by Amy Andrews
But he was fully awake now. Despite being up all night, more awake than he’d ever been. The puzzle pieces had fallen into place. He wanted a baby with Harriet. He wanted to impregnate her. He wanted to watch her flat belly burgeon as it grew inside her. He wanted to deliver it. He wanted to watch her breast-feed. He wanted to bath it and play with it and rock it to sleep. He wanted it all.
And he knew it would be more difficult for them to conceive now. But it didn’t matter. Whatever it took. Fertility treatments. IVF. Hell, they’d adopt if conception wasn’t possible. But he wanted it all. The whole fairy-tale. The bit that came after happily ever after.
Hang the 2 a.m. feeds and the botched social life and the absent sex life. They’d slept enough hours and they’d gone to enough restaurants and they’d had more sex in seven years than most people had in a lifetime. There was a time for those things and there was a time to settle down and reproduce, and he felt the urge grow stronger with each passing minute.
Harriet had told him to leave her alone. ‘Don’t touch me ever again,’ she had said. But he knew he just wasn’t capable of that. Even if they never conceived and were never blessed with a baby, he didn’t want to be apart from her ever again. Ever! They had spent one year apart and it had been hell. He wanted to live with her and their children and grow old together. Nothing had ever been clearer.
Not even the moment he’d realised he’d fallen in love with her and wanted to marry her. That had been natural, something where no thought had been required—just human love and lust and emotion. But deciding to stay together, have a baby together, was clear thinking at its best. Despite all the potential problems and hurdles, he wouldn’t take no for an answer!
Gill rose from the bed empowered by his decision. He would not leave here without her. The chopper would be landing soon, signalling the end of their time there. He had less than thirty minutes to convince her the child he’d always rejected was now something he couldn’t live without.
The divorce papers burnt a hole in his hand as he swiftly navigated the corridors, his big strides purposeful and determined. She was mad but he would make her see reason. She was post-op, he should let her rest and recover her strength, but there was no time for being delicate or gentle. There was too much at stake.
Megan looked startled as he strode into the room but he ignored her. He had eyes only for Harriet’s slight form in the bed, her back to him. He noisily plonked himself in the chair beside her bed and was gratified when she fluttered her eyes open. His gaze caught the specimen jar on the nearby table, Harriet’s excised tube lying limply at the bottom in all its garish splendour.
He picked it up and said rather abruptly, ‘So, you know.’
‘Yes,’ she said, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat, clutching her neck, wincing as she swallowed.
Gill almost sagged in relief. He knew the experienced theatre nurse in Harriet couldn’t look at the specimen and still blame him. Thank goodness for Katya.
‘I’m sorry, Gill,’ she said in a hoarse whisper. ‘I was angry. It’s obvious nothing could be done.’
Gill felt tears prick his eyes and blinked to clear them. She sounded so final. So sad and defeated. The righteousness he felt at her admission tempered by her frank sadness. Her eyes were red-rimmed accentuated by her pallor, as if she’d cried herself to sleep, and she looked as if there was no puff left in her sails. So different to the live, vibrant Harry he’d met and married seven years ago. Or even the one he had made wild, noisy love to the previous morning.
He shrugged and said gently as he took her hand, ‘You were angry.’
She shook her head. ‘I should have known. I know you. I know you would have tried your best. You are a brilliant surgeon, Guillaume Remy. Don’t let anyone ever tell you anything different.’
Gill felt his heart swell with love and pride at the humility of the woman he loved. But the finality of her words were worrying.
He stared at her beautiful face for a few moments. ‘I have something for you,’ he said.
‘Oh, yeah.’ She smiled lightly and felt her dry lips crack in protest. ‘The last time someone said that they handed me a grotesque specimen jar.’
He brought the divorce papers up into her line of vision. She looked at them and looked at him. He held them by the top edge in the middle and slowly ripped them in two. Then in four. Then in eight. And continued until they were almost confetti-sized. Then he threw them in the air and they fluttered down around their heads and on the bed and to the floor.
‘No, Gill. No,’ she said in horror, as she watched the pieces fall.
‘Yes, Harry. Yes.’
Great! Now she was going to have to get new ones drawn up! She glared at him as the last bit fell in his hair. ‘That was a legal document.’
‘I don’t care,’ he said. And he didn’t.
Harriet was lost for words. She couldn’t move on with her life until she and Gill were divorced. His little trick just delayed the process a little more. ‘Gill—’
‘Shh!’ he interrupted noisily. ‘Be quiet. I have things to say, Harry.’
Harriet blinked at his forcefulness. She took a moment in her still foggy brain to comprehend. Before she could rebuff him, he was off again.
‘This last day has been hell. My grandfather…Nimuk…Peter…Gillian…you.’
Yes, she thought. As far as last days went, this one had sucked big time!
‘But when I was inside you and there was so much blood and I thought I was going to lose you…that was the absolute rock bottom. And I knew in amongst all the blood was my baby. Our baby. And this paternal instinct came out of nowhere and I was sad. I saw you with Nimuk and with Gillian and I knew. I just knew that my destiny was to have a baby with you.
‘All the years of denial and arguing just paled into insignificance. Losing our baby was the one thing that made me realise that I wanted to have a baby more than anything. And not any baby, Harry. Your baby. Our baby.’
Harriet watched his sweet mouth move and got confused about what was actually coming out of it. She blinked a few times before her foggy brain actually assimilated the information. It was too much to take in. She felt like he was speaking to her in a foreign language.
Her heart jumped even as her sensible head rejected the idea. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You told me yesterday that I had to want a baby so badly that my breathing hurt when I thought about it. That my arms ached and my heart felt bereft and my stomach empty at the thought of not having one. You said I had to want one with very fibre of my being. Every cell. And you were right. And I do, Harry. With every cell in my body I want a baby.’
Harriet blinked back tears at the passionate words. But still she rejected them. ‘No, Gill. Even if I believe what you just said, what about your job? Your career? I won’t subject my child to a part-time father.’
‘I don’t want to be a part-time father, Harry. I want to be a hands-on, completely doting father.’
Harriet brutally clamped down on the part of her that was foolishly rejoicing. ‘No. You don’t.’
OK, this was going to be difficult. ‘Yes. I do.’
‘Gill,’ Harriet sighed, letting out the breath she had been holding, one that had expanded as her crazy mind had run off with the possibilities Gill had filled it with. ‘OK, you lost a child tonight.’ Her voice was surprisingly strong but she knew what she said next would be vitally important. ‘And you had a big scare. But you’re a brilliant surgeon and sooner or later you’ll get itchy feet and want to be amongst it all. And you should be. This is what you do best. You’d end up hating me, Gill. I don’t want to be married to a man who resented me.’
‘This is what I love, Harriet, but there are plenty of things I can do closer to home that help. I’ve been neglecting my family. Grandfather’s heart attack made me realise that while I’ve been gallivanting around the world, I’ve barely had time for them. My parents, my grandfather, they’re not young any more. I can go
into administration. Vic has been trying to lure me into MedSurg management for years.’
Victoria Johnston, the Australasian director of MSAA, had been wooing Gill for a long time. She had seen him as the perfect candidate to manage the different surgical programmes. She’d wanted someone with grass-roots experience, who could troubleshoot and see the bigger picture prior to sending teams in at ground level.
Harriet was horrified. ‘A desk job? No, Gill. No. You’d hate it!’
‘Actually, no,’ said Gill, already thinking about the possibilities. The things he could change and implement to make things easier for the teams on the ground. ‘It’d be a challenge.’
Harriet shook her head, feeling like bursting into tears again. She wanted him to want a baby, but not like this. ‘What about surgery, Gill?’
‘What about it?’ he said, grinning at her madly. Suddenly, after a vile twenty-four hours, things were looking up.
‘Won’t you miss it?’
‘Probably after a while. But there are plenty of aid programmes in Australia for the disadvantaged, where I can work if I feel the pressing need to have a scalpel in my hand again.’
‘But how long will it be, Gill? Realistically? Before you feel the need to be in the thick of things again? I wouldn’t want you to ever go to another war zone. Ever. There are plenty of ways you can die in a safe place like Australia. I couldn’t bear being at home with our child, waiting for you away in some hot-spot, praying that no one would shoot your helicopter down or hold a gun to your head, demanding you treat them first.’
He kissed the back of her hand and smiled at her gently. ‘You’re not listening, Harry. My days of hot-spots are over. I’ve given ten years and as exciting as it’s been I’m ready for the next chapter of my life. I want to go home. I want to be a father.’
Harriet regarded him seriously for the first time. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She could hear the sincerity in his voice and see it on his face. But it just didn’t seem possible after two years of persuasion, arguing and tears.
She felt her eyes water and then a single tear track down her face. ‘This would be a really bad time to screw with my head, Gill. Don’t say stuff like this if you don’t mean it. Really mean it, deep down. Or even if there’s a single skerrick of a doubt tucked away anywhere in your body.’
He smiled at her, wiping away the tear with his index finger and trailing it down to brush lightly against her lips. ‘I love you, Harriet Remy. I have never felt more sure of anything.’
Another tear spilled over and followed the first one. The irony of the situation was incredible. After two years of resistance Gill was ready to have a family, just when her ability to have one was in doubt. ‘What if I can’t have a baby? What if I can never have a baby?’ she croaked, the thought of it so devastating her voice cracked.
‘We’ll adopt or foster or…get a surrogate or…I don’t know. I don’t care. But we’ll do it, Harry. I promise you, we will have a baby.’
‘What about the sleepless nights?’ She sniffled.
‘Bring them on.’
‘And the non-existent social life?’
‘Can’t wait.’
‘And feeling too wrung out to have sex?’
Gill paused. ‘Don’t care,’ he dismissed with a boyish grin.
‘Oh, Gill,’ she cried, her face crumpling as her heart leapt with joy. ‘Please, tell me I’m not hallucinating,’ she sobbed.
He laughed and kissed her, tasting the salt of her tears. ‘I’m not a mirage,’ he said, kissing hard on the mouth again. ‘You are not hallucinating. My name is Guillaume Remy. I love you and I want your baby.’
She held out her arms and he very gently leaned in towards her, laying his head against her chest, accepting her embrace. He heard her sigh and knew they were both back where they belonged.
The noise of a distant helicopter’s rotors approached and he looked up into her face. ‘That’s our relief team. Come back to Australia with me?’
Harriet nodded through another wave of tears. ‘I love you, Gill. I’m never leaving your side ever again.’
‘Good. It was hell without you.’
She laughed and hugged him close to her again. He was right, it had been hell. And the last twenty-four hours had been a cram-packed roller-coaster of emotions that she never wanted to experience again. But they were staying married. They were going to have a baby. And if it had taken losing a baby and losing her ability to have any more, ultimately it had been worth it.
She absently brushed a piece of divorce-paper confetti out of his hair and looked up into her husband’s loving grey eyes. It was so lucky, she thought hazily as his mouth came down on hers, that their differences had been reconcilable after all.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-5889-4
THE SURGEON’S MEANT-TO-BE BRIDE
First North American Publication 2006
Copyright © 2006 by Amy Andrews
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