He let go of her hand, poured them both more wine, then fished around in his pockets, patting first then delving, producing a very small, rather battered little box.
‘One day I’d hope to get you something more than this, but for now I wondered... It was my grandmother’s, she left it to me and I’ve carried it with me ever since for luck. But now, the marriage of convenience thing—giving Harry two parents...making a family—would you...?’
Max wasn’t sure how he’d got that far in the proposal, because his tongue was thick and kept cleaving to the top of his mouth, and his mind had gone blank so he had to search through it for every word, and now Joey was sitting there like someone who’d been turned to stone.
He’d made a mess of things. It was a huge mistake. Why on earth would this woman want to tie herself to him?
Any woman really?
He just wasn’t marriage material.
‘What are you thinking?’ she demanded.
He frowned, puzzled that his question had been answered by a question—or had he not asked a question?
‘Right now,’ Joey persisted, ‘and don’t bother telling me you’re not thinking anything because I can practically read all the terrible thoughts running through your head.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said, and even managed to smile at her. ‘I was thinking I’d made a mess of things. Thinking how this is so different from the other times I proposed. I was playing at romance. But this somehow seems solid. Good. But why would any woman in her right mind want to tie herself to a bloke like me? I’m also thinking how badly I might have embarrassed you just by asking—forcing you to answer me when you’re probably feeling so sorry for the poor fool you’d find it hard to say no.’
Her answering smile held something—a little spark of mischief? He wasn’t sure but it gave him hope.
‘And if I don’t say no?’
Hope and disbelief warred within him, joining a sudden spurt of anxiety as well—suppose he hurt this woman as he’d hurt others?
‘You’d say yes?’ He blurted out the words. ‘But you barely know me!’
‘Backing out?’ she teased, a whole lot more mischief in her smile.
‘Well, no!’ The denial was so weak he knew he had to get a grip. ‘Definitely not, but I don’t want you to feel pressured.’
He stopped, took a deep breath and blew it out—loudly.
‘I’m making a total hash of this, aren’t I?’
She chuckled.
‘You are,’ she said, but kindly. ‘And considering the practice you’ve had, you should be doing better.’
‘I just thought maybe if we settled on not marriage right away but some kind of arrangement, the future might look clearer. I know you must be torturing yourself about what to tell your friends and David’s family, and I thought, if we had some kind of commitment, it might give you backup. You wouldn’t have to worry about what your friends might think about me if I didn’t commit to Harry because...’
He paused, reaching the crux of things—a place he probably should have been earlier.
‘I am committed to Harry,’ he said. ‘You weren’t to know but I held him earlier. He’s mine and I’ll be a father to him however and whenever I can. I’m committed, Joey, now and forever!’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS AN unmistakable declaration of intent, and Joey couldn’t help but believe he meant it.
Would it help her tell people, knowing the baby’s father was right behind her all the way, willing to stick around and be a father? Willing to marry her, for all it might be a convenient marriage?
Did he take her silence for assent as he passed her the little, battered box?
She took it from his trembling fingers, opened it and smiled. Inside was a delicate ring, white gold, she suspected, with a square old-fashioned setting—a dark blue sapphire nesting in a border of tiny diamonds.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she breathed.
‘Put it on,’ he said, his voice as breathless as hers had been.
She lifted it out, about to slide it on. For some reason she’d stopped wearing David’s ring years ago. She no longer felt married. But now she hesitated. Putting a ring back on this finger felt like such a big deal.
‘Are we doing this just for Harry?’ she asked.
His face grew grave.
‘I think it’s for all three of us.’
‘You do know we barely know each other,’ she reminded him.
‘We’ve plenty of time to remedy that,’ he said, still grave but his mood lighter somehow, as if he too felt an underlying whisper of physical desire that had somehow sneaked into the words.
‘You do it,’ she said, passing him the ring, aware in every cell of her body that she was, right now, foolishly or not, committing herself to this man.
He took her hand and slid the ring onto her ring finger, smiling that it fitted so well.
‘It was meant for you,’ he said, and she knew in that instant it hadn’t been offered to either of his earlier fiancées.
Somehow they paid the bill and left the restaurant, not exactly running but moving with swift strides to the first dark patch of shadow they could find.
Her need to wrap her arms around this man, to hold and be held, was obviously echoed in him, for that’s all they did at first. They just held each other close, making a silent, physical commitment to each other, strengthening their togetherness.
And shadows being abundant, they walked, and stopped, and kissed, and held, and kissed again, every embrace strengthening the ties between them, every kiss reaffirming the commitment they had made to each other.
Joey felt a peace she’d never known before settling in her heart, while the chatter in her head stilled completely.
Back at the hospital it seemed natural to go straight to the special care unit, Max introducing her to the two new arrivals, two baby girls, one father and one mother. Joey settled on the chair beside Harry’s crib, Max in his usual position on the arm of it.
Joey leaned her head against his thigh and tried to think, but now it was happiness rather than worry and muddle blocking her thought processes.
So don’t think, she told herself. Just feel, and be content with that, because no matter what anyone might think, it was possible to fall in love in just forty-eight hours!
Not that she’d mention that little snippet of information to Max. She was pretty sure love didn’t feature in the requirements for a convenient marriage.
But much as she’d tried to harden her heart—to protect it from future pain—first Harry and now Max had sneaked right in.
‘You go to bed so you’re not too tired in the morning. I’ll sit with him.’
Max’s fingers were trailing through her hair as he spoke, the feel of them so pleasant it took her a while to grasp his words.
‘But if you sit all night you’ll be tired too.’
He smiled down at her.
‘I won’t sit all night. As long as he knows we’re around most of the time, he’ll be okay.’
Max shifted from the arm of the chair, taking Joey’s hand to help her up.
‘I’ll walk you to your room,’ he said, because there was no way, on this momentous night, that he was leaving her without a good-night kiss.
The cheeky smile she gave him, before saying good-night to the other parents, told him she’d guessed his agenda. But it also told him she wasn’t averse to it.
It held promise, this convenient marriage...
Back by Harry’s crib—much later—he tried to work out how he felt.
Settled?
It seemed such a mundane word for the multitude of emotions he’d experienced that day—the last couple of days, in fact—but that’s how he did feel.
Settled!
He reached out to rest his fingers lightly on Harry’s leg. Yes, he was settled with a son and now a woman who would be his wife. They’d make a family, the three of them together, and the idea was suddenly immeasurably exciting.
By midnight he knew he needed sleep, so headed back to his apartment. He really should move closer, although Joey was likely to lose her bed at the hospital any day now. Maybe he would stay at her place. Was that presuming too much?
They were engaged, after all...
His body stirred, but other commitments loomed. He couldn’t not go to Africa—and that was only a few weeks away...
* * *
Joey woke slowly, coming out of the deepest sleep she’d had since she’d arrived at the hospital.
Pleasure flooded through her as she felt the ring on her finger, followed by anxiety as she thought of Harry’s op.
Uncertain when they’d want to take him through to theatre, she dressed hurriedly and went through to the unit. No Max, but a nurse who told her it would be three-quarters of an hour before they moved him.
‘Have you had breakfast?’ the nurse asked, and when Joey shook her head, the nurse shooed her away.
‘Go and eat,’ she said. ‘It’s important you keep up your strength, especially as you’re going into theatre for the op.’
Joey kissed her son lightly on the cheek, then obeyed the nurse. It was important that she ate, even if it was only the boring cereal and toast she’d ordered, and which had been delivered, for her breakfast.
But at the toast stage she began not to worry but to feel a little niggle of concern. Max was usually around by this time of the morning.
The woman who came to take her tray was bursting with news—almost indecently cheerful as she regaled Joey with details of a horrific accident less than a kilometre from the hospital. Apparently a train had derailed, hitting the support of an overpass, which had collapsed on the train, injuring and trapping passengers.
At least Max wouldn’t be on a train, was Joey’s first thought, even before she felt a wave of sympathy for the victims. Many of the injured would be coming to this hospital. From what the woman had said, it was definitely the closest.
She remembered all the disaster planning sessions and disaster drills she’d attended and knew medical staff would be called in from all over the city.
Could she help?
And not be there for Harry’s op?
She knew she couldn’t—she’d be too distracted to do any good, and emergency medicine was a whole different field.
It was time to go with Harry into theatre and still no Max.
Not that she didn’t know exactly where he was! Her certainty was so great it was far more than a guess.
Could you know someone so well after so few days?
What she did know of him was that he’d somehow got involved in the train wreck—just walking past, most probably—and, adrenaline junkie that he was, he’d been drawn in.
That was unfair—the adrenaline junkie bit. After all it was what he was trained to do, what he was an expert at. Wasn’t it?
* * *
He’d heard the noise, the screeching protests of metal tearing, the roaring of an engine unable to continue on its way, the thunder of falling bricks and masonry, and already—although possibly only in his mind—the cries of those in shock and pain.
He ran, not charging in panic but with loping strides, towards the noise, aware of the irony of the situation—aware that he was letting down the woman who’d agreed to marry him within hours of his proposal.
Both the woman and his son. The latter disappointment hurt him most, although Harry would be blissfully unaware of his absence.
Yet still he ran, reaching the scene within minutes, assessing the situation, checking first with a shocked railway official that power had been turned off, looking for any signs of fire—a telltale wisp of smoke, a flicker of light where there should be none.
He could hear the jangling medley of emergency vehicles’ sirens and knew they’d soon be on the scene, but he was here now and trained for this.
‘Stay away from the part that’s under the collapsed road,’ he told the men and women already scrambling down onto the tracks to assist in any way they could. ‘Help the passengers in all the other compartments get out. Bring them over here, away from the train.’
He wasn’t surprised when these willing volunteers all went off to do as they were told. In situations like this, people liked to be organised—needed to be told how they could help.
‘The firies will bring equipment to shore up the bridge above the wrecked carriages,’ he said to the still hovering official. ‘But I’ll try to get in there now, to see just how badly people might be injured. I’m a doctor—I’ve done this kind of thing.’
The man patted his shoulder with a trembling hand and took over directing helpers to the undamaged carriages from which shaken passengers were now being helped.
Max entered the first carriage, skewed to one side and tilting dangerously but still fairly intact. It must have been the second one that had jumped the rails and hit the support.
Easing past the people being helped out of it, he entered the second one, bending down as the caved-in part of the roof made access difficult.
Those who could move were struggling out, some helping others, some just intent on escaping the horror that had struck the early-morning commuters.
The cries and moans of pain were clearer here, while helpers shouted frantically for more help, to reach a friend, a wife, a child...
Max eased forward, reaching one such helper who was clinging to the hand of someone trapped beneath a tangled mess of metal and upholstery.
‘It’s Mandy. She’s always on my train,’ the young man said, and Max slid his hand down the youthful-looking arm, feeling for the girl—shoulder, neck, pulse.
Strong and steady.
Relieved, he reached further in, feeling for the wetness of blood. Nothing he could reach.
‘Stay with her, talk to her,’ he told the young man. ‘Someone will bring equipment soon to cut her free.’
Max felt his way down what had been an aisle, feeling for the injured in the gloom. Someone caught his hand.
‘Help me, please!’
He spoke quietly to the unseen person, again following an arm up to a shoulder and a neck. Thready pulse...
‘Are you bleeding?’
‘Not much, but I can’t breathe.’
Max felt around, found the carriage seat that had impacted on this victim, tried to lift it, even just slightly, to ease the pressure on the person’s chest—his lungs—although aware if there was an open chest wound, he could be making things worse.
The fingers holding his tightened, whispered thanks, a faint voice assuring him he or she—the voice so soft he couldn’t tell—would be okay until more help came.
‘Find someone else,’ the voice said, so Max moved on.
And on!
The noise of generators told him the experts had arrived, so the bridge would be jacked up, temporarily secured above the damaged carriages and full rescue teams and paramedics would be flooding into the carriages.
But the man he’d found beneath a seat, clutching at his damaged leg, might not last that long as blood was pumping sluggishly from a wound in his upper leg.
Femoral artery damage?
The flow sluggish because his blood flow was compromised somewhere else?
Or was his heart struggling for some other reason?
It didn’t matter, Max knew. He padded his handkerchief and pressed it to the wound, wriggled round until he could pull the laces from one of the sneakers he’d put on so he could jog up to the hospital.
Thanking the heavens for the fashion of long laces, he tied the lace around the man’s leg, holding th
e handkerchief in place, praying someone would be there to release the man before the lack of circulation to his lower limb affected the tissues there.
‘Anybody in here who can move, please try to make your way towards me.’
The voice held enough authority for Max to obey, wriggling himself back along the narrow tunnel even before the man added, ‘We’re about to lift the bridge, and the train will probably move and we don’t want any more injuries.’
‘I’m a doctor, I can help,’ he told the man when he finally reached him.
‘Good! Go talk to the triage people—you’ll recognise them once you get outside.’
* * *
Joey followed Harry’s crib into the theatre, her fingers twisting the ring Harry had put on her finger only last night.
She had no doubt he was just up the road, and understood that it was where he had to be, but would it always be like this?
He’d warned her about his lifestyle—that he could be called away at any moment—but what if it was always when she needed him?
Was she selfish to be thinking this way?
It wasn’t as if Harry was in danger. He had the best surgeon in the state, the op was a simple one, and two and a half days ago she hadn’t even known Max.
So why was her stomach churning? It wasn’t with anger exactly, and not really disappointment...
She took the gown and mask a nurse handed her, said thank you, put both on, then stood where she was told so she could watch her old mentor operate on her very new son.
Max’s son!
Was this why his last two fiancées had given up on him?
Because of the churning when he wasn’t there?
Was she so weak?
So pathetic?
Surely she was made of stronger stuff.
She felt for the ring on her finger, but this time, as she twisted it, she remembered what he’d said.
I’ve carried it with me always—for luck!
He didn’t have his ring for luck!
The Accidental Daddy Page 15