The Doctor & the Runaway Heiress

by Marion Lennox

  No one did.

  He stepped into the cubicle.

  Once again, as soon as he entered, she had the impression that he had all the time in the world. He’d crossed over from the outside world, and now he was totally in this one-only this time he was focused solely on the girl in labour.

  The contraction was over. The girl was burrowed into the pillows, whimpering.

  ‘Hey, Amy, I’m so sorry we’ve had to leave you alone,’ he told her, touching her tear-drenched face with gentle fingers. ‘It’s hard to do this and it’s even harder to do it alone. I did warn you. This is why I wanted you to stay in Sydney. But now you’re here, we just have to get through it. And we will.’

  Pippa backed away as he took both Amy’s hands in his and held. It was like he was imparting strength-and Pippa remembered how he’d felt holding her last night and thought there was no one she’d rather have hold her. The guy exuded strength.

  But maybe strength was the wrong word. Trust? More. It was a combination so powerful that she wasn’t the least bit surprised that Amy stopped whimpering and met his gaze directly. Amy trusted him, she thought. For a teenager in such trouble…

  ‘I want to go home,’ Amy whimpered.

  ‘I know you do. If I were you, I’d be on the first bus out of here,’ Riley told her. ‘But there’s the little problem of your baby. He wants out.’

  ‘It hurts. I want my mum.’

  ‘I wish your mum could be here,’ he said.

  ‘Mum thought it was stupid to come.’

  ‘So she did.’ Riley’s face set a little and Pippa guessed there’d been conflict. ‘So now you’re doing this on your own. But you can do it, Amy.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Can I check and see how your baby’s doing?’

  Pippa didn’t need prompting to leave them to it. She scooted back to her bed and Riley gave her a smile of thanks as he hauled the dividing curtain closed.

  ‘You’ve been getting to know your neighbour,’ he said to Amy. ‘Have you two been introduced?’

  Pippa was back in bed with the covers up, a curtain between them.

  ‘No,’ Amy whispered.

  ‘Pippa, your neighbour is Amy. Amy, your neighbour is Pippa. Pippa went for a swim after dark last night and came close to being shark meat.’

  ‘Why’d you go for a swim at dark?’ Despite her pain, Amy’s attention was caught-maybe that’s what Riley intended.

  ‘I was getting over guy problems,’ Pippa confessed. She was speaking to a closed curtain, and it didn’t seem to matter what she admitted now. And she might be able to help, she thought. If admitting stupidity could keep Amy’s attention from fear, from loneliness, from pain, then pride was a small price to pay.

  ‘You got guy problems?’ Amy’s voice was a bit muffled.

  ‘I was about to be married. I caught him sleeping with one of my bridesmaids.’

  ‘Yikes.’ Amy was having a reasonable break from contractions now, settling as the pain eased and she wasn’t alone any more. ‘You clobber him?’

  ‘I should have,’ Pippa said. ‘Instead I went swimming, got caught in the undertow and got saved by Dr Chase.’

  ‘That’s me,’ Riley said modestly. ‘Saving maidens is what I do. Amy, you’re doing really well. You’re almost four centimetres dilated, which means the baby’s really pushing. I can give you something for the pain if you like…’

  ‘I don’t want injections.’ It was a terrified gasp.

  ‘Then you need to practise the breathing we taught you. Can you-?’

  But he couldn’t finish. Jancey’s head appeared round the door, looking close to panic.

  ‘Hubert Trotter’s just come in,’ she said. ‘He’s almost chopped his big toe off with an axe and he’s bleeding like a stuck pig. Riley, you need to come.’

  ‘Give me strength,’ Riley said, and rose. ‘Can you stay with Amy?’

  ‘Dotty Simond’s asthma…’ she said.

  Riley closed his eyes. The gesture was fleeting, though, and when he opened them again he looked calm and in control and like nothing was bothering him at all.

  ‘Amy, I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said, but Amy was clutching his hand like a lifeline.

  ‘No. Please.’

  ‘Pippa’s in the next bed,’ he started. ‘You’re not by yourself.’

  But suddenly Pippa wasn’t in the next bed. Enough. She was out of bed, pushing the curtains apart and meeting Riley’s gaze full on.

  ‘Amy needs a midwife.’

  ‘I know she does,’ Riley said. ‘We’re short-staffed. There isn’t one.’

  ‘Then someone else.’

  ‘Believe me, if I could then I’d find someone. I’d stay here myself. I can’t.’

  She believed him. She thought, fast.

  This guy had saved her life. This hospital had been here for her. And more… Amy was a child.

  ‘Then use me,’ she said.

  ‘You…’

  ‘I know there’s still water on my lungs,’ she said. ‘And I know I need to stay here until it clears. But my breathing’s okay. I’m here for observation more than care, and if you can find me something more respectable than this appalling hospital gown, I’ll sit by Amy until she needs to push. Then I’ll call you.’

  He looked at her like she’d grown two heads. ‘There’s no need-’

  ‘Yes, there is,’ Jancey said, looking panicked. ‘Hubert needs help now.’

  ‘We can’t ask-’

  ‘Then don’t ask,’ Pippa said. ‘And don’t worry. You can go back to your toes and asthma. I’ll call for help when I need it, either for myself or for Amy. And I do know enough to call. I may be a twit when it comes to night swimming, but in my other life I’m a qualified nurse. Good basic qualifications, plus theatre training, plus intensive care, and guess what? Midwifery. You want to phone my old hospital and check?’

  She grabbed the clipboard and pen Jancey was carrying and wrote the name of her hospital and her boss’s name. ‘Hospitals work round the clock. Checking my references is easy. Ring them fast, or trust me to take care of Amy while you two save the world. Or at least Hubert’s toe. Off you go, and Amy and I will get on with delivering Amy’s baby. We can do this, Amy. You and me… women are awesome. Together there’s nothing we can’t do.’

  ‘You want me to ring and check she’s who she says she is?’ Jancey asked, dubious. He and Jancey needed to head in different directions, fast. Neither of them liked leaving Pippa and Amy together.

  ‘When you’ve got time.’

  ‘I don’t have time,’ Jancey said. ‘Do we trust her?’

  ‘She’s a warm body and she’s offered,’ Riley said. ‘Do we have a choice?’

  ‘Hey!’ They were about to head around the bend in the corridor but Pippa’s voice made them turn. She’d stepped out the door to call after them.

  She looked…

  Amazing, Riley thought, and, stressed or not, he almost smiled. She had brilliant red curls that hadn’t seen a hairbrush since her big swim. She was slight-really slight-barely tall enough to reach his chin. Her pale skin had been made more pale by the night’s horror. Her green eyes had been made even larger.

  From the neck up she was eye-catchingly lovely. But from the neck down…

  Her hospital gown was flopping loosely around her. She was clutching it behind. She had nothing else on.

  ‘The deal is clothes,’ she said with asperity. ‘Bleeding to death takes precedence but next is my dignity. I need at least another gown so I can have one on backwards, one on forwards.’

  Riley chuckled. It was the first time for twelve hours he’d felt like laughing and it felt great.

  ‘Can you fix it?’ he asked Jancey.

  ‘Mrs Rogers in Surgical left her pink fluffy dressing gown behind when she went home this morning,’ Jancey said, smiling herself. ‘I don’t think she’d mind…’

  ‘Does it have buttons?’ Pippa demanded.

  ‘Yes,’ Jancey said. �
�And a bow at the neck. The bow glitters.’

  ‘That’ll cheer us up,’ Pippa said. ‘And heaven knows Amy and I both need it.’

  Assisting at a birth settled her as nothing else could.

  Amy needed someone she knew, a partner, a mother, a friend, but there seemed to be no one. Her labour was progressing slowly, and left to herself she would have given in to terror.

  What sort of hospital was this that provided no support?

  To be fair, though, Pippa decided as the afternoon wore on, most hospitals checked labouring mothers only every fifteen minutes or so, making sure things were progressing smoothly.

  The mother’s support person was supposed to provide company.

  ‘So where’s your family?’ she asked. They were listening to music-some of Amy’s favourites. Pippa had needed to do some seriously fast organisation there.

  ‘Home,’ Amy said unhelpfully. ‘They made me come.’

  ‘Who made you come?’

  ‘Doc Riley. There’s not a doctor at Dry Gum Creek, and they don’t have babies there if Doc Riley can help it. Mostly the mums come here but Doc Riley said I needed… young mum stuff. So they took me to Sydney Central, only it was really scary. And lonely. I stayed a week and I’d had enough. There was no way I could get home but I knew Doc Riley was here so I got the bus. But the pains started just as I reached here. And I’m not going back to Sydney Central.’

  That explained why Amy was in a relatively small hospital with seemingly not much obstetric support on hand, Pippa thought, deciding to be a little less judgmental about Amy being on her own.

  ‘Why didn’t your mum come with you?’

  ‘Mum says it’s stupid to come to hospital, but she didn’t tell me it hurt like this. If you hadn’t been here…’ Another contraction hit and she clung to Pippa with a grip like a vice.

  ‘I’m here,’ Pippa told her as Amy rode out the contraction. ‘Hold as tight as you need. Yesterday I was staring death in the face. It’s kind of nice to be staring at birth.’

  Riley was in the final stages of stitching Hubert Trotter’s toe when Jancey stuck her head round the partition.

  ‘She’s good,’ she said.

  ‘Who’s good?’

  ‘Our night swimmer. She’s been up to the kids’ ward in her gorgeous silver and pink dressing gown, and she did the best plea you ever heard. Told them all about Amy having a baby alone. Talk about pathos. She’s borrowed Lacey Sutherland’s spare MP3 player. She conned one of the mums into going home to get speakers. She’s hooked up the internet in the nurses’ station and she’s downloaded stuff so she has Amy’s favourite music playing right now. She also rang the local poster shop. I don’t know what she promised them but the guys were here in minutes. Amy’s now surrounded by posters of her favourite telly stars. Oh, and one of the mums donated a giraffe, almost as tall as Amy. Pippa has Amy so bemused she’s almost forgotten she’s in labour.’

  ‘She’s a patient herself,’ Riley said, stunned.

  ‘Try telling her that. Oh, and I managed to ring the number she gave us in England. I had a minute and I couldn’t help myself-she had me fascinated. Her boss says send her back, now. Seems your Pippa left to get married two weeks ago and they miss her. Talk about glowing references. Can we keep her?’

  ‘I’m not sure how we can.’

  ‘Just don’t give her clothes,’ Jancey said, grinning. ‘I’m off duty now. We’re two nurses short for night shift but I’ve already stretched my shift to twelve hours. How long have you stretched yours?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Riley said. ‘Okay, Hubert, you’re done. Pharmacy will give you something for the pain. Keep it dry, come back in tomorrow and I’ll dress it again.’

  ‘You’ll be in tomorrow?’ Hubert asked as Jancey disappeared.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be the flying doc, not the base doc.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Riley said. ‘Can you ring the union and let them know?’

  ‘Riley?’

  He sighed and straightened. ‘That’d be me.’

  ‘Amy’s moving into second stage.’ It was Mary, the night nurse who’d just started her shift. ‘Pippa says you need to come straight away.’

  She’d been having doubts about the ability of this small hospital to prepare adequately for a teenage birth, but the transition from the cubicle near the nurses’ station to the labour ward was seamless.

  A nurse and an orderly pushed Amy’s bed into a labour room that was homey and comforting, but still had everything Pippa was accustomed to seeing. Riley was already waiting.

  He smiled down at Amy, and Pippa was starting to know that smile. It said nothing was interfering with what he was doing right now, and his attention was all on Amy.

  He hardly acknowledged her. She’d walked beside Amy’s bed simply because Amy had still been clutching her hand. The moment Amy no longer needed her she should back away.

  She was in a fully equipped labour ward. A doctor, a nurse, an orderly. She could leave now but Amy was still clinging. Her fear was palpable and at an unobtrusive signal from Riley it was the nurse and the orderly who slipped away.

  What was going on?

  ‘Hey, Ames, they tell me your baby’s really close.’ Riley took Amy’s free hand-and Pippa thought if she was Amy she’d feel better right now.

  But maybe that wasn’t sensible. Maybe that was a dose of hormones caused by Riley’s great smile.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re an obstetrician, too,’ she said, and then she decided her voice sounded a bit sharp. That was uncalled for. She was, however, seriously thrown. Did this guy ever sleep? Hanging from ropes, rescuing stupid tourists in the middle of the night, sewing on toes. Delivering babies. But…

  ‘Amy knows I’m not an obstetrician,’ Riley said, still talking to Amy. ‘We have an obstetrician on standby. Dr Louise will be here in a heartbeat if we need her, but Amy has asked if I can deliver her baby.’ He glanced at Pippa then, and his smile finally encompassed her. ‘Amy has need of friends. It seems she’s found you as well as me. I know it’s unfair but are you okay to stay with us for a bit longer?’

  ‘Of course I can. If I can sit down.’

  His smile was a reward all on its own. There was also relief behind his smile, and she thought he’d be feeling the responsibility of being Amy’s sole care person. Plus doctor.

  ‘Okay, then, Amy,’ he said, taking her hand just as a contraction started. ‘You have me, you have Pippa and you have you. Pippa has her chair. We have our crib all ready. All we need now is one baby to make our team complete. So now you push. Pippa’s your cheerleader and I’ll stand around and catch.’

  Then, as the next contraction swelled to its full power, he moved straight back into doctor mode. He was a friend on the surface but underneath he was pure doctor, Pippa thought as she coached Amy with her breathing.

  And he was some doctor.

  Amy was little more than a child herself. Her pelvis seemed barely mature-if Pippa had to guess she’d have said the girl looked like she’d been badly malnourished. If this was Pippa’s hospital back in the UK, Amy could well have been advised to have had her baby by Caesarean section.

  ‘C-section’s never been option,’ Riley told her in an undertone as Amy gasped between contractions. How had he guessed what she was thinking? ‘Neither is it going to be. Not if I can help it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Amy comes from one of the most barren places in the country,’ he told her. ‘I persuaded her-against her mother’s wishes-to come to the city this time. Next time she may well be on her own in the middle of nowhere. You want to add scar tissue to that mix?’

  Amy was pushing away the gas and he took her hand again. ‘Hey, Amy, you’re brilliant, you’re getting so much closer. Let Pippa hold the gas so you can try again. Three deep breaths, here we go. Up the hill, up, up, up, push for all you’re worth, yes, fantastic, breathe out, down the other side. You’ve stretched a little more, a little more. Half a doze
n more of those and I reckon this baby will be here.’

  It wasn’t quite half a dozen. Amy sobbed and swore and gripped and pushed and screamed…

  Pippa held on, encouraging her any way she could, and so did Riley. Two coaches, two lifelines for this slip of a kid with only them between herself and terror.

  But finally she did it. Pippa was already emotional, and when finally Amy’s tiny baby girl arrived into the outside world, as Pippa held Amy up so she could see her daughter’s first breath, as Riley held her to show Amy she was perfect, Pippa discovered she was weeping.

  Riley slipped the baby onto Amy’s breast and Amy cradled her as if she was the most miraculous thing she’d ever seen. As, of course, she was.

  The baby nuzzled, instinctively searching. Pippa guided her a little, helping just enough but not enough to intrude. The baby found what she was looking for and Amy looked down in incredulous wonder.

  ‘I’m feeding her. I’ve had a baby.’

  ‘You have a daughter,’ Riley said, smiling and smiling, and Pippa glanced up at him and was astonished to see his eyes weren’t exactly dry either.

  Surely a rough Aussie search and rescue doctor…

  Just concentrate on your own eyes, she told herself, and sniffed.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. She touched the baby’s damp little head with wonder. No matter how many births she’d seen, this never stopped being a miracle. ‘Have you thought about what you might call her?’

  And Amy looked up at her as if she was a bit simple-as indeed she felt. Amy had just performed the most amazing, complex, difficult feat a human could ever perform-and Pippa had simply held her hand.

  ‘I’m calling her Riley, of course,’ Amy whispered, and smiled and smiled. ‘Boy or girl, I decided it months ago. And I’m keeping her,’ she said, a touch defiantly.

  Riley smiled. ‘Who’s arguing? It’d take a team stronger than us to get Baby Riley away from her mum right now.’

  ‘Have you been thinking of adoption?’ Pippa said, because if indeed it was on the table it needed to be raised.

  ‘Mum said I had to,’ Amy said simply. ‘But Doc Riley said it was up to me. He’ll support me. Won’t you, Doc?’

  ‘It will be hard,’ Riley said, gravely now. ‘You know that.’