‘I’m so sorry,’ Ginny murmured. ‘You must think I’m stupid.’
Sebastian shook his head. ‘Not at all.’ He sipped his tea. ‘Okay let’s talk facts, yes?’ He watched Ginny nod and then continued. ‘Generally there’s not a lot of data about drugs in pregnancy because obviously no pregnant woman would volunteer for clinical trials. But for the type of medication you’re on, we actually know quite a bit.’
He paused to make sure she was following him. ‘There is one drug in particular that’s been linked with minor heart defects in babies but…’ he tapped her chart ‘…you’re not on that. On the other things—the premature birth and low birth weights?there is some evidence around these in a couple of studies but usually only in women who also drink and smoke while on their medication.’
Sebastian paused again to give it time to sink in. The internet was a wonderful tool and he had no doubt that patients were more informed these days because of it—which was a good thing. But there was a maze of information out there that could be very confusing too.
He picked up a biscuit. ‘Your chart says you don’t drink or smoke.’
Ginny nodded. ‘Never touch either of them.’
Sebastian smiled. ‘Good, then.’
‘But what about breastfeeding? Will I be able to do that on my meds?’
Sebastian nodded. ‘Yes, quite safely. Only a very small percentage of the drug crosses into the breast milk and there are numerous studies reporting no ill effects from the medication you’re currently taking.’
He smiled again and Ginny returned it, albeit rather tentatively.
Callie traipsed back into the house, pleased to see her client smiling. She glanced at Sebastian, who was pushing the last of a biscuit into his mouth. He smiled at her and she watched as he sucked residual chocolate off his fingers and flicked at some crumbs with his tongue.
Oh, dear God. Chocolate-covered biscuits and Sebastian. What would he taste like right now?
She blinked. ‘Right, then.’ She quickly dragged her eyes from his lips. ‘I have an appointment for you in half an hour.’ She strode to Ginny’s fridge and pulled out the two-litre bottle of water she knew her client always had in the door.
‘Wow! That was quick.’
Callie smiled at Ginny as she plonked the water on the table. ‘I have my sources.’ She tapped her nose twice. ‘Now, drink up. You need a full bladder.’
Her gaze skittered towards Sebastian and his lips again before skittering away. ‘We’ll take you. You can ring Brad from the car.’ She turned to Sebastian. ‘You ready to go?’
Sebastian grinned. He’d caught the brief glazing of amber eyes as they’d dropped to look at his mouth. He drained the last of his tea. ‘Me?’ He stood. ‘I’m ever ready.’
Callie’s brows drew together as she was transported back to his bed She didn’t grace him with a response as her pulse spiked. Was he trying to goad her into a reaction? Instead she turned to Ginny, who was drinking from the bottle. ‘Let’s go.’
∗ ∗ ∗
It was only about a ten-minute drive from Ginny’s to the local hospital but they were heading into peak hour so heavy traffic made the going slower. Callie drove while Sebastian talked some more to Ginny about managing her condition and the pregnancy. He explained it might be possible to reduce Ginny’s medication and that they would see her more frequently during the following months to monitor the situation.
By the time they arrived, Ginny was actually smiling. She was obviously feeling much more positive about the unexpected twist her life had taken and with her ability to be a mother.
Callie, on the other hand, was not doing so well. She’d spent the entire time trying not to think about an ever-ready Sebastian sans clothes and smeared in chocolate biscuit.
She’d tried to concentrate on the services and strategies she could put in place to support Ginny—child health clinic, community midwives, a lactation consultant. She’d made a mental note to take Sebastian to the psych unit at the hospital to introduce him around. She’d even recited the twelve times table.
But the lull of his voice had washed over her as she’d driven and she couldn’t banish the image of him reclining naked on his bed, the sheet pulled up over his hips, his chest beckoning.
‘I’ll wait outside,’ Sebastian said as Ginny was shown straight in.
‘Oh, no,’ Ginny said, placing her hand on his sleeve. ‘If its okay, I’d like you to be there. I’d like you both to be there.’
Callie nodded, even though she’d rather stick a poker in her eye than have to share such an intimate thing with Sebastian.
They’d already been intimate enough!
It was good—great, she supposed—that Ginny had taken so well to Sebastian but it really was the last straw in a very long day!
‘Hi, Blake.’ Callie greeted the sonographer. ‘I really appreciate you fitting us in on such short notice.’
Blake grinned. ‘Anything for you, Cal.’
Sebastian raised an eyebrow at the wolfish leer. He looked from Callie to Blake and back to Callie again, wondering about their relationship. Had they been lovers? Their familiarity, the nickname certainly hinted at a level of personal closeness that was more than collegial.
Callie laughed at something Blake said and swatted his sleeve playfully.
Sebastian wasn’t amused.
In fact, he was downright irritated.
Which irritated him further.
‘Okay, Ginny, climb up here, my lovely,’ Blake said, holding out his hand to help Ginny onto the narrow couch. ‘Are you ready to see your baby?’
Sebastian ground his teeth, his irritation ratcheting up another notch. Of course Blake was a thoroughly nice guy.
The ultrasound got under way and Ginny reached for Callie’s hand. Callie gave Ginny’s hand a reassuring squeeze but she was aware only of Sebastian standing to one side and slightly behind her. She could feel the heat radiating off his body and smell the rich, earthy tones of his aftershave, which seemed to be imprinted on her DNA.
All she needed to do was lean back and she’d be pressed along the length of him. Then it’d only be a small move to turn in his arms, press her face into his neck, feel his stubble scratching her cheek.
Blake pressed a button and the room filled with the steady whop, whop, whop of a tiny fluttering heart. It dragged Callie out of the haze miring her body and she actually took in what was on the screen for the first time.
‘Isn’t that a beautiful noise?’ Blake grinned at them.
Ginny burst into tears and Callie squeezed her hand again. The fuzzy image squirmed and from nowhere a lump of emotion rose in her throat as tears pricked the backs of her eyes.
Callie blinked hard to dispel them. This was ridiculous! She’d sat through dozens of these. Unfortunately lack of sexual inhibition and promiscuity often went hand in hand with unmedicated mental health conditions, so she’d done this very thing with too many clients over the years.
She’d never, ever got weepy over the sound of a baby’s heartbeat!
But there it was on the screen. All fuzzy and black and white with a fluttering movement right in the centre. It was rhythmic and utterly entrancing.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Ginny whispered, touching the screen.
‘Oh, you think it’s a she, huh?’ Blake grinned. ‘Well, I think we’ll need to wait until your nineteen-week ultrasound to know that one for sure.’
Callie didn’t really take in what Blake and Ginny chatted about over the next few minutes. She was too caught up in the image flickering on the screen.
And for the first time ever a tiny worm of regret wriggled inside her.
‘Well, according to my calculations,’ Blake mused as he input his final data and pressed a button, ‘you are twelve weeks along.’
‘Twelve weeks?’ Ginny squeaked.
Blake grinned and patted the large metal machine like it was a favourite shaggy dog. ‘The waves don’t lie.’
Ginny’s startled e
xclamation snapped Callie out of the strange twilight zone she’d been stuck in. She moved away from Sebastian to Blake’s side, avoiding her colleague’s gaze. She did a quick calculation. ‘That makes you due in September,’ she said, helping Ginny adjust her clothes and aiding her into a sitting position.
‘September twentieth, according to the waves,’ Blake confirmed.
Ginny shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it.’
Sebastian crossed to the other side and held out his hand, joining with Callie to help Ginny down off the high couch. ‘You’d better believe it. You’re going to be a mum.’ He smiled.
Ginny thanked the sonographer and Sebastian guided her out of the room as she chatted away. He looked back to see if Callie was following. She wasn’t. But he did see her standing quite close to Blake, laughing, raising her face towards the other man just before the door swung shut.
Was Callie about to kiss him?
Was she in there now, kissing him?
Sebastian felt a strange but very immediate urge to kick the door down and drag her away.
But then Ginny’s phone rang, distracting him. She pulled it out of her bag and by the time she’d answered it Callie was there looking like she hadn’t just been kissed. Sebastian felt a weird sort of satisfaction. At least when he’d kissed her, Callie Duncan had looked thoroughly kissed.
‘Is that Brad?’ Callie asked. When Ginny nodded she said, ‘Tell him to meet us at the cafeteria.’
They spent the next half-hour in the cafeteria, talking to Ginny and Brad about the baby and how to manage the pregnancy and Ginny’s condition without compromising either.
‘I’m worried that I’ll be so anxious about the baby that it’s…you know…okay that I might have a relapse of my anxiety,’ Ginny admitted.
Callie grabbed her client’s fidgety hands and squeezed, stilling their nervous plucking movements. ‘I’m going to set you up with a community midwife service that’ll see you every week, and if you’re still worried?ever—you can come to Jambalyn. We have a hand-held Doppler there and I even know how to use it.’ Callie grinned. ‘You can listen to the baby’s heartbeat every day if you want.’
Ginny looked at her uncertainly. ‘Really?’
Callie nodded. ‘Really.’
Callie was quiet as they walked to the psych ward a little while later. Brad had taken Ginny home so there was just the two of them. She was thinking about that strange moment again when the sound of the foetal heartbeat had filled the room and tears had threatened.
What had that been about?
‘So, is he an ex-lover?’ Sebastian asked, trying for casual.
‘Hmm?’ she asked distractedly.
‘Blake. I’m guessing he’s an old flame?’
Callie frowned as his question sank in. She glanced at him as they moved into dangerous waters once again.
‘Why on earth would you think that?’
‘Ah…I saw you kissing him.’
Callie laughed. Her and Blake? ‘We’re friends. Old friends. We went to uni together. He married another uni friend of ours. They have three children. I’m their godmother.’
Come to think of it, she was godmother to a lot of her friend’s kids…
Always the godmother, never the mother.
She narrowed her eyes. She shouldn’t ask the question but she couldn’t help herself. ‘Why?’
Sebastian blinked. Good question…why did he care? Except he did. Care. A lot. He shrugged. ‘Just curious. It’s the psychologist in me. People, their motivations are endlessly fascinating.’
And if it sounded like a lame explanation that was because it was. The truth was he didn’t have an adequate reason for feeling like he did. But the thought of another man doing things to her that he had done just didn’t sit right.
Not at all.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE plane hit an air pocket and Callie grabbed convulsively for her armrests. Unfortunately Sebastian’s arm lay along their shared one and she felt the delicious rub of masculine hair against the pulse point at her wrist before she snatched it away.
‘Nervous flyer?’
Sebastian’s low murmur at her ear almost caused her to jump again. ‘I prefer to be on the ground,’ she said, her jaw tense, her pulse bounding madly. If only she could be sure it was from the turbulence and not the illicit brief contact she’d avoided for the last two months.
‘Relax,’ he urged, stretching out his legs. ‘You know more people by far die in car crashes than plane crashes.’
She rolled her head to the side and regarded his profile. He’d shut his eyes and she looked her fill. Strong jaw cleanly shaven, straight nose, fringe flopping across his forehead. Long brown eyelashes casting shadows on a prominent cheekbone. And a mouth that still haunted her dreams.
‘I like my chances of surviving a car accident more than I do should this plane suddenly go hurtling to the ground.’
Sebastian chuckled and opened his eyes, rolling his head towards her at the same time. She averted her gaze and he sobered slightly. Even after a couple of months the thing between them was still there. Sure, they’d both done a passable job of ignoring it but in unguarded moments they both knew it hadn’t gone away.
That it was always there, simmering beneath the surface. Just waiting for a moment to erupt. Biding its time.
‘Excuse me, sir, would you like something to drink?’
Callie opened her eyes to find a blonde, pixie-faced, well-endowed air hostess batting her eyelashes at Sebastian.
Oh, please!
Sebastian smiled at the very attractive woman offering him a beverage and, if the message in her eyes was correct, a hell of a lot more than that. ‘I’d love a coffee, thank you.’
‘Certainly, sir.’ She poured some percolated coffee into a fine china cup. ‘Are you going to Melbourne for business or pleasure, sir?’
‘Business, I’m afraid. We’re attending a weekend seminar.’
The air hostess, whose name badge proclaimed her to be Megan, pouted prettily, not even faltering at Sebastian’s we. ‘Oh, what a shame,’ she murmured, passing him his coffee, her gaze firmly trained on him.
Callie rolled her eyes. ‘I’d like one too, thank you,’ she interrupted, a little more tartly than she’d expected.
‘Certainly, madam.’ Megan nodded, reluctantly dragging her flirty gaze from Sebastian to grace Callie with a cool, professional one.
Callie shook her head in disgust as Megan moved on. ‘Does every woman on earth flirt with you?’ she grouched.
Sebastian smiled at her annoyed face. A little frown line formed between her brows when she was cranky that was actually quite endearing. It also formed when she was deep in thought and when she was determined. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Callie snorted. ‘I thought she was about to offer you the chance to join the mile-high club.’
Sebastian chuckled. ‘How do you now I’m not already a member?’
Callie faltered, her mind filled with an image of her and him going for it in the squashed confines of an aeroplane loo imprinted itself on her brain. For God’s sake, with his height and width and her less than elf-like figure they’d probably maim each other.
Still, the idea fascinated her…
Intrigued despite herself, she asked, ‘You…you’re not, are you?’
Sebastian raised his eyebrows at her. ‘A real man never kisses and tells.’
She watched as he took a calm sip of his coffee and her heartbeat skittered madly.
‘Anyway, as I was saying,’ she continued, desperate to dispel the powerful image, ‘the woman at the check-in desk practically had her tongue hanging out on the counter.’
‘Hey,’ Sebastian chided, ‘we got upgraded, right?’
Callie blinked. ‘Oh, my God. You always get upgraded, don’t you?’
Sebastian shrugged. ‘It’s the red hair.’
Well, didn’t that figure! Callie spent her flying hours shoehorned into an economy-class
seat, her legs up around her ears as the person in front invariably reclined their seat, and usually ensconced next to an inconsolable baby or a rotund gent with major sleep apnoea. While Sebastian used his charisma and his glorious hair to swan around in business class!
And what a luxurious experience it was—large comfortable seats of soft leather and enough room for her to completely unfold her long legs and stretch out. Discreet but attentive?perhaps too attentive?service. And not a crying baby in sight.
‘So,’ Sebastian asked as he drained the dregs of his coffee, ‘are you nervous about your paper?’
She shook her head, pleased for a change in topic. ‘No. I’ve presented a lot of papers over the years?more interesting ones than this, that’s for sure.’
‘The study findings are important, though. It’ll garner a lot of interest.’
Callie shrugged. She knew he was right but she found presenting facts and figures and reams of stats very dry. ‘Yeah, I know. Yours sounds much more interesting.’
Sebastian regarded her. He too was no stranger to presenting but this one was the closest to his heart. ‘Well, let’s hope everyone else will think so too.’
Callie frowned. He seemed a little uncertain and she was taken aback. She’d never seen him anything other than one hundred per cent confident. On the bridge, confronting an oaf in a restaurant, with Ginny and the numerous other clients she’d seen him with.
In bed.
It was the first time she’d seen even the briefest flash of doubt in his usually assured gaze and she almost reached out and put her hand on his sleeve.
Dangerous. Very, very dangerous.
She’d fought hard to put their night of passion behind her and something told her this was not the moment to test her resolve. This wasn’t a dirty weekend away together. It was work. Business.
‘Headphones, sir?’
Megan was back and this time Callie was actually grateful. ‘I will thanks,’ she said, reaching for one. Anything?anything?to occupy her for the next ninety minutes.
The plane touched down at Tullamarine in the early afternoon, and despite her luxurious ride Callie was pleased to be away from Sebastian’s sexual orbit. Going away with him hadn’t seemed like such a big deal back at her desk at Jambalyn, where their business-as-usual veneers were well practised. But suddenly, away from the safety net of work, she wasn’t sure it was that simple.
Rescued by the Dreamy Doc / Navy Officer to Family Man Page 6