Her Baby Out of the Blue/A Doctor, A Nurse: A Christmas Baby

by Alison Roberts/Amy Andrews

  Jane’s jaw snapped back into action. ‘Don’t you dare make this some kind of personal attack. A platform for whatever reverse snobbery issues you obviously have. We’re talking about Sophie. What’s best for her.’

  ‘Precisely. And seeing as we both feel our careers are so damned important, maybe we should just put her up for adoption.’

  She flinched as though he had hit her. ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She’s your niece.’

  ‘She’s your daughter,’ Dylan shot back.

  Another silence fell. A shocked one this time. Jane couldn’t believe that Dylan had just said what he’d said.

  Give Sophie up for adoption?

  Never to see her—or Dylan—again?

  She had money, she reminded herself desperately. More money than she could ever need for herself, thanks to her occupation and more than one inheritance. She could make life so comfortable for both Dylan and Sophie. She could have kept in touch and visited sometimes. Been a kind of aunty.

  The plan had begun to formulate when she’d listened to him singing as he’d walked the baby to sleep in the kitchen. It had taken more form when he’d talked about how much he loved this place.

  She’d even been thinking he could live here. In the cottage. With Sophie.

  Far enough away.

  Close enough.

  But she wasn’t going to be able to use her financial resources to solve this dilemma. Dylan wanted something else from her.

  Something she couldn’t give.

  ‘I didn’t choose to have a child,’ she said finally. Her words wobbled. ‘Izzy did. And…and Izzy’s dead…’ Her lips trembled now. It was a matter of when, not if, she cried.

  ‘Aye.’ The anger had gone from Dylan’s voice. His face softened, too. Eyes darkened with sympathy. ‘I’m sorry you lost your friend.’

  ‘She was more than a friend. She was like a…a sister.’

  ‘Family. I know.’ Dylan’s eyes looked brighter. Surely not with tears? ‘I lost my brother,’ he said, with a catch in his voice that made something inside Jane tear apart. ‘But I loved them both.’

  ‘So…so did I.’ And Jane burst into tears.

  The grief was so raw, so overwhelming, that Jane wasn’t aware of the precise moment that Dylan took her into his arms. Racking sobs made her whole body shudder. If she’d been alone, she might have curled up into the smallest ball she could and held on to her knees to try and hold back this sensation of being ripped into pieces.

  She didn’t need to do that because she was being held by arms much stronger than her own.

  Held.

  Rocked.

  And when her own sobs finally ebbed and she could focus on what was in front of her, she pulled back far enough to see Dylan’s face and she saw that it was as wet as her own. Dark lashes were still clumped with his tears.

  He’d been crying and she hadn’t even noticed.

  He was grieving as much as she was. Possibly more, and she’d taken his comfort without even thinking to offer any in return.

  In that moment, Jane hated herself. She had never felt this miserable in her life.

  Without thinking, she reached up and wiped Dylan’s face with her fingers. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He smiled at her.

  He actually smiled. And then he bent his head and kissed her. Gently. Comfortingly. On her forehead.

  And then, as she tipped her face up in a kind of wonder, he kissed her again.

  On her lips.

  The softest touch. One that sealed a connection. A bond formed by a grief they both shared.

  ‘It’s all right, hinny,’ he murmured. ‘We’re in this together and it’ll be all right. We’ll work something out, I promise.’

  ‘You…you won’t let Sophie be adopted?’

  ‘We won’t,’ Dylan corrected her. He shifted a little, which made Jane realise how closely she was still pressed against him. She could feel the hard lines of his chest. Feel the steady beat of his heart. Embarrassed, she sat up, but Dylan was smiling again.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said softly.

  Jane was mystified. What had she done other than to refuse to be what he wanted her to be?

  ‘What for?’ she had to ask.

  ‘For being you,’ was all Dylan would say.

  What had he meant? Jane wondered as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom later. After they had shared more wine and many memories of Izzy and Josh that had made them both laugh and cry.

  He thought she was a different person here. He thought that something she’d always seen as weakness was a more important part of her identity than what she’d spent her life trying to achieve.

  She should be offended. Disappointed that she was so misunderstood. Angry that he wasn’t hearing what she was trying to tell him. But she wasn’t any of those things.

  She was exhausted. Confused by such an overwhelming disruption to her life and drained by grief. And in the wake of such turbulent emotions she was now left with a curious sense of peace.

  And an emotional talisman in the form of a remembered gentle kiss.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE memory of that kiss wouldn’t go away.

  Not that Jane was attributing any significance to what had been purely a gesture of comfort. She wasn’t even thinking about it.

  It was just…there.

  As though it had imprinted itself at a cellular level in her body and made an infinitesimal change that was permanent.

  A change that seemed to manifest itself in thoughts that were quite out of character.

  Like now, when she was well into a careful repair of a baby’s cleft lip and palate.

  Eyes might be the windows to the soul, she found herself thinking, but lips were a close second when it came to revealing a personality. You could tell a lot about someone by the way they moved their lips to talk and smile.

  By the way they felt when they touched someone else’s lips.

  This little girl would want to kiss someone one day and Jane was part of a large team of specialists who intended to ensure that the scarring from this birth defect was as minimal as possible. She had an oral surgeon working with her at present. A paediatric dentist had already been consulted, along with an ENT specialist, psychologist, nutritionist and speech therapist.

  The goal of this surgery was to separate the oral and nasal cavities and involved drawing tissue from either side of the mouth to rebuild the palate. A plastic surgeon was due to join the team shortly to work on the infant’s lips. More surgery might well be needed but what was done today would affect the way the face grew and therefore how well the child might cope socially in years to come, and so it was crucial to get it right.

  Not that she wouldn’t have been doing the best job she could for this baby anyway, but the errant thought of how important lips were seemed to have raised the stakes.

  The facial surgery was only one of several elective procedures on the schedule for Jane’s theatre time today and in a specialty such as this, it was a given that timetables would be interrupted by emergencies. Children could get sick and deteriorate so quickly and accidents happened.

  The first call to the emergency department came as the cleft lip and palate surgery was finishing. Jane left Mike to supervise transfer of the baby to Recovery. Careful monitoring was essential because of the possible complications that could affect the airway.

  The paediatrician who had summoned her to Emergency was Colin Johnston, a fairly new addition to the hospital staff.

  ‘Acute abdomen in a sixteen-month-old boy, Harry Peters,’ he told Jane. ‘My registrar’s been thorough and we’ve ruled out any intrathoracic infection and UTI. White cell count is unremarkable and the ultrasound is borderline.’

  ‘Temperature?’

  ‘He’s pyrexic. Thirty-eight point four.’

  ‘Presenting symptoms?’

  ‘Periumbilical pain, fever and diarrhoea. Pain’s not
well localised, which isn’t surprising.’

  ‘No. You wouldn’t expect it to be at this age.’ Jane smiled at Harry’s anxious parents as they entered the cubicle. His mother was holding the miserable, red-faced toddler, who had obviously been crying for some time.

  ‘Pain relief on board?’ she asked Colin.

  The paediatrician nodded. ‘Morphine. Titrated doses of 0.5 mils. He’s a lot happier than he was.’

  Jane introduced herself to the parents and the mother’s lips trembled.

  ‘He…doesn’t really need surgery, does he?’

  ‘If it is appendicitis, yes,’ Jane said gently. ‘We wouldn’t want the appendix to burst because Harry would get a generalised abdominal infection then and he would be a lot sicker.’ She touched the baby’s head, both for reassurance and to feel his skin. ‘Hey, Harry,’ she said softly. ‘Poor wee man, you’re not feeling too good at the moment, are you?’

  ‘Can’t antibiotics fix it?’ Harry’s father asked. ‘Without having to operate on him?’

  ‘Not fast enough to prevent rupture.’ Jane was checking the outward appearance of her potential patient. He was hot and red but he didn’t look dehydrated, which was good. He had almost stopped crying, which was even better. Jane smiled when she found him watching her. Cute little boy. No dimple on his nose, though. Why had she been so confident that it was such an ordinary baby feature? Wishful thinking?

  Harry’s father was still sounding unhappy. ‘I have to say he seems far too young for this. I’ve never heard of anyone having their appendix out at this age.’

  ‘The youngest documented case was a baby of six weeks.’ Jane raised her gaze to Harry’s father. ‘We’re certainly not about to whisk him off to Theatre unless we’re very sure it’s necessary. I’m going to examine him now and then we’ll be watching him very carefully over the next few hours.’

  The baby’s distress at being examined again increased the parents’ anxiety and Jane made a mental note to try and get back to the department herself rather than send Mike for the next evaluation.

  ‘There’s a risk, isn’t there?’ Harry’s father was very pale now. His arm was around his wife, who was holding their son again. Tears trickled down her cheeks. A small, frightened family.

  ‘There’s a small risk with any surgical procedure,’ Jane had to confirm. ‘But there’s also a risk with the peritonitis that can come from a ruptured appendix. Let’s wait and see for the moment. We’re going to make Harry as comfortable as possible and watch him carefully. Please, try not to worry too much. He’s in the best possible place and we’re going to take the best possible care of him.’

  Colin accompanied Jane as she headed back upstairs.

  ‘Thanks for that, Jane,’ he said. ‘I hope the parents aren’t going to be scared off signing a consent if it comes to surgery.’

  Jane shook her head. ‘They want what’s best for Harry. They just need to be kept fully informed and involved in the process. I’ll get back down in an hour or so, I hope, Colin, but page me if you need to before then.’

  ‘I will.’ Her colleague’s smile was warm as he turned on the landing to push open the fire-stop doors that would take him in the direction of the wards.

  The brush of air from the doors closing followed Jane up the next flight of stairs. She had every confidence that Colin’s diagnosis was correct and that he would be managing the case appropriately. So far, she had been impressed with the new arrival to the paediatric team. So impressed, in fact, she had been enjoying the process of getting acquainted a little more than usual.

  Colin had proved himself to be competent, methodical and reliable. Traits she approved of. And he was perfectly presentable. Jane also approved of the neatly creased pin-striped trousers he favoured and the crisp white shirt with the brightly coloured bow-ties that she knew his young patients would love. Colin was not only competent and presentable. He was eligible, and Jane had been anticipating a social invitation that would allow them to get to know each other more.

  Last week the prospect had been interesting.

  Today, as Jane pushed open the doors on the next level to make her way to Recovery and check on her last patient, she realised that any interest had completely evaporated.

  Why?

  Because Colin’s hair was as neatly groomed as the rest of him?

  Because his lips were just a little too thin?

  And why on earth had she even noticed his lips?

  It was ludicrous that Dr Jane Walters, currently being swept along by the kind of professional pressure she loved, could spare even the briefest consideration for someone’s lips.

  To wonder what they might feel like, touching hers.

  To know, with absolute certainty, that they would feel nothing like Dylan’s.

  And to know, with equal certainty, it wouldn’t be good enough.

  It was a relief to be able to turn to an entirely clinical line of thought. Happy that the little girl with her repaired cleft lip and palate was doing well, Jane turned her attention to her next case, but the correction of a pyloric stenosis had to be delayed when Jane was called to the paediatric intensive care unit where a neonate had just been resuscitated.

  ‘Sorry about this, Jane,’ Colin apologised. ‘I was in the ward when this little chap ran into trouble.’ Tiny Liam was only two days old and his abdomen was distended.

  ‘He’s been reluctant to feed,’ Colin informed Jane. ‘No meconium passed and he’s running a fever. His collapse was preceded by a spell of vomiting and diarrhoea.’

  ‘Normal pregnancy and delivery?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mum’s not diabetic?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Let’s take a look.’

  They worked together for a full physical examination, ordering the laboratory tests and imaging that would be required prior to surgery.

  ‘Shouldn’t take long,’ Colin warned. ‘Can you fit him in later this morning if we confirm Hirschsprung’s disease?’

  ‘Of course. Page me.’

  Jane sped down to the emergency department then to check on Harry and find there was no change apart from his parents looking a little happier as they got used to their surroundings and the careful monitoring of their son’s condition.

  Scrubbing up for her delayed scheduled procedure, Jane alerted Mike to the likelihood of the new case in the intensive care unit.

  ‘Congenital aganglionic megacolon,’ she elaborated.

  ‘Hirschsprung’s.’ Mike nodded. ‘An ileostomy, then?’

  ‘Yes. I’d prefer to postpone resection of the aganglionic segment until Liam’s about six months old.’

  ‘And there’s an appendix on the line in Emergency?’

  ‘Yes. Could be a long day.’

  ‘Just the way I like them.’ Mike grinned.

  Jane returned the smile. ‘Me, too.’

  And she did. It wasn’t just that she had no desire to rush home to her apartment and the odd, empty feel it seemed to have to it since she’d returned from Akaroa. This was her career. Her life. The kind of happiness she had always dreamed of.

  Colin had the results from Liam’s imaging ready for her as soon as she stripped off her gloves from the delayed case. He even brought them to her in Recovery to save her the time it would have taken for another visit to the ICU.

  ‘I’ll go and check on Harry, too,’ he offered. ‘Shall I get Liam sent in now?’

  ‘Please. I’ll grab a coffee and a muffin. Doesn’t look like I’ll get a lunch break.’

  ‘I’ll have to make that up to you.’ The smile was a promise. ‘I know a superb spot. Your next day off, perhaps?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ But Jane’s smile felt forced.

  She wouldn’t be in town on her next day off, would she? She had to return to Akaroa to check on the welfare of her guests. She’d promised to stay for the entire weekend.

  What would they be doing right now? she wondered as she entered the small staffroom attached to the theatre suite.
Maybe Sophie was lying in her basket under the shade of the old apple tree. Dylan might be digging in the garden or pruning some of those shrubs.

  For a moment Jane could almost smell the sea air and the scent of spring flowers. Hear the call of bell birds. Feel the warmth of the sunshine and see the gleam of perspiration of Dylan’s arms.

  The artificially lit, windowless space of the staffroom suddenly felt claustrophobic.

  Jane had never felt trapped in here before. It was disturbing.

  Annoying.

  Possibly because she now had an obligation to head out of town at the first opportunity and therefore couldn’t accept Colin’s invitation to what would undoubtedly be a very nice lunch.

  Or maybe it was because she wanted to head out of town and had lost any interest at all in Colin Johnston.

  Jane ate a rather dry muffin and drank bad coffee, pretending to browse the front page of today’s paper to avoid conversation with other staff members. She could feel their presence around her, though. Nurses and technicians. Her anaesthetist. Various registrars and other surgeons. Crowding a space she had never seen as so confining.

  Imagine if they could see the mental picture she was having trouble dismissing. Of Dylan with his hair in damp curls on his neck and the muscles in his arms gleaming like that little gold stud in his ear. If they could feel the way that kiss insisted on lingering in the back of her mind. If they knew of the urge she had to ring the cottage, which had less to do with making sure there were no problems than simply the desire to hear the sound of Dylan’s voice.

  They’d smirk, wouldn’t they? And whisper amongst themselves. Jane Walters finding a male nurse attractive? It would be like…like Lady Chatterley and her gardener? Jane might not have that kind of social prejudice herself but she was well aware that it still existed. That the medical hierarchy might, in fact, be one of its last bastions. Dylan would be seen as so far beneath her on the professional ladder that he could be considered a ‘bit of rough’.

  A bad boy, even.

  Bad for her, that was certain. She had earned the respect of the people she worked with and she had no intention of losing it. Finding Dylan attractive was bad enough. Acting on that attraction was as unthinkable as announcing the arrival of an unexpected child.