The Surgeon's Miracle Baby

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘What about…?’ the young man started coughing. Too weak to get the words out, he scribbled a few words on the whiteboard. Daniel read them and looked directly at Jordan, who was now avoiding his eyes.

  ‘Do you mean will he address your lifestyle before the accident?’

  Jordan gave a small embarrassed nod.

  ‘That’s up to you. You’ll get out of counselling what you put into it, but given that you’ve been given a second chance at life maybe now might be a good time to make some lifestyle changes. But that’s entirely your choice. I’m certainly not here to give you a lecture.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Jordan didn’t manage to get the word out—he mouthed it—but Louise knew that Daniel’s words had hit their mark. That was confirmed when a knock on the door heralded the arrival of lunch and Daniel picked up the stainless-steel lid and stared down at the unappetising mushy pile of food.

  ‘Try your best,’ he said, ‘and if you can’t manage that, then have mashed banana or an ice cream or something. But you have to try.’

  And try he did. After just a short hesitation, Jordan poured out his fortified milk drink for himself and then, without prompting, picked up his fork to start eating the minced chicken and mashed potato. Even if it was just a small start, it was a good one, but the smile on Louise’s face as she met Daniel’s eyes rapidly faded, horror drenching her as she felt a familiar tingle in her breasts and a telltale cold patch spreading across her blouse. Embarrassed and feeling horribly, horribly exposed, she watched as Daniel’s smile faded to one of confusion, until his knowing eyes finally took in what was happening. Louise, bright red with humiliation, folded her arms across her chest and practically ran for the door.

  ‘Louise,’ he called out down the corridor, but she wasn’t listening, just grateful that he couldn’t follow her as he would have to excuse himself first to Jordan, grateful that most of the staff were in handover now, and that she could make it to the staff changing room without anyone else seeing her.

  Ripping off her soaked blouse, she grabbed a theatre top from the bench and put it on, embarrassed tears coursing down her flaming cheeks as she attempted to dry her bra under the hand dryer, appalled not just at what had happened but that it happened in front of him, that Daniel had had to be the one to witness this excruciatingly embarrassing incident.

  ‘Louise.’ His sharp rap at the door just made things worse. ‘I’ve bought you a theatre top.’

  ‘I’ve got one,’ she called back, her thick voice not managing to cover up her tears. She watched the handle move on the communal change-room door, knowing he was coming in but desperate not see him. ‘Just go away, Daniel.

  ‘Please,’ she added, ignoring Daniel as he strode in, turning her red, tear-streaked face away from him, concentrating on drying the ugliest maternity bra in the history of the universe and wondering what on earth she’d done to deserve this horrible moment. ‘Will you just leave me alone?’

  ‘Please, don’t be embarrassed, Louise,’ Daniel wasn’t going anywhere—in fact, he was coming over. Her whole body cringed with mortification as he stepped right into her personal space. ‘This is me, remember, not someone you don’t know.’

  ‘It’s because it is you,’ Louise gulped.

  ‘Hey, I’m the guy who this time last week was lying, legs in stirrups, on a theatre table, who had the entire hospital discussing…’ He didn’t elaborate, but he did manage to drag out a tiny shiver of a smile. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he said, pulling her into his arms, which was the first and last place she wanted to be. ‘I should have just let you go to lunch. It never even entered my head that you needed to go and feed Declan.’

  He was holding her, and no matter what way she tried to look at it, by no stretch of the imagination was he holding her as a colleague. His head was buried in her hair, his strong arms wrapped around her as he tried to goad her out of her embarrassment. It hurt, actually hurt, to be held by him, to glimpse all she had lost, all the moments in time he had ripped away from them, his arms a dangerous place to be.

  So why did it feel like the safest place? Louise wondered as she gave in and leant on him, allowed him to soothe away her discomfort, allowed herself to lean on him for just this little while. Why, after months and months of hell, when Daniel Ashwood had been the source of her pain, the sole reason for the spinning mess her life was in now, did it all melt into insignificance the moment he held her?

  ‘You’re making things worse,’ she attempted, feebly trying and gladly failing to push him off.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Daniel asked, and something in his voice unsettled and angered her. He truly didn’t seem to know just how difficult this was, that the attraction was still there for her, hadn’t for a single second gone away.

  How could he not know how lonely it felt to be held in his arms and not be able to have all of him?

  But maybe he did know, Louise thought as he pulled back just enough to look down at her, because the eyes that were holding her now seemed just as confused and bewildered as her own, his voice for once hesitant when it finally came. ‘We need to talk, Louise.’

  ‘To say what exactly?’ A jolt of unease ripped through her—that now might be the moment for confession, for the truth that was so obvious to finally come out.

  ‘Why do you think I’m here?’ Daniel asked. ‘Louise, why do you think I came here?’

  ‘Because I was upset, because—’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about the locker room!’ He let out a low, mirthless laugh, shook his head as if she’d spoken a foreign language. ‘Louise—we can’t talk here. Why don’t we go out tonight? Just for a drink, to talk.’

  ‘No.’ In one self-preserving movement she pushed him away, unable to tolerate the intimacy a moment longer. The pain he had caused was too recent and too raw to be obliterated by a tender moment in a locker room. A drink with Daniel Ashwood was the last thing she needed right now. She wasn’t going to play along with whatever game he was leading her to this time. She had other responsibilities now—Declan to think of. She had just clawed her way back from the pit of despair Daniel had so readily thrown her into, but he wasn’t letting her go anywhere, his hands capturing hers and holding them tightly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘because I sure as hell can’t go on like this, Louise, and I don’t think you can either.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘SO THIS is your baby?’

  Horribly awkward in jeans that felt way too tight and the most hurried make-up job in history, devoid of perfume because she hadn’t been able to find it, Louise carefully placed Declan in his car seat on the floor before taking her seat at the table, grateful that Daniel was already there and she didn’t have to sit in the bar in a high state of anxiety, attempting to feign nonchalance till he arrived.

  ‘Maggie was out,’ Louise explained as best she could with a mouth that was impossibly dry. ‘I hope you don’t mind me bringing him.’

  ‘Of course not. He’s gorgeous, Louise.’ Daniel peered down at the sleeping baby and Louise held her breath, wondering how he couldn’t see the resemblance, how his face wasn’t breaking into a look of stunned recognition as he unwittingly glimpsed his son for the first time. ‘He looks like you.’

  And you!

  ‘Do you want something to eat?’ Daniel offered, his voice a touch stilted, and Louise realised that, despite his cool, suited appearance, he was as nervous as her.

  ‘I really don’t have time,’ Louise answered honestly. ‘He’s due to be fed in an hour or so.’ She watched as his eyes flicked across the room to another table, where the epitome of Mother Earth was chatting, eating and laughing as a very relaxed baby consumed her dinner. She knew Daniel thought she was making excuses, knew that she had to set the record very straight here, let him know how it really was for her now, let him glimpse the reality of parenting before he even tried to step in.

  ‘Declan’s got no manners,’ Louise said with a dry smile in her voice. ‘Either that or I’m
just not very good at it—it’s more naked from the waist up on the couch than discreet feeding in a bar at the moment.’

  He blushed—actually blushed. Oh, there was no whoosh of scarlet on that dignified face, but there was certainly a hint of pink on his sculpted cheeks as he asked what she’d like to drink.

  ‘Just an orange juice, please.’

  ‘Sure. You know I’m on call, that if I’m paged I might have to go…’

  ‘Daniel!’ She halted him with a single word, their eyes meeting for the first time since she’d sat down—as if she didn’t know how things worked, as if he had to tell her how the night might end. They’d had many nights shattered by his pager in the past—that much hadn’t changed at least.

  She watched his back as he stood at the bar, ordering their drinks, a smile flicking across her face as he picked them up then almost instantly put them down and selected a straw for her—remembering one of the many little details that when put together had once made them a couple.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Cheers!’

  ‘How was Jordan after lunch?’

  ‘A bit better,’ Louise said, which killed that conversation stone dead.

  God, it was awful, sitting in a bar making stilted awkward conversation when it had once flowed so easily between them, but by the time she was sucking the ice from her orange juice and had declined a packet of nuts twice, finally he opened up a touch.

  ‘I’ve no idea what to say.’ He gave a rueful grin, and the loaded atmosphere lightened a touch, his honesty at the awkwardness of the situation a welcome relief.

  ‘You said we had a lot to talk about.’ Louise gave her own rueful smile. ‘Then again, talking never was one of your strong points.’

  ‘Louise, we talked all the time.’

  ‘No, Daniel, we didn’t,’ Louise said softly, in a non-argumentative tone. ‘I talked and you listened.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Daniel insisted.

  ‘But it is,’ Louise affirmed. ‘Sure, we talked about our day and about us, but I was going over things and I can see now that for the most part I was the one always opening up, telling you things about my friends, my family, my life before you.’ She looked at him through narrowed eyes. ‘What did you mean today when you said to Jordan that you know it was the wrong thing to do?’

  ‘That has absolutely nothing to do with this.’

  ‘It has everything to do with this.’ Anger crept in then, her hand tightening around the glass as she spoke, tempted to slam it onto the table, as if somehow the noise, the gesture might break down the invisible wall he always had and still was putting up. ‘Because it’s another example of how little I know you, how one-sided our—for want of a word—relationship really was!’

  ‘So you weren’t happy?’

  ‘I was very happy,’ Louise countered, watching the confusion in his eyes at her answer. ‘I thought in time you’d tell me, figured that when you were ready to, you’d open up a bit more, that it was just your way—only you ended it before we got there.’

  ‘I was always open with you.’

  ‘You’ve never been open with me, Daniel.’ The woman she was now stared back at him, a year’s worth of hindsight a wonderful thing as she faced this most difficult conversation. ‘You were wonderful and loving and incredibly supportive, but at some point you’d made up your mind to end it, at some point it was over for us, yet you never hinted at a problem—you never considered telling me until the very end.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that!’ For once he was uncomfortable, the suave, arrogant man fading a touch as he looked away and fiddled with the neck of his shirt while his other hand swirled the ice in his empty glass. ‘Louise, I made a mistake that night—perhaps the biggest mistake of my life—and I realised it almost the moment you left. You didn’t exactly give me a chance to apologise, you were practically on the next flight home.’

  ‘Because you hurt me, Daniel.’

  ‘You’re the reason I’m here.’ Finally he managed to look at her, no doubt taking in the shocked expression on her face but thankfully not commenting. ‘Believe me, I wasn’t in the market for a sea-change, Louise. I loved my job in London—you know that as well as I do—but after you’d left it held no appeal. I realised what I’d thrown away…’

  ‘So why didn’t you look me up?’ Louise croaked, stunned by his admission. ‘You’ve been in the country all this time and you never even thought to contact me.’

  ‘It was all I thought about,’ Daniel answered. ‘But I wanted to be settled, wanted to find somewhere decent to live—which I have now.’ He raked a hand through his hair and blew out a long breath. ‘I suppose I was putting it off—I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how you’d react.’ His eyes met hers then and she flinched at the agony she witnessed in them. ‘And I didn’t know you’d have a baby. That, unlike me, you would have moved on.’

  ‘You don’t move on when you have a baby, Daniel.’ She spoke very slowly, very clearly, because it was imperative that this much he understood. ‘Your entire existence revolves around getting through the day. I’m up at five-thirty to feed and dress him—that’s before I’ve had a coffee or a shower and packed his bags for a day in the crèche. Then I start work—’

  ‘I get the picture.’

  ‘No, Daniel, you don’t,’ Louise insisted. ‘I thought I knew, or at least had some idea, but until you’ve got that little person in your life, you’ve no idea how much it consumes you, the sheer responsibility it entails.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Perhaps more than most, because I’ve never envisaged having children, Louise—till now.’ His voice was raw, appealing for her to understand with his eyes, to not interrupt, to let him say what he had to. ‘It’s just never been a part of my future and I still don’t know if it’s what I want. I don’t know if I want to raise another man’s child…’

  And the easiest thing in the world would have been to tell him, to tell this man that not for a moment had she moved on, not for a single second had she left him behind. But it was perhaps the most dangerous thing she could do. If she told him now, told Daniel that Declan was actually his, then things would change for ever. The last thing she wanted was to be tied to Daniel for ever in child maintenance and visitation rights, arguments and hostility. The only tie Louise wanted binding her was love.

  ‘I never get a full week off.’

  ‘Sorry?’ She frowned.

  ‘Normally, I’ve got some work to do in that time, or a project I’ve been putting off, but for the first time in the longest time I’ve been lying on the sofa—only in my case it was naked from the waist down…’ He gave a tiny smile of triumph as he lobbed the joke back and Louise gave a little blush of her own. ‘Thinking,’ he said softly. ‘Thinking about you, thinking about us, thinking about him…’ He stared down at Declan, who was stirring now, his little nose sniffing the unfamiliar air. Louise knew that the clock was ticking, that she had only five, maybe ten minutes to deal with the most important conversation of her life. ‘What if we start again?’

  ‘Start again?’ She was popping Declan’s thumb in his mouth, trying to buy them both just a little more time, trying to think of a suitable answer to the question she knew was coming.

  ‘Take things slowly, I don’t know, go out on dates, get to know each other—really get to know each other—and see where it leads.’

  Let him in again.

  ‘And what if it doesn’t work?’ Louise asked. ‘What if you again suddenly decide that we’re not what you want? I’ve got a baby now, Daniel. It’s not fair on him to bring people into his life who might just walk out and leave.’

  ‘I admit I don’t know much about babies,’ Daniel said, ‘but we’re not talking about a two-year-old here, Louise. If we can’t make it work, if I can’t accept…’ His voice faded for a second, but he recovered quickly. ‘Surely it’s better to try now than in a couple of years—it isn’t going to damage him.’

  ‘Just his mother,�
� Louise responded heavily.

  ‘You were right,’ Daniel said, breaking into her jumbled thoughts. ‘I haven’t always said what I was thinking, what I’m feeling. What if I told you that I’d try? What if I told you that I will do my best to—’

  ‘You can’t even say it!’ Surprising herself, Louise managed a tiny giggle and watched as a very reluctant smile ghosted his lips. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t know if I can risk being hurt by you all over again. I’d trust you with my life, Daniel, but I don’t know if I can trust you with my heart.’

  A loud bleep halted her and for once it wasn’t Daniel’s pager going off but Louise’s mobile. Fishing in her bag, she pulled it out and glanced at the message on her screen.

  HOW R U!!!! Dying to hear!

  ‘Maggie,’ Louise said.

  ‘She’s worried about you?’

  She looked at him, looked right at him as she answered. ‘Do you blame her?’

  ‘Will you think about what I’ve said?’

  ‘Of course.’ Louise nodded, and clearly Daniel really had no idea how women’s minds worked. As if he had to ask her to think about it! Didn’t he realise that it was all she was going to be thinking about, that the obsessive, compulsive mind of a woman in love was already dissecting and analysing the content of the conversation and trying to come up with a very neat conclusion.

  ‘I have to go.’ She truly did. On cue, navy eyes peeped open, followed a tenth of a second later by a bellowing, hungry cry that demanded his mother’s attention. He angrily spat out the tiny thumb Louise attempted to placate him with. Staring down at his sweet, innocent face, she simultaneously berated and was grateful for the fact he looked so much like his father, knew that for the rest of her life, with every smile, every flash of blue eyes, she’d be reminded of all she might lose if she didn’t say yes to dating Daniel.

  If she didn’t load the gun and play a game of Russian roulette with her heart.

  ‘Do you want me to carry—’

  ‘My emotional baggage?’ Louise attempted a joke, but her throat was thick with tears as with a mixture of strength and tenderness he easily picked up the car seat she usually struggled with and walked along the pavement beside her. And Louise knew with a stab of longing that to the world they must look like any other little family, out enjoying a balmy Melbourne evening. Worse, she thought as Daniel rather clumsily strapped the car seat in for her, they were another little family.