in the long corridor that ran behind the outpatients department.
‘Marco,’ she called.
He looked up and smiled at her, his joy quickly dying as he saw the distress on her face. He strode over to her.
‘Evie,’ he said with that lovely lilt of his, his hands grasping her upper arms, a frown marring his classically handsome face. He could see she was about to crumple and led her away from the busy thoroughfare into the nearby cleaning closet. It wasn’t very roomy and the door was chocked open but it was more private than outside. ‘What is wrong?’
‘I think the baby might be dead,’ she whispered, choking on a sob as she buried her face in his chest.
Finn scrolled through his contacts on his phone as he stepped out of the lift and headed for the outpatients department. He wanted to spend some time looking at the case notes for his theatre list on Monday. He found Evie’s number and hit the button as he entered the department.
His gaze wandered across to the corridor on the far side as he waited for her to pick up and that’s when he spotted them. Evie and Marco alone in some kind of supply cupboard—embracing. He fell back a little, shocked by the image, watching them from just outside the department as they pulled apart slightly and Evie fumbled in her scrubs pocket and pulled out her phone.
‘Hello?’
Finn didn’t say anything for a moment, trying to decide how he should play it. ‘It’s me,’ he said, watching her as she stayed in the shelter of Marco’s body, his arm around her shoulder. ‘I’m free for that talk now.’
Evie looked up at Marco as she grappled with a vortex of emotions
Now? He wanted to talk now?
‘Er … I can’t right now … I’m busy.’
Finn raised an eyebrow. Icy fingers crept around his heart and he leant against the nearby wall. ‘Emergency a little crazy at the moment?’
Evie nodded, grabbing the excuse he had thrown her with glee. ‘Certifiable.’
The fingers squeezed down hard. ‘I could come down there and wait for you,’ he suggested.
Alarm raced along Evie’s nerve endings. ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you a ring when it settles and I can meet you across at Pete’s.’
‘Okay,’ he murmured.
‘Bye.’
Finn blinked at her hasty hang-up and to torture himself a little further he watched as Marco drew her against his chest and hugged her again before walking her to his rooms, his arm firmly around her waist.
He had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on with those two but he had every intention of finding out! She’d been pretty convincing in her mortification at his inference that she and Marco were sleeping together a few days ago but maybe she was protesting too much? Maybe there was more to Marco and Evie than she was letting on?
His heart pounded as bile burned in his chest and acid flowed through his veins. He pushed off the wall and headed in their direction.
‘Finn Kennedy, well, I’ll be. I heard you were back.’
Finn stopped in mid-stride to greet Sister Enid Kenny, nurse in charge of Outpatients for about a hundred years and a true Sydney Harbour Hospital icon. She was large and matronly and no one, not even the great Finn Kennedy, messed with Enid Kenny.
If she wanted to chat, you stopped and chatted.
Unfortunately for him, as he looked over her shoulder at the closed door of Marco’s office, she was in a very chatty mood.
Evie was so relived she’d agreed to the ultrasound as she watched her baby—her baby boy—move around on the screen. Marco had been trying to convince her to have one all week but part of her had wanted to break the news to Finn before having an ultrasound, which she’d been hoping he would want to attend.
But after her scare just listening to the heartbeat wasn’t going to cut it. She needed to see him. To watch him move. To reassure herself fully. To count his fingers and toes, to see the chambers of his heart, the hemispheres of his brain.
To know everything was perfect.
Marco was very thorough doing measurements and pointing out all the things any radiographer would have and Evie felt the gut wrenching worry and the threatening hysteria ease as her little boy did indeed seem perfect.
‘Can I hear the heartbeat one more time?’ Evie asked.
Marco chuckled. ‘But of course.’
He flicked a switch on the ultrasound machine and the room filled with the steady whop, whop, whop of a robust heartbeat.
Neither of them expected the door to suddenly crash open or for Finn to be standing there, glowering at them and demanding to know what the devil was going on.
Evie was startled at the loud intrusion. ‘Finn,’ she whispered.
Marco turned calmly in his chair. ‘Welcome, Dr Kennedy. You’re just in time to meet your son,’ he said.
It took Finn a moment or two to compute the scene before his eyes. The lights down low. Evie lying on the examination bed, her scrub top pulled up, a very distinctive bump protruding and covered in goo. Marco’s hand holding an ultrasound probe low down on Evie’s belly. A grainy image of a foetus turning somersaults on the screen.
And the steady thump of a strong heartbeat.
Finn looked at Evie and shoved his hands on his hips. ‘What the hell …?’ he demanded.
Marco looked at Evie as he removed the probe and reached for some wipes. ‘I think I should leave you and Finn to talk, yes?’ he murmured as he methodically removed every trace of the conduction gel.
Evie sat up, dragging her top down as she did so. Finn stood aside as Marco passed him, flipping on the light as he went and shutting the door after him.
‘You’re pregnant?’ he demanded, his own heartbeat roaring through his ears at the stunning turn of events. He’d half expected to barge in and find she and Marco doing the wild thing on the desk. He’d never expected this.
Evie nodded. ‘Yes.’
Her quiet affirmative packed all the power of a sucker punch to his solar plexus. ‘This is what you wanted to talk about?’
‘Yes.’
He shook his head as all the control he’d fought for over the years started to disintegrate before him, unravelling like a spool of cotton.
His breath felt tight. His jaw clenched. His pulse throbbed through his veins, tapping out no, no, no against his temple.
‘No.’
He couldn’t be a father. He just couldn’t. He was selfish and arrogant and egotistical. He was busy. He was dedicated to his job. He hadn’t grown up in any home worth a damn and the one person who’d been entrusted to his care had died in his arms.
He was damaged goods. Seen too much that had hardened him. Made him cynical. Jaded.
Not father material.
Most days he didn’t even know how to be a normal, functioning human being—he was just going through the motions.
How on earth could he be a decent father?
He looked at her watching him, wariness in her hazel eyes. But hope as well. And something else. The same thing he always saw there when she looked at him—belief.
She had no idea who he really was.
He steeled his heart against the image that seemed to be ingrained on his retinas—his baby on an ultrasound screen.
‘You have to get an abortion.’
Evie flinched at the ice in his tone. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t thought about herself in those days when she’d lived in a space where denying the baby even existed had been preferable to facing the truth. But she’d felt him move now, seen him sucking his thumb on the screen just a few minutes ago, and even if she hadn’t already decided against it and it had been possible at this advanced stage in her pregnancy, she knew she could never do what Finn was asking.
‘I’m twenty-one weeks.’
Finn opened his mouth to dispute it but the evidence of his own eyes started to filter in. The size of her belly and
the size of the baby on the screen and then some quick maths in his head all confirmed her gestation.
He groped for Marco’s desk as the import of her words hit home.
There could be no abortion.
There would be a baby.
He was going to be a father.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Evie swung her legs over the edge of the couch. ‘Because you went away and I spent a long, long time in denial. And, honestly, I think because part of me knew you’d demand what you just demanded and even though I’d thought about it myself, a part of me wanted to put it beyond reach. For both of us. And then the longer you go …’ she shrugged. ‘… the harder it gets.’
‘You’ve just spent two weeks with me at Beach Haven. You could have told me then.’
‘I almost did but …’ She looked at him staring at her like she’d just been caught with state secrets instead of a bun in the oven. ‘You’re not very approachable, Finn.’
He looked at her for a long moment. ‘I don’t know how to be a father.’
Evie sucked in a breath at the bleakness in his blue eyes. He suddenly looked middle-aged. ‘You think I know how to be a mother?’ she asked. ‘My mother was an absent alcoholic. Not exactly a stellar role model.’
Finn snorted. She had no idea. Her poor-little-rich-girl upbringing had been a walk in the park compared to his. ‘I think you’ll figure it out.’
‘I think you will, too,’ she said, feeling suddenly desperate to connect with him. To make him understand that she knew it was daunting. But they could do it.
Finn’s pager beeped and he was grateful for the distraction as he absently reached for it and checked the message on the screen. It was Khalid.
‘I have to go,’ he said.
He needed to think. To get away. Life events had robbed him of a lot of choices and now even the choice not to burden some poor child with his emotionally barren existence had been snatched away.
‘Okay.’ She nodded, pushing down the well of emotion that was threatening as she watched him turn away from her.
He needed time and she had to give him that. It had taken her months to adjust and accept and she wasn’t Finn. A man who didn’t express emotion well and never let anyone close.
