‘He should be with his mother,’ the annoyance replied. ‘Not while she’s in Recovery, of course, but surely you know where she’ll be sent. I can accompany him there and keep an eye on him, and Laya can return to her own shift in the nursery.’
She looked Khalifa in the eye, daring him to argue.
‘Minimum fuss, right?’ she challenged.
‘It is not right,’ he muttered, glowering at her. ‘You’ve barely arrived in the country, you could be jet-lagged—’
‘And might make a mistake?’
Another challenge but before he could meet it she spoke again.
‘That’s what monitors are for,’ she reminded him. ‘I fall asleep beside the crib—which, I might add, is highly unlikely—and something goes wrong then bells will ring, whistles will blow and people will come running. I’m a neonatologist, remember, this is what I do. This hospital or Giles, this is my work.’
Again the blue eyes met his, the challenge still ripe in them.
‘Any other objections?’
‘Wait here!’ he ordered, then realised that was a mistake for the baby’s mother was already being wheeled into Recovery and the staff beginning to clean away the debris of the operation.
‘No, wait outside in the corridor.’ He spoke to Laya the second time, avoiding the challenging eyes and the disturbing feelings just being near the other woman was causing him. He headed for the changing rooms but once there he realised he should have showered and put on clean clothes on the flight but with Liz—would thinking of her as Dr Jones be better?—in the bedroom he’d not wanted to disturb her.
Now, showered again, changing back into his travel clothes was unappealing and the only apparel he had in his locker was a row of white kandoras and a pile of pristine red and white checked headscarves—kept there for any time he might have to leave the hospital for an official duty.
Not that he minded getting back into his country’s clothing. Too long in suits always made him feel edgy, but walking hospital corridors as a sheikh rather than a doctor could be an offputting experience.
He wouldn’t wear the headscarf—no, of course he would. Both it and the black cord that held it to his head. He was home!
He was beautiful! Liz could only stare at the apparition that had appeared before her in the corridor. Khalifa and yet not Khalifa, remote somehow in the clothes of his country, a disturbing enigma in a spotless white gown, the twist of black cord around his head covering giving the impression of a crown.
His Highness!
She ran her tongue over suddenly dry lips and tried for levity.
‘Good thing it’s you, not me, in that gear,’ she said. ‘White is not a colour for klutzes. I’d have tomato sauce stains down it in no time flat.’
Laya, she noticed, was suddenly busy watching the baby, her head bowed as if Khalifa in his traditional dress had overawed her.
To be honest, he’d overawed Liz as well, but it wouldn’t do to show it.
‘Follow me,’ he said, ignoring her tomato-sauce remark and leading them along the corridor. Laya followed with the crib and Liz brought up the rear, telling herself that staying at the hospital was the best idea she’d ever had. Her body might have behaved badly to Khalifa in civvies, but that was nothing to the rioting going on within it now.
Stupidity, that’s what it was.
Hormones.
Oh, how she hoped it was just hormones.
Although, given the impossibility of anything ever coming of her attraction to the man, providing she kept that attraction well hidden it wouldn’t matter, would it? Just another unrequited love. She’d survived that once before when her fourteen-year-old self had fallen in love with Mr Smith, the school science teacher. Smith and Jones, she’d written in tiny writing all over the covers of her physics book.
And as she couldn’t remember all the elements of Khalifa’s name, she couldn’t write it anywhere, which was an extremely good thing.
‘Here,’ a soft voice called, and she turned to find her thoughts had distracted her enough for her to miss the lift foyer so Laya had to beckon her back.
‘She’s a klutz,’ Khalifa was saying to Laya as Liz joined them. ‘Do you know that word?’
Laya shook her head and Khalifa proceeded to repeat the explanation Liz had given him in what seemed like another lifetime. She stood there, feeling her cheeks growing hot, uncertain if he was teasing her deliberately or simply passing on something he found of interest to his compatriot. Not that it mattered. While he was talking to Laya he wasn’t talking to her and the best thing she could do was avoid all conversations with him.
Fortunately, before she could become too mortified, the lift arrived and they were whisked up to the next level.
From the inside, the ICU looked like any other ICU, although this place was still sparklingly new. But beyond the glass outer walls Liz could see the big arches and the sheltered balconies that must run along the length of the building.
‘For the families?’ she asked Khalifa, so intrigued her decision to not talk to him was forgotten.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Close family members can, as you’d know, come into the ICU for short visits, but the others have to make do with being outside. Most of the time the curtains are open so they can see in, and the patient has the comfort of knowing they are there.’
‘So different,’ Liz murmured, although the room they were now in could have been in any hospital in the world with its well-positioned monitors, external pacemaker, defibrillator, suction pumps, drains, catheters, feeding tubes and IV lines—a veritable web of tubes that would soon be connected to the baby’s mother.
On the other hand, few hospitals would have ICU rooms this big.
‘There! In that corner,’ she said, pointing to a clear space by the outer window. ‘A perfect position for the baby because the mother in the bed will only have to turn her head to see the crib. On the other side, there’s just too much gear.’
Laya began to push the crib towards the space Liz had indicated but Khalifa stopped her with a touch of his hand—long, slim fingers—and turned to Liz.
‘You’re sure about this?’ he asked, a slight frown marring the smooth skin on his forehead.
‘About the baby rooming in?’
He shook his head, the frown deepening.
‘About your own involvement? I could have another neonatal paediatrician here within a couple of hours. You do not have to do this.’
He spaced the words of the last sentence out very carefully, giving each one equal emphasis.
Was it an order in a polite form?
Liz had no idea, she just knew that when the woman woke up, her first thought would be for her baby.
‘Quite sure!’ Liz, too, spaced her words so he couldn’t help but get the message that she was determined to go through with this. ‘I’ll just need someone to bring my luggage in from the car.’
He shrugged, the white robe lifting on his broad shoulders, the headscarf moving slightly so it showed his face in profile, a stern profile with that long straight nose and determined chin. The lips should have softened it, but they were set in a straight line—not thinned exactly, but straight enough to make Liz wonder if he was far too used to getting his own way.
She smiled at the thought and he caught the smile, raising his eyebrows but actually allowing the line of his lips to relax.
‘Do you always get your own way?’ he asked, echoing her thoughts so neatly she felt the blood rising to her cheeks once again.
What was wrong with her? This blushing business was totally out of character, and she doubted she could blame it on hormones. After all, she’d got through thirty-plus weeks of pregnancy without blushing when a man teased her…
Not that many men had teased her.
Fortunately Khalifa’s pager went off with a soft beep and he departed, leaving Laya to wheel the crib into the corner and Liz to collect herself.
‘Did you know him before? When you were studying perhaps?’ L
aya asked, as Liz checked the monitor leads were still attached and the baby seemed comfortable.
‘The baby?’ Liz joked, although she knew exactly what ‘him’ Laya had meant.
‘No, His Highness,’ Laya explained, while Liz wished the nurse would stop calling him that. The words made her, Liz, feel slightly squeamish. ‘Did you meet him when he was overseas, training?’
The question was puzzling and although Liz would have liked to ask why, she contented herself with explaining about Khalifa buying the hospital where she worked with the idea of staff interchanges between the two facilities.
‘It’s a wonderful idea,’ she continued, hoping to get Laya’s mind off whatever it was she really wanted to know. ‘Think what the staff from both countries will learn and how the patients will benefit as a result.’
‘But he seems at ease with you,’ Laya protested, and it took a moment for Liz to realise she hadn’t diverted the other woman at all.
‘Oh,’ she said, then she conquered the little flash of excitement the simple words had caused and squashed the whole conversation. ‘I think he’s the kind of man who would be at ease with any woman,’ she told Laya. ‘Now, we need to gather some supplies for this baby. Can I get you to do that? Do you have special packs on hand for when you airlift babies to the hospital up north? We’ll need a couple of them to begin with and a trolley to hold supplies, and scales of course.’
Laya assured her such packs were available and departed, leaving Liz and one very small baby boy in the impressively equipped room. She looked down at the sleeping figure and felt movement from the child she carried.
Her hand moved to touch it—to feel the life within her—but she’d been so strong all through the pregnancy, she knew she shouldn’t weaken now.
Although with Bill gone, could she not keep this baby?
Selfishness, she told herself. It wasn’t hers—it was never going to be hers—that had been the biggest hurdle she’d had to leap when she’d decided to go ahead with the pregnancy. Everyone she knew had warned her of maternal bonds and attachment and she’d been determined it wouldn’t happen to her, but now…
* * *
To Khalifa’s astonishment, the situation with the baby rooming in the ICU seemed to be working. Admittedly, his patient had been very groggy when she’d come out of the anaesthetic, but of course Liz Jones had been right—the patient’s first thought had been for her baby. In fact, her distress had been so evident that she’d been moved from Recovery to the ICU far more quickly than was usual.
Now, three days later, she lay, as she always did, with her heavily bandaged head turned towards the infant’s crib. Only today the crib had been moved closer to his patient’s bed and the woman’s hand rested on her son’s arm, her fingers moving very slowly and gently over his skin.
No need to see who was on duty with the baby. Khalifa doubted either of the nurses would have orchestrated this arrangement.
Liz nodded at him by way of greeting, as if all this was perfectly normal.
Yet wasn’t it?
Mother and baby together—yes, that was normal. But—
‘It bothers you?’
Was his confusion so obvious?
‘Hospitals have systems and procedures and rules because in that way we can ensure the best outcomes for our patients,’ he muttered, grumpy now as well as confused.
The woman had the hide to smile at him.
‘And this isn’t the best outcome for both our patients?’ She nodded towards the pair. ‘The two of them linked by the touch of love?’
The touch of love?
Her words struck deep into Khalifa’s heart and a sense of loss that had nothing to do with Zara and the baby all but overwhelmed him. Had he ever known it? Certainly not from his mother, who had lived to please one man and one man only, his father. Her children, once born, were cast in among all the other children at the palace, anonymous in the crowd, although his grandmother, his mother’s mother, had always sought him out, made him feel special.
Had that been love?
And did Liz know the touch of love, or were they just words? She’d certainly not given any indication that her baby had felt that touch.
He shouldn’t judge, but her behaviour puzzled him, and now those words.
‘You’re probably right,’ he admitted grudgingly, getting back to the conversation.
‘Only probably?’ she teased, then she turned the small computer screen so he could see it.
‘I can’t talk about your patient, but this little chap is doing well,’ she said. ‘His birth weight fell one hundred and seventy grams but we started feeding him through the orogastric tube on day two—was that only yesterday?—and I hope to have him on full feeds within a week. He’s still on the CPAP but we took him off that for an hour this morning and he coped well so we’ll gradually wean him off it.’
She was nattering on to him as if he was just another colleague in her life. Which, of course, he was, but…
His mind wanted to follow the ‘but’ but his instinct warned him not to go where it might lead. Instant attraction was dangerous enough—far too unstable to lead anywhere, in his opinion—but instant attraction to a pregnant woman—that was madness…
‘Is she doing well, your patient?’ the pregnant woman was asking, and he brought his mind firmly back to work.
‘Extraordinarily well,’ he had to admit. ‘Given that she’s just had major brain surgery, I actually can’t believe how much progress she’s made.’
He’d thought his colleague might take advantage of that admission with a smug grin at the very least, but all she did was offer a whole-hearted smile, and a quiet ‘I am so glad it’s working out for her’.
Some undercurrent in the words made him look at her more closely and he was sure he detected shadows in her lovely eyes.
Shadows of sadness—though how could that be? And why would he think sadness?
Then, on the faintest of sighs, she explained.
‘I have a friend in a coma,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s a terrible place to be.’
He wanted to touch her, just a touch of comfort—on her shoulder, or perhaps her arm—but she moved away, clicking off the computer screen, tidying the trolley that held the baby’s needs in the corner of the room, although it had looked perfectly tidy when he’d glanced at it earlier.
There’d been something deeply personal in her admission and he couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been speaking of the father of her baby.
But in that case, surely she’d be giving the baby more reassuring touches, not fewer…
He had to get his head straight. He had to stop thinking about the woman, yet how could he when she was here every time he visited his patient?
Every time?
He thought back.
‘Have you been getting any rest?’ he asked her. ‘Are you actually trusting other staff to take care of the baby?’
She looked up from the trolley in the corner and smiled at him.
‘Of course I trust the staff and, yes, I’m getting plenty of rest. My body clock is still a bit wonky with the travel, so I come and go at odd hours, and if I’m here I give the nurse on duty a break.’
She made it sound so—normal, somehow, yet he knew it wasn’t. For one thing, the nearest on-call room was way down the other end of the long corridor.
She must have read his thoughts because she smiled and said, ‘And all the walking is the best possible exercise for me.’
He wanted to argue, to tell her she should be living in the palace, but he had no reasons to back up his argument, not one—none!
Yet he wanted her there—he wanted her to see his home, to walk through his gardens, to relax in a hammock beneath the shade of a peach tree…
Though perhaps a klutz in a hammock…and pregnant at that?
On a couch under a peach tree.
‘I’ve seen the area for the new unit.’ The shift in conversation startled him. ‘And I’ve drawn up a list of equipmen
t and passed it on to the manager of the children’s section of the hospital. Laya tells me the nursery comes under his control so I assumed the new unit would as well. No doubt he’ll run the purchases past whoever has to okay them. I’m sure you don’t have to be bothered with minor details like that.’
He had to smile.
‘I have a niece who uses that phrase—minor details like that—usually when she’s spent an inordinate amount of money on some article of clothing.’
To his delight, Liz returned his smile.
‘I can assure you I haven’t overspent. In fact, I thought we’d start small. No point in having equipment we might never need cluttering up our space, but I have included things like comfortable, reclining armchairs for parents and a plan for the alterations we’ll need to the internal space.’
Her smile slipped away, replaced by a slight frown.
‘I couldn’t cost things like the internal carpentry and plumbing and hadn’t a clue who to ask but I’m sure Phil will sort it out. He seems to be on top of everything—fantastic bloke.’
Phil?
Who was Phil?
Of course, Philip Cutler, the young man Khalifa himself had headhunted from a children’s hospital in the US to manage the department.
‘I’m sure Mr Cutler will manage,’ he agreed, aware he sounded stiff and stuffy, but inordinately put out by her seeming friendliness with ‘Phil’! She’d only been here a couple of days!
He made a mental note to see the man and check the requirements.
Why? his head asked. Do you not trust one or the other—both—of these staff members?
He didn’t answer his head’s question because he knew full well his interest was in Dr Liz Jones, not in her lists, but if he kept abreast of her plans then he’d have more to discuss with her, more reasons to see and talk to her.
She is pregnant!
His head was yelling at him now.
She already has a man in her life, or did have within the last nine months!
Yet, for reasons beyond his comprehension, neither issue seemed to affect the attraction he felt towards her, or his—need?—to see her as often as he could, to hear her speak, to make her smile.
The Sheikh and the Surrogate Mum Page 7