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Or open the door and make sure nothing had been left?
The knock still resonated. It had been loud, urgent, demanding attention.
Okay, check.
He headed for the front door, stepped outside and came close to falling over a bundle. Pink, soft …
He stooped and tugged back a fold of pink blanket.
A thick thatch of black hair. A tiny, rosebud mouth. Snub nose. Huge dark eyes that stared upwards, struggling to focus.
A tiny baby. Three weeks at most, he thought, stunned.
Lying on his doorstep.
He scooped the infant up without thinking, staring out into the night rather than down at the baby, willing the car to be still there, willing there to be some sort of answer.
The bundle was warm—and moist. And alive.
A baby …
He had nothing to do with babies. Yeah, okay, he’d treated babies during medical training. He’d done the basic paediatric stuff, but he’d been an orthopaedic surgeon for years now, and babies hardly came into his orbit.
A baby was in his orbit now. In his arms.
He stared down at the baby, and wide eyes stared back.
A memory stabbed back. A long time ago. Thirty or more years? Here, in this hall.
A woman with a baby, placing the baby by the door in its carry basket, pointing at Blake and saying, ‘I’ve brought the kid his baby sister.’
After that, his memory blurred. He remembered his father yelling, and his mother screaming invective at his father and at the woman. He remembered the strange woman being almost hysterical.
He’d been six years old. While the grown-ups had yelled, he’d sidled over and looked at the baby it seemed everyone was yelling about. She’d been crying, but none of the grown-ups had noticed.
A baby sister?
He shook himself. That had been the night his mother had found out about his father’s lover. He’d never seen either the woman or her baby again.
This baby was nothing to do with his history. Why was he thinking of it now?
He should call the police. He should report an abandoned baby.
Who looked like a baby he’d seen a long time ago?
And then he thought of Maggie, his tenant, and he remembered the references she’d given him.
She was the district nurse and she was also a midwife.
The relief that surged over him was almost overwhelming. This was nothing to do with him. Of course it wasn’t. The whole valley knew Maggie’s job. If a woman wanted to abandon an unwanted child, what better way than dump it on a woman you knew could look after it? Maybe Maggie had even cared for the mother during her pregnancy.
‘Hey,’ he said, relaxing, even holding the baby a little tighter now he knew what he was dealing with. The child seemed to be staring straight up at him now, dark eyes wondering. ‘You’ve come to the wrong door. Okay, I know you’re in trouble but you have come to the right place—just one door down. Hold on a minute and we’ll take you to someone who knows babies. To someone who hopefully will take responsibility for getting you out of this mess.’
Maggie was snuggling back down under the duvet when someone knocked on her door and the dogs went nuts again.
What? What now?
She’d worked hard today. She’d set up the entire clinic, moving emergency gear from the hospital over the river, trying to get everything organised before the bridge closed. As well as that, she’d made prenatal checks of women on farms that were so wet right now that every able body was moving stock and if Maggie wanted her pregnant ladies to be checked then she went to them.
She was really tired.
Was this another evacuation warning? Leave now before the bridge is cut?
She’d gone to the community meeting. This house was high above the river. Short of a tsunami travelling two hundred miles inland, nothing worse was going to happen than the bridge would give way, the power would go and she’d have to rely on the old kerosene fridge for a few days.
What?
Another knock—and suddenly her irritation turned to fear. She had eight brothers and sisters. A couple of the boys were still young enough to be stupid. Pete … What if …?
What if the car had come with news?
Just open the door and get it over with.
Take a deep breath first.
She tucked her feet into fluffy slippers, wrapped her ancient bathrobe around her favourite pyjamas and padded out to the back porch.
She swung open the door—and Blake Samford was standing in the doorway, holding a baby.
‘I think this one’s for you,’ he said, and handed it over.
She didn’t drop it.
To her eternal credit—and thinking back later she was very, very proud of herself—she took the baby, just like the professional she was. Nurse receiving a baby at handover. She gathered the baby as she’d gather any infant she didn’t know; any child when she didn’t know its history. Taking care to handle it lightly with no pressure, anywhere that might hurt. Cradling it and holding it instinctively against her body, giving warmth as she’d give warmth to any tiny creature.
But for the moment her eyes were on Blake.
He looked almost forbidding. He was looming in her doorway, six feet two or three, wide shoulders, dark, dark eyes made even darker by the faint glow of moonlight, deep black hair, a shadowy figure.
Tall, dark and dangerous.
Heathcliff, she thought, suddenly feeling vaguely hysterical. Very hysterical. Here she was presented with a baby at midnight and she was thinking romance novels?
The dogs were growling behind her. They’d met this guy—he’d been here for three days and she’d seen him outside, talking to them—but he was still a stranger, it was midnight and they didn’t know what to make of this bundle in their mistress’s arms.
Neither did she, but a baby was more important than the dark, looming stranger on her doorstep.
‘What do you mean, you think it’s for me?’ she managed, trying not to sound incredulous. Trying to sound like he’d just dropped by with a cup of sugar she’d asked to borrow earlier in the day. She didn’t want to startle the dogs. She didn’t want to startle the baby.
She didn’t want to startle herself.
‘Someone’s obviously made a mistake,’ he told her. ‘You’re the local midwife. I assume they’ve dumped the baby here to leave it with you.’
‘Who dumped it?’ She folded back the blanket and looked down into the baby’s face. Wide eyes gazed back at her. Gorgeous.
She loved babies. She shouldn’t—heaven knew, she’d had enough babies to last her a lifetime—but she had the perfect job now. She could love babies and hand them back.
‘I don’t know who dumped it,’ he said, with exaggerated patience. ‘Didn’t you hear the car? It came, the baby was dumped, it left.’
She stared up at him, incredulous. He met her gaze, and didn’t flinch.
An abandoned baby.
The stuff of fairy-tales. Or nightmares.
She switched her gaze to the little one in her arms.
‘Who are you?’ she whispered, but of course there was no answer. Instead it wrinkled its small nose, and opened its mouth—and wailed.
Only it wasn’t a wail a baby this age should make. It was totally despairing, as if this baby had wailed before and nothing had been forthcoming. It was a wail that was desperation all by itself—a wail that went straight to the heart and stayed there. Maggie had heard hungry babies before, but none like this. Unbearable. Unimaginable that a little one could be so needful.
She looked down at the sunken fontanel, the dry, slightly wrinkled skin. These were classic signs of dehydration. IV? Fast?
But if the little one could still cry …
It could indeed still cry. It could scream.
‘Can you grab the bag from the back of my car?’ she snapped, and whirled and grabbed her car keys and tossed them to him. ‘This little one’s in trouble.’
‘Trouble?’
She wheeled away, back to the settee. The fire was still glowing in the hearth. She could unwrap the baby without fear of losing warmth. ‘Basket,’ she snapped at the dogs, and they headed obediently for their baskets at each side of the fire. Then, as Blake hesitated, she fixed him with a look that had made lesser men quail. ‘Bag. Now. Go.’
He headed for the car, feeling a bit … stunned. And also awed.
The only times he’d seen Maggie Tilden she’d seemed brisk, efficient and … plain? She dressed simply for work and she’d been working the whole time he’d been here. Plain black pants. White blouse with ‘Corella Valley Medical Services’ emblazoned on the pocket. She wore minimal make-up, and her soft brown curls were tied back in a bouncy ponytail. She was about five feet four or five, she had freckles, brown eyes and a snub nose, and until tonight he would have described her as nondescript.
What he’d just seen wasn’t nondescript. It was something far from it.
What?
Cute, he thought, but then he thought no. It was something … deeper.
She’d been wearing faded pink pyjamas, fluffy slippers and an ancient powder-blue bathrobe. Her brown hair, once let loose, showed an auburn burnish. Her curls tumbled about her shoulders and she looked like she’d just woken from sleep. Standing with her dogs by her sides, the fire crackling in the background, she looked …
Adorable?
She looked everything the women in his life weren’t. Cosy. Domestic. Welcoming.
And also strong. That glare said he’d better move his butt and get her bag back inside, stat.
She wouldn’t know he was a doctor, he thought. When the baby had wailed he’d recognised, as she had, that the little creature was in trouble. The light-bulb over his door had blown long since, but once he’d been under the light of her porch he’d seen the tell-tale signs of dehydration, a baby who looked underweight; malnourished. He’d reached to find a pulse but her movement to defend the child was right. Until she knew what was wrong, the less handling the better.
She was reacting like a midwife at her best, he thought with something of relief. Even if she needed his help right now, this baby wasn’t his problem. She was more than capable of taking responsibility.
She was a professional. She could get on with her job and he could move away.
Get the lady her bag. Now.
The bag was a huge case-cum-portable bureau, wedged into the back of an ancient family wagon. He grabbed it and grunted as he pulled it free—it weighed a ton. What was it—medical supplies for the entire valley? How on earth did a diminutive parcel like Maggie handle such a thing?
He was a week out from an appendectomy. He felt internal stitches pull and thought of consequences—and headed for the back door and grabbed the wheelbarrow.
Medical priorities.
If he broke his stitches he’d be no use to anyone. Worse, he’d need help himself.
One bag coming up. By barrow.
He pushed his way back into the living room and Maggie’s eyes widened.
She’d expected landlord with a bag.
What she got was landlord, looking a bit sheepish, with her firewood-carting wheelbarrow, plus bag.
‘Appendectomy,’ he said before she could say a word. ‘Stitches. You don’t want two patients.’
Oh, heck. She hadn’t thought. He’d told her he was here recovering from an appendectomy. She should have …
‘It’s fine,’ he said, quickly, obviously seeing her remorse. ‘As long as you don’t mind tyre tracks on your rugs.’
‘With my family I’m not used to house-proud. Thanks for getting it. Are you okay?’
‘Yes.’
She cast him a sharp, assessing look, and he thought she was working out the truth for herself, and she figured he was telling it.
‘If I tell you how, can you make up some formula? This little one’s badly dehydrated.’
‘Can I see?’ he said, over the baby’s cries.
The baby was still wailing, desperation personified.
He stooped beside her. He didn’t try and touch the baby, just pushed back the coverings further from its face.
Maggie had obviously done a fast check and then re-wrapped the infant, leaving the nappy on, tugging open the stained grow suit to the nappy but leaving it on, rewrapping the baby in the same blanket but adding her own, a cashmere throw he’d seen at the end of the sofa.
With the blankets pulled aside and the grow suit unfastened, he could see signs of neglect. This was no rosy, bouncing baby. He could see the tell-tale signs of severe nappy rash, even above the nappy. He could see signs of malnourishment.
