Claiming His Pregnant Princess

by Annie O'Neil

  “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” the boy answered.

  “This is Ryan.” Jamie pulled a hard plastic brace out of his case. “He’s got quite a few ideas about his own treatment, but first I think we need to slip a neck brace on him. What do you say, Ryan?”

  The boy began to nod in agreement, then winced.

  “Easy, amore,” Beatrice cautioned. “I love your enthusiasm, but how about we keep all responses verbal rather than physical?” She held eye contact with the boy until she’d received an okay and a smile. “And is this little bit of extra equipment coming or going?” Her eyes shot to the small blood stain slowly spreading out from the wound on the front of his T-shirt. Ryan had yet to spot it.

  “It’s one of the tent poles,” Ryan volunteered shakily. “I was holding the tent kit in my seat so I could be ready to set up camp.”

  “You sound like me when I was in the Scouts.” Jamie smiled at the memory of his escapades in the woods. When being a child was all that he’d had to worry about.

  “I’m not a Scout,” Ryan corrected. “I’m a wilderness expert! If my leg’s broken, we can pull out this tent pole and break it in two and then use it as a splint. And if it grows too dark, I can start a fire with my flint stone. It’s here in my pocket.”

  He began moving his hand toward his jeans pocket.

  “Hold on there, pal. No need for fires just yet. Your leg’s looking all right. Let’s just try to stay as still as possible, okay, Ryan?” Jamie laughed at the boy. “As much as I’d like to take it out, I think Dr. Jesolo will agree with me that the tent pole is probably holding more together than ripping it apart.”

  Beatrice gave an affirmative nod. A surge of energy heated his chest. This was what it had been like in “the good old days.” A real team. Better than that. A dynamic duo.

  “What would happen if you took it out?” Ryan asked after giving a disappointed sigh.

  “Well...” Jamie rocked his weight back on his heels. He always had to play things carefully with his pediatric patients. Kids were smart. They liked information and they could tell when he was holding back. Then again, they were kids and as enthused as Ryan was, terrifying him with details about bleeding out wasn’t the object of the game.

  “What do you say we leave it in place until we get you to a proper OR? That way if there’s any blood loss they’ll be able to sort you out straightaway. In the meantime we’re going to hook you up to an IV to get some fluids and a bit of pain relief running around your system. How does that sound?”

  “Cool! I’ve always wanted to see what it was like in an operating theater. Especially if I’m arriving in a helicopter!”

  “Are you planning to be a doctor?” Beatrice asked, while Jamie began cutting away the youngster’s shirt so he could get a better look.

  He laughed along with her when Ryan announced that he planned to set up his own clinic in the woods to treat both humans and bears.

  “Oops! Try your best not to move, amore.”

  Ryan’s breathing shifted as they laughed, quickly becoming labored, indicating that the pole might have nicked one of his lungs. Pneumothoraxes could be fatal. But they didn’t have to be.

  Jamie did a quick run of stats. “Blood pressure is stable. Pulse is high.”

  “Not surprising, given then circumstances. When is the next helicopter due?” Beatrice asked, giving him a quick glance before they both turned to look up at the darkening sky. Dusk was just beginning to set in, and getting as many of the children out of the bus before the sun set was crucial.

  “When do I get to ride in a helicopt—ow! It hurts.”

  “I know, mate. We’re going to get you something for the pain.” He looked across at Beatrice. “We can’t use topical numbing agents. Can you hold on to the pole while I check if it’s a through and through?”

  “Me?” Ryan asked in disbelief.

  “No, amore. I’ll do that,” said Beatrice. “You just concentrate on staying still. I know it’s tough, but you’re doing so well.”

  Beatrice gave Jamie a nod, indicating that she was ready, quickly folding the trauma pads he handed her in half and then placing them on either side of the metal rod.

  “How many more pads do you need?”

  “Are you pulling it out?” Ryan’s voice was straining against the pain now.

  “Not yet, Ryan.” Jamie ran a hand along the boy’s creased brow. “We’re just seeing how far this bad boy has penetrated.”

  “A couple more pads, please.” Beatrice held out a hand. “That should be enough to stabilize the rod up to the halfway point. Enough to turn him over and check for the through and through.”

  Jamie quickly handed her the extra folded dressing pads, which she laid crossways to the layer below, gently pressing on them as Jamie slipped both his hands under the boy’s side and ducked to take a quick look.

  “No.” He shook his head, lowering the boy as carefully as he could back to the ground. “It didn’t come through.”

  “Aw...” Ryan lifted his hand to the tent pole but Jamie quickly trapped the small fingers in his own, pressing them firmly to the ground. He couldn’t help but laugh. “Were you hoping for a through and through, pal?”

  “A little...” Ryan tried lifting himself up again, and instantly started gasping for air.

  “I’m just going to put this oxygen mask on you, Ryan. It should help your breathing.” Beatrice lowered her voice and continued to speak, ducking her head away from Ryan’s eye line to Jamie’s as she did so. “Do you think the pole could’ve cracked any ribs on entry?”

  “Tough to tell at this point. Best thing we can do is stabilize him as much as possible and get him to a hospital.”

  Jamie tugged his medical kit closer. He’d need to pull out the works on this one.

  “Ryan?” A mother’s frantic tones broke through the hum of voices. With so many children injured and receiving treatment, only a mother would be calling for one boy in particular. “Ryan!”

  The calls began to fade as quickly as they’d risen. From the sounds of it she’d made a quick scan of the medical triage site and, having missed her son, was now working her way back toward the crash site.

  Jamie pressed down on the boy’s shoulders, knowing he would want to respond if it was his parent.

  “Mum?” Ryan fought for breath to say it again—scream it—but found himself fighting for breath. Tears sprang to his eyes as he whispered, “I want my mum!”

  “I know you do, mate. We’ll get her, but you’ve got to stay put—all right?” He looked up to Beatrice. “Can you find her? Ryan? C’mon. Stay with us, mate. Can you tell me what your surname is?”

  “Cooper...” Ryan’s voice was barely audible as the blood began to drain from his face.

  “There’s swelling of the subcutaneous tissues,” Beatrice said quietly.

  “I’m going to have to put in a chest tube.”

  “Thoracotomy?” she asked.

  “Needle decompression. Are you all right to find the mother?”

  If he acted fast, he could get it done and restore the boy’s oxygen flow. It would be less frightening for the mother to see her son with a needle and a valve in his chest than gasping for breath.

  “Absolutely. I’ll check on the helicopter, as well.”

  The low-altitude trip to the hospital might necessitate a chest drain, as well. He’d wait for Beatrice to return to put that in.

  Jamie nodded his thanks, noticing as she rose, how her hands slid protectively to her stomach. It was the second or third time that day he’d seen her repeat the gesture. He wondered if she’d hurt herself—got a cut or scrape in all the frantic lifting and carrying of children from the bus to the triage tarps. Adrenaline ran so high during incidents like these it was easy enough to get injured while trying to help those in need.
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  She was gone before he could ask. Jamie shook his head, turning to his medical kit to rake through his supplies. It was hardly the time to speculate on things that weren’t critical medical issues. Then again, maybe his not paying attention was what had lost him Beatrice’s affections in the first place.

  But his not paying attention now could cost this child his life.

  Jamie blinkered his vision so it was on Ryan, forcing himself to drown out all of the other stimuli whirling around them. The sirens, the crying children, the screech and scream of the fire department’s Jaws of Life still extracting children from the seats that had virtually fallen like dominoes in on each other.

  The fact they’d only lost the driver so far was little short of divine intervention. Three children had already been flown out to a large hospital near Milan. Ryan was the last critical case they had here. The yellow team were busy with a lot of cuts, sprains and a few broken bones. The compound fractures had already been sent off by ambulance. So it was just him and Ryan right now on helicopter watch.

  He pulled on a fresh pair of gloves, and by touch located the second intercostal space on Ryan’s chest. Using his other hand, he swiped at the area with an iodine-based swab, then deftly inserted a large-bore needle just above the boy’s third rib. Holding the needle perpendicular to Ryan’s chest, he leaned in, listening for the telltale hissing sound of air escaping.

  A sigh of relief huffed out of his own chest at the noise, and he quickly set to removing the needle, leaving the catheter in place while opening the cannula to air.

  “Ryan? Ryan!”

  Jamie looked up from securing the final piece of tape to see a woman running at full speed toward him, calling out her son’s name.

  Beatrice was just behind her, one hand on her belly as it had been before and the other on her back. When her eyes met Jamie’s she stopped cold, her hands dropping to her sides, her expression completely horrified.

  As quickly as he’d registered her dismay, it disappeared, and Beatrice joined the woman who had dropped to her knees beside her son and began answering the inevitable flood of queries, her hand slowly, but somehow inevitably, creeping to the small of her back.

  A thousand questions were running through Jamie’s mind and they should have all be about his patient. But every single thought in his head was building up to one shocking realization.

  Beatrice was pregnant.

  * * *

  “The helicopter is on its way back.” Bea braved looking into Jamie’s eyes. “They think it’ll be here in ten, maybe fifteen, minutes.” Flinching at the wobble in her voice, she just prayed no one else noticed it.

  “Right.”

  The monosyllabic answer was all the proof Bea needed.

  Jamie knew. She’d seen it in his eyes. He knew she was carrying a child.

  She’d been doing her best to hide the intense cramping that had hit her throughout the afternoon, but this latest bout of running must have exacerbated things. Fear suddenly gripped her. Her concentration on the injured children had been so intense she hadn’t bothered connecting the dots.

  She was twelve weeks pregnant now. Still within that window where miscarriage was, for many women, a constant worry. She’d never been pregnant before, so had no idea how her body would respond to pregnancy. So far it had been the typical symptoms: tender breasts, nausea and sharp hits of fatigue. She’d been careful. Or so she’d thought. Keeping her shifts at the clinic to a minimum, but regular enough so as not to raise any alarms.

  “I think you will need to go with Ryan.”

  She only just heard Jamie through the roar of her thoughts.

  “No.” She shook her head solidly. “Absolutely not. His mother should go with him. There’s not much room on the chopper.”

  “Which is why you should go. Mrs. Cooper...”

  Bea watched as Jamie did what he did best. Calmed. Soothed.

  “We can get you transported down to the hospital so that you’ll be there in good time to meet him coming out of surgery.”

  “Oh, no...” Mrs. Cooper began shaking her head, too worried to take on the looks shooting between Jamie and Bea.

  Why couldn’t he just stay out of this?

  “I absolutely insist that Mrs. Cooper flies with her son to the hospital,” Bea finally interjected as she and Jamie tossed the subject back and forth over Ryan’s supine form. No need for the eight-year-old to have a battle over his transport reach epic proportions when all he needed was to hear his mum’s voice and the uplifting whir of a helicopter on approach.

  “Excuse us for a moment,” Jamie said, giving Mrs. Cooper’s arm a quick squeeze before rising and tipping his head toward a clearing a few meters away from the triage site. He stopped there and turned to face Bea, his expression deadly serious. “You need to go to the hospital.”

  “What makes you think that?” She knew she was buying time, but telling Jamie she was pregnant because of a ridiculous cover-up of her ex-fiancé’s infertility now...? It would be madness.

  Suddenly the shame of it all—the full impact of just how far she had gone to keep the family name golden—hit her like a ton of bricks. Had she really thought she could keep her pregnancy secret? And why should she?

  Having this baby was the one good thing that had come out of that mess and yet here she was again—hiding the truth despite her vow to do otherwise.

  Bea blinked, certain she could hear Jamie replying to her question, but all his words were beginning to blur. A swell of nausea began to swirl and rise from her belly as a sharp pain gripped and seized her. She reached out. Her thoughts were muddled. No matter how many times she blinked, her vision was blurring. And as the swell of sensations reached critical mass, darkness fell.

  CHAPTER NINE

  BEA HEARD THE beeping first.

  A heart-rate monitor. She shifted. The sensation of wires sliding along her bare skin brought her to a higher level of alertness. They were taped on. She could feel it now. High up on the exposed skin near her clavicle. On her belly... She wiggled her left hand. There was a clip on her finger.

  The heart rate was her own.

  Panic seized her and she squeezed her eyes tight shut against the dark thoughts.

  Please let my baby be alive!

  Not yet ready to open her eyes and face what might be a dark reality, she listened acutely, forcing herself to mark the cadence of the small pips indicating her heart rate.

  After a swift rush of high beeps the sounds leveled to a steady rhythm. Faster than normal, but not surprising under the circumstances. She was pregnant. Her heart rate was meant to be elevated. Her heart was pumping more blood—an ever-increasing amount as the baby grew—through her womb, her body, her heart.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  Like the beats of a metronome, the heart monitor was telling her she was stable. But all her thoughts were for her child.

  Another layer of awareness prickled to attention when she heard light footsteps and the sound of a door opening. Then the sound of Jamie’s voice. His wonderful, caramel-rich voice. Assuring a nurse in English that Beatrice must have just had low blood sugar or not enough sleep. He was sure that there wasn’t anything to be worried about. Not yet anyway. Best to leave her to rest for a while. In private.

  She heard the nurse leave but not Jamie.

  For a few blissful moments her thoughts took on a dreamlike quality. She was together with him. They were going to have a child together. Be a family.

  Everything in her relaxed, then just as quickly tensed as the click of the door reminded her that they were in the Torpisi Clinic. She was pregnant by a stranger. Her secret was now public.

  She swallowed. This was the moment she’d been dreading most. The judgment, the disappointment and ultimately the indifference she was sure she would see in Jamie’s eyes.


  Her pulse quickened as she heard him approach, tug a wheeled stool across to her bedside. She felt his touch before her eyes fluttered open to see his handsome face.

  His hand was lifting to tease away the tendrils of hair no doubt gone completely haywire over her forehead when he noticed she was awake. He pulled his hand away and pushed back from the side of the bed—as if he’d been caught trying to steal a kiss and she were Sleeping Beauty.

  If only things were so simple.

  Her fingers twitched. Aching to reach out to him. To hold his hand. Feel the warmth of his touch. The desire was urgent. Insatiable. Her hands began to move toward her stomach when fear gripped her. She wasn’t ready to go there yet.

  “How are you feeling?” Jamie asked from the other side of the room, where he was briskly washing his hands as if scrubbing them with antiseptic would erase everything he’d been thinking or feeling.

  She’d heard that tone so many times before. The caring doctor. The doctor who was there to help, but was keeping his emotions in check because he had to.

  He shook the water off his hands and turned to her as he toweled them dry.

  She parted her lips to speak, surprised at how dry they were. “Thirsty...” she managed, before closing her lids against the deep green of Jamie’s eyes.

  “Here.” He elevated her bed with the electronic toggle. “I’ve got some water for you.”

  He handed her the glass, holding the base of it as she took a sip and then braved a glance at him.

  Jamie knew. He knew she was pregnant. Why else would he have had her put in a private room? Hooked up monitors to her belly? And yet he still had room in his heart to be kind. Gentle. Caring for her in a moment that was making it more than clear that she’d chosen another over him.

  She ached to blurt out the real story. Tell him it wasn’t what he thought. Tell him she’d loved him all along. But to explain the whole ill-conceived story would only diminish what he must already be thinking of her. Very little.

  She’d seen it in his eyes as the weeks had passed. That famed cool British reserve coming to his rescue time and time again. Just when she’d thought they’d be able to try out a fledgling friendship... Slam! Down had gone the shutters, crushing her hope that...that what? She could turn back time and have him back again?