The Surgeon's Miracle Baby

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, had truly thought she was walking in the room to defend herself, to listen as he berated her for not telling him about their child, but instead he was wishing her and her supposed partner well!

‘That’s what you called me in to say?’ Her voice was shrill, her eyes blinking rapidly as she tried to take in what he was saying. She couldn’t believe that his denial could be so firmly ingrained. God, they’d been together a year ago and she had a three-month-old baby—how could it not even entered his head that Declan might well be his? Did he think she’d walked straight out of his bed and into someone else’s who could give her what she had apparently so badly wanted? ‘Daniel, I have a three-month-old baby—’

‘What did you call him?’ Daniel interrupted with that curiously snobby voice he used when he was addressing a patient or member of staff and keeping them at a distance.

‘Declan.’ She shook her head as if to clear it, stared at him open-mouthed, waiting—for what she didn’t know, revelation, realization? She truly didn’t know. But he just stared back.

‘And you’re happy?’ Daniel asked, and she felt his eyes drift down to her hand, clearly taking in the naked ring finger. ‘I mean, you and his father—

‘It didn’t work out between us.’ Finding her voice, she responded with the truth. ‘You know me—I’ve got lousy taste in men.’

He gave a pale smile at her thinly disguised insult. ‘So you’re on your own?’

She gave a nod, stared into the eyes of the man she had loved absolutely and wished to God she could hate him.

‘It certainly looks that way!’

‘You have to tell him!’

Pouring two glasses of wine, Maggie pushed one towards Louise. ‘And don’t tell me you can’t have a drink because you’re feeding—this is strictly medicinal!’

‘Believe me, I’m not going to.’ Taking a sip, Louise let out a long, exaggerated sigh, utterly exhausted physically from her first long day back at work and drained emotionally from the never-ending roller-coaster ride she’d embarked on the day she’d laid eyes on Daniel Ashwood.

‘They call him Danny!’

‘Of course they do.’ Maggie grinned. ‘I was Margaret until I met you—you Aussies change everyone’s names!’

‘You really didn’t know he was working there?’ Louise checked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion, but Maggie shook her head.

‘I’m as stunned as you are! Come on, Louise, it’s a massive hospital and there’s not exactly a huge demand for surgeons in the psychiatric ward—it’s not just the patients that are shut off from the rest of the world in the psych unit.’

‘I can’t believe he’s working in the same hospital. I mean, of all the places he could have ended up…’

‘That’s the only bit that’s not so hard to believe,’ Maggie said. ‘Come on, Louise, when you decided to move to the city, why did you pick Melbourne General?’

‘Because it’s the biggest hospital, because it has everything…’

‘Someone of Daniel’s calibre was hardly going to end up in a 200-bed suburban hospital,’ Maggie pointed out. ‘It’s why he’s in Australia that intrigues me! He has to know, Louise.’

‘He doesn’t want to know!’ Louise snapped, and then regretted it. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie, I don’t mean to take it out on you. I just can’t believe it didn’t even enter his head that Declan could be his! I’m serious,’ she said as Maggie gave her a very disbelieving look. ‘He wasn’t avoiding the issue—he honestly didn’t seem to think there could possibly be one!’

‘He’s a doctor, for heaven’s sake,’ Maggie argued. ‘You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to work out that you broke up last year and you’ve got a three-month-old baby!’

‘Ah, but I was out for a good time!’ Louise said with a distinct edge to her voice. ‘According to Daniel’s thinking, Declan could be anyone’s!’ Tears filled Louise’s eyes. ‘Is that what he thinks of me?’

‘It’s what he thinks of himself that worries me,’ Maggie said cryptically. ‘Louise, you have to look after yourself here. Stop trying to work out what he’s thinking—I don’t think you’re ever going to really know.’

‘When we were together,’ Louise gulped, closing her eyes at the bitter-sweet memory, ‘I felt as if I’d found my soulmate. I can remember seeing him on the ward that first time I did the doctors’ round—all aloof and snooty in his suit, just as he always was with everyone—then we did the ward round, and it was the first time I’d actually spoken to him, probably the first time he ever really looked at me. I remember saying something and he laughed, and I knew from everyone’s reaction that he was acting out of character. I just knew from the little I’d seen of him that he was distant and not very friendly, but with me he was like another person.’

‘He adored you,’ Maggie said gently, as a massive salty tear rolled down Louise’s cheek.

‘After that ward round he came back and I knew he was going to ask me out. I was just so completely and utterly sure that he’d come back…’

‘And he did.’ Maggie nodded.

‘It wasn’t just about having a good time and some sort of casual holiday fling,’ Louise insisted, despite the fact Maggie wasn’t disputing what she said, despite the evidence to the contrary, despite Daniel telling her face to face that it had been just that. ‘Those four weeks we were together were the closest I’ve ever been to another person, and Daniel can deny it all he likes but I know that at the time he felt it, too. I just don’t know why he suddenly changed his mind.’

‘Look, all you can do here is watch out for yourself. Frankly, I’m all for telling him. If he doesn’t want to offer emotional support then slug him for the financial. After all, he can afford it and you do need the money.’

‘I don’t,’ Louise insisted. ‘I’ve got three months’ work pencilled in, I’m doing fine.’

‘Are you?’ Maggie checked. ‘You’ve got a pile of bills stuffed behind the microwave—’

‘As soon as I get paid, they’ll be gone,’ Louise swiftly retorted, but Maggie just stared. ‘And I’m going to start looking for a place this weekend.’ She felt a twinge at the thought of not living with Maggie any more, but while their small flat was fine for two single girls living a carefree existence, it wasn’t suitable for raising a child and had only ever been a stopgap for her. ‘In a few weeks things will be fine. Fine,’ she said again, as if by repeating it she was somehow assuring it would all happen.

‘Declan’s dad is a consultant surgeon,’ Maggie said softly. ‘He’s raking it in.’

‘I know,’ Louise gulped, ‘and sometimes it terrifies me. Sometimes I think I should take him for everything he’s worth because Declan deserves it.’

‘And other times?’ Maggie pushed gently.

‘I look at my parents—their marriage ended because of a brief affair my father had six months before he met my mum. Every month a fight broke out when it was time for Dad to pay his maintenance—’

‘Louise—’ Maggie attempted, but Louise stopped her right there.

‘Daniel and I were together for four weeks,’ Louise said. ‘I don’t want him paying for his mistake for the rest of his life, the way my dad did.’

‘Even if you have to?’

‘That’s the difference.’ Ignoring her wine, Louise stood up, wandered over to the tiny kitchenette and flicked on the kettle. ‘I don’t see it as a mistake. Yes, Daniel may be a consultant, but clearly he didn’t think I’d make a very good consultant’s wife. This is about so much more than money.’

‘What if he asks you out now?’

‘As if!’ Louise scoffed. ‘And even if he did, there’s no way I’d go.’

‘Why not?’

Louise thought for a moment before answering. ‘Because I can’t imagine trying to fill him in on the last year of my life and somehow managing to omit the fact that Declan’s his.’

‘Would it be the end of the world if he found out?’

‘The end of his world probably. He doesn’t want children.’

‘But he’s got one! And if things don’t work out between the two of you, at the very least you know he’s a decent guy and you’ll have some financial support. Louise, lies catch up in the end and you’re living with a time bomb. A cute one at that.’

‘Well, it isn’t going to happen. According to Daniel, I’m a single mother, which is hardly an upcoming young consultant’s ideal date.’

‘Don’t be so sure!’ Never one to miss an opportunity, Maggie picked up Louise’s still full glass. ‘There’s a lot of unfinished business there—for both of you.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘SORRY if this is awkward for you!’

A good dose of Maggie had an infinitely calmer Louise steering her stainless-steel dressing trolley into Daniel’s room the next morning. With Elaine on a late shift, staff allocation had been done by the nurse unit manager, Candy, who, blissfully unaware of their history, had decided, given the nature of Daniel’s injury, to save him the embarrassment of having someone familiar look after him and had allocated the delicate task of taking his dressing down to a blushing Louise.

‘Awkward doesn’t come close.’ Daniel grimaced, wobbling his way gingerly back to the bed with his IV pole in one hand, a pair of black cycling-short-style undies on and a white T-shirt at mid-torso and pulled onto one arm only. ‘That’s why I took the dressing down myself in there.’

‘Have you had a shower?’ Louise said accusingly, answering the question for herself as she did so—his hair was drenched and his back was still soaking. ‘You’re not supposed to get your dressing wet—and you know that you’re supposed to let the staff know if you get out of bed. You could have passed out or anything.’

‘I’d have been far more likely to pass out if you’d come at me with those bloody tweezers and peeled it off…’ Daniel attempted, but his face had a horribly greyish tinge and Louise knew that, despite his bravado, the room was spinning for him. She watched as beads of sweat broke out on his forehead and knew that if he didn’t get to the bed soon, he’d end up on the floor. ‘Come on,’ she said gently, taking the IV pole from him and instinctively taking his arm—instinctively, because she was a nurse and he was a patient who had done way too much and was about to pass out. But nothing in her nursing career had prepared her for this, his touch, the first in almost a year almost more than she could bear, feeling his reluctant weight on her arm as she tried to lead him the short distance to his bed.

Maybe her touch was too much for him, too, because after a few seconds of contact he pulled away. But Louise was having none of it.

‘Take my arm and let’s get you back to bed,’ Louise said firmly, but again he pushed it away, attempting to drag himself the last few steps. However, his body today wasn’t as autonomous as his mind, and he clutched at a chair to steady himself, loudly dragging in air as he willed himself not to faint. Completely unfazed, Louise just rolled her eyes.

‘Faint away, then, Daniel.’

‘I’m OK,’ he insisted through very pale, very dry lips.

‘The porters can always help me lift you back into bed when you land on the floor…’

He gave in then, actually held out his hand to her, and she took not just that, but his arm, too, placing her other arm around his. His back was drenched with cold sweat as she swiftly steered his fall from grace onto the safety of the mattress—and he lay there on his side for a moment, ghastly pale and completely out of it. If she’d been more junior she’d have pressed the bell and called for help, but Louise was confident enough in her own ability to know that Daniel was suffering from nothing more than a simple faint, and saved him the indignity of the world rushing in by raising the foot of the bed and giving him a quick whiff of oxygen. She checked his pulse and watched him closely as he came round.

Yes, she’d giggled with Maggie about the appropriateness of his injury, made more than a few wicked comments last night as she’d compared it to childbirth, but watching this tall proud man absolutely out of it, seeing the purple bruise halfway down his inner thigh and spreading over the top of his cycle shorts, she softened like butter, knowing how horrible and undignified this entire episode must have been for him. Despite the pain, despite the anger, she actually felt sorry for him.

‘You fainted,’ Louise said gently, as his eyes slowly opened. ‘But you’re fine now.’

‘Did you call a code?’ Even in this wretched state he managed a stab of dry humour at his predicament. ‘Just in case there’s someone left in the hospital who’s missed out on a good look at my scrotum!’

‘Ooh, believe me, I thought about it,’ Louise grinned down at him and watched as a ghost of a smile flickered on his lips, standing quietly as his colour slowly returned and his pulse settled. ‘Better?’ she said finally, when she’d checked his blood pressure. Clearly he was, so she turned off the oxygen and lowered the foot of the bed as he slowly sat up.

‘Thanks.’ Daniel nodded, letting out a long breath. ‘Thanks,’ he said again, clearly appreciating the fact that it was still just the two of them in the room.

‘Have some water,’ she offered, splashing some water from the jug into a beaker and lifting it to his lips, knowing as surely as the sun rose every morning that if it had been anyone else other than her who had walked into the room, they’d have been shooed away with a stern bark, and he’d have ended up on the floor. She was glad for the chance to be able to look after him—at least for this short time.

‘How’s your pain?’ Louise asked. ‘And, please, don’t fob me off.’

‘Between you and me?’ he said.

‘Sure.’

‘Bloody agony,’ he admitted. ‘But if I have another jab of pethidine, I know that they’ll want to keep me in till after lunch.’

‘What about a couple of Panadeine Forte,’ Louise offered, checking through his chart. ‘You’re written up—’

‘A couple of tablets aren’t going to help,’ Daniel retorted, proving that doctors really did make the worst patients!

‘Well, they definitely won’t if you don’t take them,’ Louise pointed out. ‘Why does it have to be all or nothing with you—that if you can’t have pethidine then you’ll just have to suffer on?’

‘OK,’ he bristled as Louise marched out and returned a couple of moments later with two white tablets, which he reluctantly swallowed.

‘You’re too damn proud for your own good!’ she scolded, hoping for bossy nurse mode, trying to keep a grip here as she attempted the impossible—to treat him solely as a patient. ‘And what on earth have you done with your T-shirt?’

‘I couldn’t work out how to feed the drip through—you nurses make it look easy.’

Louise collected a towel from the bathroom and then dried his back, before turning off the IVAC and dismantling the IV, pulling the tubing through the free arm of his T-shirt then feeding his hand through.

‘This is probably coming down after the round.’

‘Hope so,’ Daniel said. ‘I just want to go home. Is it awkward for you?’ He looked up at her. ‘Looking after me, I mean?’

She even managed to laugh. ‘Not at all! I’m a bit miffed, actually—I was kind of looking forward to giving you a good dressing down!’

‘Sweet revenge?’ Daniel asked, a hint of a smile ghosting on his pale lips.

‘Something like that,’ Louise answered. ‘I ought to check your wound really, but if you’d rather leave it for the round, I understand.’

‘I’ll leave it, thanks.’

‘Sure,’ Louise said, quietly relieved. The thought of seeing him so black and bruised held no appeal. ‘I’ll just do your obs again.

‘Aren’t cricketers supposed to wear a shield or something?’ she asked as she wrapped the blood-pressure cuff around his arm.

‘It’s called a box,’ Daniel answered. ‘And, yes, the batsman wears a box, only I wasn’t batting at the time—I was supposed to be fielding.’

‘I didn’t know you played cricket.’

‘I don’t play much, but an Englishman in Australia has to defend his honour.’ He smiled, then changed the subject back from vaguely friendly to painfully personal. ‘So, how come you’re here, Louise?’

‘There wasn’t really much work back home—well, not with the hours that I wanted,’ Louise said, giving him her standard response, but Daniel knew her too well to be fobbed off.

‘It must be hard in the city with your family so far away,’ he delved, and as Louise rolled her eyes he gave a low laugh. ‘They’re not still fighting?’

‘You’ve no idea.’ Louise gave a dramatic sigh. ‘Catherine’s getting married in a few months.’

‘Your sister?’

‘My half-sister,’ Louise corrected him.

‘How’s your mum taking it?’ he asked, matching her grimace, and it was so nice that even after all this time he understood, so very nice to put the animosity on hold and talk to him again.

To talk as they once had.

‘Terribly,’ Louise admitted. ‘Though, in her defence, there’s just no escaping it—in a small country town a wedding’s a big thing, especially this one. The local baker’s doing the cake, Mum’s close friend is a dressmaker and she’s working on the wedding dress and all the bridesmaids’ outfits, and the reception is being held in the local pub. You’d think it was European royalty that was getting married…’

‘That’s your mother talking!’ Daniel checked, and Louise laughed as she nodded.

‘Well, she found out a couple of months ago that Dad was paying for the wedding and even though they’re divorced, even though financially it doesn’t affect Mum a bit—well, let’s just say it wasn’t exactly a soothing environment with a new baby on board. I think I’ll be staying in Melbourne for a while, at least until after the wedding!’

‘So how are things—how are you finding the ward?’

‘Good.’ Louise nodded. ‘I’m starting to find my way around.’

‘Who are you looking after this morning?’

‘A couple of easy ones—or they would be easy if they didn’t go taking showers and fainting on me and then…’ She gave an uncomfortable shrug. ‘I shouldn’t really be discussing the patients.’

‘They’re my patients,’ Daniel pointed out. ‘Who else have you got?’

‘Jordan Adams,’ Louise answered.

‘How’s he doing now he’s on the ward?’

‘OK,’ Louise answered thoughtfully. ‘Well, he seems OK. He’s being weaned off the tracheostomy and he’s starting to eat a little…’

‘How’s his mood?’ Daniel asked perceptively, because it was Jordan’s mood that was worrying Louise most. Most patients, after coming out of ICU, were so used to the intense one-on-one nursing contact that they tended to panic once on the ward and demand attention, but instead Jordan’s mood was flat, making little eye contact when Louise tried to talk to him, refusing to see his friends when they arrived to visit him—instead, just staring unseeingly at the television above his bed.

‘It’s not great,’ Louise sighed. ‘I think he saw himself in the mirror for the first time over the weekend and he hates that colostomy with a passion.’

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