Their Double Baby Gift

by Louisa Heaton

  ‘I was so scared. About doing it alone. I wasn’t sure whether I could continue on with the pregnancy.’

  She felt awful about that now. Even admitting it was hard.

  ‘I didn’t know if I’d know what to do. I can’t remember my own mother, what she was like and so I told myself it wasn’t the right time to have a baby. I wasn’t in a good situation, being on my own, and I had a demanding job, with long hours away. I didn’t think I’d be able to do it—not without family to help. But...’ She smiled again, lost in the past. ‘I couldn’t bear the idea of just ending the pregnancy. Jen convinced me I could do it alone. Told me that she would be there for me and that we’d raise our babies together.’

  She tried to ignore the lump in her throat as she spoke. Jen had been unable to keep that promise, and Brooke had been so low when that call had come and she’d realised she would be on her own.

  ‘You really have no family?’

  She shook her head, determined not to let herself cry. ‘As I said before, I have a father. Not that you’d know it.’

  ‘He’s not local?’

  ‘Oh, he’s local. He lives in Wandsworth. But he’s not present. All my life my father has had an issue with alcohol—always looking for his next drink, thinking of nothing and no one else.’

  ‘Addiction is hard.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  She thought of how addicted she had become to seeing Matt after each patient. She hadn’t been knocking back vodka at every opportunity, but she had become very quickly addicted to that uplifting note in her day. To that brief conversation in which she had been made to feel lifted. Better. Her cares gone away. Strangely soothed...her edges softened.

  Just like an addict.

  ‘The last time he saw Morgan she was hours old. Then he went out and got drunk to toast her arrival. Wet the baby’s head.’

  Matt reached across the table to lay his hand over hers. Then his features changed suddenly and he withdrew it again.

  She was surprised, then reassured. The warmth and weight of his hand had been a reassuring presence that she’d needed. Needed. There was that word again. How quickly addiction could establish itself...

  But why was she addicted to him? This was Jen’s husband. He belonged to her dead friend. Was that it? Because he represented that friendship and the affection that she had lost? Was she trying to find it in him? Surely it had nothing to do with his dirty blond hair, his clear blue eyes and stubbled jaw. It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that he oozed masculinity from every pore whilst at the same time being kind, empathetic and respectful?

  A gentleman.

  Matt was everything Eric wasn’t.

  He cleared his throat. ‘I was working on a patient who’d dislocated his knee when they told me that the General wanted to see me.’

  She focused on his voice. The look in his eyes. Faraway and sad.

  ‘I didn’t think it was anything to worry about. I popped the knee into place and strapped up the leg before I headed over to his office. He told me to sit down, and the look on his face changed to one of such discomfort I honestly wondered if he was about to ask me to examine him privately.’

  The ghost of a smile made its presence felt in the corners of her mouth as she imagined it.

  ‘He told me that there’d been a telephone call from the Maternity Suite at the London Grace, and just for a brief second my heart soared at the thought that I’d become a father. That my wife had gone into labour early and already had Lily. But the General looked so sorry for me that I can remember my heart thudding in my chest as I waited for him to tell me that they were both okay.’

  Matt stiffened in the cafeteria chair.

  ‘He said that Lily was in the NICU. That it had been an emergency delivery and that Jen had not recovered from complications surrounding the birth. They’d put her on life support and I was to fly back to England immediately.’

  He shook his head, as if he still couldn’t believe the memory even now. After all this time.

  ‘My brain couldn’t compute that. All I could think of was the guy I’d just strapped up and sent on his way. The fact that I had other patients awaiting my attention, you know? It was as if to protect itself my brain had switched off from what the General had said.’

  ‘It happens.’

  ‘I got on the plane home in a daze. Looking at all of these people around me, busy with their lives—couples, families... And yet there I was, travelling back to switch off a machine that would end my own.’

  Brooke saw his eyes darken as he recalled this painful memory, empathising with his grief, having felt the loss of Jen, too. Strange how grief could rip some people asunder but unite others. It was a powerful force. It did strange things. Caused people to behave oddly. Out of character.

  ‘I can’t imagine the strength you must have needed to find inside.’

  He looked at her. ‘None of us know the strengths we have until we’re tested.’

  He was absolutely right. Brooke felt that she’d spent her life digging deep for unknown lodes of strength.

  ‘And none of us know the battles that others have faced or still face.’ He leant forward again. ‘There are lots of soldiers who come back home and look whole, but are broken inside.’

  ‘You must know a lot of people like that?’

  Matt nodded. ‘Unfortunately. But we’re here to talk about you. I don’t want you pushing yourself to exhaustion, Dr Bailey. I value you as a doctor too much to lose you.’

  He valued her.

  As a doctor.

  He hadn’t said he valued her as a friend.

  But she’d take it anyway. It had been a long time since anyone had valued her at all, and he was right. Perhaps she had been pushing the envelope a bit too much. If she didn’t start looking after herself better then she wouldn’t be able to help her patients or Morgan at all.

  ‘Message received loud and clear, Major.’

  He stood up and eased his way out from behind the table. ‘I’m ordering you to stay here until you’ve consumed everything on both plates, and then at one o’clock you can meet me for lunch.’

  ‘Lunch?’

  ‘So I can make sure you refuel properly.’ Matt smiled at her and gave her a mock salute before he marched away.

  Brooke watched him go, a surprised smile on her face. Normally she didn’t like men telling her what to do, and after Eric she had been determined never to let it happen again.

  But there was something different about Matt. He wasn’t overbearing. It hadn’t been a demand, the way Eric would have delivered it. He hadn’t said it to her as if she were stupid and he were trying to demean her.

  He cared. Genuinely. About her welfare. And she wasn’t used to someone doing that for her.

  She’d always had to care for herself. Even when she was little...sitting at home, waiting for her dad to come back for hours, starving hungry. And when he had made it back the most he’d been able to manage to make for her had been something out of a can on toast.

  With hindsight, it was probably the safest thing for him to have been in charge of. And although she’d yearned every day for him to ask her about her day at school he never had. And although she would get her paintings and her ten-out-of-ten spelling tests out of her bag to show him, her hard work had barely received a glance.

  Her dad had physically been there, but it had been as if there was an invisible force field around him that she hadn’t been able to penetrate. The fug of alcohol fumes had been a barrier she hadn’t been able to break through. He hadn’t connected to her at all.

  She knew he’d turned to alcohol to get through the death of his wife—her mother. But by doing so he had caused Brooke to lose her father too. She’d been so young, just five years old, when it happened and all she had left w
ere photographs of what they should have been. A happy, united family staring at the camera lens.

  Coping on her own had become something so natural to her it was always a surprise when someone else looked out for her, no matter how small the occasion was.

  Brooke sat there and ate the rest of her fruit salad and pastry, washing them down with the coffee and looking around at the other people in the cafeteria. Families. Mothers and fathers. Little toddlers being asked to sit still, to eat up, not to play with their food.

  She smiled. It was all so normal for them.

  Why had she not achieved that? Where had she gone wrong? Eric had been a mistake, but not Morgan. She adored her daughter, and would not be without her, but it didn’t stop Brooke from feeling alone.

  Had she caused it? Losing Jen just after the birth of her own daughter had made Brooke hibernate in the house. Not going out much...not being with people. Not letting anyone in. It had been easier to retreat into herself because that was familiar country. She knew the landscape. There were no surprises if she relied on just herself.

  But wasn’t life about overcoming obstacles? Facing the challenges set before you? Fighting to be with those who would love you?

  I need to let people in. Open up the borders.

  Before I’m deserted altogether.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MATT WAS STILL busy with a patient when Brooke had finished, ready for lunch. She sat at the doctors’ desk and watched him carefully as he taught a young girl to use a pair of crutches. The girl, no more than eight years old, had a plaster cast around her foot and appeared to be struggling with her co-ordination. Matt kept adjusting the height of the crutches and knelt on the floor in front of his patient, smiling, encouraging her to move forward.

  ‘Standing on your good leg, bring both crutches forward. That’s it. Then swing your body forward, landing on your good leg. Excellent! Well done!’

  She watched him stand and shake hands with the girl’s father, and then he stooped one last time to say something to the little girl, who smiled shyly and nodded her head.

  A warm smile appeared on Brooke’s face as she watched, and she was still smiling when Matt came over to the desk to finish writing his notes.

  ‘She looked sweet.’

  Matt nodded, watching the father and daughter head out of the department, the little girl steady and determined on her new walking aids. ‘She fell off a trampoline.’

  Brooke raised an eyebrow. ‘We ought to ban those things. I’m sure we could cut down a good quarter of our workload if we did.’

  ‘I agree.’ He glanced at her and grinned. ‘Though I’m sure our own daughters will want to spend time on trampolines at some point.’

  ‘Yes, well, not if I can help it. I’ll be keeping Morgan well away from anything like that.’

  ‘Me too. But we can’t wrap them in cotton wool. I know Jen would have loved the idea of Lily on a trampoline. And secondary schools often have trampolining in a physical education class. Are you going to ask for her to be withdrawn from those?’

  She nodded firmly. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what if all her friends start asking her why? What if she starts to feel embarrassed for being left out? You’ll still be okay with that?’

  She shifted in her chair. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dr Bailey... I don’t believe a single word.’ He turned to face her, looking as if he was daring her to say otherwise.

  ‘We all have to do things that sometimes go against the grain. I’m sure I can find other activities to occupy her and make up for the fact that I’m not risking her neck or her back or her ankles.’

  ‘And what do you do that goes against the grain?’

  She stopped to think. Unsure. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘What do you do with Morgan that’s different to anyone else?’

  She opened her mouth as she struggled to find an answer, then closed it again when she realised, sharply that she didn’t do anything with Morgan apart from feed, clothe and change her. They didn’t really go out anywhere, except to the local park. But Morgan was too small to do anything. She hadn’t even taken her to the local swimming pool for a splash-around, and Morgan loved being in water. Perhaps she wasn’t the kind of radical, unique mother she’d thought she was.

  ‘You know, there’s something I need to tell you,’ he said. He looked awkward. Uncomfortable. Whatever could it be?

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Jen signed Lily up to this class months in advance, because it was oversubscribed. You know what things are like in London... Apparently it’s very popular—great for babies’ development...that kind of thing...and she kind of signed you and Morgan up to it, too.’ He glanced quickly at her to see the effect of his revelation. ‘I wasn’t going to go, but...’ He sighed. ‘Perhaps we both ought to give it a try. Seeing as Jen wanted us to do it.’

  She blinked. Remembered some vague conversation months back that she and Jen had had about baby development classes. They’d laughed about it. Chuckling about how silly they sounded, how pretentious. How it was more about the parents wanting to show off and have their offspring with a busier social calendar than they had themselves.

  ‘A class?’

  ‘Music Melody. I’m going to go—and you should too. It starts this Saturday morning at St David’s Church Hall.’

  Music Melody? A baby development class? In a draughty church hall? With a bunch of yummy mummies she wouldn’t know, listening to babies banging away randomly on some clanging tin xylophones? It sounded like her worst nightmare.

  ‘I...er...don’t think so.’ She laughed, as if it were the most ridiculous suggestion she’d ever heard.

  ‘When did you last go out with Morgan to do something fun?’

  ‘We have plenty of fun at home.’

  He smiled. ‘You do, maybe. But what about Morgan? This kind of thing will get us out of our comfort zone and stop us from staying cooped up inside. Come on. I’m sure Morgan would love it.’

  ‘But what about me?’ she pleaded.

  Going to a parent-and-baby group didn’t sound like her idea of fun at all. She’d never been one for parties, or meeting up with friends outside of school. She never usually went to work bashes—not unless Jen had dragged her there.

  Jen.

  Jen had booked it for them! For both of them! She’d promised to be there for her, had said they would do things together. She’d meant it. Not knowing that she would never get the chance to fulfil that promise.

  But Brooke could.

  She sighed as she looked back at him, saw the twinkle of humour in his eyes and felt herself giving in. Perhaps it might be okay... And if it gave her a headache then she could take some painkillers afterwards.

  ‘Fine. But why do you want me to go so badly?’

  He let out a big sigh. ‘Because I want to honour Jen’s promise to you.’

  She swallowed. ‘Her promise?’

  ‘To not let you do this alone. She told me about that.’

  Oh. She felt oddly perturbed that he should want to do that. Honour an obligation made by his wife. He didn’t have to. She’d managed all these months alone, and she and Morgan were doing okay. But it was sweet of him. Gentlemanly.

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘It’s the right thing.’

  ‘But we hardly know each other. I’m still a stranger...’

  ‘As all the other parents will be. But I want to do right by my daughter and expose her to as much fun and joy as I can.’

  She grimaced. ‘Those places are germ factories. We’ll probably all come down with bugs. Is that doing right by our children?’

  ‘Building up their immune system! We put them in a crèche all day. It’s the same thing.’

  She supposed he was right. ‘Okay.’
<
br />   ‘Good. I’ve already told them you’re coming.’

  She stood up, grabbing her bag so they could go and get some lunch. ‘How did you know I’d agree?’

  He leant against the desk, his tall, lean frame effortlessly sexy. Even more so because he seemed totally unaware of it.

  ‘Because you wouldn’t let a good friend go to one of those terrible places alone.’ He stepped away again. ‘I’ll probably be the only guy there. I’ll get the looks.’

  ‘Looks?’

  ‘You know the ones... Why has he come and not the mum? Where’s his wife? Is he single? You being there will protect me from all that.’

  ‘You don’t strike me as the type to need protection, Major. Don’t you know how to kill people with just your thumbs?’

  He smiled. ‘Yes...but I think that’s frowned upon at parent-and-baby groups, Dr Bailey.’

  Brooke stared at him as he grabbed his jacket, checked his pocket for his wallet and wondered just what the hell she was letting herself in for...

  * * *

  As the days passed Brooke grew more and more nervous about meeting Matt at the Music Melody class. Sitting with him at work for lunch was one thing—but socialising with him outside of work? What did that mean?

  He knew it was just friendship, right? He knew it could never go any further than that? Yes, she’d socialised with Jen out of hours—but Jen had been a girl. She and Matt were the opposite sex to each other, and it was a fine line for them to walk.

  She was already having difficulties with that smile of his. Not only did it totally transform his face, but every time he sent it her way she found herself wanting more and more of it. She enjoyed making him smile. She adored the camaraderie that was building between them. And he had a wicked sense of humour when he let it out. He made her laugh. Brightened her day.

  But was that all that was developing? She couldn’t allow anything else to occur between them. That way madness lay. Just the thought of it right now was turning her insides into all kinds of jumble. She could even feel her mouth going dry. And to think she’d once complained about him keeping his distance by calling her Dr Bailey and not Brooke...