A Month to Marry the Midwife

by Fiona McArthur

  He shook his head. ‘Not really. You had it under control. And you loved it all so much. Lived it. It slapped me in the face that I’d lost that in my work.’

  She winced at his choice of words. ‘Slapped? I’m definitely not a violent person.’

  He smiled. ‘It was a gentle, metaphorical slap. But I can change that to “nudged me into realising”, if you prefer.’

  He bumped her shoulder gently with his own. ‘Like you nudged me to remember something funny a minute ago.’

  ‘I’m glad you’ve seen the light.’ She said it simply.

  ‘And since then it’s been a roller coaster. Lighthouse Bay doesn’t win the birth number-count but every patient has had a story, an emotional tag I’m seeing now. That’s a good thing. I think.’

  She touched his arm. ‘It’s definitely a good thing.’

  That wasn’t all he was seeing. He was seeing a beautiful woman, just out of reach. He really wanted to reach. He just hoped she was also feeling the magic that had snared him.

  ‘Come here.’ He lifted his arm and to his immense relief she snuggled in under the weight of it. Then it was easy to tilt her chin with his other hand and brush her lips with his. He could feel the tingle of connection all the way down to his toes. He sighed and suddenly felt ten years younger. Now he was alive.

  * * *

  Ellie had known they were going to kiss. Eventually. And surprisingly she was quite calm about it. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t before and he was very good at it. That other Ellie was stretching inside her and saying, Yes, please, as Sam pulled her close. Hurry up and kiss me some more, that other Ellie was saying. She was such a hussy.

  His mouth touched hers. Mmm... Kissing Sam tasted crazy good. Strangely their bodies were communing like two old lovers—not new ones—and inexplicably she once again found herself in his lap. She kept her eyes closed dreamily as she slid her arms around his strong neck and savoured the virile hardness and warmth of him. The slowness and languorous progression of his mouth from gentle to intense, hard to soft, and back again. It felt so powerful with him holding her face, her cheeks, cradled between his palms as if he held delicate china in his hands. Tasting her and letting her taste him. As though she was precious and special. Breathing in each other’s breath as they shared the most intimate connection with their mouths.

  Distantly she heard the rain beat on the roof and the spiral of delight just went on, deeper and more poignantly, until she wanted to cry with the beauty of his mouth against hers, his tongue curled around hers, until her whole body seemed to glow from the inside out. Kissing and more kissing. She hadn’t realised she could love kissing this much. That kissing was actually the be all and end all. That it could be a whole play and not just an act of the play. She’d never been kissed like this—as if he couldn’t get enough of her mouth. His hands roamed, as if gathering her even closer, but always they came back to her face, gently holding her mouth to his as if he couldn’t get enough. Yes. She couldn’t get enough, either.

  Sam was staying the night. Tomorrow was Saturday. They had all night—or even all weekend, if they wanted.

  * * *

  He stayed all weekend. Sunday morning, she woke to the warmth of Sam’s big naked body snug up against her and her cheek on Sam’s skin. The blond hairs on his body tickled her nose and her hand closed over the wedge-shaped muscle of his chest as her face grew steadily pinker. Oh, my. What they had done since Friday night?

  As if he’d heard her thoughts, his voice announced he was awake too. ‘I’m wondering if perhaps we could do some of that again...’

  Sam’s voice was a seductive rumble and she could feel the smile curve across her face. No doubt she looked like Millicent after scoring a treat. She knew now what Trina was missing and why the young widow had chosen to work most nights. Waking to someone warm and loving beside her. A man spoiling her until she begged him to stop. Being held until she fell asleep.

  Cheeks still red, she tried to not jump on him. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I’m starving.’ He pulled her on top of him and kissed her thoroughly.

  * * *

  An hour later Ellie watched the steam follow Sam out of the bathroom and ran her hands slowly over her tingling body. She’d had no idea such a sensuous world existed, though how on earth she was going to face Sam at work and not think lurid thoughts defied her imagination. Sam had told her to stay and enjoy the shower while he made breakfast but what she really wanted to do was drag the gorgeous person back to bed. She’d had no idea she was a nymphomaniac. Must be. Surely other people didn’t do it so much as they had in the last thirty-six hours?

  She didn’t know how it could work between them. If it even could work. He was based in Brisbane. She was here. But they were fabulous together so surely that meant something? Maybe she could learn to trust a relationship with a man. A long-distance relationship. If that man was Sam. No. She wasn’t in love with him. Was she? She wasn’t going there, but she sure as heck was in lust with him.

  And if it didn’t work long-distance, that was okay, because he would only be here for another two weeks and she deserved great sex at least once in her life. More than once. She grimaced over the word. They hadn’t had sex—Sam had made love to her. Gloriously tender love that healed and nurtured and told her he thought she was the sexiest woman in the world. Who would have known? Her cheeks glowed again.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MONDAY MORNING DAWNED, blustery, and Ellie tweaked her collar tighter to her throat as she closed her front door. She’d slept deeply after Sam had left on Sunday evening. They’d walked for hours hand in hand along Nine Mile Beach, splashing through the waves, coming back after lunch ravenous again. Ellie was convinced that the sun, the exercise and—she grinned to herself—the loving meant she’d slept the best she’d slept for years.

  This morning the air felt damp and exhilarating as she trod lightly down the road to work just before seven a.m. She’d skipped her beach walk this morning—strangely, her hips were tender. Must be all the exercise. She blushed sheepishly.

  The sea remained wild, white caps out to the horizon, booming swells smashing against the cliff below, and Ellie breathed in the fresh salt with a sigh of pleasure. She loved the coast. Loved the isolation of her croft, though isolation wasn’t something she’d savoured over the weekend. She saw Myra’s car was back and smiled to herself. She didn’t know. Tee-hee.

  She laughed out loud and conversely had a sudden desire to share the amusing thought with Sam. There was a little wonky logic in that thought and it was not very loyal to her friend.

  On her arrival she saw that Trina had had a slow night. The ward remained empty. Her friend had been bored, hence she had reorganised the whole sterile stockroom—a job Ellie had been putting off until a quiet day—and there was a small pile of out-of-date stock that she needed to reorder from the base hospital. At least she had a chore to start her day with.

  Later, if no birthing women came in or needed transfer, Ellie would do the same for the medication cupboard. Spring cleaning suited the feeling of determined efficiency she’d decided she needed to ground herself in. Get her head out of the clouds that her thoughts kept drifting up towards.

  The expected arrival of Dr Southwell would not faze her, though seriously she wouldn’t be able to look at him without blushing, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to manage it.

  Maybe, as they had no patients, he could go straight through to the clinic in the main hospital to give her a chance to think of what to say.

  Except it wasn’t Sam who arrived.

  Wayne Donnelly was an undeniable presence. Like everyone’s favourite young uncle. You could just imagine him dangling babies on his knees, which was what Ellie had thought when he’d begun to pursue her. Whenever Ellie was around he’d made such a fuss of any child and everyone had s
miled at him. He’d made her think of families. Dream families. Christmases, Easter egg hunts. All the things Ellie had ever wanted, and she’d fallen headlong in love with the fantasy.

  In truth, he hated kids, and was a narcissist and a sociopath. He had no guilt, no shame, no feeling for other people, and could only see the world through eyes that saw himself first.

  But he was like a seasoned politician versed in the art of crowd pleasing. Crinkled laughter lines jumped up at the edges of blue eyes framed by thick, black lashes and high cheekbones. Nothing in his looks gave him away. Except maybe the confident, beaming, too-white smile. He had a small cleft in his strong chin and women instinctively gave him another look.

  Later she’d found out there was a pattern. He serenaded his victims, pretended to marry them, created joint bank accounts and then sauntered off after skilfully denigrating the woman so she felt it was all her fault everything had failed. A master of psychological abuse.

  When Ellie saw him her stomach lurched with bile. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Trina, about to head home to bed, instinctively pat her hair. Yep. He’d already sucked in Trina.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Ellie watched his smile broaden, the fake smile he used like oil to smooth his way in so he could use someone. She’d been incredibly blind. She wasn’t any more.

  ‘Too early in the morning for manners, El? Introduce me to your beautiful friend before we find ourselves bickering.’

  ‘No.’ Ellie turned from him to Trina. ‘He’s a cad and a slime, Trina. I’d leave if I was you.’

  Wayne laughed. Trina looked at Ellie and shut her gaping mouth with a click. She blinked a few times as her tired brain tried to work it out. Then she stepped closer to Ellie. ‘If you say so, I believe you.’

  Ironic choice of words from her friend. One of the people in the room was a huge liar.

  Trina frowned. ‘But...’ She wrinkled her brow. ‘If he’s a cad shouldn’t I stay?’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘I’d prefer you didn’t. He won’t be here long. You could ring the security man, though. Ask him to come over and sit at my desk. That would be good in case he won’t leave.’

  Trina didn’t look again at Ellie’s acquaintance, just crossed to the desk and picked up the phone. She spoke quietly into it and then picked up her bag. ‘If you’re sure.’

  Ellie nodded again. ‘Please. And thanks.’

  Trina nodded. ‘See you tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Sure.’ Ellie Looked back at Wayne. Raised her brows. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I need money.’

  ‘Really.’ He had taken a great deal of that from her already. Along with her naivety. She looked at the impeccable clothes. ‘I’ve seen people far worse off than you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ As if she’d given him a wonderful compliment. ‘Nice little caravan park you have here. Think I might stay around for a while. Reacquaint myself with my kin.’

  ‘You have no kin. But I can’t stop you. Luckily, it’s high season and will cost you an arm and a leg. So you will have to move on eventually.’ She wasn’t moving on. Not this time.

  He spread his hands. ‘Gambling debts.’

  Nothing new. ‘Gamblers tend to get those.’

  ‘This time they threatened to harm my family.’

  He’d had three ‘wives’ that she knew of. ‘Which family?’

  ‘All of them. You included. I thought I’d better warn you.’

  He didn’t give a damn. ‘You don’t care about anyone but yourself. You’d do better going to the police.’

  ‘I don’t think that the police station is a safe place for me to go. Would you look forward to identifying my body?’

  ‘Go away, Wayne. Your disasters have nothing to do with me.’ And she could feel the shakes coming on. He’d tried to rape her once. After she’d said she was leaving him. And he’d denied it. Said she’d been playing hard to get.

  She’d escaped that night and had begun to plan carefully to get away, because he’d taken all her resources. Her wallet, her licence, her bank accounts... Everything had been unavailable when she’d needed it. She’d stumbled into Myra’s coffee shop, distraught, and made a friend for life. Myra had helped her create the wall of protection she needed to be free.

  ‘You’ve turned all bitter and twisted. Not the sweet Ellie I used to know.’

  That wasn’t even worth answering. Ellie heard the door from the main hospital open and was glad the security guard was here. She needed to end this. She pretended she didn’t know help had arrived. She couldn’t keep running.

  ‘Leave the ward, please, Mr Donnelly.’

  ‘You didn’t call me “Mr Donnelly” when we were married.’

  ‘We were never married.’ Ellie turned away from him to the security guard and her stomach dropped. It wasn’t security, it was Sam. No. No. No. Her face flushed and she felt dreadfully, horribly sick. She didn’t want Sam to know about this. But then maybe it was best. Then he could see she could never truly give a man power over her ever again.

  ‘Good morning, matron,’ Sam said.

  Ellie saw him glance at Wayne and give him an inscrutable nod. ‘We need to discuss the patients.’ Sam’s voice was surprisingly crisp. Authoritative. No hint of friendliness.

  Ellie raised her brows. He knew there were no patients. ‘Certainly, Dr Southwell.’

  ‘Fine. When you’re ready, please.’

  ‘She’s busy. Talking to me.’ Wayne squared his shoulders but he was at a disadvantage in both height and muscle. They all knew it. An adolescent part of Ellie secretly revelled in it.

  Still politely, Sam said, ‘You’re a doctor?’

  ‘No. I’m her...’

  Before Wayne could complete his sentence, Sam spoke coldly right over the top of him. There was no doubting his authority. ‘This is a hospital. If you are not a medical practitioner, matron’s attention is mine. There is a waiting room, though, in the main hospital where you can sit, but this could take some time.’

  Ellie added helpfully, ‘He’s leaving.’

  ‘Excellent. Come with me, matron.’ Sam indicated with his hand that he expected Ellie to head down the corridor to the empty rooms in front of him.

  She looked at Wayne and made the decision to enforce her freedom from dreaded drop-in visits like this. She didn’t know why she hadn’t done it before but knew it was a fault she needed to remedy immediately. ‘If you don’t leave town, I’ll lodge a restraining order with the police this afternoon. I’ve kept evidence of our fake marriage certificate. This won’t happen again.’

  Then she turned to Sam. ‘This way, doctor.’

  Sam ignored Wayne and followed Ellie. She could feel his large body blocking Wayne’s view of her as they turned into an empty room and stood silently in the centre of it out of sight. Ellie clasped her hands together to stop them shaking, unable to look at Sam. They both heard footsteps retreating, and the automatic doors open and close, and Ellie sagged against a wall. Sam watched her but he didn’t come any closer, as if he knew she needed space at this moment.

  ‘Your ex-husband, I assume?’

  ‘He was a bigamist. Or trigamist, if there is such a word. So never legally my husband.’

  Sam whistled. ‘Ouch.’

  She said very quietly, ‘There were worse things about him than that.’

  Sam studied her. ‘Would you like me to follow and punch him out?’

  He was deadly serious. She could see that.

  She could almost smile at that except her heart was broken. Yes, she was beginning to love Sam. That was so dangerous to her peace of mind. It frightened the stuffing out of her. And she loved him even more for the offer, but Wayne had made her see how impossible it all was. She couldn’t do this—start again with Sam. She didn’t have the trust in her to build a strong
relationship and Sam needed a woman to love him wholeheartedly.

  Not one who’d locked him out like Bree had. Bree, who had almost destroyed him while she’d destroyed herself. He deserved that trust. She could give him love. She was more than halfway to falling in love with him already. But she couldn’t give him trust. She’d thought she could but she couldn’t. Trust had died in her for ever. Killed by the man who had just left.

  ‘Thank you for the thought but I wouldn’t like to ask you to sink to his level.’ She straightened off the wall.

  ‘Now you can see, Sam, why I’m so wary of men. Why I know I’ll never let myself get that close to someone again. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea this weekend. It was lovely, what we shared, but it’s finished. You’ll leave soon and that’s good.’ She took a step towards the door and it was the hardest step she’d ever taken. ‘Let’s go back to the desk.’

  His fingers lifted to touch her arm, then dropped. ‘Ellie.’

  ‘Yes?’ She looked at his caring eyes. His beautiful mouth. The kindness that shone on his face. It broke her heart.

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve been wounded by a pathetic man. We’re not all like that.’

  She heard him. Saw that he meant it. But that didn’t help. She wished she could believe it as deeply as she needed to be fair to Sam. ‘I know. I really don’t think you are that sort of man, but I don’t have the capacity in me to risk a relationship again. A relationship needs to be good for both of us and I wouldn’t be good for you.’

  ‘But—’

  She cut him off. ‘Thank you. I don’t want to talk about it any more.’

  Sam sighed impatiently. ‘I can understand that here. But later, I think we should.’

  ‘No, Sam. We won’t.’ Then she turned and walked away.

  * * *

  Sam left Ellie soon after. He went out the front door to make sure her ex-bigamist had departed but there was no sign of him. He actually would have liked to slam the sleazy little mongrel up against a wall and warn him never to approach Ellie again, but he might find a place in himself that would do more than that, and he’d taken an oath to not harm.