The Baby Emergency

by Carol Marinelli

His hand moved, Ross moved, away from her, away from the sofa, and she felt the shiver of the air around her without him near.

  ‘The doctors’ mess mightn’t be the most luxurious accommodation in the world…’ His voice was very measured and deliberate, and Shelly realised Ross was the one in control here. Her heart was pounding in her ears, her mind reeling from the shock of the words she had delivered. She felt like a gauche teenager—one little kiss and already she was demanding explanations. She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her, but no such miracle was about to happen here. All she could do was fiddle with the thread on her hem that Ross had found as he delivered his stern lecture. ‘But it suits me just fine. And to clear up another point before it jumps into your mind, neither am I here for your fabulous home cooking. Tuna casserole doesn’t do it for me, unfortunately.’

  Shelly opened her mouth to argue, to point out that she’d never intended to serve it to him, but she snapped it closed. Best to let him get his tantrum over and done with.

  ‘And as for sex…’

  Shelly deliberately tried to keep her face impassive, to think calm thoughts and stop that awful blush from darkening, not take a deep breath or raise her eyebrows or give him any indication that she was struggling with discussing that three-letter word with him.

  ‘It’s Saturday night, Shelly. I hate to sound arrogant, but if it’s casual sex I want, I can think of several places where I’m more likely to get it…’

  Her eyes jerked up for a brief second, not that she needed to see him. Long-limbed, impossibly tanned, that blond hair flopping over one navy eye, he could walk into any bar in Melbourne and half, if not all the women would subconsciously stand up and cheer.

  Ross Bodey was one of those men.

  One of those men that reminded women they were female.

  One of those immaculate prototypes God threw out every now and then to show the world just how good he could make it.

  And Shelly hadn’t a hope in hell of holding him.

  ‘I like you, Shelly.’

  Still she didn’t say anything.

  ‘I’ve liked you for a very long time, you must have known that?’ When she still didn’t answer he carried on, but the stern assuredness had gone from his voice now. Instead, his voice was almost wary, questioning. ‘There was always an attraction?’

  ‘No.’ Shelly shook her head. ‘I was married.’ The lie was audible and Shelly gave a tiny painful shrug. ‘OK, I was attracted to you, Ross, like every other female in the hospital. Happy now?’

  ‘I don’t care about every female, Shelly. The only person’s opinion I’m interested in is yours.

  ‘Yours,’ he emphasised. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe I did plan this, but later Shelly, much later. If we’re going to have a relationship, it’s hardly going to be able to proceed normally.’

  Her vivid green eyes were frowning now. Ross talking about relationships was causing a massive mental overload and she had to forcibly drag her mind back to follow the words he was saying.

  ‘We’re not going to go to the movies, and have candlelit dinners and go to the theatre.’ His grin was back now, almost. ‘OK, maybe the movies, but with Matthew sitting in between us munching on popcorn while he watches a cartoon, well, it’s hardly…’

  ‘Romantic,’ Shelly finished for him, but Ross just shook his head.

  ‘Oh, it would be romantic, Shelly, but it’s hardly get-to-know-you time. This is the get-to-know-you time. A fast-forward on the awkward dates, a chance to really get to know each other, to see if this attraction we both know we feel equates to the outside world.

  ‘I shouldn’t have kissed you then—you’re right, it was too soon. I just never figured on this…’ His fingers tapped his chest. ‘Seeing you sitting there, so adorable, I just went with the flow, just followed my heart. Can you understand that?’

  She did understand. His kiss hadn’t been manufactured, some contrived move. As skilfully as it had been delivered, it had been loaded with instinctiveness, guided by her very own longing.

  ‘We’ll take things slowly,’ Ross said tentatively as Shelly’s face jerked up.

  ‘You’ll still stay?’ Her voice was unsure. ‘After all the things I said?’

  ‘Shelly, what type of guy do you take me for? We had a minor disagreement, a few short words. Even if we’d had a full-scale row, do you really think I’d just up and go? Leave you and Matthew in the lurch?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  He heard the uncertainty in her voice and knelt back down on the floor beside her, one hand resting on her chin, forcing those reluctant eyes to meet his. ‘You don’t sound very convinced.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ She let out a long ragged sigh. ‘It’s me, not you.’ She knew he was waiting for her to elaborate and after a moment, wrestling with her own demons, Shelly did her best to verbalise her confused emotions. ‘Why would you stay, Ross? Why would you even want to be here? Matthew’s own father—’

  ‘Don’t ever compare me to him.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she broke in quickly. ‘You don’t compare.’ They didn’t, Ross with his laid-back ways, his take-it-or-leave-it slant on the world, was a million miles away from the ordered, manufactured world Neil inhabited. A world where a little boy with special needs was just too damned hard, too not what they’d planned, too less than ideal.

  Neil had his life planned.

  Ross lived for the moment.

  There was a question there in itself. Right there at the front of her mind. But gazing into the depths of his eyes, Shelly pushed it away. Pushed away the ordered, neat life she had made for herself and chose, perhaps for the first time ever, to go with the flow.

  Sort of.

  She couldn’t just dive in here, there was too much at stake to throw caution to the wind and to hell with the consequences, but feeling his hand on her face, feeling the quiet strength of his body so very close, Shelly took a deep breath and dipped one very tentative, newly painted toenail into the water.

  ‘I can’t just tumble into bed with you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We have to keep things under wraps, especially when Matthew’s around.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And I don’t want anyone at work getting even a hint that there’s romance in the air.’

  Ross gave a slight grimace. ‘Might have to do a quick renegotiation on that one. I’d say the whole ward knows that there’s romance in the air.’ He looked at her aghast face and grinned. ‘There’s sparks coming off the pair of us, Shelly, everyone knows.’

  ‘Everyone except me,’ Shelly mumbled.

  ‘Rubbish.’ Ross remonstrated good-naturedly, grinning ever wider until even Shelly managed a reluctant smile.

  ‘I just wasn’t expecting all of this.’

  ‘All of what?’ Ross asked innocently. ‘From this moment on, I’m your official babysitter for the next week, nothing else.

  ‘Nothing else,’ he added, as Shelly shot him a very disbelieving look. ‘You, young lady, can tell me when you’re good and ready. My ego can’t take being rebuffed twice in a row.’

  He was joking, Shelly knew that deep down, but there was an element of truth to it all the same. Men like Ross Bodey wouldn’t be turned down too often. Not that Ross seemed particularly bothered. He was picking his car keys up from the table.

  ‘It’s up to you, Shelly.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Her heart sank a mile. All that chat about staying had obviously only been if sex had been on the agenda.

  ‘To get my sleeping bag from the car.’ He replied simply, not noticing the relieved look that washed over her as he wandered out to the garage, returning a couple of minutes later with the grubbiest offering of a sleeping bag Shelly had ever seen.

  ‘I’ve got a spare duvet you can use,’ she said quickly, wincing slightly as he unravelled the shabby swathe of material over her pale sofa. ‘I can wash that for you in the morning.’

  ‘You’re not washing this,’ Ros
s said in alarm. ‘It would fall apart.’

  ‘Exactly.’ She would have pushed, would have nagged just a touch more, but Ross had pulled his T-shirt over his head and was now working on the buttons of his jeans. ‘Is that it, then? Conversation over?’

  ‘Yep,’ Ross said easily. He was down to surprisingly white boxer shorts now and Shelly struggled to keep her eyes on his face, this blatant display of male sexuality not having the most soothing effect.

  He watched her eyes dart down to his boxers and flick back quickly to his face, a furious blush working its way up her neck to her flaming cheeks.

  ‘They accentuate my tan,’ Ross said in a feigned effeminate voice.

  ‘I never tan,’ Shelly mumbled. ‘I just go red and get a load more freckles.’

  He was climbing into that disgusting bag now, looking up at her with innocent eyes, forcing an exaggerated yawn he stretched languorously. ‘Turn the light off on your way out, would you?’

  So that was it.

  Not one goodnight kiss?

  Not one further word of reassurance?

  Not even one further attempt to discover the colour of her very new, very sexy knickers?

  ‘’Night, then.’ Shelly flicked off the light and stood in the darkness for a moment.

  ‘’Night, Shelly.’

  She turned, slowly. The bedroom was just across the hall and she walked the few steps rather slowly, her ears on elastic, hoping and simultaneously dreading that he’d call her.

  Unzip that bag and pull her right on in.

  Oh, she’d have gone.

  In a second.

  But Ross didn’t call, even though she undressed slowly, even though she only turned the tap on to a dribble as she brushed her teeth, so that she didn’t miss her summons, but the only sound that filled Shelly’s ears was silence.

  Slipping into bed almost frenzied with lust, she lay staring into the darkness, concentrating on keeping her breathing even.

  All that talk, all that bravado about waiting, had dissolved in a flash the second he had undressed. The sudden low-key way Ross was acting was having the strangest effect.

  Staring at the dark shape of the door, she almost willed it to open by mental telepathy, could almost see the outline of his spectacular body in the shadows. But just as she could take it no more, just as one hand was ready to throw back her duvet and call him to come to her, a rhythmic deep sound filled her ears, and Shelly shot back under the sheets like a scalded cat.

  Ross was snoring.

  Ross Divine-Body Bodey had had the gall to go and fall asleep.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SHELLY lay there for a moment when she awoke, trying to orientate herself, stretching in the warm bed then rolling back on her side and closing her eyes again. Since Matthew had been born, Shelly had never, not even once, just woken up.

  Unless she counted the time she’d had her wisdom teeth taken out and Marlene had moved in for a couple of days, but that had been pain waking her, not the lazy, hazy feeling that came when one’s body had actually had enough sleep. Normally little fingers were prodding her face or an alarm clock was buzzing in her ears. Stretching out, Shelly grappled for her alarm clock, her eyes widening in horror as she saw the hand edging past ten o’clock.

  Her feet hardly met the carpet as she dashed out of the bedroom, her arms struggling to find the sleeves of the new dressing-gown she had bought in honour of her house guest, bracing herself for what she wasn’t quite sure.

  Chaos, as it turned out.

  Ross’s clothes still lay in a crumpled pile on the living-room floor, that awful sleeping bag half on, half off the couch, the curtains still drawn. Padding fast along the hall, she pushed the kitchen door open and the mess that greeted her made the living room look like a display from the Ideal Home Exhibition. Newspapers were everywhere!

  Everywhere.

  Cereal boxes and milk cartons littered the bench, bread, margarine, honey, Vegemite…

  ‘Morning.’ Turning from the bench like a phoenix rising from the ashes, she was privy to a glimpse of a very fetching smile, attached to a more than attractive body.

  Ross had changed his boxer shorts, Shelly mentally registered as she took the steaming mug of coffee Ross was holding out for her. Still white, but littered with little red love hearts, and on anyone else they would have looked ridiculous.

  ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ Shelly asked, trying to ignore the chaos that used to be her kitchen.

  ‘Because you’re working tonight,’ Ross replied with annoying simplicity as he guided her to the kitchen table. ‘Do you want some toast?’

  ‘Mummy sleep.’ Matthew pointed a rather accusing finger in Shelly’s general direction then broke into squeals of delighted laughter as she showered his sticky cheeks with a flurry of butterfly kisses. He was sitting at the kitchen table, his little pudgy hands working their way through the cartoon section of the newspaper and the endless reams of catalogues that came with the Sunday papers.

  ‘Yes, Mummy did sleep,’ Shelly muttered. ‘Someone should have woken me.’

  ‘Why?’ Ross shrugged. ‘We managed.’

  Hot buttered toast was being placed in front of her, and without even bothering to ask Ross took it upon himself to slaver it in mountains of honey.

  ‘Have you changed Matthew’s nappy?’ Half standing, Shelly sat back down as Ross rolled his eyes and gave an exaggerated sigh.

  ‘Yes, I’ve changed it.’

  ‘But how did you know where everything was kept?’

  ‘You couldn’t lose your keys in Matthew’s bedroom.’ He was talking with his mouth full, back to reading the papers and not bothering to look up. ‘It’s so neat I just looked under “N”for nappies. Couldn’t quite work out where the talcum powder was kept, though.’

  ‘He doesn’t have powder, it’s supposed to be bad for children’s lungs or something.’

  ‘Amazing we survived to adulthood, all things considered,’ Ross said dryly, taking a slug of his coffee. ‘We did all right, didn’t we, Matty?’

  She was about to correct him but stopped herself, not in time, though, for Ross to miss her intake of breath.

  ‘Sorry, Matthew,’ he amended.

  They had done all right, Shelly conceded, nibbling on the edge of a piece of toast. She knew that she should have felt relieved that they were getting on so well and that Matthew had obviously taken to his babysitter. So why did she feel so edgy?

  Because nothing was that easy.

  Ross had swept back into their lives with effortless ease, had won over Matthew, installed himself in her home and even forced Shelly to admit to herself that she was hopelessly in lust with him.

  There had to be a downside.

  ‘OK, then.’ Ross looked down at his watch. ‘You can start cleaning now.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ So deep in her daydream was she Shelly thought she must have missed something as she struggled to keep up with the conversation.

  ‘Every day I’m going to stretch it out by another five minutes and by the time the week is up you’ll be able to go half an hour without wiping down the benches.’

  ‘You really think you’ve got me all worked out, don’t you?’ Shelly looked over the rim of her coffee-cup, a slightly mysterious smile playing on the edge of her full mouth.

  ‘No,’ Ross admitted. ‘But I’m working on it.’

  Shelly didn’t clean the benches, didn’t grab a garbage bag and start picking up the newspapers. For the first time in living memory, she ignored the mess and actually read the Sunday papers. The three sat in amicable silence, Matthew drawing erratic pictures over his pages, Shelly lingering over the colour supplements as Ross read all the newspapers from end to end, only rising every now and then to replenish their coffee-cups or open a packet of biscuits for Matthew.

  And even though in the scheme of things it didn’t add up to much, looking up from her magazine for a short moment, Shelly felt the swell of a lump in her throat, the tiny glimpse of d
omestic bliss such a cherished moment it would surely be etched in her mind for ever.

  Her lazy day continued long into the evening. After some persuasion Ross took Matthew back with him to the doctors’ mess to collect a few of his things and Shelly was privy to the decadence of an afternoon alone. Throwing together the quickest roast dinner a Sunday had ever seen, Shelly bypassed the usual run under the shower, opting instead for a lazy soak in the bath before closing her eyes for a supposed ten-minute doze.

  A bit more than ten minutes as it turned out.

  A rather crispy roast was the order of the day, and by the time Shelly had bathed Matthew and put him to bed, Ross had made surprising inroads into the dishes.

  ‘Why didn’t you just load them into the dishwasher?’

  ‘Because then I’d have had to embarrass myself telling you I’d no idea how to use it.’

  Smiling, Shelly crossed the kitchen. ‘It is a bit complicated actually.’ Putting a tablet in the dispenser, she picked up his hand, leading his finger to the ‘on’ button.

  ‘OK, Einstein, what are the rest of the buttons for, then?’

  ‘Decoration.’ Her hand was still on his and neither seemed in any particular rush to break the physical contact.

  ‘Do you know what would be nice now?’ Their hands had moved from the stainless-steel surface of the dishwasher and were now located rather more comfortably between them, Ross standing over her, his teasing grin matching hers.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Chocolate.’ His eyes weren’t on Shelly’s, instead they were focussed on their mutually entwined fingers. ‘A big slab of chocolate and a very sad movie.’

  ‘Sounds wonderful.’ That was an understatement. Curling up on the sofa with Ross would be the perfect end to a perfect day, and for once chocolate didn’t even get a look-in.

  ‘Ring in sick,’ Ross grumbled as Shelly let out a gurgle of laughter.

  ‘Which would entirely defeat the purpose of you being here.’

  ‘I guess.’ Puppy dog eyes were looking at her now and Shelly even amazed herself by imagining the wrath of Tania if she dared do it.

  It would almost be worth it.

  ‘I’d better get moving.’ Reluctantly she retrieved her hand and padded off to her bedroom, pulling on her uniform and putting up her hair with indecent haste before applying only the briefest slick of lipstick. Shelly picked up her bag and hovered by the lounge door, watching as Ross, lying long and relaxed on the sofa, snapped in two the biggest bar of chocolate she had ever seen and for cruel effect pressed the remote control with gusto.