Breathe, little one.
Breathe.
Then the faintest of squawks. And again.
Claire breathed out as Ethan caught her gaze and nodded. He may have been giving the impression of calm but the relief in his eyes was obvious as he said, ‘Here you go. A girl. A lovely baby girl.’
Mariam took the baby in her arms and stared down at her, dry-eyed and shocked. So much had happened to her in the last few hours it must have been hard to reconcile it all. A death. A life. Survival against the odds. ‘She’s so small.’
‘She’s beautiful.’ Claire couldn’t disguise the emotion in her voice as it wobbled and broke. She fisted away tears, because if Mariam wasn’t crying then her nurse couldn’t. The baby was indeed beautiful but so small and at risk of respiratory problems, infection and so much more. Claire busied herself with helping skin-to-skin contact for mum and babe and attaching a pulse oximeter to the baby’s foot. ‘This is just to check her oxygen level.’
‘I wish your father was here,’ Mariam whispered. Fatima’s voice cracked as she translated and they all stood and stared at this scrap of life that had come from such a terrible situation. ‘But I’ll love you enough for both of us. I’ll do anything to keep you safe.’
Even travel hundreds of miles across raging seas to start a new life.
Chase appeared at the doorway. ‘Chopper coming. ETA one hour. Taking her to Marseille. All okay?’
‘Too small but, yes, so far so good.’ Ethan nodded. ‘And thank you.’
Chase managed the smallest of smiles. ‘I’m not the lunatic taking on a storm in a helicopter. Don’t thank me.’
But she noticed a slight softening in the way the two men looked at each other across the tiny baby and doting mum and for a moment allowed herself to believe everything was going to be all right for them all.
As they waited for the helicopter, Claire helped Mariam into new clothes and listened as Fatima translated the mum’s story. ‘My husband suffered beatings and torture to earn enough money to pay for this journey. We needed to escape.’ She closed her eyes and refused to say why. ‘There were too many of us and we realised the boat wasn’t going to make it to land. People panicked and tried to get the captain to send out an alarm for someone to come and help us, but he refused because he didn’t want to get caught. A fight broke out and my husband pushed me to the front of the boat for safety. But then he was hit and fell overboard. He couldn’t swim. There were no life jackets.’
He had paid the ultimate price for his love for his wife and unborn child. ‘How will you cope in a strange place with a new baby?’
Determination shone from Mariam’s eyes as she spoke through the interpreter. ‘My husband died to save us so we will survive. I’ll fight every day for my child. She will be my hope. I will call her Awate, which means victory.’
‘Go safely, Mariam and little Awate.’
Claire silently prayed she would never be faced with such a situation but, if she was, hoped she’d have half the courage of Mariam. As she listened with wonder, Claire caught Ethan watching her. His words came back to her: Don’t get involved. But it was too hard, she loved too easily. And, besides, how could you not get involved with such stories and such courage?
But as she waved them off she felt the pressure of the day creep under her skin and suddenly all her energy drained from her. She hugged her coat around her and ached to climb into a soft bed, pull the covers over her head and sleep.
Ethan stepped closer and the exhaustion morphed into an ache to lean her head against his chest and feel his arms around her. Sharing this with him had only brought them closer. He smiled generously. ‘You okay?’
‘I don’t know.’ There was too much emotion here. Lives too tragic, a blessed new birth. And too much Ethan. ‘I just wasn’t expecting to feel like this.’
* * *
‘Come with me.’ Ethan walked Claire to the galley and sat her on one of the metal stools by the serving hatch. In contrast to the dimmed light in the medical room, the chrome fittings glared. Blinking into the brightness, she looked shocked and shivering and if he could have pulled her into his arms he would have. Instead, he made her a drink and pushed the warm mug into her hands. ‘Drink this. I’m sorry it’s not cognac.’
He knew he shouldn’t have made a reference to their night, but what the hell...
Her hair had shaken loose from her work-smart ponytail and she looked exhausted with eyes smudged with shadows, but she managed a sexy slow smile that connected with his gut.
It’s not that I don’t want to do it.
More than two weeks had gone by and Claire’s words had been going around his head. If only they’d known back then how they’d be thrown together and have to somehow ignore the need inside them, maybe they’d have stopped before they’d got so carried away. Or maybe they’d have thrown caution to the wind and spent the night together too.
She took a sip and sighed. ‘Cognac dulls the senses, but hot chocolate cures all ills.’
No, kissing you would.
He’d kept his distance and watched her initiation into this kind of life from afar. He’d seen how it took pieces out of her, how she gave her all for these people. He saw how deeply she cared and there was something about it that struck a chord deep inside him. More than amazing sex. More than sultry kisses. She was kind and compassionate and made him believe there was still a lot of good in the world.
It helped too, that she was utterly unaware of how beautiful she was or what just looking at her did to his gut, his head and his groin. But he was still sticking to his side of the line even if it killed him.
He sat on one of the stools next to her, close enough to chat but with enough distance that indicated friends and nothing more. ‘You want to talk about it? Or do you want to go somewhere? How about Fiji? Tahiti? An exotic island where you get cocktails with umbrellas and calm, clear seas?’
‘So very tempting, especially the calm seas, but sometimes you have to stay exactly where you are and just let things settle. I need to process what’s just happened.’ She shook her head and hugged the mug against her chest. ‘I didn’t think she was going to make it. That tiny thing. I swear I was breathing for her.’
‘You and me both.’ All he wanted to do was wrap Claire in his arms and comfort her. But right now she looked like she just needed someone to hold her. She’d shown endless courage and had supported Mariam in ways she didn’t even realise. She’d given her hope and faith in good people and that would steer Mariam forward. ‘You did well today.’
‘Doesn’t it break your heart?’
‘I don’t let it.’ He shrugged, pushing the image of the floppy baby to the dark part of his brain where all the other shitty thoughts went. It was probably getting quite crowded in there. ‘I’m probably immune to it now.’
‘No, you’re not. I saw the way you looked at Hassan and at Mariam. You were desperate for her baby to survive and for her too. You’re not immune, you care very deeply but you just won’t admit it. How many people have you saved, Ethan?’
‘Eight hundred and eighty-two direct interventions. Many more where I’ve helped.’
‘You actually counted?’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t offer any more explanation.
‘And you will have given every single one of them the same care and attention, but you don’t let yourself talk about it. You swallow it up and bury it deep.’
‘Trust me, I’d go mad if I allowed it to get to me.’ Nevertheless, Ethan felt the weight of responsibility square on his shoulders, always. More lives saved to add to his tally but it would never be enough to fill that yawning hole in his gut.
What would Nick be doing now if he’d lived? Would he be doing something like this, the way Ethan and Chase had steered their lives to rescue work? Or would he have a cushy suit job in the City? Or be the gold-medal-winning sportsman he’d b
een destined to be? Ethan scrubbed his hand across his jaw and decided not to think about any of that. ‘Unless I’m already mad, of course.’
‘I think we all are, just being here doing this instead of a safe job on dry land. Maybe it’s a weird seasickness...of the head.’ Claire laughed, and as if sensing his unease steered the subject away on another tangent. She seemed to have a second sense about what they should talk about; enough but not too much. Whisking him away to exotic locations instead of facing the reality of being on a jumped-up trawler.
‘Okay, Mr Knight, why did you decide to do this kind of work instead of following the money? A lot of doctors just do private work.’
Mr Knight. His gut contracted at the memory that seemed from so long ago and yet was imprinted on the back of his eyelids every time he closed his eyes. The lift. Her. The feel of her skin. ‘I wanted to give something back and help people who aren’t as fortunate as me. I had an inheritance a few years ago that means I don’t have to be too concerned about living pay cheque to pay cheque.’
Most people said how lucky he was not to have to worry about money but Claire frowned. ‘An inheritance means someone died, though?’
‘Yes. Parents. Six years ago.’
‘I’m so sorry, Ethan. Did they die at the same time? Oh, were they in the collapsed building too?’ She put her hand over his and squeezed. Her skin was hot from the cup and her skin so soft.
But the thought of the collapsed building had ice running down his spine and he should have moved his hand from under hers but he let it stay just a little longer. For the warmth. ‘No, they weren’t in the building. It was a car crash, years later, on their way back from a dig up north.’
‘A dig? What is a dig? It’s something you do. To dig?’
‘They were archaeologists’
‘I see. I’m so sorry they died. In some ways it must have been better for them to go together. But it must have been so hard losing them both at once.’ She laced her fingers into his and her thumb stroked the back of his hand. ‘You’ve had a rough time over the years.’
At her concerned expression he shrugged. ‘It’s okay, we weren’t close.’
‘They’re your parents, of course you were close.’
‘You had a very different upbringing to me, Claire. Let’s just say my folks had a hands-off approach to parenting. They were passionate about their work—they were academics, both professors and absorbed in a whole world that didn’t involve me: ancient history. Present-day stuff didn’t register. They preferred me to be away at boarding school rather than in their lives. They paid people to care for me while they were away. A stream of nameless babysitters who had no interest in anything but the money. And strangely my parents were very money savvy. They invested a lot of their earnings in stocks and shares that have paid out well, and they had really great life insurance.’
She shuddered. ‘I couldn’t imagine being completely on my own in life.’
‘It means you can be very flexible about where you go and what you do. No strings, nothing to bring you back.’
Her eyes brightened. ‘I want that too. No one to think about apart from me. Bliss. Don’t get me wrong, I do really love my family, but I just need to get away from them and from the village and do my own thing.’
‘If you’re so hell-bent on adventure, what happened to all those family plans you had with your fiancé?’
‘Oh. Him.’ As if she’d only just realised they were holding hands, she slid her fingers out from Ethan’s. The broken connection with her ex clearly had her deciding there’d be no connection with anyone else either, at least not for the foreseeable future. She went back to cradling the cup. Probably a much safer option, given that the cup wasn’t likely to kiss her any time soon.
‘I’d known him since primary school. We’d grown up together in the same village. It was all we knew. Then I went away to do my nurse training in the city and we started to grow apart a little. But we still had those promises we’d made to each other, still had plans to settle down. I was going to get a community job in the local medical centre, he was going to run his parents’ car mechanic business. We’d planned it for so long I couldn’t see beyond that.
‘But I’d spent my life looking after my siblings, being a homebody, and part of me craved something more. When I met people who’d travelled it sounded wonderful and I thought maybe we could do it for a while and then go back to the village. The thought of splitting up was the furthest thing from my mind, I just wanted to see some of the world before we grew into being our parents.
‘But David didn’t want any of that. His parents are getting old and he’s taking more responsibility in the business and he didn’t want to leave them. So I agreed to stay for him—for us—but the arguments became more frequent and he became more distant and then one day I found him with one of our mutual friends. He said that with my big ideas he didn’t trust me to stay around, so he’d moved on. It broke my world apart.’ She finally smiled. ‘But in the end it gave me the gift of freedom.’
‘How’s that working out for you?’ The fiancé must have been the world’s biggest idiot to have let her walk away. But, then, if he’d kept his promises she wouldn’t be here with him.
‘I love it. I love being free and having no ties, no responsibility for anyone but myself. I love making decisions for myself and myself alone.’
Her smile was as free as the status she was chasing. ‘Independence suits you.’
‘Yes, well it’s hard work too.’ She tugged her cardigan across her belly and visual signs of the strains of the day reappeared back under her eyes and in her expression. ‘The past few days have been an eye-opener.’
‘You chose a hard route. Like you said, there are easier jobs.’ She was a giver and for once he wanted to give something back to her. So he came a little closer and tentatively put a hand on her shoulder.
‘Ethan...we said we weren’t going to do this.’ The cup hit the counter as she turned to look at him. ‘I shouldn’t have touched your hand. I’m sorry. I was just sad for you.’
‘It’s just a shoulder massage, okay? You have knots on knots here.’
‘Shoulders only?’
‘Yes. Unfortunately. Shoulders only.’
She relaxed back against his hand and moaned softly. ‘That is so good. So...damned...good.’
He could smell the hibiscus scent and he closed his eyes, trying to maintain some semblance of calm when his heart was raging and every part of him strained to touch her. He even managed to sound quite civil as he asked, ‘Better now?’
‘Yes. Oh, God. Yes. Now, that is so damned good.’
Her moans rattled his resolve. There was a perfect moment where his hand touched her skin and her breathing became ragged and the atmosphere in the room heated. If he pressed his mouth along that collarbone...if he turned her round he could kiss all the way up her throat to her mouth.
He turned her a little and his gaze snagged on hers and in that moment the memory of all the kissing, all the making love in the lift, all the moans and the fun rolled through him.
He wanted her.
And judging by the way she was looking at him, she wanted him too.
It could have been as simple as that, just as it had been in the lift, but it wasn’t simple at all. She had dreams and he wasn’t going to smash them. And he had promises that took him far away from here and didn’t include anyone tagging along. She snapped upright, again apparently mind reading. ‘Ethan. God, what are we doing? What if—?’
‘What if what? What if someone comes in and sees you drinking hot chocolate and debriefing about a tricky medical emergency with a team member? Shock! Horror! It’s okay to debrief after something like Mariam and Awate. In fact, all the research says it’s imperative to talk after something like that.’
She gave him a wry smile. ‘With a team member who has his hands on me.’
‘Hand, singular. One hand.’ Reluctantly he took his hand away. ‘And now it’s gone. More than once you’ve wanted to make me feel better and you’ve helped. I was reciprocating. But...’ How to put it into words when they weren’t allowed to talk about it? ‘You know...’
‘I do.’ She looked up at him from under lashes that were impossibly long, framing dark eyes that were serious and laughter-filled at the same time. She was so achingly beautiful it made his heart hurt. ‘It seems that we can’t be trusted to be on our own.’
He laughed, but she was right. One more moment and things could have got seriously complicated. More complicated. ‘It seems that way. Probably a good idea if we travel in packs from now on, so we’re not in a position to get carried away. If you’re feeling better I’m going to head back to the medical room and see if they need me.’
With a bit of luck he’d be kept busy for the next twenty-six days.
‘I’m feeling a lot better. Wait—’ She grabbed his closed fist and brought it close to her lips. Kissed each knuckle. Her gaze latched onto his with so much wanting it almost had him stripping her naked right there. Not touching her was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. She swallowed. Breathed out slowly. ‘Thank you for the hot chocolate. And...you know, everything.’
‘My pleasure.’ And it was. But he walked away before he did something reckless, like kiss her again. She had too much to lose by getting involved with him. He had nothing to give her except a life of sand and dust and restlessness.
CHAPTER SIX
A FEW DAYS later the sea was starting to calm and they’d picked up no more refugees since Mariam’s boatload. The sun was peeking through thin clouds and Claire was enjoying sitting on deck reading a book, taking advantage of the quiet morning.
Well, she was making a good pretence of reading while watching Akil teach Ethan the intricacies of tying sailing knots with a huge coil of rope they used when they moored at port. From this vantage point she could see the concentration on Ethan’s face as he tied and untied the knots, the look of relief and pleasure when he got it right. Determination when he got things wrong. When he concentrated, a lock of hair fell over his face and he pressed his lips together in a tight smile. His hands held the rope as if he’d been born a sailor, wide shoulders capable of carrying far more than his fair share of the workload—and he did. He was compassionate and yet sexy. Funny and serious...
Saved by Their One-Night Baby Page 8