Steam was rising around her. Her damp, copper-red curls were dripping in tendrils to her shoulders. She was cupping the warm water to her face, and he could almost feel her relief as the heat made contact with her skin.
She was Irish. He’d heard it in her voice and he saw it now on her skin. Irish complexion, porcelain white, smooth, flawless. Her breasts were full, beautiful. Her figure—probably diminutive before—was gorgeously rounded with pregnancy. As her hands dropped from her face she looked up at him and he saw details for the first time. Green eyes, wide and clear. A generous mouth and firm chin. A snub nose and a smattering of freckles.
‘Stuff modesty, this is irresistible,’ she told him, and managed to smile. He could still hear the shake behind her voice but there was no doubting the courage behind the words.
This was a woman who’d driven for two hours in filthy weather to check on a great-aunt who didn’t like her. A woman who’d risked her life to save a dog.
Who was looking up at him now, almost naked, beautiful...
Trusting.
Because he was a doctor, he told himself harshly. That was why she trusted him. It was amazing what a medical degree conferred.
‘Can you help Maisie?’ she faltered, and he hauled his thoughts away from her—or a little away from her—and focused on priorities.
‘She’s still in the truck.’
‘Josh...’
‘If you’re a nurse then you know the drill,’ he said. ‘People before animals.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘And your baby?’ He hauled the stool up beside the bath and fitted his stethoscope to his ears.
She subsided. He was right. She had been wearing a seat belt and it would have tightened hard across her belly as the car had lurched downwards. She felt another flood of fear, this time almost overwhelming, but Josh already had his ’scope on her belly. listening intently.
And then smiling.
‘You want to listen?’ he said, and moved the earpieces to her.
She listened.
The warm water was still gushing into the bath. Any minute now her belly would be totally submerged. The warmth... The feel of Josh’s hands as he fitted the ’scope into her ears... The wush-wush of her baby’s strong, regular, wonderful, miraculous heartbeat...
She was suddenly stupidly, idiotically crying.
She didn’t cry. She never cried. Not when Ryan had walked out on her. Not when her father had told her of the reception she’d get if she went home. Not once.
Now, though, the tears slipped down her face and she had no hope of stopping them. And then Josh was dipping a facecloth into the warm water and putting it into her hands, propelling it to her face. Asking gently, ‘Where does is hurt?’ and waiting with patience while she hauled herself together to say she was fine.
‘You’ve been lucky, though I’m betting you’ll ache in the morning. I can see bruises on your arms—that must have been from when you were trying to get out—and I’ll bet you have others.’ He had the stethoscope back and now he listened to her heart. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Mum and bub, hearts beating almost in sync. Lovely and strong.’
The relief was good. The relief was great.
‘But Maisie,’ she managed, because that’s what her mad dash over the bridge had all been about.
‘I’m going.’ He motioned to the bars at the side of the bath. ‘Use these if you need to get out.’
‘Geriatric bars?’ She almost had herself back together and was able to take in the bathroom. To say it was generous was the least of it. The shower was walk-in. The bath had innocuous silver rails running its length. The floor was lined with soft green rubber, unnoticeable unless you’d spent your career in hospitals and recognised hospital-grade non-slip surfaces.
‘I live on my own and I’m not stupid,’ Josh told her. ‘They’re not geriatric bars, they’re sensible bars. If you knew how many injuries I’ve treated from people slipping in bathrooms... Use them, Hannah. Promise, or I need to stay here until you’re out.’
‘I’ll use them.’
‘Good girl.’ He pulled fluffy white towels from a shelf running beneath the basin and hung them on what looked like a heated towel rail, and then motioned to a bathrobe hanging on the door.
‘Use that if you need to get out before I return, but don’t rush,’ he told her. ‘Don’t let the water get any hotter than it is now.’ He handed her a plastic jug from the same shelf. ‘You might want to rinse your hair. Stay where you are until the shakes stop completely. I’ll take care of Maisie.’
‘Josh, this place...this equipment...you have everything.’
‘I like to be prepared,’ he told her, with the hint of a smile. ‘Like your aunt, I value my independence and this place has been built to provide it.’
Then he stooped and touched her face, brushing the backs of his fingers gently across her check. It was a feather touch, no more. A touch of reassurance. ‘You’re safe now,’ he said gently. ‘You take care of you and your baby, and leave everything else to me.’
And he walked out.
She was alone. She was in Josh’s care.
Involuntarily her fingers strayed to touch her cheek where his fingers had brushed.
There was no reason at all for her to put her hand where his fingers had brushed...as if it had been a gift beyond measure.
No reason at all.
Triage.
Dog.
Himself.
He was soaking and despite the warmth of the house he was starting to shake. If he’d been alone he’d be in the shower, enjoying the same hot water that was doing so much good to Hannah. But Hannah’s dog was in trouble and she’d almost lost her life saving it. The dog had to come first.
Or almost first. He wasn’t stupid and he could hardly function when he was sodden and freezing. He ditched his clothes, towelled himself dry and grabbed more pants, a sweater and thick socks. Then he headed back out through the living room. Dudley rose to greet him. With obvious reproach.
‘Sorry, mate.’ He bent to give him a swift hug. Dudley had been a bundle of nerves when he’d found him and this wind wasn’t doing his nerves any good now. But Josh had a sick, wet dog in the car and the fireside was the obvious place to bring her.
‘Needs must,’ he said apologetically, and carried Dudley’s basket into the laundry. He gave him a chew bone and an extra hug, then firmly closed the door. He knew Dudley would shake again but he couldn’t help it.
Hannah’s dog... Moira’s dog...was still where he’d left her. When he pulled open the truck door she raised her head to looked at him, huge brown eyes almost pleading. Then her eyes filled with panic. Her sides heaved. He laid a hand on her sodden fur and felt it ripple with a contraction, then lose strength. The panic faded and her head fell back, all strength lost.
Trouble.
A layman would be able to sense that this dog was in deep distress. Even the way she responded as he lifted her from the truck... He was a stranger, yet there was no hint of protest. Now the contraction was past, she was totally limp.
He carried her through to the living room and laid her in front of the fire. Then he grabbed an armload of towels from the laundry—which meant another apology to Dudley—and rubbed her. Her thick coat meant that getting her totally dry was impossible but he had to get her warm enough to prevent shock.
Or more shock.
As he towelled, her abdomen tightened again. Her tail was up, her rear distended.
The birth canal seemed to be slightly open but he could see no sign of a pup. In a human he could do a manual examination. In a dog?
Hannah had found her in trouble. She’d said she was a midwife and she’d have done her own assessment. If things had been progressing normally, she wouldn’t have made the mad dash over the bridge. Maisie must have been like this for at least an hour, probably
a lot longer. Since before Moira had called Hannah?
He knew nothing about dogs.
Internet. Thank heaven for satellite phones. He fetched his laptop, did a fast search and found enough to realise how dire Maisie’s situation was.
‘What’s happening?’
He hadn’t noticed Hannah’s arrival. She was in the doorway, wrapped in his big, fleecy bathrobe. Her wet curls were tied up in a towel, with wisps of red escaping. She was staring worriedly down at Maisie.
‘It has to be obstructed labour,’ he said briefly.
‘Yeah.’ She crossed and sank beside her dog, who whined a futile greeting and then went back to staring sightlessly at the pain within.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she told him. ‘I tried to do an internal examination but there’s no room. If there’s a pup stuck it’s still high in the birth canal. Too high to manoeuvre. Oh, Maisie...’ Her voice broke.
‘You love her?’ It sounded harsh but he needed to know.
‘No. Or maybe.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s just... I’ve only been in Australia for a few months. Moira’s my only relative here and she didn’t want anything to do with me. But my Gran back home asked me to check on her, so I did, like it or not. Moira was never pleased to see me but even that first time Maisie was all joy to have a visitor. Every time I came Maisie’s been greeting me like I was her new best friend. It sounds pathetic but she seems...more family than Moira was.’
He got it.
She did love this dog.
It made things more complicated.
‘I need to phone a vet,’ he told her.
‘The phones don’t work.’
‘My satellite connection keeps mine working.’
That made her eyebrows hike. She sat back on her heels and stared at him, accusing. ‘Really? Why didn’t you give that number to Moira?’
‘To ring someone on a satellite connection when normal coverage is out then you need a satellite phone yourself,’ he said absently, still thinking of options. ‘Moira only had a landline.’ He frowned as she bent over the limp Maisie. Hannah herself was very pregnant. ‘Hannah, your baby...you’d tell me if you were having contractions?’
‘As if that’ll happen,’ she said, swiftly indignant. ‘I have at least four weeks to go and any baby of mine has more sense than to come now.’
He smiled and moved on. ‘Good. Can you keep rubbing Maisie? I want her as dry as possible. I’ll call the vet from the kitchen.’
‘Won’t any vet be hunkered down with the cyclone?’
‘I have research friends all over the world,’ he told her. ‘Including veterinarians. I’ll choose somewhere where it’s daylight and sunny. Keep her as warm as you can while I find us some help.’
The easiest option with a dog this far gone, with its mistress dead, was one he could handle. There’d been a seal wounded on the rocks only weeks before, far too badly injured to recover. He’d figured what to do and he had the drugs to do it. But Hannah’s face, and her words—‘She seems more family’—had had an impact. There’d been real distress.
She’d almost lost her life trying to save Maisie. The least he could do was try.
Tom Edmonton, Melbourne based, was involved in the same research Josh was doing, though he’d been working with dogs with spinal damage. He listened to Josh’s story and then gave his considered opinion.
‘Josh, that’s real trouble.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘Equipment? Drugs?’
‘I have some. Tell me what I need.’
‘I can’t,’ Tom admitted. ‘I haven’t coped with a pregnant bitch for years. But we have working vets in this building. Claire Chapter’s one of our senior partners. I’ll see if she’s available.’
‘Tom, I need help fast. We’re running out of time.’
‘And if she dies? Given what you’ve told me, you know that’s the likely option.’
‘Just put me through to Claire and let me try.’
CHAPTER THREE
HANNAH SAT BY Josh’s wonderful fire, soaking in the warmth, listening to the wind howling outside, savouring the sensation of feeling safe—and agonising over the dog beside her.
Why was her heart so gutted because a dog was dying?
When she’d walked into Moira’s house and found her aunt dead she’d felt grief for a life filled with bitterness, but she’d felt no deep wrench of her own heart. But Maisie...
She remembered the first time she’d met the dog. She’d just arrived in Australia. After three years of travelling, she and Ryan had found jobs at North Queensland Regional Hospital. She had a local great-aunt. To an increasingly homesick Hannah, the prospect of visiting Moira had seemed a little piece of home.
It hadn’t worked out that way. Firstly Ryan had refused to come with her—‘Didn’t we leave Ireland to escape family?’—and then Moira had shown resentment at the intrusion and nothing else. Only Maisie had greeted her with joy.
Because Hannah had driven two hours to get to the island she’d been reluctant to leave straight away and said so. ‘Can I take Maisie for a walk and check out the island?’ she’d asked.
‘Do what you like,’ Moira had snapped. ‘As long as you don’t bother me. Stay away from the neighbours, too—I won’t have you gossiping to anyone about me. Get her back before dark and then be off.’
So Hannah and Maisie had walked for a couple of hours, checking out the windswept wilderness of the island, with Maisie chasing sticks on the beach, racing like a crazy thing, running circles round and round Hannah, making her laugh. Then sitting beside her on the beach while Hannah felt comfort from her big, solid body. Over the ensuing visits, each one received just as coldly by Moira, Maisie had seemed to listen as Hannah had explained homesickness and Ryan’s insistence that they weren’t over wandering yet, and her increased doubts about a relationship she seemed to be holding onto by her fingernails...
It had been Maisie she’d spilled her heart to when Ryan had left. It was Maisie who’d listened after that last appalling phone call from her father.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And now, as she sat before Josh’s fire, rubbing the dog’s damp fur, she found her heart twisting with fear.
She needed this dog to live. Please...
And finally Josh was back, filling the doorway. He was a big guy, weathered, tanned. The scar on his face had been stitched well—maybe if he wasn’t so tanned it wouldn’t have been obvious. He was wearing faded jeans and an old Guernsey with frayed cuffs, rolled to the elbows to show muscled arms. His dark hair, still damp, seemed to have been cut short and then outgrown its cut. It looked tousled, as if he’d used fingers instead of a comb.
A doctor? He looked for all the world like a fisherman.
He tossed her a bundle of clothes. ‘Jogging pants, socks and windcheater,’ he told her. ‘They’ll be huge but they’re the best I can do. If you’re up to it...you said you’re a nurse. I’ll need your help.’
‘What...’
‘I can try for a Caesarean,’ he told her. ‘I’ve talked it through with someone who knows.’ He knelt by Maisie and met her look head-on. ‘Hannah, the vet I talked to...Claire...says after this time, and with the shock, chances are we’ll lose her, but I’m willing to give it a try.’
She stared at him, stunned. ‘Equipment? Drugs?’
‘I told you, I’m a man who likes to be prepared. About two minutes after I moved onto this island a yacht came in too close and hit the rocks. One of the yachties broke his leg. Compound fracture. It was midnight and the two doctors over the bridge are elderly and don’t do callouts. It took an ambulance two hours to get here. Meanwhile I didn’t have the right gear to keep him out of pain, and I had to hurt him like hell to get the leg aligned to maintain blood supply to his foot. After that I applied for remote status and put together a ki
t that’ll cope with most emergencies. Caesareans for dogs weren’t on my list but Claire’s done some fast research and I have gear she thinks I can use.’
‘Can we?’ It was hardly a whisper.
‘Hannah, I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘She’s in a bad way already. The drugs I have all have the capacity to cross the placenta, which must compromise the pups. As well as that, prolonged labour prior to delivery causes maternal compromise. Claire tells me puppy mortality—even maternal mortality—has to be faced. But the only alternative is to put her down now.’
‘No! Please.’
‘Then I’ll need help. Are you up for it?’
‘Yes.’
He nodded, then lifted the big dog and turned toward the kitchen. ‘Make-do operating theatre,’ he told her briefly, and it was as if they were already a theatre team. ‘Scrub at the kitchen sink. Two minutes, Nurse, stat.’
She was left to scramble into his clothes and turn into a professional.
He was a professional. Well, almost.
He’d hauled off his ancient sweater and put an apron over his T-shirt. It was white, with printed flames flickering up the sides. The caption read: Caution: Extremely Hot.
She blinked and he grinned.
‘My older sister has a warped sense of humour.’ The smile died. ‘She lives in New York now and doesn’t see me...as I am. Unsurprisingly it’s never been used. I don’t have scrubs so this’ll have to do. I don’t have another for you but the clothes I gave you are clean. There’s antiseptic scrub at the sink, clean towels and disposable gloves.’
He motioned to Maisie, who was now lying limply on a sheet on the kitchen table. ‘This is the best I can do as a theatre environment. Luckily the light’s decent. I’ve injected morphine. She’s far too passive already, but she’s going to need analgesia as she comes out of anaesthesia.’
‘Anaesthesia?’ she queried. She, too, had moved into professional mode. In normal circumstances, on a guy like this, that apron would have her distracted to say the least, but the sight of Maisie lying helpless turned her from a soaked and a pregnant wuss into the nurse she was trained to be.
Pregnant Midwife On His Doorstep Page 3