The Midwife's Longed-For Baby

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said numbly. ‘You can’t be. I warned you my semen analysis was rubbish, we knew this wasn’t going to happen—’

  ‘No—no, Nick, you’re wrong,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Look at it! Look at the wand!’

  He glanced down and saw it lying on the hall floor. His hand trembling, he bent and picked it up, and read the word in the little window.

  Pregnant

  He stared at it blindly, until the word blurred in front of his eyes. ‘I don’t understand.’

  She came slowly down the stairs and sat just above him on the second step. ‘I’m pregnant—we’re having a baby, Nick. We’re having a baby—’

  Her voice cracked, and he looked up from the wand and met her eyes. ‘How?’

  She laughed then, the sound music to his ears. ‘If you don’t know that by now, Nick, you’re really in the wrong job.’

  He sat down next to her, his heart still pounding, and put his arm round her. ‘But—why now and not then?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Think about it. I was too thin, your diet was appalling, you were possibly drinking too much, having tons of coffee, not exercising, I was running every chance I had, we only made love when the techie runes told us to—and now we’re healthy, we’re relaxed, and we’re making love every chance we have. It’s not rocket science.’

  She was pregnant. He felt the smile first, and then his eyes prickled and her face blurred, so he shut them and pulled her into his arms and held her, pressing his cheek against her hair.

  ‘I thought you’d lied to me. I thought you didn’t love me, you just wanted me back so you could keep on trying. I never dreamt...’ He broke off to kiss her, then cupped her face in his hands and stared down into her eyes. ‘I love you,’ he said raggedly. ‘I love you so, so much, and I can’t believe it’s finally happened for us.’

  Her hand came up and stroked his cheek, wiping away the tears. ‘Nor can I. Now if we could only hear about the job—’

  ‘I have.’

  Her mouth opened and she looked up at him, her eyes hopeful and fearful at the same time. ‘And?’

  ‘I got it. I got the job,’ he told her, and she put her hand over her mouth and let out a sobbing laugh.

  ‘Really? You got it? We can stay here in Yoxburgh, in this house, near all our friends, take our baby to the park...?’

  ‘Yes. We can stay here. We sort of have to. I promised Ben we would.’

  ‘Oh, Nick, that’s amazing!’ She flung her arms around him and hugged him so hard his ribs crunched.

  ‘Ouch.’ He laughed, and eased her away. ‘I’m glad you’re pleased. We can celebrate that later. Right now I’m busy dealing with the fact that we’re going to have a baby.’

  Her eyes were soft, almost luminous, and her smile lit him up from the inside out.

  ‘I know. I might have to share your study.’

  ‘You might—if you have time for that when you’re a mum. I still can’t quite believe it’s real.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve got the job, either. It’s like we’ve reset the clock on our lives and gone back to where it all went wrong and put it right, and this is our reward.’

  ‘Oh, Liv.’ He hugged her again, then scrubbed his hands over his face and sniffed hard. ‘I’m a mess.’

  ‘You’re a lovely mess. I was a very unlovely mess earlier, because I’d managed to convince myself that you hadn’t got the job, and there we were pregnant and with nowhere to go and no visible means of support. It wasn’t a good moment.’

  ‘I’ll bet. Poor you. How are you feeling now?’

  ‘All right. I’m fine so long as I eat chocolate in industrial quantities,’ she said, and he laughed again and hugged her.

  ‘I’ll add it to my regular internet shop,’ he said drily, and then got to his feet and pulled her up. ‘Come on, let’s go and tell Bert and Gwen. Their grandchildren live hundreds of miles away, and I reckon they’ll love having a baby next door.’

  ‘Can you bear it?’

  ‘What, them? They’re fine, Liv.’

  ‘Bert thinks you saved his life.’

  ‘Well, he might be right. We’ll let him think it. If he feels he came that close, he might let me take over the hedge cutting.’

  She started to laugh, and once she’d started she couldn’t stop, so he turned her into his arms and they leant on each other and laughed until their sides ached.

  ‘Better now?’ he asked eventually, and she nodded.

  ‘Never better than this. The job, the baby, you back in my life for keeps—what more could a woman want?’

  ‘Diamonds?’

  ‘No. Cold, hard—and they don’t hug you. I wouldn’t swap your hugs for anything. Come on.’

  She took his hand and stood up, only instead of heading out of the door towards Bert and Gwen, she turned towards the stairs.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked, and she just smiled.

  ‘Up here. We’ve got a nursery to plan...’

  EPILOGUE

  NICK CLOSED THE door behind the midwife and went back into the family room, where Liv was curled up on the sofa in her towelling robe with the baby asleep in her arms.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ he asked, but she shook her head.

  ‘I’m going to drown if I drink any more tea. Come and sit here and admire your daughter.’

  She shifted her feet out of the way, then plonked them back on his lap as he sat down.

  ‘Happy?’ she asked him, and he gave a tired laugh.

  ‘Yes, my darling, I’m very happy. A teeny bit stressed, but I might have known you’d want to be different.’

  ‘I didn’t plan a home birth. She was just in a hurry.’

  ‘And I was in a clinic. I only got here by the skin of my teeth. I’m an obstetrician, for goodness sake, and I didn’t even realise you were going into labour.’

  ‘I’m a midwife. It’s all I deal with, and I didn’t recognise the signs. We’re both rubbish.’

  ‘No, we’re not. We’re amazing. Look at her. How could two rubbish people create anything as amazing as that?’

  ‘Want a cuddle?’

  He reached over and took the baby from her, staring down into her dainty, screwed up little face with its tiny button nose and rosebud lips. ‘She’s so perfect—such a miracle.’ He looked up and met Liv’s eyes and tried to smile, but it was too hard so he gave up.

  ‘Have I told you lately how much I love you?’

  ‘Only a million or so times.’ She sat up with a little wince and put her arms around him and kissed him. ‘But don’t stop. I’ll never get tired of hearing it.’

  ‘I love you,’ he said softly, and then propped his feet up on the coffee table, right over the tiny mark that he’d wiped clean, and rested his head back against the sofa and smiled at her.

  Life had never felt so good...

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Caroline Anderson

  THEIR MEANT-TO-BE BABY

  BEST FRIEND TO WIFE AND MOTHER?

  RISK OF A LIFETIME

  SNOWED IN WITH THE BILLIONAIRE

  All available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from ONE NIGHT THAT CHANGED HER LIFE by Emily Forbes.

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  One Night That Changed Her Life

  by Emily Forbes

  CHAPTER ONE

  BRIGHDE HID BEHIND a conference banner as she stabbed her finger at the screen of her phone. Her hand was shaking as she tried to end the call and it took her two attempts to press the right spot. She took a deep breath, fighting to remember her yoga breathing as she fought back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes.

  She was happy for Nick, really she was, but her brother’s phone call had confirmed her worst fears.

  Good news for him could only mean bad news for her.

  She struggled with the clasp of her bag, eventually managing to open it, and shoved her phone inside before snapping the clasp shut. She needed a drink. A strong one.

  There were plenty of free drinks on offer in the hotel ballroom where one of the major pharmaceutical drug companies was hosting the end of conference party but Brighde didn’t feel like going back into the crowd. She needed space almost as much as she needed a drink.

  The ballroom was on the hotel’s mezzanine floor but on the floor below she knew there was a bar adjoining the lobby. She looked at the staircase; the expanse of carpet between her and the stairs looked immense and she wasn’t sure if she’d make it. Her knees wobbled as she took the first step and she focused on putting one foot in front of the other until she could reach for the banister. She clutched it tightly, steadying herself for the descent. The simple task of negotiating a staircase suddenly seemed to require enormous effort. Was that a sign? She knew difficulty with motor skills was often one of the first obvious symptoms of the disease, impaired voluntary movements like gait and balance were hard to ignore, but surely that would be too much of a coincidence.

  Get a hold of yourself, Brighde, she admonished herself. You’re only twenty-eight—you’re not about to fall apart yet.

  She hoped she was right but it was hard to discount the feeling of mounting panic. Her chest was tight and she was finding it hard to breathe. She was surprised by her reaction to Nick’s phone call. She’d always suspected that she would be dealt the bad hand and she hadn’t expected to be so shocked.

  This was what she’d always dreaded. It wasn’t exactly a surprise but, at the end of the day, it obviously didn’t matter how prepared she thought she was; the truth of it was no one wanted to know they were going to an early grave.

  Somehow she managed to get down the stairs and into the bar on her wobbly legs without taking a tumble. She perched on a stool and ordered a vodka Martini. She had no idea if she liked Martinis—she drank vodka—but she felt she needed something more potent. Something that would numb the pain and a Martini sounded like it might do the trick. She didn’t want to ask the bartender for suggestions; she just wanted to anaesthetise herself.

  She plucked the olive from the toothpick as she drained her glass.

  Martinis weren’t too bad, she decided as she ordered another.

  ‘Brighde! What are you doing down here?’

  Brighde turned at the sound of her name and found Sarah, her best friend, colleague and roommate all rolled into one, making a beeline for her across the room.

  ‘Just collecting my thoughts.’

  ‘Looks like you’re collecting more than thoughts,’ Sarah said as the bartender put a fresh cocktail on the bar.

  Sarah was watching her closely as she pulled out another bar stool and sat down.

  ‘Who was on the phone?’ she asked. She’d been standing next to Brighde when she’d taken the call.

  ‘Nick.’

  ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘He got his test results back.’

  ‘At nine o’clock at night?’

  Brighde shook her head. ‘No. But it took him a while to figure out how to tell me.’

  ‘Was it bad news?’

  ‘Not for him.’ Sarah and Brighde had been friends for ten years since meeting at university, where they’d both studied nursing. Brighde had no secrets from Sarah. ‘He had ten repeats.’

  ‘He tested negative?’

  Brighde nodded.

  ‘That’s great news.’

  ‘Yes. It is,’ she said, fighting to speak past the lump in her throat. She still felt like crying, even though nothing she’d heard in the phone call should make any difference. Nothing had really changed. She had her reasons for not getting tested and those reasons hadn’t altered. She could go on just as before. Nick’s results didn’t affect her future plans but she knew they solidified her fears. His results didn’t confirm her suspicions but they definitely strengthened them.

  ‘You don’t seem happy,’ Sarah said.

  ‘We each had a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting a faulty gene. There’s only two of us,’ Brighde explained. ‘What do you think the chances are of both of us dodging a bullet?’

  ‘You know the answer to that. It’s still fifty-fifty. Just because Nick is clear doesn’t mean you won’t be. The chance of you inheriting the gene or not hasn’t changed. Nick’s results have no bearing on you.’

  Brighde knew Sarah’s facts were correct. The reality was her chances of inheriting the mutated gene hadn’t changed but she still felt the odds were not in her favour. She’d always felt that. Which was why she never intended to get tested. Who wanted to know that they were going to die young? Who wanted that fear confirmed?

  Not her.

  ‘I know you’re right. In theory. But I’ve always felt that I was going to draw the short straw and knowing Nick is okay just reinforces all those feelings. Huntington’s Disease is dominantly inherited and I can’t believe we’d both dodge the bullet. I don’t think we could both be that lucky.’

  ‘And I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it tonight,’ Sarah said as she shook her head at the bartender, who was clearing Brighde’s glass and asking if she wanted another. ‘Come and dance, have some fun. The band’s playing some good music—dancing will take your mind off it.’

  Brighde let Sarah convince her to vacate the bar in favour of the dance floor. She didn’t really feel like dancing but she felt less like going back to the hotel room and staring at the walls. She was feeling miserable enough already.

  * * *

  Xavier nursed his beer as he watched the dance floor. It was taking him a little while to get back into beer drinking. He hadn’t realised he’d acquired such a taste for whisky in his years of living in Scotland, but when in Rome... Or Edinburgh.

  What he was getting accustomed to far more quickly was the plethora of attractive young women at the conference. The band had been playing for some time and the dance floor was full. His eyes were drawn to a petite blonde in a sapphire dress. He’d been watching her for a while now; she’d been late onto the dance floor but even among the crowd she’d stood out. He’d tried to look elsewhere but his gaze continued to return to her. He believed you could tell exactly what a woman was like in bed by the way she moved on the dance floor. Th
e blonde had rhythm and energy. Her dress shimmered under the lights and her hair shone, contrasting brightly against all the black outfits in the room. She was striking to look at. She wasn’t smiling, she looked focused, but she danced as if she enjoyed it and he’d put money on her enjoying sex too. She looked fit and flexible and carefree, all admirable traits in his opinion, and he was hooked.

  He waited until she left the dance floor. He wasn’t going anywhere until he’d spoken to her. He could dance, but he wasn’t about to dance in front of hundreds of his fellow medicos. He’d rather dance à deux and so he waited.

  * * *

  The band were playing a love song that was impossible to dance to without a partner. She needed pop music. Something she could lose herself in. She gestured to Sarah—she was going to grab a drink—and made her way to the bar at the side of the ballroom.

  She had intended to get a water—dancing had taken her mind off the earlier phone call—but once she stopped dancing and reached the bar all her doubts returned. She’d have a water later. She needed another drink to numb the pain.

  ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

  Brighde’s skin tingled as she felt, rather than saw, someone behind her. His voice was deep and quiet and although she couldn’t see him she knew he was addressing her. She closed her eyes, imagining a face to go with the voice, before she turned around, hoping she wasn’t going to be disappointed.

  She wasn’t.

  She turned to find the most gorgeous man she’d seen in a long time at her side. How had she not noticed him in the room? Okay, there were hundreds of people at the conference but seriously, he was magnificent. She must have been more distracted than she’d realised.

  He watched her as he waited for her answer. His dark eyes studied her, captivating her with his gaze.

  ‘The drinks are free, you know,’ she replied.

  ‘In that case, I’ll get you two.’ He grinned at her, lightening the seriousness of his dark stare, and Brighde lost the last remnants of her composure.

  He looked like European royalty. No, he wasn’t clean-cut enough for royalty. His dark hair was slightly too long, exploding around his oval face into soft curls that just begged her to reach out and touch them. His jaw was covered in designer stubble, his eyes were dark and his forehead was strong. He was dark and swarthy and sexy as hell. Confidence oozed from him. He was impeccably dressed—his dark navy suit hung from his shoulders and fitted his frame, the pants were slim, encasing powerful thighs. He looked like a European polo player. Something out of a Jilly Cooper novel. He looked rich and successful, although of course she had no idea if that was the case, and he wanted to buy her a drink. If there was a downside to his offer she couldn’t think of one.