by Chris Taylor
“Yes, it’s difficult, all right. Thankfully, it doesn’t happen too often.”
“How often?”
She gazed at him for a moment, as if trying to work out where his interest lay and then answered. “I’ve worked as a midwife for two years. During that time, to my knowledge, three babies have died. That’s three too many as far as I’m concerned and each and every one of them broke my heart… But I’ve learned to accept that sometimes bad things happen for no good reason. Is it really our job to question why?”
He stared at her and his heart began to pound. The three deaths she referred to were well below the fifteen the general manager had mentioned, and the GM’s figures had been drawn from only the previous twelve months of the twenty-four Georgie had worked there. Was Georgie really unaware of the others, or was she lying?
His mind snagged on something else she’d said: ‘Sometimes bad things happen for no good reason. Is it really our job to question why?’ What the hell did she mean? Was she implying she knew more about them, but didn’t feel at liberty to say? Was she sending him some sort of cryptic message? Or did she really approach the tragedies with such a fatalistic attitude?
He groaned under his breath. So many unanswered questions were doing his head in. He prided himself on being able to read people well, and yet from Georgie, he could ascertain nothing. He was still of the opinion that she was a good person with the kindest of hearts, and yet she appeared to accept the deaths of the babies with a sense of fatalism he found a little cold. He had to know more.
“Do you really believe bad things just happen and there’s nothing you can do about it?”
Her eyes widened. She stared at him for a long moment and then blinked and looked away. She lifted her glass and sipped at her port and then exhaled on a heavy sigh.
“The truth is,” she began quietly, “I want to believe those deaths just happened. I have no choice. If I believe otherwise, I’ll drive myself mad with guilt. I birthed each of those three babies. I should have noticed there was something wrong, something that would cause them to stop breathing before the next day was done.”
She shook her head and stared at the floor, her voice a low monotone. “I did the usual checks. Not one of those babies showed any signs there was something wrong.”
“And yet there was.”
She looked up at him and his breath caught at the pain in her eyes. Slowly, she nodded.
“Yes, there was. There had to be. Nothing else makes sense.”
Cameron’s heart thumped at the raw emotion on her face. Any doubt he’d been harboring that she was involved in wrongful deaths—if there even were wrongful deaths—was swept away like the cool breeze that blew in from Bondi Beach.
“My mother’s tried to reassure me that it wasn’t my fault, but even with all of her years’ experience on a labor ward, it’s so difficult to believe her. They were my babies. I was responsible for ensuring they would be all right. How can their deaths be anything but my fault?”
Her voice broke and tears welled up in her eyes. Without hesitation, Cam pushed away from his chair and went to her. His only thought was to ease the suffering in her eyes. He’d never be able to believe she was capable of deliberately ending a baby’s life. She simply cared too much.
Taking her hand, he gently pulled her upright and enfolded her in his arms. She collapsed against him and cried softly into his shirt. Cam stroked her hair and down her back and murmured words of comfort in her ear. Her devastation tore at him. He’d always shied away from emotion, keeping himself removed, but listening to her forlorn weeping was a difficult thing to do.
At last, her crying eased to the occasional hiccup and sob and he set her gently away from him. Swiping at the dampness on her cheeks with the pad of his thumb, he stared down at her ravaged face. Even in the dimness of the evening, he could see her eyes were swollen and red. Her nose dripped. Her lip still wobbled.
To him, she was still beautiful.
Powerless to stop himself, he slowly dipped his head and captured her lips. Barely touching, he grazed her mouth and heard her indrawn breath. He pulled away and stared at her, sure that the desire that pounded through his veins was clear to see.
Her eyes grew round and then flared with an answering need. She stepped into him, closing the distance between them and her arms went around his neck. Needing no further encouragement, Cameron pressed her to him and kissed her like there was no tomorrow. And for that moment, it seemed the truth.
She tasted warm and sweet and heady, like the port she’d recently consumed. With a groan, his tongue swept over hers and danced inside her mouth. She matched his passion, kiss for kiss, until his body raged with fire. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a tiny voice urged caution.
They were outside on his balcony. It was no place to make love. Inside, his young sister slept in one of the spare rooms. Now was not the time to have their passion get out of control, no matter how much he wanted it to. Knowing it was the only thing he could do, he eased away from her and loosened her arms from around his neck.
“Hey, sweetheart, we need to stop. We need to slow things down.”
She stared up at him, her eyes dark with need and confusion. She blinked once and then blinked again. Slowly, reason appeared in her eyes. Almost immediately, a blush raced across her cheeks. She stepped away from him, like she’d been burned.
“I’m sorry. Oh, my goodness! I don’t know what came over me! I’m sorry, Cameron. My God, I barely know you. I don’t normally do this; fall to pieces and then kiss men I barely know. Please, can we just forget it ever happened?”
Cameron pressed a finger against her lips in an effort to silence her increasingly frantic speech. “Georgie, it’s okay. Stop apologizing. I was a willing participant. In fact, I initiated it, remember?”
She blushed again and turned away. He almost smiled at her discomfort, enjoying the thought that his kiss had left her so frazzled, but he held himself back, knowing she wouldn’t take kindly to his mirth.
“I-I should be going,” she stammered and opened the sliding door.
He followed her inside, understanding her need to flee. Things had moved fast. His head was spinning, too. It was probably best for both of them that they call it a night.
She gathered her handbag from where she’d left it on a small table by the front door and then turned to him. “Thank you for dinner. It was lovely.”
“It’s the least I could do after what you did for Cynthia. She had a fantastic time and I know the excursion’s done wonders for her state of mind. She looks so much better already. I can’t thank you enough.”
“It’s fine. I was happy to do it for her. It won’t go anywhere toward making up for the loss of her baby, but it’s all I could think of to do.”
Cam frowned. “I hope you’re not blaming yourself for what happened to Josephine?”
Georgie shrugged and turned away. “Of course I’m blaming myself. What else would you expect me to do?”
Cam drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m sure Cynthia doesn’t blame you.”
“That might be so, but I… I can’t help it.”
“Sometimes bad things just happen, right? Isn’t that what you said? Get this: I’m adopted. My birth mother didn’t care for me enough to want to keep me. She handed me over for strangers to raise, and hell, they did a terrible job. But I don’t blame myself.” He stared at her long and hard and then shrugged. “Sometimes bad things just happen.”
She held his gaze. It gave him no satisfaction to notice the color had leached from her cheeks. Her eyes were huge in her pale face, wide and uncertain and clouded with fear.
Fear? What the hell did she have to be afraid of? No, he must have been mistaken.
“I-I have to go,” she stammered, averting her face.
He frowned in confusion, but silently turned away. He undid the security lock and opened the front door. She made a move to leave. Halfway through the doorway, sh
e turned and shot him a sad smile. “Thanks again for dinner. Cynthia’s right. You do a mean barbeque.”
And with that, she was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dear Diary,
Every now and then, usually deep in the night, I wonder if I’ve made the right decision; if I’ve chosen the right path. It happens most often when one of the women stare at me with their sad, haunted eyes, mourning the loss of their child. It is then, I find it hard to sleep and I am plagued by uncertainty.
Most of the time, of course, I’m content with my choices and not even a thunderstorm raging outside my window can wake me. So many mothers battling crippling addictions. They have no place raising a child.
A child needs love and security, comforts only money can bring. These women are destitute, living off the streets, with no further thought but their next fix.
Yes, all things considered, I’ve made the right decision. Of that, I’m…mostly certain…
* * *
Georgie pressed the stethoscope against the chest of the tiny baby who lay in the hospital crib. She counted his heartbeats. With his pulse still fast and erratic and his body jerking spasmodically—even in his sleep—the poor little thing continued to show signs he was suffering acute withdrawal from methamphetamines. His mom was passed out in her bed, sleeping off her own enforced meth withdrawal. She’d barely spent twenty minutes with her son over the course of Georgie’s eight-hour shift.
Her heart broke at the thought of the baby who was, as yet, oblivious to the hardships he’d be forced to endure from the moment he and his mom left the safety and security of the post-natal ward. The likelihood of developmental delays and learning difficulties and the fact his mother lived on the streets and seemed totally uninterested in seeking help or improving her circumstances—for either her, or her son—all pointed to a bleak future. Georgie had already put in a call to FACS, but as yet, she hadn’t seen a staff member on the ward. It was the same old, depressing story.
Usually, when she pondered the hopelessness of it all, it got her down, but today, nothing could take the glow off her memories of the evening she’d spent with Cam. Except the part where he’d talked about his adoptive parents and birth mother.
It was obvious from the anger and bitterness in his voice that he had major issues regarding his adoption. The knowledge unsettled her. He thought his birth mother didn’t care enough about him to keep him. Is that how her son felt about the mother he’d never met?
Until then, the night had been like something out of a fairytale. Their conversation around the dinner table had been warm and spontaneous, with none of the uncomfortable silences she usually experienced when she dined with a man she barely knew.
Granted, Cynthia had been present for most of the time, but Cam’s little sister had seemed content to sit and eat and listen to the conversation flow around her and had only made the occasional contribution. It was Cam who made it easy. He had a natural grace and charm that Georgie had initially mistaken for arrogance. The fact that he was sinfully good-looking only added to his appeal. He was solicitous of his sister and asked questions about Georgie’s work. He appeared genuinely interested in her responses. And afterwards, out on the balcony, they’d kissed.
And what a kiss! At the memory of his lips on hers, heat crept up Georgie’s neck. Never in her twenty-nine years had she been kissed so…thoroughly. He kissed like a man who knew what he was doing and who sought to give as much pleasure as he received. It was only when he’d called a halt to their increasingly heated embrace that she’d been embarrassed at her uninhibited response.
Not that he seemed to mind. She was sure he was as attracted to her as she was to him. If it weren’t for the adoption issue, she’d be skipping over the clouds. She thought again of how he’d spoken about the fact he was adopted and dread settled heavily in her stomach.
Would the fact that she’d put her baby up for adoption at seventeen be a deal breaker? Would he judge her as harshly as he judged his birth mother? When he said he’d been put up for adoption because his birth mother didn’t care, she’d wanted to shout out in protest. It might not have been like that. It hadn’t been that way for her.
She’d wanted her son like she wanted to keep breathing. Signing the adoption papers had been like severing a limb. She’d died a thousand deaths and her heart was always heavy. There hadn’t been a day pass since when she didn’t think about him and hope that he was safe and happy.
But her relationship with Cam—if she could even call it that—was so fresh and new and fragile, she didn’t know if it was strong enough to put to the test. She liked him. She really liked him. And now she was terrified a decision she’d made in her past would tear them apart, before they’d even had a chance.
No, the best thing to do would be to stay quiet. There was no need for him to know, at least, for now. Her past was her past. The decision she’d made as a teenager could stay hidden, deep inside her heart.
If her relationship with Cam deepened into something more substantial, something more permanent, then perhaps she’d take the risk and share it with him. If they cared enough about each other for her to share her innermost secrets, then she could only hope he would love her enough to understand.
After all, his little sister had also made some difficult choices in her life, but from the love and concern he showered on her, it appeared Cam neither judged her, nor laid blame. She could only hope he’d be as merciful if, and when, it came to her.
She remembered how she’d left him, in a rush to get away. She’d spent all of her second day off in her apartment, rehashing the night and dredging up memories of the past. She should call him and apologize for her hasty departure and thank him again for his hospitality.
She also hadn’t had a chance to talk to him about Cynthia’s fears and insecurities. Georgie was sure he’d want to know. She was just as certain he’d offer the teen all the reassurances Georgie had already mentioned to her. Whatever else Cameron Dawson was, he was good and kind and compassionate, at least when it came to his sister.
Removing the stethoscope from her ears, she made a notation on the baby’s hospital chart and then hung it back on the crib. It was almost time for her break. She’d grab a coffee and head outside into the wintery sunshine. The morning had been cool when she’d arrived at work, but by now it ought to be perfect. Even in winter, the temperature in the heart of Sydney remained pleasantly mild. Most June days saw the mercury climb to at least sixty-two degrees. There was no better time to make a call to the man she just couldn’t get out of her mind.
With coffee in hand, Georgie found a spot on the grass out the front of the hospital. Several other nurses lay sprawled on the ground chatting with each other or texting or talking on their phones. She tugged her cell from her pocket and dialed Cameron’s number. It was answered on the second ring.
“Good morning,” he greeted her and she could hear the smile in his husky voice.
Her heart skipped a beat. “Good morning,” she replied, all of a sudden feeling unaccountably shy.
“How are you?”
“I-I’m great,” she stammered and then cursed the blush that burned her cheeks. She felt like a tongue-tied teenager greeting the guy she’d been crushing on all year. With an effort, she slowed her breathing and forced the nerves aside.
“I… I just wanted to call and apologize for leaving so abruptly the other night. I had a lovely evening. I… I don’t know what got into me.”
“It’s fine, Georgie,” he replied, his voice soft and caring. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have mentioned my past. I could tell my attitude alarmed you, and I’m sorry. It’s been a sore point for me for as long as I can remember, but it’s my bad. I shouldn’t have dragged you into it. No wonder you ran.”
“I didn’t run,” she protested gently. “Besides, I’d like to hear more about your past, about the real Cameron Dawson. We all have a past—me, included. Sometimes it’s good to show your vulnerable side.” She tho
ught about the way she’d blubbered all over him and added, “Like I did.”
“I’m honored that you trusted me enough to do so.”
The gentleness in his voice sounded so genuine, she couldn’t help but believe he meant it. How had she stumbled across this wonderful man? A man who seemed to share her interest, if his heated kisses were anything to go by.
“Th-thank you,” she stammered, suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of emotion. “You’re very kind.”
“I’m not sure kindness has anything to do with it. I’m just being honest.”
She smiled and her heart sang with joy. Could he get any more perfect? There must be something wrong with him that she hadn’t yet discovered. There had to be some reason a man like Cameron Dawson was still single. Nobody was as good and kind as he was without some hidden flaws. It just wasn’t possible.
“How’s Cynthia?” she asked, remembering the other reason for her call.
“She’s great. Better than I’ve ever seen her. I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for her.”
Georgie brushed off the praise. “It was nothing. Besides, I had a good time, too. Who wouldn’t want to spend the day getting pampered?”
Cam laughed. “Me, I guess. Maybe it’s a girl thing?”
Georgie chuckled and then her smile faded. “Cynthia’s a little concerned you might ask her to leave if you start a relationship with a woman,” she said quietly.
It was only after the words were out of her mouth that Georgie thought about how that might sound. Did he think she was angling for a relationship? That she wanted to move things between them so fast? A fresh wave of heat burned her cheeks. She hurried to explain.
“I-I don’t mean you and me… That is, that we might… Oh, God…”
His gentle laughter did nothing to ease her embarrassment. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be, Georgie. I understand what you’re trying to say. Somehow or other, you were able to get Cynthia to confide in you about her feelings and she told you about her insecurities. Is that right?”
