The Nurse's Pregnancy Miracle

by Ann Mcintosh

  Without breaking eye contact, David cupped her face, tilting it up toward his. She found her lips softening, longing blooming and spreading through her body. When his fingers settled, warm and strong on her skin, a little groan of need rose in her throat.

  “I won’t say it doesn’t frighten me, but we’ll get through it together.” He caressed her lower lip with a sweep of one thumb. “I’ve allowed fear to rule my life too long. When we were apart I was consumed with wanting you, seeing you smile, hearing your voice, just being with you, and it was tearing me to pieces. I guess you could say my love for you is far stronger than my fears, and I’d rather be with you, no matter what, than try to exist without you.”

  “Suppose you change your mind?” she whispered, hope warring with her own fear to bring on a wave of insecurity. “What happens then?”

  His smile was beautiful, open and happy. “You don’t get it, do you? I’m yours—heart, body, mind and soul. Driving over here, half crazy with worry, I had to accept that I’ll never be free from loving you. I thought if I just stayed away my feelings would fade, but now I know that will never happen.”

  His hands slipped from her face to her shoulders, urging her to stand. When she did, he wrapped his arms around her waist, but kept just enough space between them so they were face to face.

  “I want to be the one who makes sure you’re fine, no matter what. I want to be there for you every day, to hold your hand, or rub your feet, or tell you off when I think you’re overdoing things. Say you love me again. Tell me you’ll have me for the rest of our lives.”

  The love they shared washed over her, chasing away her trepidation and filling her with joy. “Yes. Oh, David, I love you so much.”

  And then, enfolded in his arms, she lost herself in his kisses, completely secure for the first time in her life and exactly where she was supposed to be. All doubts cast aside.

  EPILOGUE

  “I WAS THINKING,” David said, in a casual voice that Nychelle knew meant he was feeling anything but relaxed. “You should stop working soon.”

  This wasn’t really a promising start to what she’d hoped would be a busy and productive Saturday. So many changes were coming, and coming so quickly her head sometimes felt as though it were spinning.

  In less than eight weeks they’d welcome their baby, and as if that weren’t enough they also had to sign the papers to purchase a practice close to David’s home town. While he wouldn’t take over from the retiring doctor there for another six months after that, Nychelle was determined to have as much dealt with on the home front as she could before the birth.

  She had a to-do list as long as her arm, but David didn’t seem inclined to go anywhere or do anything other than lie here. Or rather, he was probably inclined to have her lie there all day.

  Lying across the bed, his head resting on her thigh, he rubbed her distended stomach, pausing every now and then to feel the baby turn or kick against his palm.

  “Sweetheart, I’m just at thirty-two weeks,” she replied. “And in good health. I don’t want to stop working yet.”

  She’d been waiting for this to happen ever since she’d had a scare at twenty-two weeks and her doctor had diagnosed placenta praevia. Dr. Miller was monitoring it carefully, and had scheduled Nychelle to have a Caesarian section five days before her due date, but David’s stress levels had been climbing ever since. However, even though she wanted to alleviate his fears, knowing that she wouldn’t be returning to Lauderlakes after the baby came made her want to maximize her earnings before she left. It was a Catch 22.

  “I know,” he answered, keeping his focus on her belly, his hand sliding around and around. “But it’s something to think about.”

  Nychelle sighed, but made sure he didn’t hear it. He’d been so good through her pregnancy up to this point—not hovering too much or allowing his doctoring instincts to take over; being concerned and engaged but not smothering.

  Of course she knew he watched her when he thought she wasn’t looking, and was sure he sometimes stayed awake at night to keep an eye on her when she wasn’t feeling well. No matter what the doctor said, or how often she told David she was feeling wonderful, she knew he wouldn’t really be okay until the baby was safely delivered.

  She’d planned to work right up until the week before her C-section, but it looked like it was time for a compromise, and Nychelle carefully considered her words before saying them. “Well, why don’t we—”

  “Hang on,” he said, his head coming up off her thigh. “Hold that thought.”

  He rolled to stand with a motion so fluid all she could feel was envy. The very last vestiges of grace had deserted her at least a month ago, and it often felt as though she needed a block and tackle to do the simplest things. Like get up out of a chair or push herself up to sit higher on her pillows.

  Moments later he was back, carrying Jacqueline, who’d just woken up. Like her mother, it took the toddler a while to face the day and become fully human again, and David was patting her back and joggling her gently, the way he knew she liked.

  “Here we are,” he said, placing a kiss on the top of Jackie’s head. “Here’s our beautiful girl, ready to rise and shine.”

  Nychelle chuckled when she caught sight of Jackie’s expression. “Rise and shine” indeed. If the pout on their daughter’s face was anything to go by, she had no intention of doing any such thing anytime soon.

  “Mama,” the little girl mumbled, reaching out with one arm while still keeping a tight grip on David’s neck with the other.

  Lowering himself and Jackie onto the bed with practiced ease, David lay down so the little body was snuggled between them.

  “Good morning, my sweet girl,” Nychelle said.

  She was just reaching down to kiss Jackie’s sleep-warmed cheek when the toddler abruptly sat up.

  “Good morning, little bruvver,” she said, in her scratchy, first-thing-in-the-morning voice, before leaning close to kiss Nychelle’s tummy.

  As Jackie flopped back down and rolled over, pulling at David’s hand so he embraced them both, Nychelle knew a fullness of heart that never failed to make her eyes misty.

  Looking across Jackie into her husband’s beautiful blue eyes, she saw reflected there all she was feeling and more. And she smiled, knowing she was the luckiest woman alive.

  “One more month,” she said, moving her hand to cover his, which was back to circling her stomach. “Then I’ll stay home.”

  “Two weeks,” he said, as she’d expected.

  “Three,” she countered, her smile turning into a grin when he reluctantly nodded.

  “Why do I feel as though that was what you’d decided from the outset?” he grumbled, turning his hand to link his fingers with hers. “To you and Jackie I’m just a pushover, aren’t I?”

  She giggled, wrinkling her nose at him. “At least at the clinic you’re still Dr. Heat, the man who has the nurses falling over themselves to do his bidding.”

  “Stop it,” he growled, even as he swooped in to kiss the laughter from her lips. “Why can’t I be Dr. Heat to you instead? I’d like that better.”

  “Oh, you are,” she murmured against his mouth, surrounded in happiness, basking in the warmth of his love. “And you always will be.”

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Healed by Her Army Doc by Meredith Webber.

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  Healed by Her Army Doc

  by Meredith Webber

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE MIGHT BE Kate’s favourite relative and most stalwart support, but Aunt Alice was adept at catching Kate in unguarded moments and tonight was no exception.

  ‘You’ve only worked a half-shift today, and you’re off duty tomorrow, so it couldn’t be better, and you’ve got the excuse of that team meeting you had this afternoon,’ Alice pointed out.

  The team meeting that afternoon was the reason Kate was unguarded, though flummoxed would have been a better word. Arriving late from Theatre, still pulling off her theatre cap and running her fingers through her chaotic, needing-a-cut hair, she’d rushed into the SDR meeting room, and the first person Kate had seen had been Angus.

  Not surprising, the seeing part. Men who stood just over six feet tall and had the shoulders that went with the height weren’t easy to miss.

  But Angus?

  Here!

  Shock halted her momentarily, then, as her bones had turned to jelly, she’d subsided into the nearest seat, rather wishing her weight would take it straight down through the floor.

  Or there’d be an earthquake, tornado, hospital on fire—any distraction...

  The worst of it was that whatever had flared between them three years ago on the island was just as electrifyingly alive as it had been back then. She could feel that inexplicable awareness that had rocked both of them arcing across the room between them. Looked up to check she couldn’t actually see it in the form of flashing lightning because she’d heard it in the thunder in her veins.

  Angus!

  ‘You can tell Harriet what was discussed,’ Alice was persisting, bringing Kate out of the horrendous memories of the afternoon meeting of the Specialist Disaster Response team. ‘She’s really down about missing it, well, not the meeting so much but as being part of the team. She could have gone to the meeting, but I think that Pete was supposed to collect her and, as far as I can make out, he’s been conspicuous by his absence lately.’

  Not much got past Alice, who, although unconnected to the hospital, was a long-term resident of the apartment block where so many of the staff lived.

  In her head Kate acknowledged her great-aunt was right, and not only about Harriet’s boyfriend disappearing. Before she’d injured her leg in an accident on a training day for the SDR, Harriet had been an integral and enthusiastic part of the team but after battling operations and infections she must be wondering if she’d ever be able to join it again, while she and Pete had been one of the glamour couples of Bondi Bayside Hospital’s social scene.

  Not that Kate was part of that scene, but in any hospital there were few secrets.

  ‘Go on,’ Alice was saying. ‘You’ve lived here two years, you work at the same hospital, belong to that team together, and you barely know Harriet. You can’t shut yourself away for ever—it’s just not natural. She probably thinks you’re a terrible snob because you’re a surgeon and she’s only a nurse.’

  ‘Hardly “only” a nurse, Alice,’ Kate said. ‘She’s one of the top nurses in the ICU and that’s probably one of the most important jobs in the whole hospital.’

  Kate was glad of the conversation—anything to keep her mind off the SDR meeting.

  Off Angus!

  He can’t be here!

  He is!

  She dragged her mind back to the subject of Alice’s conversation, to Harriet Collins.

  ‘Intensive Care is high-level nursing. It’s just that with work and study and keeping up the level of fitness I need to stay on the team I don’t really have time—’

  ‘Tosh!’ said Alice. ‘You’re hiding away from something—from life itself, in fact. I know you needed to grieve for the baby, that’s why I asked you to come and live here with me. New hospital, new job, new people—but you should have moved on by now. This self-imposed isolation of yours has gone on long enough. So get over to Harriet’s apartment and tell her about the meeting. Find a way to convince her she’ll get back on the team before long.’

  Knowing it was futile to argue, Kate had a quick shower, washed her hair, pulled on jeans and a light sweatshirt and made her way along the corridor to Harriet’s apartment, her feet beating out an accompaniment to the phrase running over and over in her head.

  I will not think about Angus, it went. I will not think about Angus. I will not think about Angus...

  Harriet’s apartment was at the front of the block so as Harriet opened the door—more than slightly startled—Kate could see straight through the living room to the ocean beyond, painted pale pink and violet as it reflected the colours of the sky at sunset.

  ‘Kate!’

  The exclamation told Kate she’d guessed right, although she now substituted ‘extremely’ for the ‘slightly’ in the startled stakes.

  ‘I hope I’m not interrupting you but I thought you might like to know what went on at the meeting.’

  Harriet stared at her and seeing the blankness in her hazel eyes, and the pale drawn skin beneath the lovely auburn hair, Kate had to set aside her own preoccupation and accept that Alice—as ever—had been right. All was not well with the usually vibrant Harriet.

  ‘So, can I come in?’

  Wordlessly, Harriet stepped back and waved her hand towards the living room.

  ‘What a fantastic view! You take in the whole bay. It’s unbelievable. You must see the beach and ocean in so many moods. Are you a photographer? You could take a thousand pictures from your balcony with not one of them the same.’

  Kate knew she was blethering, but Harriet’s silence was unnerving and she’d already been totally unnerved once today.

  ‘Did Alice send you to cheer me up?’

  Not exactly the conversation opener Kate had expected but it would do.

  ‘Yes, she did. She’s worried about you. We’re all worried about you.’

  Deep breath!

  ‘Actually, to be honest, she’s worried about me too. She thinks I work too hard, but the SDR meeting was interesting. Blake had brought along an army bloke who has been working on a new emergency response tent. You know, one of those ones that fold up and can be dropped into disaster zones and comes complete with all our medical needs. Apparently, he has a new prototype he wants to trial next time we have a callout to somewhere fairly isolated.’

  ‘Not close to a local hospital or, say, in a bushfire where the hospital’s been damaged or destroyed,’ Harriet said, picking up on the idea immediately. ‘I’ve seen army ones on exercises we’ve taken with other teams. They really are a complete package, right down to food, water and accommodation for the first responders—enough for them to be self-sufficient for a fortnight.’

  Taking the words as a small spark of interest, Kate said, ‘Shall I tell you about it? Will we sit down?’

  Harriet was frowning slightly, but as Kate perched on the sofa, her hostess dropped into an armchair. The frown was understandable. Here was this neighbour, who’d been in the apartment block for two years yet had never ventured over the thres
hold, making herself at home.

  And talking, talking, talking—

  The doorbell shrilled, and Harriet’s frown deepened.

  ‘It must be someone from another apartment because they didn’t ring at the front door.’

  It shrilled again.

  ‘Would you like me to get it?’ Kate offered, her heart going out to the woman she’d only known as lively and active, now a pale shadow of her former self.

  A shadow with her injured leg still in its ungainly brace.

  ‘No, I’ll go.’

  Harriet rose to her feet and limped to the door, opening it to reveal the person Kate was still telling herself not to think about.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ came the deep growl from the doorway. ‘I’m Angus Caruth, and Blake gave me Kate’s address, and then Alice said she was here and that you wouldn’t mind if I popped in to say hello. I barely recognised her earlier, at the meeting. I don’t think I’d ever seen Kate with dry hair.’

  Kate’s gut had twisted more with every word he spoke, but she’d regained some control over her mind, so as Harriet ushered in her new visitor, she used anger to mask all the other reactions that had rioted inside her since the meeting.

  ‘Blake gave you my address?’ she demanded. ‘Whatever happened to staff confidentiality?’

  ‘Oh, I’d blame Sam for that,’ Harriet said, obviously intrigued by this second visitor. She waved her arm towards the sofa, and invited Angus to sit. ‘Ever since she and Blake got together, she’s been seeing the world through a pearly haze of love.’

  She turned to Kate and smiled—smiled properly!

  ‘So what’s with the wet hair?’

  The smile was the first sign of the old Harriet that Kate had seen so she felt obliged to reply.

  ‘Angus and I met in a cyclone. Everyone had wet hair.’