by Lucy Clark
‘Of course,’ the woman answered immediately, a hint of contrition in her tone.
Iris looked down at the sick baby but all she saw was a tiny girl in need of a whole lot of love. Thankfully, she had a whole lot of love to give.
‘We’ll get things in order and get back to you,’ one of the solicitors said as they started to pack up the papers on the table.
‘Iris can sign whatever papers she needs to at the hospital.’ Dex closed his phone and looked at the adults in the room. ‘Which is where I expect to see you all in less than half an hour. Tell the triage nurse that you’re specifically there to see me.’
‘You can do that?’ Iris asked quietly as she kept sponging Anya down.
‘I used to work there. I can still pull a few strings when I have to.’
She smiled and sighed with relief as she met his gaze for a moment. He was such a wonderful man. How could she ever have thought him selfish and self-centred? Iris couldn’t help herself and leaned over to kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you, Dex. You’re fantastic.’
When she looked at him like that, Dex felt his gut tighten. Those same love-like sensations washed over him and he wondered how he was supposed to keep his distance. How was he supposed to treat her as an indifferent colleague, to not hold her and smother her body with kisses? It was impossible because every time she looked at him as she was doing now, he wanted to haul her close and never, ever let her go!
He nodded briskly, accepting her compliment before moving away from her. ‘I’ll go pack Anya’s things into the car. Keep an eye on her.’
Iris was a little puzzled at his abrupt change in mood. One second he was being so sweet, kind and thoughtful and the next—it was as though he had to turn and run away as fast as he could. He hadn’t accidentally touched her scars, which she was still sure repulsed him. In fact, he hadn’t touched her at all.
But she had touched him. She’d leaned over and kissed him but she’d meant it in the spirit of friendship and—
Her thoughts were cut short as Anya started to shake, her little body convulsing.
‘Get me a bottle of cold water,’ she said over her shoulder.
‘Who, me?’ one of the solicitors asked.
‘Yes. There should be baby bottles somewhere on the bench. She needs water now.’ Iris checked her watch, noting the time as she made sure that Anya couldn’t hit or kick anything or bite her tongue.
‘Maybe we should wait for the other guy to come back. He seems to know what he’s talking about.’ The solicitor spoke from the bench but when Iris turned to glare at him, it was to find that he was pouring cold filtered water into a bottle.
‘I’m the paediatrician. If there’s anyone qualified to look after Anya, it’s me. Dex is an accident and emergency specialist.’ And she was thankful he’d been to Tarparnii and had been able to diagnose Anya’s condition so quickly. Of course, once they had the baby at the hospital and stabilised, they could run further tests. Iris had planned on staying in Perth for a few days but she’d never have guessed she’d be spending them in a hospital.
Accepting the bottle, Iris tested it first and checked her watch. Ten seconds. Anya had only been like this for ten seconds and yet it felt like an eternity. Was this what motherhood was going to be like? Such jerky and intense emotions, being switched on and off like a tap? The baby’s crying began again in earnest. Iris instantly picked the frightened baby up and put the bottle teat into her mouth.
‘There you go, sweetest one. Shh. It’s all right. I’m here.’
Anya drank greedily and Iris realised she was more dehydrated than she’d originally surmised.
‘Slowly. Slowly,’ she crooned as she walked with Anya in her arms over to a chair and sat down. She held out the wet towel to the solicitor and asked him to wet it again.
‘She will be all right, won’t she?’ the solicitor asked, watching in alarm as he squeezed out the cloth.
‘Of course.’ Iris spoke to the baby rather than anyone else. ‘Adorable Anya is going to be just fine and grow up to be as wonderful as her mother.’
Dex heard Iris’s words as he walked back into the kitchen and at the sight of Iris sitting there, talking calmly to the baby who was sucking down the cold water rather quickly, the tightening in his gut instantly returned. He’d managed to quickly get himself under control whilst he’d performed the menial task of packing the car. So much stuff for such a young baby. Then again, he rationalised, Anya was female and it must be that X chromosome that inspired the need to have too many clothes and to need way too much stuff.
However, the two of them together, woman and child, certainly made a wonderful sight. It was the prettiest picture he could ever remember seeing and he pulled out his phone and snapped a photograph. He knew he’d no doubt torture himself with that very image once both Iris and Anya were out of his life. Oh, yes, the fact that Iris was a very special lady wasn’t a fact that escaped him at all.
Iris looked up then and saw him standing there so he walked forward, putting his phone back into his pocket. ‘How is she?’
‘She had a convulsion. Eleven seconds.’
‘Felt like an eternity?’ he asked as he came closer but not too close. Keeping his distance was paramount if he was going to control his rising libido. The attraction he felt for Iris certainly intensified with each moment he was in her company.
‘Right, that’s it for us,’ the solicitor said. ‘We’ll see you at the hospital.’ With that, they high-tailed it out of there as fast as possible. The next moment he and Iris were alone in a stranger’s kitchen.
‘So…’ Dex pointed to Anya ‘She’s at least keeping the fluids down.’
‘I can’t tell if they’re really doing any good yet. Her body hasn’t rejected the water so that’s a good thing. I just wish I had a thermometer and the IV line and everything I need to treat her properly.’ Her frustration was evident.
‘She’ll do fine and so will you.’
‘You sound so certain.’ Iris raised her eyes to meet his gaze.
Dex nodded slowly. ‘You have love to give, Iris. She needs love.’ As he said the words, a picture that hung on the wall of his parents’ house came to mind of his mother, at a similar age to Iris, holding him as a baby in her arms, no doubt thinking the same sort of thing.
‘Can it be that simple?’
‘Yes. It can.’ He nodded. ‘It was for my parents. Throughout my entire childhood, my adolescence, my medical school days—everything—my parents were there for me. Helping me, caring for me, loving me.’
‘They were only trying to protect you, Dex. I mean, when they didn’t tell you about the adoption.’
‘I know.’ He shrugged as though he didn’t care but the tone of his voice told her otherwise. ‘But it hurt. I trusted them and they deceived me. I understood their reasons but that wasn’t the point. They lied and that’s what hurt the most. Painfully so.’
‘That’s understandable but what about now? How does it feel now that you’ve seen them again? Has time managed to heal your wounds?’ She’d been wanting to ask him and was pleased an opportunity had finally turned up.
He gave her one of those gorgeous half-smiles. ‘Things are better than I’d anticipated.’ And even more so because he’d had her unwavering support throughout it all. She was quite a woman. He’d known she was strong—she had to be to have lived through what she had. Now, though, he was getting to see at first hand just how incredible Iris Tennant really was and the more he saw, the more he— Dex stopped his thoughts immediately and looked away from her, shoving his hands into his pockets.
Iris watched him, watched the shift in him, and wondered what he’d been thinking. It was as though she could see the mask coming down into place, keeping him safe from everyone around him in case someone else he trusted hurt him again. She wanted to let him know that that didn’t have to be the case, that he didn’t need to wear a mask. All he had to do was to be his true self, in all situations.
But who was she to t
alk? She’d worn a mask for the past few years, cutting people out of her life and focusing on work. She’d always known what she’d wanted from life. A good job in a flourishing hospital. To meet a man and fall in love. To marry that man. To buy a house. To one day have children. To live happily ever after.
It hadn’t happened that way at all and after two short years of marriage she’d been left a physically and emotionally scarred widow who wasn’t at all sure what she was supposed to do next. She’d recovered and she’d done it by hiding much of herself away from others. She’d also made sure that she’d relied on no one for support. That’s the way it had been…until she’d met Dex.
He’d witnessed her during some very dark moments and he’d been wonderful. He’d been supportive and in turn she’d wanted to support him. Whilst there was still a very strong pull towards him, a very strong desire to have his mouth on hers again and again and again, Iris also knew that in coming to Perth, in supporting each other, in letting the other person have a glimpse of that inner vulnerability, it was also pulling them apart.
Iris was about to take on the full-time care of a small baby. That would mean a lot of work and a lot of change. She had no idea how she was going to work full time at the children’s hospital in Melbourne and decided at this stage not to think about it…which was unlike her. She wasn’t a moment-to-moment type of person. She looked at Dex, standing there looking utterly adorable with his hands shoved into his pockets, his eyes on the baby in her arms. He was definitely the fly by the seat of his pants type of guy and perhaps spending a bit more time with him had made that quality rub off on her.
Anya finished the bottle and Iris shifted the baby up onto her shoulder and started to gently rub her back. She breathed in that yummy baby smell and sighed.
‘You look good together.’
Iris looked at Dex and smiled. ‘It feels so right. So natural. I never thought it could feel like this.’
‘I guess Francie knew what she was doing when she asked you to be guardian.’
Iris nodded slowly. ‘I guess she did.’ She stared at him, their eyes meeting and melding, both of them feeling that strong tug of desire whilst at the same time trying to draw as far away from it as possible. When he looked at her like that, she started to lose control of all rational thought and all she wanted him to do now was to come and hold her in his arms. To be there for her. To support her, not just for now but for ever.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving up and down, and he shoved his hands further into his pockets as though needing them there to stop him from reaching for her. If that was indeed the case, it made Iris feel very special. Then again, making women feel special was his speciality.
His charm, his charisma, his chivalry. He knew how to romance a woman. He seemed to know instinctively what to say, how to offer support, what to do to make a woman feel as though she was the only one in the world and he could look at her all day long.
She knew he wasn’t reliable when it came to affairs of the heart. She knew he had his own issues to deal with. She knew they were colleagues for only a few more months and then she’d leave. She knew if he ever saw the scars on her body that they would drive him far, far away. She knew he was all wrong for her, wasn’t even her type, and yet, as he stood there before her, his brown eyes so incredibly intense, Iris had the feeling that she was completely in love with him.
The knowledge shocked her to her core.
She looked away, wanting to shout the word ‘No’ at the top of her lungs. That couldn’t be right. She couldn’t be in love with Dex. He was so wrong for her. He was a playboy. He wasn’t fatherhood material.
Reason after reason came to mind and yet none of them seemed able to shift the fact that she was indeed in love with him.
Tacula came in, announcing the ambulance had arrived, and Iris was glad of the diversion. As though in a daze, and making sure she kept as far away from Dex as possible, Iris went through the motions of providing care for little Anya.
Anya was her responsibility now and it helped her to realise there was no room in her life for any man. Dex was a colleague and that was all. Yes, they’d shared some incredibly personal moments since she’d first arrived in Didja but nothing more could come of it.
She needed to focus solely on the next few months, to figure out where her new life was going to lead her, and it was a life which didn’t include Dexter Crawford.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ANYA stayed in hospital for three days before everyone was satisfied.
‘Ordinarily, we’d like her to stay the entire week to monitor her more closely,’ the attending paediatrician had said. ‘But given that she’s going back to Didja, where she’ll be surrounded by doctors and nurses, I don’t see why she can’t go home.’
Thankfully, Tacula, the children she looked after and the solicitors had all tested negative for Yullom Cigru, as had both she and Dex. At least containment had been maintained.
As Iris paced around her apartment in Didja, she thought of how wonderfully supportive Dex had been. He’d spent time at the hospital pulling whatever strings he’d needed to, making sure Anya received the best possible care. He’d been treated as the prodigal son returning home by his colleagues and many people—most of them female—had come to the infants’ nursery in order to catch up with Dex.
The Crawfords had also been supportive, Ruth giving Iris lots of tips and tricks for dealing with instant parenthood. The longer they’d stayed in Perth, the more Dex had relaxed around his family, realising that they had indeed forgiven and forgotten the past. They were quite an amazing family and by the time Iris and Dex left to head back to Didja, all of the Crawfords were planning to attend Joss and Melissa’s up-and-coming wedding.
‘And we’re looking forward to seeing you, too, and little Anya.’ Ruth had hugged Iris just as tight. ‘You call me at any time, day or night, if you’re not sure what to do or you just need to chat or anything. Understand?’
Iris had smiled and nodded. Anya coming into her life had changed everything dramatically. Where she had been more than happy to keep herself aloof and impersonal with almost everyone she met, she was now finding it impossible. For a start, when they arrived back in Didja, baby in tow, the town put on such a welcome-home party Iris was almost moved to tears at their support and generosity. Joss even insisted that Iris take another week off to settle Anya into her new life.
‘I can’t believe everyone has gone to so much trouble,’ she confided to Melissa the next day. ‘Everyone’s been so helpful. I’ve received lots of homemade baby food so I don’t need to feed her that store stuff.’
‘That’ll be Minerva’s doing. She’s a stickler for homemade food.’
‘And people have been dropping in gifts, clothes, toys. I even had Mr Bloffwith present me with a hand-crafted crib for Anya. It wasn’t second-hand or anything like that. He’d made it just for Anya.’ Iris was still astounded at people’s generosity.
Melissa laughed and hugged her friend close. ‘Welcome to Didja, Iris. It’s their way of making sure Anya is happy, but I have to say I know exactly how you feel. They’re an overwhelming bunch but everything is done with the utmost love.’
‘And Bub has insisted that when I start work next week, to leave Anya with her at the hospital. She said I could enrol the baby in the town’s day-care facility only when she was completely satisfied the Yullom Cigru fever was definitely out of Anya’s system.’
Melissa chortled at this. ‘Bub’s just saying that because she wants Anya all to herself. You just watch. It’ll be months before she’ll deem Anya well enough to go into day care.’
And she was right. Iris had just finished her first full week of being a working mother and whilst it had been different, it hadn’t been as crazy as she’d thought it might be. ‘And that’s because you’re getting lots of help,’ she told herself as she went to check on Anya.
The baby was sleeping peacefully in her hand-made crib, wearing a blue and yellow polka-dot han
d-made dress, a hand-made mobile of soft-toy Australian animals hung over her and her wall was covered with hand-made pictures from Didja’s pre-school children, who had wanted to welcome Anya to their town.
Many people came to town with their children, moving there for work or other reasons, yet little orphaned Anya seemed to have been adopted not just by Iris but by the entire town, and she began to wonder how on earth she was supposed to leave here in four months’ time.
Staying in Didja made a lot of sense on so many levels. Joss, of course, had offered her a job for life, pointing out the benefits of raising a child in a small caring community as opposed to a large city like Melbourne. Then there was Melissa, such a close friend whom Iris would love to stay close to. Bub, Minerva, Areva and even Stig had become good friends with her as well as many others within the town.
And then there was Dex.
Iris sighed as she walked out of Anya’s room and sat down on the lounge. She picked up the television remote and flicked through the small array of channels before switching it off, knowing her mind wouldn’t settle.
Since they’d arrived back in Didja, Dex seemed to be the only member of the town who was keeping his distance. He was polite and professional when they were in clinic together and if he saw her in the street, he’d stop, say hello and ask her questions about Anya’s health. That was it. No pick-up lines. No invitations out to dinner. No marriage proposals.
She was a single mother now and as such had fallen off his radar as an interesting target. It shouldn’t hurt. It was what she wanted as well. There could never be anything but professional courtesy between herself and Dex because even the thought of a happily ever after ending only brought a lump to her throat and a fresh wave of tears.
She still loved him. There was no doubt about that. Whenever she saw him, her heart would flip-flop with delight like an adolescent schoolgirl seeing the boy she liked so much across a crowded classroom. His earthy scent almost drove her to distraction at times but she was learning to cope with that.