His Longed-For Baby

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‘Honestly,’ Maggie interrupted, the sound of Jake’s muttered curse so clear that she knew the rest of the team must be able to hear every word being said outside the door…they were probably all but falling over in their efforts to hear more clearly. ‘It’s not a problem, Lina. I can stay as long as I’m needed.’

‘But—’

‘There isn’t going to be a wedding,’ she blurted, then had to stifle a groan when a nearby gasp drew her eyes and she recognised the avid gaze of one of the biggest gossips in the whole department.

‘Oh, Maggie, I’m so sorry,’ Lina said as she patted her arm, but whether it was in support for her cancelled wedding or the fact that her private business would shortly be spread far and wide, Maggie wasn’t certain.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said with a weak attempt at a smile, and leant her shoulder against the swing door as she backed away from the encounter. ‘Just be pleased that I was available to come in today and keep wheeling the patients through.’

Maggie had been prepared to be the focus of at least one pair of eyes when the door slapped shut behind her, but everyone seemed to be concentrating on what they were doing, far too busy to even have noticed that there was a conversation going on outside the room. Then she realised with a wash of embarrassment that there was an almost unearthly silence hanging over a room that would normally have been a babble of orders, requests and the odd quip, and knew that she was the reason.

‘I call it true dedication,’ Jake muttered, just loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear, even though they were pretending not to listen, ‘coming in to work when she could have been jetting off into the sunshine.’

Cancelling the honeymoon was something else she’d completely forgotten to do, Maggie realised, and wondered if she would be able to use today’s emergency events as a valid reason to be able to reclaim the cost. If not, perhaps she should just leave this evening as scheduled.

Her primary examination of the patient over, and vital signs recorded, she stepped back behind the screen as a series of X-rays were taken of her next patient and speculated idly that, in the absence of a new husband, she could always ask a handsome Mediterranean waiter to rub sunscreen on the bits she couldn’t reach. With nothing and no one to distract her, she might even end up with a decent tan.

At least if she went away she wouldn’t have to worry about where she was going to be sleeping tonight, but that still left her with the problem of storing her belongings.

‘Fracture at C4, transversely across the vertebral body’ was the verdict, even as her hand hovered over the cervical collar, hoping for the all-clear to remove it.

‘How bad?’ Maggie demanded, suddenly worrying that she might have missed something vital while her thoughts had wandered into her personal life.

‘Whatever you do, don’t take the collar off,’ the radiologist said dryly. ‘It’s a good job the paramedics know their stuff or we’d probably be looking at paralysis.’

Maggie started breathing again, grateful that her medical faculties had been performing in spite of herself. With her patient stabilised as far as possible, all she had to do was hand the rest of his treatment over to someone from Orthopaedics…that and renew her resolve to keep her mind on her job.

When the current crisis was over would be soon enough to worry about moving her belongings out of her place and sorting out the rest of her life.

‘How are you doing?’ Jake murmured some time later, his deep voice breaking into her concentration, startling her when it emerged so close to her and sending a quiver of awareness through her.

Was he asking whether she was coping with the unrelenting pace of work? He shouldn’t, because she was certain she’d more than proved herself capable over the last two years. They’d already had two DOAs since they’d arrived today, and she’d lost count of the other cases who’d come through their hands. And this was just one of the rooms coping with the influx.

Or was he referring to the unspoken rumours surrounding her about the cancelled wedding? She could hardly be oblivious to the mixture of pity and speculation in her colleagues’ eyes, or the odd muttered comments that she wasn’t supposed to hear. More direct interrogation would probably come as soon as anyone had enough spare breath to ask the first question.