by Amy Andrews
‘You OK, Beth?’ Rilla asked.
‘Sorry.’ Beth grimaced, sinking into her chair. ‘I’ve been close to throwing up all morning and food’s the only thing that helps.’
‘So you’ve been feeling nauseated,’ Rilla said as she sat in her usual chair, ‘and you fainted this morning.’
Beth looked at both her sisters. ‘Hell, you heard about that already?’ She looked at her watch. Three hours. Even for the General that was fast.
‘Well, actually, I heard that you’d had a seizure.’ Hailey shrugged, sitting down as well, ‘But Rilla assured me it was only a faint.’
‘Exactly.’ Beth nodded. ‘Just a little faint. I think I’m coming down with a virus or something.’
‘But you’re never sick,’ Hailey snorted.
‘Maybe I’m a little rundown. I’ve been really tired the last few days. I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep.’
A knock at her door interrupted the conversation and three sets of eyes turned to greet Gabe as he appeared in the doorway.
He exchanged pleasantries with Rilla and Hailey and then frowned at Beth. ‘I didn’t expect to see you still here. You should have gone home.’
‘That’s what I said,’ Rilla said.
Beth ignored them both. ‘You finished the list OK?’
Gabe nodded. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ she assured him testily. Everyone in Theatres, it seemed, had ‘popped in’ to check on her and she was getting heartily sick of it.
‘Hey.’ Gabe laughed, holding up his hands. ‘Just asking. If you’re going to make a habit of fainting in my theatre, I’d like to be forewarned.’
Beth shot him a thunderous look. She was feeling woozy again which made her cranky. ‘Fainting once in thirty-eight years is not a habit,’ she snapped. ‘Was there anything else?’
Gabe backed out of the doorway, his eyebrows raised at Beth’s sisters.
‘What?’ Beth demanded moments later as her sisters fixed her with puzzled stares.
‘Are you sure you’re OK, Beth?’ Rilla asked.
Beth sighed. ‘Yes,’ she said wearily, staving off more nausea. ‘I’m just tired and light-headed and feel like throwing up all the time. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
‘Well, if it was anyone but you and your non-existent sex life, I’d tell them to do a pregnancy test,’ Hailey said. ‘You have all the classic symptoms.’
Beth blinked and stared at Hailey open-mouthed. And then she laughed and her sisters joined her. That was completely preposterous!
The next morning, though, as Beth heaved into the toilet, the notion didn’t seem so out there. Her period was late. Nothing out of the ordinary for her. She’d always had an erratic cycle. Anything up to seven weeks wasn’t unusual for her. She’d been on the Pill to regulate it for years but she’d stopped taking it a while ago, wanting to give her body a break, and hadn’t bothered to go back on it.
But it couldn’t be possible. She and Gabe had used condoms. Yes, they weren’t one hundred per cent infallible but they were pretty damn close. Had there been a faulty one that neither of them had noticed? Surely not. She was thirty-eight, for crying out loud—she should be practically infertile at her age.
Still, a tiny worm of excitement burrowed into her heart as she drove to work. The thought that she might be carrying a baby was overwhelming. The thing she’d wanted most since she’d been fifteen and her baby boy had been taken from her. Pregnant? A second chance? A baby to fill her arms and her life? Was she going to finally get a chance at being a mother?
The nausea haunted her throughout the day and she snacked constantly to keep it at bay. The worm of excitement burrowed deeper as she hugged the possible pregnancy to herself. She tried really hard not to get carried away but it occupied her every thought.
She shouldn’t be excited. She knew that. When it turned out to be just a virus, she’d feel like a right idiot. And at her age, with no partner, set in her ways and a fantastic career, a baby should be a horrifying thought. Heaven alone knew what people would say. The hospital grapevine would be rife with rumours and speculation.
And then there was Gabe. She’d learnt enough about him to know that a baby would be an inconvenience to his career plans, as he had been an inconvenience to his father’s. That he had a bright future which did not involve a family. She doubted very much whether he would welcome the idea of being a father.
But she knew one thing for sure. If she was pregnant she didn’t need Gabe and she didn’t give a fig for who thought what about her. She could do it without him. She was mature and financially secure—two things she hadn’t been twenty-three years ago. And she was damned if she’d squander a second chance at being a mother.
Beth stopped in at a pharmacy on her way home that night and bought a home pregnancy test kit. She couldn’t stand the speculation any longer. She had to know one way or the other.
She dumped her bag on the dining-room table and headed straight for the bathroom, brown chemist packet in hand. One minute later two pink stripes appeared before her eyes.
Two. Pink. Stripes.
Beth stared at the stick in disbelief. She shut her eyes and opened them again.
Two. Pink. Stripes.
She picked the test strip up and sat on the edge of the bath, looking at it. Her heart swelled with an emotion so overwhelming she felt tears prick her eyes. She smiled and then she laughed as tears brimmed and then fell down her cheeks. She wiped at them as she grinned like an idiot at the stick. She was pregnant. She really was pregnant.
‘Hi, there, little guy,’ she said, looking down at her flat stomach, cradling it with her hand.
Beth stood and looked at herself in the mirror. She wiped at her red eyes and blotchy face then turned to one side and smoothed her shirt over her abdomen. She took a deep breath and pushed her stomach out as far as it would go. She admired the artificial bump, swinging slightly from side to side to inspect the look from all angles.
She remembered doing the same thing twenty-three years ago. Although she had only been fifteen, she’d been in awe of the changes to her body and had loved how her belly had burgeoned as her baby had grown. She had known she wasn’t supposed to be happy about the pregnancy, she certainly hadn’t been allowed to want it, but she had loved the little life growing inside her so completely that secretly she’d welcomed every change to her body.
Thoughts of that time put a dampener on her rising joy. The air left her lungs and her stomach returned to its usual flatness. A seed of doubt sprouted roots. Her father’s ugly words reverberated through her head. Easy, he had called her. A slut. Irresponsible. He’d told her repeatedly she’d be a terrible mother.
All the taunts and insults that at fifteen had crushed her spirit stirred inside her now. They still burned. As much now as they had back then. Simmered in her stomach like a boiling cauldron. What would her father say now? she wondered. That she hadn’t changed? That she hadn’t learned anything? Still knocked up and alone?
She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked pale, her red-rimmed blue eyes worried, her father’s old ugly words furrowing her brow. She stared hard at her face as the chill of ancient insults battled with the evidence of her eyes. There were things in the mirror that hadn’t been there all that time ago. She was older, stronger, confident.
OK, things weren’t ideal. But she knew with sudden clarity that her father had been wrong. She would have been a damn good mother. As her body pulsed with the life of another, she knew it with absolute certainty. It would have been tough, sure. But she’d have managed because nothing would have been more important to her than her child. Just as this child was already her number-one priority.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered to her reflection apologising to the child she had never known.
She looked down at her stomach and splayed her hand across it. ‘I promise,’ she whispered. ‘I promise to be the best mother that ever existed. I promise.’
She
sat back on the edge of the bath again, her brain buzzing. So, what now? The urge to tell Rilla and Hailey was amazingly intense. They were her sisters. They may not have been blood relatives but they were sisters in every way that counted and they’d been through too much together to lock them out of such a momentous occasion in her life.
But she knew she couldn’t tell them before she told Gabe. And, frankly, she had no idea how she was going to do that. Or how he was going to react when she did.
Her sensible side was urging caution. She was, what? Beth performed a few calculations in her head—about six weeks gone. Realistically, one in four pregnancies ended in miscarriages, the odds worsening the older the mother, so at thirty-eight she was at an increased risk of losing the baby anyway.
The thought caused a physical pain in her chest and she clutched at her stomach. Please, don’t let me lose this baby too. Beth already knew she’d trade her soul to keep this baby safe.
But telling people, making it public knowledge, seemed pointless until the highest risk period, the first trimester, had passed. Which gave her about six weeks. Six weeks to figure out what she was going to say to Gabe.
And in the interim it would be her little secret. She stood again and hugged her arms around her belly, giving her reflection a furtive smile.
She was having a baby. And no one could take that from her this time. No one.
CHAPTER FIVE
BETH sat in the case conference six weeks later, her hand on her belly, her gaze fixed on the sleeping faces of Brooke and Bridie. She’d just passed the milestone of her first trimester, the morning sickness had settled and she had actually allowed herself to believe that in six months’ time she’d be holding her own baby in her arms.
Gabe was chatting with June and Scott and Erica Hamel, the plastic surgeon, about post-separation procedures to close the large residual defects at the back of the twins’ heads. She was taking notes for future resource planning but the sweet smell of soap and baby powder kept wafting her way, distracting her.
Gabe’s voice was also sidetracking her attention. Their night together two months ago still featured regularly in her dreams but had virtually faded from her head in their day-to-day dealings. Occasionally, though, she was caught unawares and his voice would hit a memory switch and she was back between the sheets with him.
She shut her eyes for a moment to dispel the fleeting but nonetheless entrancing image. June caught her eye and smiled at her. Beth blushed and smiled back. June gave her a saucy wink and Beth paled. Could June read minds? She sat up straighter and returned her attention to her notes and the conversation.
The Fishers left after their usual half-hour and Beth departed also. She was needed to scrub in this morning and she’d spared all the time she could.
‘Were you OK in there?’ June asked as they waited for the lift. ‘You looked kind of daydreamy. Like you had a secret or something.’
Beth blushed again, her hand automatically falling to her stomach. She noticed June’s speculative gaze and the urge to share was amazing. They’d got to know each other reasonably well over the weeks and Beth was so happy she wanted the world to know. She had come so close to telling Rilla and Hailey. But she knew she owed Gabe the news first.
‘Not that I can blame you for looking a little glazed. Those conversations go right over my head.’
Beth laughed. ‘I told you to butt in if you didn’t understand anything,’ she chided.
‘That would make the meetings twice as long.’ Scott joked. ‘It’s OK—we understand the basics. Our girls are in the best of hands. That’s all that matters. We have faith in Gabe.’
Beth nodded. They all did. As a neurosurgeon about to separate conjoined twins, there wasn’t anyone better. He was definitely the man. Beth just wished she could be so sure about his reaction to her pregnancy.
Another week passed, another Monday case conference, and Beth knew it was time. She couldn’t put it off any longer. The coward in her wanted to put it off for ever. After all, he didn’t have to know. She could probably keep the pregnancy disguised until after he’d left to go back home. But deep down she knew that wasn’t fair.
Her baby was Gabe’s baby also. And it was his right to know. Keeping it from him would be wrong. She didn’t want or expect anything from him. He’d already told her that his career was his priority and that a family wasn’t on his agenda. She just had to know that at the end of the day she’d been upfront.
Beth was dealing with the backlog of paperwork that inevitably came with the job. Not that she was actually taking much of it in—her internal dialogue was working overtime, building up the courage to seek Gabe out.
He was working back too, in Theatre Ten, getting in some more practice. At seven o’clock Beth could bear it no longer. Just get it over with. She threw her pen on her desk in disgust and marched towards the end of the corridor. Her entire body rocked to the hammering pulse coursing through her veins.
On her way past the storeroom she noticed some movement and stopped abruptly. All the theatres were finished for the day and the cleaning complete. ‘Is someone in there?’ she demanded at the open doorway.
David poked his head out from behind a shelf. ‘It’s just me,’ he announced.
Beth relaxed. ‘Cramming again?’ She smiled. After her suggestion, David had practically haunted the storeroom in his spare time. He’d also called in at her office often to clarify things and Beth was impressed by the young man’s dedication.
‘Big case tomorrow?’ she asked, joining him in the space between the shelves
‘I’m scrubbing in with Dr Fallon tomorrow. My first neuro case.’ He grimaced. ‘I’m just going over the instruments.’
Beth gave him an admiring nod. It was nice to see a student nurse take his work so seriously. ‘Gabe’s a good teacher,’ she said. ‘You’ll learn a lot.’
‘I thought my ears were burning.’
Gabe’s voice carried towards them and Beth’s heart banged loudly against her ribs as she stuck her head out, as David had done earlier. One thing about working in Theatres was that you rarely heard people approach. The bootees that were worn over shoes muffled everyone’s footsteps.
‘You know what they say about eavesdroppers,’ Beth chided, striving for a normal tone in her voice.
Gabe smiled at her and greeted David. ‘I see you’re scrubbing in with Kerry tomorrow on my morning list?’ he said to the student nurse.
David nodded and Gabe noticed the nervous bob of his Adam’s apple and the way the younger man constantly sought Beth’s gaze. ‘I look forward to it,’ Gabe said as he brushed past them, looking for some more artery clamps. ‘Be sure to ask me any questions.’
Gabe located a packet of clamps and departed, whistling as he went. Beth watched him leave, filling out his scrubs better than any man had a right to, and realised belatedly that she’d been on her way to talk to him. She excused herself from David, her pulse accelerating, knowing if she didn’t do it tonight she might never get round to doing it.
She stood outside the swing doors and watched Gabe through the glass panel for a moment. He was behind the operating table, bent over the silicone 3-D model of the girls’ fused craniums. Even through the panic that was twisting her stomach into knots she could see his dedication to Bridie and Brooke was absolute.
She took a deep breath and pushed through the door. He glanced up at her and then returned his attention to the vessel dissection he was working on.
‘You must know that off by heart,’ Beth said.
‘Just about.’ He grimaced, not looking up from the task. ‘That’s the purpose. As my father would have said, failure is not an option.’
Beth felt a stab of worry in her thundering heart. Everyone knew Gabe was expecting the operation to be a success but what if it wasn’t? How would he react?
‘Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, Gabe. Everyone knows, including June and Scott that the girls are up against it.’
Gabe stopped
what he was doing and glanced up at Beth. ‘I know. But, hey, third time lucky, right?’ He grinned and raised his crossed fingers.
Beth grinned back, feeling more relaxed now, and crossed her fingers also.
‘So,’ Gabe said casually, returning his attention to the model, ‘David seems to have a little crush on you.’
Beth blinked. And then blushed. She hadn’t been expecting that. ‘What? Don’t be ridiculous.’
Gabe smiled. “‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”’
‘That’s crazy,’ Beth said ignoring his quote. ‘I’m old enough to be his mother.’ Beth faltered. Wasn’t that the truth? ‘I’m a mentor figure to him, that’s all.’
Gabe laughed this time and Beth shot him a withering look. She’d come in here to announce his impending fatherhood and instead they were having a bizarre conversation about a non-existent workplace crush.
‘Relax, Beth. I’m teasing.’
She glared at him furiously. ‘Well, don’t.’
Gabe curbed his smile and tried to look chastised. He’d noticed how often David sought Beth out and didn’t think he was too far off the mark. There was certainly more than collegial feelings there on David’s behalf. He remembered the crush he’d had as a med student on his first mentor, a professor of oncology. Older, powerful women had always done it for him. Hell, he’d slept with Beth!
Gabe returned to his work, a smile still playing at the corners of his mouth, expecting Beth to leave. When she hadn’t moved a few minutes later and the weight of her stare was ruining his concentration he put the forceps down. ‘Was there something you wanted?’
Beth took a deep breath. His crush allegation had thrown her but, damn it, this had to be done and he’d just given her as good an opening as any.
‘I have to tell you something. It’s…kind of…big. I want you to promise me you’ll hear me out first before you say anything. OK?’
Gabe looked at her. She was twisting her hands in front of her and her voice sounded a little high. ‘OK.’