The Accidental Daddy

by Meredith Webber

  But Joey was staring at him as if he was out of his mind. ‘Is that all marriage means to you?’ she managed. She rose, her face blank with incomprehension. ‘Marriage... This is nuts. No, it’s beyond nuts. You come here and tell me you’re my baby’s father, and then you calmly decide we can say a few vows but not really mean them, and you can head off, duty done, only you’ll have a child and a little wife back home? You’ve said you’ve broken off with two fiancées, and I can see their point. If marriage means so little...’ She gasped and put her hand to her back. ‘No. That’s none of my business. You are none of my business. I don’t know you and I don’t want to know you. Anything my baby and I do is up to us; we don’t want some phantom mountain-climbing husband and father wafting in and out of our lives when he feels like it.’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘No. You didn’t mean because you didn’t think. This has been as almost as much a shock to you as it is to me, but the answer, believe it or not, is not to take lifetime vows. Max, you need to go.’

  ‘I can’t—’

  ‘You don’t have a choice,’ she said, and gripped her back tighter. Something was... Something...

  He moved forward in instinctive concern as she gasped and then buckled.

  ‘Joey!’

  ‘Shut up,’ she managed. ‘Just shut up and leave.’

  But he couldn’t leave. He watched in mounting concern as she collapsed back against the couch, as a strong, unmistakeable contraction gripped her body.

  Two strong contractions—one right after the other...

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘NO!’ SHE SHRIEKED. All that had gone before disappeared in a haze of shock and pain. ‘This can’t happen now. I’m not nearly ready and Kirstie’s away, I haven’t any nappies, I haven’t read the book—I just cannot have this baby now.’

  She tried to stand up mid-rant but that made matters worse, although Max Winthrop seemed to be taking it all very calmly, gripping her by the arm to make sure she didn’t fall.

  And as she crumbled he seemed to find strength. She was turning into a whimpering expectant mum. He was turning into a doctor.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, infuriatingly soothingly. ‘I guess it’s the shock, but at thirty-eight weeks... Let’s not panic.’

  ‘I want to panic.’ She was almost yelling.

  ‘You could go and have a warm shower,’ he suggested as the pain in her body eased. ‘See if it settles. It could give you time out, make you feel better.’

  ‘I might not want to feel better!’ she muttered, but he was right. She was reasonably sure warm water would make her body relax, now that the scary contractions had passed.

  She sat for a bit, waiting for the pain to return. Max sat by calmly. He was going nowhere. He was her own personal nightmare, she thought, but she had to concede his calmness did help.

  Dumb marriage proposal or not, maybe she wasn’t going to kick him out.

  No more contractions. Swearing to herself, she headed for the bathroom where she took one look at the big, old-fashioned claw-footed bath and knew a bath would be a thousand times better than a shower.

  ‘I’ll have a bath,’ she muttered to herself, but he had obviously followed her—to make sure she was okay—and had heard the mutter.

  ‘Just be careful you don’t slip. Yell if you need help getting out.’

  ‘Fine.’ She shut the door fast. The idea of this man—this stranger—helping her out of the bath in all her naked glory was causing weird sensations in the pit of her stomach.

  Although maybe that was something to do with the contractions...

  She ran water into the tub, stripped off her clothes and dumped them in the clothes basket.

  Aaah! It was pure bliss to slide beneath the warm water, to rest her head back on the edge of the bath, to close her eyes and relax.

  Well, almost relax.

  Total relaxation, with all the mess in her head, was impossible.

  And what had that man said?

  Perhaps they should get married?

  A marriage of convenience?

  Convenient for whom?

  He can’t have meant it! It was the shock talking. For he must be as shocked by the news as she was.

  Total strangers didn’t get married, conveniently or otherwise, even if they shared a child.

  Did they?

  And if he wasn’t around much, what was the point? A husband off climbing or off rescuing...

  But he was attractive.

  What was she thinking? What she’d said to him was true. It was totally nuts.

  So why was she thinking of it? Loneliness? Fear of what lay before her?

  She should forget his nonsense and think about what lies immediately ahead. Should she be feeling more contractions? How soon? She had flicked through a little gem of a book, The Don’t Panic Guide to Birth by a very experienced midwife, Fiona McArthur, who’d not only delivered countless babies but had five herself.

  Fiona would know, she decided, and she’d have time to read it properly when she got out of the bath and before the contractions got too bad.

  ‘You okay in there?’

  The male voice reminded her she wasn’t alone and for some reason she found that very comforting.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll be out in a minute. Please help yourself to anything you can find in the kitchen to eat.’

  ‘I’m already doing that,’ he replied. ‘I’ll have a cup of tea and some sandwiches ready for you when you get out.’

  Again she had a niggly feeling deep inside, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t pain.

  You’re not used to having a man in the house, she told herself, when further analysis of the niggle suggested it had been his voice that had caused it. Just as his hand on her arm, earlier, had made her blood go warm.

  Appalled by her thoughts, she clambered out, grateful that her walking and stair-climbing had kept her fit enough to be able to do it unaided.

  But what to put on? While she was thinking, another contraction hit. Fifteen minutes. Okay, she’d have to go to the hospital soon. What to wear to the hospital was just one of a long list of things she’d been going to ask Kirstie, who had promised to be her birth partner but who was currently hundreds of miles away in Sydney.

  Panic threatened, but she pushed it away, although not far enough. Her heart was fluttering wildly in her chest. Pain. Fear. Hormones?

  Think!

  The fleecy tracksuit—wasn’t that what she’d decided to wear? Though she’d get hot—labouring women got very hot and sweaty—but that was—

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

  He must be right outside the door. Joey wrapped herself in a towel and opened it.

  ‘I don’t know what to wear,’ she all but wailed, and was disgusted with herself when she heard the pathetic words. This wasn’t her at all. She was woman, she was strong, she did not wail—or yelp, or shriek, for that matter.

  ‘Come on, we’ll sort it out,’ he said, in such a matter-of-fact manner she let him take her by the hand and lead her into her bedroom.

  Had he explored while she was in the bath?

  Did it matter?

  ‘Sit on the bed,’ he said. ‘Undies first, I should think. They’re in one of these drawers, I imagine.’

  Joey stared in astonishment at the sight of a man she didn’t know delving into her underwear drawers.

  At least it diverted the panic.

  She really should object, tell him to get out, that she could manage perfectly well on her own. But somehow she knew she couldn’t, and right now it was intensely comforting having someone tell her what to do, even if it was a man, and a stranger at that!

  He held up a bra—not a delicate, lacy, sexy and romantic confection
but a sturdy, very basic and utterly unattractive maternity bra.

  She nodded and he tossed it to her, then opened a few other drawers, coming up with an equally unbecoming pair of knickers.

  She nodded again, feeling her cheeks heat as the reality of the situation wound its way into her consciousness.

  Surely this was the height of embarrassment, although the man was handling it with such detachment it couldn’t be worrying him.

  Sisters—he’d mentioned he had sisters—maybe that helped.

  And he was a doctor, after all.

  ‘I’ll leave you to get dressed,’ he said, ‘or would you like help?

  Help putting her massive boobs into a maternity bra? No, thank you very much!

  ‘I’ll manage,’ she said, clutching her underwear and the towel and wishing that he would go as her embarrassment had reached almost crippling levels.

  ‘I’ll be right outside,’ he assured her and smiled. ‘You know, I’d decided children weren’t for me, but now this has happened, it’s as if something’s snapped inside me. Here I am thinking how lucky this is. To think I’ll be around when my baby’s born!’

  Forget embarrassment and panic, now she wanted to throw something at the man, but he’d disappeared, pulling the door to but leaving it a little ajar, presumably in case she needed him.

  A caring man?

  Not too caring to go off climbing mountains for years while his fiancée waited at home.

  And hadn’t this mess started when he’d gone to the clinic to have his sperm destroyed because he didn’t want children?

  So why was he getting excited about his baby being born?

  The man was a contradiction but the option of him not being there when the baby was born was not very appealing. Well, not him exactly but not having someone there beside her.

  As an only child of parents who’d died not long after David, she no longer had family. Kirstie was away, her other close friend, Lissa, had three kids and her husband was overseas, David’s parents were overseas—and she doubted the couple, now in their seventies, would want to watch a baby being born, even if they didn’t know it wasn’t their grandchild. Oh, dear heaven, what was she going to tell them?

  She dropped the towel and struggled into her bra and knickers, found a big T-shirt she slept in in summer so she could take off the tracksuit and still be relatively decent when push, almost literally, came to shove, then picked out her warm red tracksuit and pulled it on. Okay, so she looked like a double-decker London bus, but so what!

  * * *

  Max stood in the kitchen, admiring the sandwiches he’d placed neatly on a plate and waiting to make the tea, when Joey emerged.

  Excitement skittered through him. It was a different kind of excitement from others he’d experienced, although most of that had been excitement arising from a hint—or even a real possibility—of danger.

  This was personal excitement of a kind he’d never felt before. And given how horrified he’d been about the news that he’d fathered her baby—any baby—and the cynical voice in his head telling him he was mad, it was beyond weird. Right up until she’d gasped with the contraction, he’d been sure he could stay detached and make calm, clinical decisions about the future. Then suddenly the imminent arrival of his child had turned his world upside down.

  He’d become a typical father-to-be—excited, panicky and scared. Involvement with the child he’d accidentally fathered was no longer an issue. This woman was about to have his baby, and given that whoever had been going to be with her for the birth was not available, he wanted desperately to be able to be there instead.

  Who better? he asked himself. He was a doctor, his training had included obstetrics, so being a birthing partner shouldn’t be a problem.

  He was pondering the best way to suggest it when she appeared from the bedroom, resplendent in a vivid red tracksuit that seemed to reflect its colour into her cheeks.

  With her pale skin and dark, shining hair tumbling from its confining band, she looked beautiful—bountiful but beautiful.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she admitted. ‘All I can remember from my obstetrics training is that women often go to hospital four or five times with false contractions, although—’

  She stopped, gripping the table, sure what she was feeling couldn’t possibly be false.

  ‘Another one?’ Max asked, reaching out to hold her hand.

  She nodded then slowly relaxed.

  ‘Fifty minutes apart,’ he said, and Joey looked at him in amazement.

  ‘Wrong, I had one in the bath. You timed them?’

  He grinned at her.

  ‘Well, I did learn a few things in medical school.’ He smiled at her. ‘And so must you.’ He motioned to the open book on the table. ‘So why do you have this book?’

  To his surprise, she smiled back at him.

  ‘If you remember, all we learned was from the doctor’s perspective. We certainly didn’t learn how to help the labouring woman—unless it was about pain relief or emergency procedures. I had intended going to the classes where you learn all the breathing stuff, but what with work and getting the nursery ready, I never got around to it.’

  He thought for a moment.

  ‘That stuff should be taught to medical students, shouldn’t it? We should know what’s happening to the woman, apart from how often her contractions are coming and how open her cervix is.’

  ‘The book will tell us.’ And Joey smiled again, the panic he’d seen in her eyes earlier easing as she spoke. ‘That’s if we have time to read the book.’

  We? She was using the plural pronoun and it brought a riveting charge of excitement through Max’s body, but before he could ask what it meant, Joey was speaking to him again.

  ‘What do you think? Should I wait for another or just go to the hospital?’

  Max felt a surge of pride that she was asking him, although, in truth, he had no idea of the answer. Surely they’d learned that much!

  ‘Let’s phone the hospital and see what they say.’ He was inordinately proud of himself that he’d thought of such a sensible suggestion. And it must have been okay, for Joey perched on a stool, picked up one of the sandwiches and bit into it while she dialled an obviously well-known number.

  He was surprised, given her tirade earlier, to hear how calmly she spoke, and he guessed that the contractions, on top of his unbelievable news, had just been too much for her. But she seemed back in control now, and ready to go through the final stages of what must have been a long, lonely pregnancy.

  She was certainly something, this woman!

  ‘So?’ he asked, as she finished her call.

  ‘Hospital when I’m ready but there’s no rush unless the contractions start to get much closer,’ she reported. ‘I guess that means I’ll have time to pack a bag—yes, I know it should have been done earlier—and maybe, on the way, call in at an all-night chemist for some nappies. People have given me heaps of clothes, and I’ve done a lot of research on disposable nappies and know what I want, it was just one of the hundred things I was going to do in the next couple of weeks. I’d sort of...’ She sounded suddenly unsure. ‘I’d sort of assumed...hoped...it might be late.’

  Max had to smile, although he heard the panicky note back in her voice.

  ‘Don’t worry about nappies. Unless maternity hospitals have changed since I did my training, they have an endless supply, so you won’t need your own until you get home.’

  ‘Which could be tomorrow,’ Joey told him. ‘Women are lucky if they get to stay in overnight— Oh, damn!’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘I’ve bought a new car because the old one I’ve been driving doesn’t have the secure places to attach capsules and seats. I was having the baby capsule fitted next week. Now I won’t be able to bring the baby ho
me!’

  She’d bought a new car just to have a baby capsule securely fitted? The woman continued to amaze him, but she was sounding stressed again.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said instead. ‘I know this isn’t how you’d planned things and you certainly didn’t need the shock I landed on you, but now I’m here, I can help. I’m not working at the moment, just waiting on a couple of contract jobs that are coming up, so I can buy the nappies and fit the capsule. I can even, if you wouldn’t mind, be your birthing partner. Just let me read the book. I’ll do a speed read and you can tell me exactly what your friend was going to do.’

  Joey stared at him. Was this man for real?

  Had he just offered to support her through the birth of her child?

  Most men would run a hundred miles—that’s unless they were the father—

  Which he was—or presumably was.

  It was all too much, but right now the thought of going through her labour alone was terrifying.

  ‘Do you mean that?’

  ‘About fitting the capsule? Of course.’

  ‘I don’t mean that, I mean the being with me for the birth. Would you do it?’

  He grinned and this time she knew the weird sensations in her body were nothing to do with impending childbirth.

  Or the panic she was trying to suppress.

  ‘Try and stop me,’ he said, still grinning. ‘You finish your sandwiches and I’ll keep reading so I’ll know how best to help you.’

  It had to be shock—that, and the release of new hormones as her body got ready to give birth. Why else would she be not only agreeing to this man going through the event with her but even feeling appreciative towards him?

  Thankful!

  Grateful!

  No, make that pathetically grateful.

  Not that she’d tell him.

  * * *

  Night had fallen and the lights of the city twinkled and flickered beneath him as Max strode swiftly back down the terrace towards a private parking station Joey had described as ‘you can’t miss it.’ He wasn’t so sure, just as he wasn’t certain he’d actually find the car whose keys he carried. ‘It’s a kind of silvery blue, or maybe a silvery green,’ Joey had told him, ‘and the capsule’s still all wrapped up in the back seat. I did have the reg number, but the paper’s in the car glove-box so that’s no help.’