So much had changed in that time. She looked up at him, fighting the urge to stare, and wasn’t so sure it was going to work, having Nick as her obstetrician. She remembered Flora’s words and promised herself she wouldn’t fall for her obstetrician.
Having lunch with Nick yesterday, he with his flash convertible and trendy clothes, and she a single-parent house-sitter with no assets, had shown her how big the distance was between them. It had also shown just how easily he could get under her skin.
She did not have the head space for that.
‘Thank you for seeing me so quickly.’ Being friends might prove a little dangerous but she owed him at least that for being so kind to her.
He settled behind his desk and opened her file. ‘You’re welcome. I know you’re on your way to work.’ He glanced at her clothes. ‘And need to get changed as well.’
Yeah, well, that had been a non-starter. ‘I was trying to be discreet but that failed dismally when I ran into Dr Richards.’
His face softened and she knew he got that. ‘If you’re worried about people finding out, Callie won’t say anything. But it’s going to happen soon. Just remember it will all blow over.’
Yeah well. ‘It’s fine. I was being silly. I’m not ashamed, I just don’t want to answer a lot of questions and talk about stuff I haven’t had much time to think about. I’ve told Sister May, anyway. She was the only one I’d worry about finding out from someone else other than me.’
‘What about your mother? I meant to ask yesterday. Have you told her about your pregnancy?’
He saw the look that crossed her face, and the intensity of it shocked him. He hadn’t picked that up yesterday. He had thought she was safer behind the wall she’d built than she really was.
He wanted to find Lucy’s mother and shake her. But as he watched, the look faded and Lucy lifted her chin.
Lucy did not want to think about her mother. It had swamped her for a moment when Nick had asked. She hated sympathy, it always made her want to weep, and she wasn’t doing that here.
It was nice he cared but what was her mother to him? ‘Yes. But I haven’t spoken to her since. I’m not in the mood for a lecture and it’s not like listening to her rage is going to change my life.’
He sat back and studied her. She tried not to squirm. ‘So how are you feeling in yourself?’
‘Still great.’ She nodded and glanced at her watch. ‘So, did the blood tests all come back okay?’
Nick pushed his less-than-professional questions away. What was he doing anyway? He should be going through the motions. A normal antenatal visit. Not thinking about yesterday. Not thinking about it really hard.
And she was impatient to be gone. So typically Lucy. He should have guessed from the first morning she’d herded him into Sally’s birth unit. No beating around the bush. She was a bit driven, like Callie Richards, and he’d always admired Callie.
The difference was that Lucy refreshed him and he didn’t know why. ‘The tests were, on the whole, fine. You’re a little low with your haemoglobin, so taking iron tablets won’t go amiss. Your white cells are a little elevated, so I just wanted to check you’re not feeling the effects of any symptoms of infection.’
Her ponytail flipped from side to side. ‘Nope. Since yesterday morning I’ve never felt better.’
Nick smiled and he remembered her appetite from the restaurant. He smiled. ‘The second trimester of pregnancy is often the most enjoyable healthwise.’
Lucy reminded herself that she was going to be thankful for everything. ‘I’m determined to enjoy it.’
‘Good on you. Hold that plan.’ He stood up and glided the BP machine over to her chair. ‘That sounded patronising but I was sincere. I see a lot of women who expect to be really ill, for some reason, like their mother was, and not surprisingly they are.’
When Nick leaned towards her she could smell that aftershave he’d worn yesterday and she was transported back to sitting with him in his car.
The aftershave had been part of that lovely drive to the beach with him. The whole lovely morning.
But this was now. She watched his big hands wrap the blood-pressure cuff around her arm and pump it up, and she tried not to think about his fingers on her skin.
Before he put the stethoscope into his ears he murmured, ‘I just wonder if some women subconsciously programme their bodies to suffer more than they need to.’
She concentrated on his words. Intensely, so she didn’t think about his hands. ‘Interesting idea and guaranteed to stir up a hornet’s nest of debate. My mother hadn’t even noticed she was pregnant until too late.’
Déjà vu, then, she thought, and closed her mouth.
That will teach you to stop rabbiting on when he was trying to listen. She kept forgetting he was the senior consultant and she was a new grad midwife—but he was so easy to talk to.
‘It’s not silly.’ He let the blood-pressure cuff all the way down and entered the result on the computer, as well as writing it on the yellow antenatal card he’d started. ‘Blood pressure’s normal.’
She looked at the card. Something she’d seen so many times held by pregnant women in antenatal clinics everywhere. Funny how something simple like that could bring it all home to her. She was going to have her own babies. ‘I’m going to get my own yellow card with my whole pregnancy documented. I never thought I’d have one of those so soon.’
‘Yep.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t lose it.’
As if she would. ‘Do many women lose their pregnancy records?’
He shook his head. ‘No. It’s funny really. They lose scripts, ultrasound requests forms, consult letters, but even the dottiest of my patients knows where her card is. I think of it as the first maternal instinct.’
Lucy grinned. ‘That’s pretty cool, actually.’
‘I think so.’ He gestured towards the couch with a smile and she knew he was remembering the first sight of her babies up there with his portable ultrasound. Not something she would forget either.
When she’d climbed up onto the couch she pulled up her shirt and they both looked at her belly. It seemed a lot bigger already.
She chewed her lip as she lay down. ‘Lucky I wear scrubs at work to hide this.’
He smiled. ‘Soon it won’t matter what you wear because these little people are going to pop out in front for everyone to see.’
Nick felt above her belly button and gradually moved the heel of his hand down until he felt the firm edge of her uterus. ‘You’re already above the level of eighteen weeks.’
‘Is that good?’
‘Expected to be a little over dates.’ He slid the little ultrasound Doppler across her belly and they heard one of the baby’s heartbeats and then to the left the other one for a brief few seconds. They both smiled. ‘We’re very lucky to have found them both. It’s hit and miss this early to find a single pregnancy heartbeat unless you’re using the full ultrasound machine.’
It was incredible how warm and excited just hearing her babies made her feel. Like Christmas was coming. Along with the most expensive credit-card bill yet when she finished work.
He helped her climb down and she could feel the leashed strength under his fingers. There was a funny little knot in her stomach as their hands parted. Uh-oh. She stood on the scales so he could write down her weight and surreptitiously wiped her palm down her jeans.
She looked down at the digital readout. ‘I’ve put on a kilo!’
‘I’ll mention that to your obstetrician.’ They smiled at each other, both remembering Sunday’s conversation about ballooning in pregnancy.
She stepped off the scale and sat down again in the chair, and he entered the weight in his computer. ‘Everything looks fine.’
‘Good.’ She glanced at her watch. She had plenty of time to get changed.
> ‘Excellent. Then I’ll just send you for a formal ultrasound towards twenty weeks and I’ll see you after that. If you have any problems or concerns, you can contact me on this number or just ask if you see me.’
She took his card and glanced at where he’d written his mobile phone number in bold numbers across the back.
‘Thank you.’ Did he do that for all his women? Not like she could ask. She slipped it into the back of her purse. So it was over. She was back to being just a little new midwife on the ward. Well, that was a good thing.
Nick felt he’d let her down in some way but he couldn’t think how so he went back to impersonal mode. Lucy was the same as any other pregnant patient of his. ‘You’re welcome. Just ask my secretary for an appointment in four weeks.’
He imagined the changes that would happen between now and then. She would be over halfway. She’d be able to feel her babies move. He’d always been fascinated by that.
He watched her jump up. No gentle, ladylike rising for Lucy. Always in a hurry and usually with a smile. He admired her coping ability very much.
‘I’ll do that.’
‘Have a good shift, Lucy.’
* * *
The next two weeks passed and Lucy went to her ultrasound appointment when she was just under twenty weeks pregnant with the surprise support person of Flora May.
Flora’s enthusiasm was such a pleasure. They smiled with mutual excitement as the ultrasonographer pointed out legs and arms and movements. The babies jiggled about with every move of the ultrasound wand, and Flora laughed and said, ‘They’ll be a handful.’
Once she’d found out about Lucy’s predicament Flora had proved to be her greatest champion, without mollycoddling her.
Unlike Lucy’s mother, who’d had only negative comments to offer when Lucy had steeled herself to call, Flora had useful tips and hints on some of the common and less comfortable aspects of pregnancy.
Uncharacteristically, Flora had also quizzed her on how she liked Nick as her doctor, and Lucy had been a bit flustered about that under Flora’s knowing gaze.
Coincidentally or not, she’d found herself looking after patients who weren’t under the care of Dr Kefes and it actually became easier not having to see Nick all the time because the last thing she needed on top of everything else was a crush on a man who was just being kind.
* * *
Nick saw very little of Lucy despite a small unobtrusive effort to keep an eye on her. He found himself thinking often about how Lucy’s mother had hurt her.
He could see the shame and hurt of abandonment—it was exactly how Chloe had looked all those years ago when he’d had to tell her their parents hadn’t asked about her. Chloe was still affected by the things she’d done because she’d thought she’d had to for their parents’ approval. What a disaster that had been.
Initially he’d thought Lucy a confident and independent young woman. She’d certainly made a strong stand on her first shift, but, in fact, he suspected she was vulnerable, and that underneath that bravado she was insecure. That had changed the way he looked at her. Pregnant and fragile, she needed someone to keep an eye on her.
So when he did his morning rounds he tried to check on her, but lately she seemed to melt into the background, and at the end of the day, when he’d taken to visiting the ward one more time before his afternoon appointments, he only caught glimpses of her in the distance.
He was starting to wish he’d made that next antenatal appointment a bit closer, but the latest guidelines were leaning heavily towards fewer visits, not more, for pregnant women, and he didn’t want to draw attention to her.
She still hadn’t told anyone else except Flora and he was surprised the gossip mill hadn’t found out and run with the news. When it did he hoped he was around to make sure she was okay.
In fact, Nick was there when it broke. He rounded the corner just as the night-shift midwife passed the news to the oncoming staff.
‘Did you know Flora May’s little pet is pregnant? No boyfriend. And twins! What sort of mother will she be?’ The words hung in the air as Nick approached and both young women shut their mouths as Nick descended on them.
He actually needed to count to ten before he said something because what he wanted to say would have caused a much bigger furore than just the announcement. ‘Gossiping again, Cass?’ He shook his head. ‘You’ll get a name for it.’
The blonde flushed with embarrassment but Nick was still trying to control his protective reaction. ‘By the way, I’m not happy with the observations in birth room one either. Can you do them again before you go off? I’ll drop by and check them in the chart later.’ He glanced over both women without smiling. ‘Thank you.’
He walked away, still fuming, and didn’t see Flora May step out of her office into his path.
‘Excuse me, Dr Kefes?’
Nick stopped. He refocused, not sure why he was so upset. Focused on Flora. ‘Yes?’
Flora watched his face and he tried to lose any expression that would give away his thoughts. ‘Do you have a problem with my staff?’
Did he? He was calming down now. He blinked and let his breath out. ‘No. Of course not.’
Flora nodded. ‘I didn’t think so.’
Nick nodded and prepared to move on. Maybe head back to his office to think about what he’d just overreacted about.
‘And, Dr Kefes?’
‘Yes?’
‘Most people are supportive.’
‘Good.’
* * *
On the Sunday morning, four weeks after her last appointment, the sun was beating down and Lucy was using the leaf blower to clear the path down to the fence that backed onto the beach.
The blower seemed heavier than last week and her back ached a little and she wished the palm trees gave her a little more shade. She knew she had to be careful because her body was designed to stretch but there was increased risk of pulling a muscle or over-stretching a ligament thanks to the pregnancy hormones.
She could imagine Flora May saying, ‘When you have twins there is even more pregnancy hormone and you have to be careful.’
So she stopped, leaned on the gate in front of the beach, looked over the fence towards the waves and just breathed in the salt-laden air. Her backache eased and the breeze helped. As she began to feel better, she tried to ignore the little skip to her breathing when she thought about seeing Nick tomorrow.
Tried to bring down her silly euphoria by reminding herself her days off were nearly over and the new week ready to begin. Could she do this for another three months?
At least everyone knew she was pregnant now. It was too hard to hide even with the baggy scrub uniform, and Maternity was the best place to work when you were having a baby yourself because it was the place with the least germs.
There’d been a few snide comments, mostly originating from Cass, but a lot of unexpected support from others. Especially Flora May.
She’d be okay. Nick would make sure of that, her inner voice said with a shimmy.
A tall paddleboard rider lifted his hand and waved and instinctively she waved back. Now even the board riders looked like Nick. She needed to settle before tomorrow.
She glanced back at the rider and gulped when the unknown man turned the board towards her and rode the next wave to the beach opposite her fence.
Good grief, she thought as she watched him pull his board onto the sand, and was about to beat a hasty retreat when she realised that it really was Nick.
Nick couldn’t believe his luck. He’d known it would be a good idea to buy this board. He trod through the hot sand up to her gate. ‘Morning, Lucy.’
Lucy leant on the fence. ‘Morning, Nick. I thought I’d accidentally given the come-on to a stray surfer for a minute there.’
He was surpri
singly glad she hadn’t waved at a stray surfer. He’d known exactly whom he was waving at.
She was dressed in red and green, vibrant like one of the lorikeets feeding off the bottlebrush, but her face was strangely pale. ‘Sorry if I scared you.’ He wondered if she’d guessed he’d been looking out for her.
‘All good. So, what made you paddle by?’
He glanced down at the board under his arm. ‘To show off my new toy, and see how you are.’
She gave his board a thorough inspection. ‘Your board is very sleek and...dark.’
It had been the best one he could buy. ‘I’ve got a thing for black.’
‘I noticed.’ She glanced pointedly at his bare feet and raised her brows as if to say, ‘Where are your socks?’ ‘And as for how I am, won’t you see me tomorrow?’
He ignored the tomorrow comment and looked a bit closer. ‘You look a little tired.’
Her brows shot up. ‘You should know women hate being told that!’
‘You still look good.’ She did, but she wasn’t her usual robust self.
‘I got hot. Probably need a drink, actually. The owners are coming down tonight and I’m sprucing up the house. Don’t want to get kicked out. Especially now.’
He frowned. She did too much. Days off were for her to rest. ‘Want a hand? You don’t need to work every day.’
Lucy looked at Nick, semi-naked, barefoot, with an extremely cumbersome board hooked under his arm like it was a matchstick, and thought about having him follow her around while she tidied.
It would be much, much easier on her own. And she still felt that little thrill his comment had left her with about looking good. That had been unexpected.
So it wasn’t sensible to invite him in, and she was practising sensible. ‘Thanks, but, no, thanks.’
She could see Nick hadn’t expected the knock-back. She watched him try his special, come-on smile—she’d bet that usually got him the response he wanted. ‘I may look like a distinguished obstetrician, but I can mow, trim and clean gutters.’
Gold Coast Angels: Two Tiny Heartbeats Page 6