by Amy Andrews
‘Maddy.’
He reached for her but she shrank from it. ‘Get out,’ she said on a sob. ‘Just go. Please, go.’
Marcus opened his mouth to object but he had upset her enough, every tear of hers feeling like a drop of acid searing his flesh. She looked so miserable and it tore at his insides.
So he left. For now anyway. But he’d be back.
Madeline was about to finish for the day when Veronica buzzed her. ‘There’s a Tabitha here to see you.’
Madeline paused. What the hell?
She had a headache which the two tablets she had taken at lunch were only just managing to hold in check. Did she really want to confront the woman who’d been the catalyst for the damn thing in the first place?
‘Send her in,’ she said, too weary to think. How much more emotionally draining could this day get?
Tabitha entered and, despite Marcus’s assurances that Tabitha and he were over, Madeline felt a streak of jealousy.
‘Sit down.’ She indicated the chair to the other woman.
‘I owe you an apology,’ Tabitha said, sitting. ‘Last night was unforgivable.’
Madeline looked at her hands, not saying anything. Last night had replayed in her head so much she was giddy with it.
‘I didn’t expect to see Marcus with a woman. I had this plan to carry out and your presence threw a spanner in the works.’
‘Oh?’ Madeline’s curiosity was piqued despite the pounding of her head. She listened as Tabitha told her everything and, by the end of it, she even felt sorry for Marcus. ‘So what are you going to do now?’ Madeline asked.
‘Marcus phoned Tony and spoke to him. I owe him big time for that, which is why I’m here. He didn’t have to help me after the stunt I pulled and he probably wouldn’t thank me for being here either but I’m flying out soon - ’
She stopped, suddenly looking worried. ‘That’s all right, isn’t it? You said the baby’s okay? Everything looked good, right?’
‘Yes. The foetus looked very healthy. Any more spotting?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Just rest for the next couple of days. If the spotting starts again or you experience any cramping, go and see your GP,’ Madeline advised.
It felt surreal to be calmly advising Tabitha like she was just any patient.
‘I will.’ The other woman nodded. ‘I’m keen to get back and see Tony and start sorting out our problems.’
‘Good for you.’ Madeline’s smile felt tight on her face. Chit-chat after all that had happened seemed bizarre.
‘Marcus is in love with you.’
‘Apparently, yes.’
Tabitha waited for a few seconds for Madeline to elaborate. ‘You don’t understand. Marcus had never been in love with anyone. Not even me, really.’
‘And yet he slept with you.’
Tabitha regarded Madeline closely. ‘Marcus told me you were having problems with that. Please, let me assure you, that wasn’t about love. That was part of my grand plan to get Tony back. And, as far as Marcus was concerned, it was just a pleasant way to say goodbye. Don’t punish him for something that happened before he even met you.’
‘Except it had huge consequences for Marcus and I, didn’t it?’ Madeline said testily. ‘I don’t mean to be rude but to quote a famous person, there are three people in this relationship. And that’s just not going to work for me.’
‘I get that but I promise I want no place in your relationship. I’m sorry I’ve stuffed everything up, I really am and I hope you guys work it out. I like you. You’re good for him.’
‘You don’t even know me,’ Madeline said, not really warmed by Tabitha’s faith.
‘I know you did that ultrasound when you must have felt like bitch slapping me. I know I left a broken-hearted man just now. I know he wants a baby with you that he never wanted with me.’
Madeline said nothing, her head pounding with the migraine and the heaviness of her thoughts.
Tabitha stood. ‘I’m on my way to the airport. Please, please, give Marcus another chance. And maybe one day you and I can become friends.’
She put out her hand and Madeline stood and clasped it automatically, her good manners coming to the fore. But, friends?
Her head throbbed double-time at the thought...
A week went by. It was hell. Madeline kept on going over and over the same stuff. He loved her. She loved him. Tabitha was out of the picture. What was the problem?
Was she punishing him?
Was she punishing herself for jumping in and blurring the line between rebound sex and love so quickly?
He sent flowers. He rang. He texted. She just felt numb. Another person she had let in enough to love had left her, too. Only it was so much harder this time round to be alone because she had loved him so intensely in their brief time together and knowing he wanted to have a baby with her was torture.
She wove fantasies in her head during the long, long nights about her and Marcus being together, getting married, setting up house together.
Having a baby. Having two. Three.
Making a family together.
She went through the motions of life. Her colleagues were very kind and supportive but also very worried. It was Veronica who got her through the days. She brought her coffee and snacks between patients and insisted that Madeline eat them. She fussed around like a mother hen and entertained her via the intercom with readings from a book called One hundred and one ways to murder your ex.
But life was suddenly so bleak and she rued the day she’d ever met Marcus.
Another week passed and Madeline found herself at the hospital at two in the morning. She’d been called to a terminally ill gentleman’s house because his condition had worsened and his exhausted family hadn’t been able to cope any longer. She’d called an ambulance and had accompanied him to the palliative care ward.
She yawned as she shut the patient’s chart and placed it back in the trolley.
‘Madeline?’
‘Simon! It’s so good to see you.’ And it was. It had been two months since. He was in scrubs and looked as tired as she felt. He held out his arms and she accepted his hug.
‘What brings you to this neck of the woods at such an ungodly hour?’ he asked, pulling out of the embrace.
She filled him in and they chatted for a little while catching up on each other’s lives. Madeline had expected their first meeting to be awkward but it was just like old times.
Two good friends having a chinwag.
It was nice but she couldn’t quite believe as they talked that she’d ever thought herself in love with him.
‘What about your love life?’ she asked.
Simon blushed. ‘I have met someone. Her name’s Marcia. She’s fantastic. I’m going to ask her to marry me.’
Madeline blinked but she could see his excitement. ‘That’s great, Simon, really great. I’m happy for you.’ And she was.
He laughed. ‘I thought you were going to give me a hard time about rushing it.’
‘Well, I suppose, given your track record, I’m a little surprised,’ she teased. ‘You haven’t, have you?’
‘No way. This is so right it’s scary.’
She felt tears prick her eyes. ‘How do you know, Simon?’
‘I knew from the moment I saw her.’
‘But how do you know it’s going to work?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t, Madeline, there are no absolute guarantees. But after our, er...prolonged relationship, I just know life’s too short to second-guess everything. I don’t want to go another ten years of my life being too cautious to live a little. And if it all falls in a heap, at least I’ll have been happy for a while. She’s the one, Madeline. I know it in here.’ He patted his chest. ‘You’ve just got to trust your gut.’
Trust her gut.
She walked out to the car park with those words still in her head. The same words Marcus had used. What did her gut say? If she removed what had happened with Tabitha and t
he baby — what was her gut telling her about Marcus?
She sat in the car for ages, peeling away the layers of her hurt and all the stuff that had muddied the waters between them. Her gut told her — he was the one. She smiled and then she grinned and then she laughed.
Marcus Hunt was the one!
Revving the engine, Madeline accelerated away from the hospital. Her heart was pounding, her mind clearer than it had ever been. She’d been so foolish she just hoped it wasn’t too late.
She was slightly breathless when she banged on Marcus’s door twelve minutes later. She wanted to yell at him to hurry and stood there in an awful panic, hoping that he hadn’t already found someone to replace her.
What if he was having rebound sex right now?
Suddenly she felt ill and was just about to turn and go when the door opened. He looked haggard and unshaven and delicious and any doubts she had vanished.
He was her guy — her life was incomplete without him.
She burst into tears and walked straight into his arms. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she blubbered. ‘I’ve been so stupid.’
Marcus held her tight, his surprise replaced by an overwhelming sense of relief and love. ‘Maddy, oh, thank God, Maddy.’ He snaked his fingers into her glorious loose hair and held her to him as she sobbed.
‘I was foolish and jealous,’ she said, pulling back from his shoulder and wiping the tears away with her hand. ‘I never should have doubted you. I was angry at you and punished you for something that had happened before we met. I’m sorry. Please, forgive me. You’ve pulled me out of this terrible limbo I was in and helped me to live again. And now everything sucks so badly. I don’t want to live another moment without you in my life.’
‘Maddy, Maddy, Maddy,’ he said, cradling her face as he rained kisses all over it. ‘I love you. This last fortnight has been hell. I’m sorry my actions hurt you. I never wanted that to happen. Can you ever forgive me? You do know you’re the only woman for me, right?’
She kissed him then. A long deep kiss that said it better than words ever could. He picked her up and kicked the door shut behind them.
‘I’m never letting you out of my sight again,’ he said when her feet touched down seconds later on his bedroom floor. ‘Let’s get married.’
Madeline laughed, giddy with delight. ‘On one condition.’
‘What,’ he asked kissing down her neck.
‘Let’s not wait ten years to do it.’
‘Ten years?’ He gave her a hard, possessive kiss. ‘I don’t even want to wait ten minutes.’
And they tumbled backwards onto the bed.
THE END
Read on for chapter 1 of Prognosis Christmas Baby!
PROGNOSIS CHRISTMAS BABY
CHAPTER 1
Maggie Green wished the universe had given her some inkling that October morning as she descended the stairs two at a time to the squealing of the emergency pager that it was going to tilt on its axis. Instead, as the shrill tone echoed around the cement labyrinth of the hospital fire escape, it appeared to be just another day, just another code blue at the Brisbane Children’s Hospital.
She had no way of knowing, as she rushed headlong into the emergency department resus bay, the total and utter cataclysmic effect of one Dr Nash Reece. Oh, sure, she’d heard about him. Who hadn’t? The grapevine had been running hot over the country-boy charmer and every female from the cleaning staff through to the director of nursing were swooning over his sexy strut.
But she wasn’t a swooner. And things like love or lust at first sight were for teenagers. And she was a good two decades past that.
Or so she’d thought.
Nash glanced up from the mottled, struggling, unconscious infant at the nurse who’d just arrived on the scene. She was slightly puffed, her generous chest heaving in and out beneath the navy of her polo shirt. Despite her breathlessness there was a calm confidence about her and he smiled.
‘Good. You’re just in time. I’m pretty sure she’s going to need intubation.’
He shifted his focus back to his patient. The drugs they’d given to stop her tiny body seizing were playing havoc with her respiratory drive and she wasn’t breathing nearly as well as he liked. He held an ambu-bag in situ over the little girl’s face, supporting her weak respiratory effort.
Maggie stared at the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Even downcast they were quite spectacular. Combined with a killer jaw line dusted in stubble and wavy dark blond hair pushed back off his tanned forehead and lapping over his collar in true cowboy fashion, she really did swoon.
A little.
Oblivious to the rush around her, the controlled chaos, the trilling of alarms and the sobbing of a distraught woman, Maggie’s stomach did a three-sixty-degree flop.
Nash looked up amused to see the nurse hadn’t moved. He felt his lips tugging upwards despite the gravity of the situation. He knew that look. Women had looked at him like that for as long as he could remember. But it was the surprise on her face that was most intriguing. ‘You are the ICU nurse?’
Maggie nodded absently, feeling totally disconnected from her brain as that slow, lazy, cocky smile hit its mark. She couldn’t ever remember being rendered mute by the sheer presence of a man.
‘Well I think you might need to come closer, Sister. I’m gonna need a hand and I don’t think you’re going to be able to reach from there.’
Maggie blinked, the use of her nursing title cutting through the daze. Right. She was the ICU nurse. That’s why she was here. She was responsible for the airway.
It was her job.
Still, his rich voice oozed over her like warm mud from hot springs and for one crazy moment she wanted to dive in head first and wallow.
Finally her brain kicked in and her legs moved. She took two strides and was at the head of the open cot, staring straight into Nash Reece’s blue, blue gaze.
Nash smiled. She’d looked good from a distance. She looked better up close. ‘Where’s your reg?’ he asked.
‘He’s seeing a ward patient over the other side of the hospital.’
Her voice was breathy and she hated it. For God’s sake, she had to be a good decade older than him. She wasn’t remotely interested. And even if she was, why would he be interested in her? A forty-year-old divorcee who hadn’t been in a relationship for so long she’d forgotten what was required?
If his rep was anything to go by, she was way out of his league. She was way past nightclubs and partying. She came to work, she volunteered at Radio Giggle, she tended her garden, read voraciously and she slept.
Oh, God — she was turning into a hermit. A cradle-snatching hermit. All she needed was a couple of cats and she’d be the full catastrophe. She cleared her throat. ‘He’ll be here soon.’
‘You okay to do this?’
Maggie wanted to bristle. She wanted to say, Listen sonny, I was helping with intubations while you were still wearing baggy pants. But she didn’t. She just nodded and asked, ‘What size tube?’
He sent her another slow, lazy smile. ‘Four.’
Maggie lowered her gaze, feeling uncharacteristically flustered. She’d been in hundreds of medical emergencies and had never been anything other than ruthlessly efficient. This time would be no different.
She turned to the resus trolley she knew would be behind her, reached inside the drawer and pulled out the requested endotracheal tube. She opened the packaging and squirted some lubricant on the end of the narrow curved tube.
The tone on the sats monitor started to dip and the infant’s heart rate started to drop. Instantly they were both alert, the funny zing between them forgotten.
‘Heart rate falling,’ Maggie said her gaze flicking to the green squiggle behind Nash’s head. ‘One hundred.’
They watched the infant’s chest as her respiratory rate dropped off further. ‘Sats ninety-two,’ Maggie relayed, watching the blue number on the LCD screen dip lower and lower.
‘Okay, no time to wait for the ICU reg.
Let’s do it.’
Maggie couldn’t agree more. Normally working with a doctor — a registrar — she didn’t know made her nervous as hell in these fraught situations. But strangely she wasn’t. She didn’t know Nash from a bar of soap apart from his lady-killer rep, but his supreme confidence was utterly assuring.
‘Let’s get those drugs on board, Zoe,’ Nash said to one of the emergency nurses as he pulled down on the infant’s chin, opening her mouth for a brief inspection before placing the mask firmly back in place.
Maggie blinked as the man with the slow, sexy smile vanished and morphed into a consummate professional. She followed suit, ignoring the fierce jolt of sexual attraction and becoming the experienced PICU nurse, calm and in control.
‘Okay, good to go,’ Zoe said as she pushed the drug into the child’s drip.
Nash nodded and started taking over the infant’s breathing altogether as the drug acted quickly, paralysing all muscle function. ‘Okay,’ he murmured giving some big breaths to pre-oxygenate. The sats came up to one hundred per cent and the heart rate rocketed into the one hundred and sixties.
‘Right,’ he said, dropping the bag. ‘Let’s go.’
Maggie passed him the laryngoscope and everyone held their breath as he expertly slipped the metal into the child’s mouth. The light at the end allowed Nash to visualise the tiny white vocal cords.
‘Tube.’
He held out his hand as the other one applied pressure through the handle of the scope to keep the patient’s jaw open. He was like a surgeon asking for an instrument, his eyes never leaving the target.
Maggie passed it to him positioned correctly so he could slip it down the blade of the laryngoscope and push it through the cords in one fluid movement.
‘Heart rate one fifty-nine. Sats ninety-eight,’ she said quietly.
Nash nodded as he angled the tube in. He’d been about to ask. His back was to the monitor so he couldn’t see the figures. All he knew for sure was that while he was performing the intubation the patient wasn’t getting any respiratory input at all. The drug she’d been given had stopped her breathing altogether and the longer he took, the more he deprived her body of vital oxygen.