Midwife's Longed-for Baby & the Prince's Cinderella Bride & Bride for the Single Dad (9781488022142)

by Anderson, Caroline; Berlin, Amalie; Taylor, Jennifer

  ‘So did I.’ He got to his feet and smiled, shaking their hands. ‘It’s good to see you again, and not before time. I owe you both a massive apology. I promised to come back and make sure you were OK when I delivered your last baby, but I got caught up in something and then I was off on leave and I didn’t even get a message to you. I’m really sorry.’

  Caught up in something? On leave? One way of putting it when your wife calls time on your marriage, Liv thought, and wondered if she was the only person who could see what was going on under the surface of his calm, professional demeanour. She hoped so, for his sake, but both she and Nick were well aware that she’d found Suze’s note while he’d been delivering Amy’s baby.

  ‘There’s no need to apologise,’ Leo was saying. ‘I’m just sorry that we never had a chance to thank you, but I’ve never forgotten how kind you were to Amy, and how much we owe you.’

  ‘You don’t owe me anything,’ Nick said, brushing it aside. ‘It was a pleasure. So, how is your little girl? Is she doing well?’

  ‘She’s wonderful. Naughty, but wonderful,’ Amy said with a laugh, ‘and she’s been fine, thanks to you and Mr Walker.’

  ‘Do you know what this one is?’

  ‘A boy,’ Leo told him, his smile saying it all, and Liv felt the familiar shaft of pain like an old friend, but Nick’s smile was convincing. If you didn’t know better…

  ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘So, what are your birth plans? I see from your notes there’s a suggestion you want to try for a normal vaginal delivery.’

  ‘I want to, if I can. Mr Bailey said he was prepared to let me try, but he’s apparently gone off on indefinite leave so I’m in the lurch again. I seem to have that effect on people.’

  His smile was a little strained. ‘I’m sure you can’t take the blame for either of us abandoning you, but you’re not in the lurch, unless I don’t count? I’m replacing him for now, so I’ll be looking after you for the rest of this pregnancy and I’m happy to let you try if everything looks OK.’

  ‘You are?’ Her face lit up, and she pressed her hands to her mouth. ‘Oh, that’s amazing! I was so worried, I thought his replacement might say no.’

  ‘No. They’re going to be close together, of course, only about fifteen months apart, but it’s over a year so technically speaking that’s not a problem. Why don’t you hop up on the couch and let’s have a look at your scar?’

  * * *

  All was well, he was relieved to see. The scar was a fine, tidy line, her uterus under the skin felt smooth, with only the slightest hint of a ridge over the incision site, and he could feel nothing to worry him.

  ‘OK, Amy, I’m all done.’ He snapped off his gloves and propped himself up on his desk. ‘It’s looking good,’ he said. ‘The head’s engaged, everything looks fine, and I think I’ll be quite happy to let you try. I’ll make sure I’m here when you’re admitted, but I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t succeed. Liv?’

  ‘No, I’d be happy to deliver you, Amy. I might be a bit less happy if it was a home birth, but provided you’re here and we’re keeping a close eye on things, I don’t see a problem at all.’

  ‘Oh, that’s brilliant,’ Amy said, tugging her clothes straight and picking up her bag. ‘I feel so much happier now.’

  He grinned at her enthusiasm. ‘Good. I like my mums to be happy. I’ll definitely make sure I’m around when you go into labour, and I’ll do my best to give you the delivery you want, but the safety net is there. We’ll make sure of that.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said fervently, and then to his astonishment she went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘My pleasure. I’ll see you in two weeks, if not before. I wouldn’t want you to go over, but we’ll see how it’s going, and you might need a membrane sweep to chivvy things along, but so far, so good. You take care. It’s good to see you both again.’

  ‘You, too,’ Leo said. ‘Welcome back to Yoxburgh.’

  Nick smiled and watched them go, wondering again what it would be like to come back here permanently, to see his patients extending their families, getting to know them over the years.

  Maybe he’d get to find out?

  He turned to Liv. ‘Right, you, time to go home. I can manage the rest. They’ll find me a nurse. Shoo. Go.’

  * * *

  She went, much more tired than she’d expected, and the short walk took her twice as long as usual. She let herself in and curled up on the sofa, her body tired and achy, her legs like lead. She’d just got settled when the doorbell rang, and she dragged herself off the sofa and opened the door.

  Flowers.

  Beautiful flowers, hand-tied and in a lovely vase, so she didn’t even have to arrange them. There was a card, and she pulled it out of the envelope.

  N xxx

  Nothing more, but he didn’t need to say more. His phone went straight to voicemail, so she left him a message thanking him, and spent the rest of the afternoon either dozing or staring at them with a silly smile on her face.

  He cared. Still, after everything that had happened, he cared. And tonight couldn’t come soon enough…

  * * *

  He looked tired but happier when he turned up, and although he’d shaved this morning she could see the dark shadow of stubble on his jaw again, and it sent a shiver through her.

  He hugged her briefly, kissed her cheek and let her go, shoving his hands in his back pockets. To keep them out of trouble? Probably wise, she thought regretfully.

  ‘So, did the shopping come?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. And the flowers. They’re beautiful. Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome. How are you?’

  ‘Tired,’ she admitted. ‘I wasn’t expecting to feel like this. It’s not even as if my head aches.’

  ‘Concussion’s a weird thing. You need to take it easy. What about the rest of you?’

  ‘All right. My bruises hurt if I touch them, but otherwise I’m fine.’

  ‘Well, there’s an easy answer to that,’ he said with a grin.

  He wandered through to the kitchen and started poking about in the fridge.

  ‘So, what did you do this morning while I was filing?’ she asked, following him.

  ‘Oh, gynae surgery. All the usual stuff. Pretty dull. I like the babies.’

  She laughed sadly. ‘Me, too. We really chose the right careers, didn’t we? So what do you reckon Amy Zacharelli’s chances of delivering successfully are?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s due in sixteen days, but I don’t want her to go over, really. It would be lovely if she went into labour spontaneously so we don’t have to induce her but that could complicate things so I’m not holding my breath.’ He pulled his head out of the fridge. ‘How do you fancy a Thai chicken curry with cauliflower rice?’

  She felt her eyes widen. ‘That’s a bit healthy. And I noticed everything’s organic.’

  ‘I told you I’d turned my life around. Too healthy?’

  ‘No—no, it sounds great. Go for it. Can I do anything?’

  ‘Yes. Sit down on the sofa there and talk to me while I cook.’

  She turned her head and looked at it, squatting there in the ‘family room’ like a malevolent toad, taunting her with horrible memories.

  ‘Do I have to?’

  He looked up and met her eyes, and frowned. ‘Hey, what’s up?’ he asked softly, abandoning the food and cradling her cheek in his hand. It was chilly from the fridge, and it sent a shiver down her spine.

  ‘I don’t like that sofa. Not since…’

  ‘Oh, Liv.’ Her name was a sigh on his lips, and he drew her gently into his arms and hugged her. ‘Come on. We’ll sit on it together and chase out the demons.’

  And he took her hand and led her over to the sofa and sat
her down next to him. ‘There. See? It’s just a sofa.’

  She looked at the coffee table, and he followed her eyes and frowned. ‘What’s that mark?’ he asked, leaning forwards and scratching at a dull, pale patch with his nail.

  ‘You slopped your coffee when you stood up when I told you to go, and I put the paper under it to mop it up, and it stuck.’

  He turned his head, his eyes shocked as they met hers.

  ‘It’s been there all this time?’

  She shrugged. ‘It didn’t matter. I don’t use it.’

  He got up, found a sponge in the sink and came back, scrubbing at the stuck bits of paper until they dissolved and slid away. He gave the table one last swipe and straightened up to look at it.

  ‘There, that’s better,’ he said, and bent and caught her chin in his fingers. ‘Much better,’ he added softly, and lowered his head the last few inches and kissed her. ‘Now stay there, and I’ll make you supper and you can talk to me.’

  She looked at the mark, now nothing more than a slowly drying damp patch, and realised he was right. It was much better, in every way. Amazing what you could wipe away with a damp sponge…

  She settled back into the corner, tucked a cushion behind her head and watched him cook while her lips tingled gently from his kiss.

  * * *

  ‘Thank you. That was amazing. I loved the cauliflower rice.’

  They were back on the sofa, the one where her life had fallen apart last January, and he propped his feet up on the coffee table and rolled his head towards her.

  ‘Don’t get too addicted to it. I don’t want you getting skinny again. You were way too thin, with all that running.’

  ‘I know.’ She looked away for a moment, and he caught her chin and gently turned her face towards him, his eyes searching.

  ‘What?’

  She shrugged, forcing herself to hold his steady gaze. ‘I’ve wondered—you know, if that was why I never conceived?’

  He dropped his hand and this time it was him who looked away. ‘Not necessarily.’

  She frowned. There was something he wasn’t telling her, and she had a sinking feeling in her gut. ‘Nick?’

  He swallowed, sucked in a breath and let it go again slowly.

  ‘I had semen analysis,’ he said eventually, his voice heavy. ‘Three years ago, after the second month you weren’t pregnant.’

  ‘And?’ she prompted, her heart pounding. If they’d been trying for two years, and all that time he’d known—

  ‘Well, I wasn’t exactly firing blanks, but my sperm count was down on the optimum, and the quality wasn’t stunning. It wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t great, either.’

  ‘So you cleaned up your act,’ she said slowly, remembering how he’d suddenly stopped drinking wine and eating rubbish, rejoined the hospital gym, started running—but it hadn’t lasted.

  ‘Yes. And you still didn’t get pregnant, and it was getting tougher and tougher, so I just let it all slide again. And then just before you found out you weren’t pregnant, I had another test.’

  Her heart thumped. ‘And?’

  ‘It was worse. Not catastrophic, but bad enough that it could definitely be an issue by then. I’d already decided that if you weren’t pregnant I was going to talk to you, tell you the truth, but then when I got the result I was just numb, so I went to the conference, trying to work up the courage to tell you it was probably all my fault, and then Suze asked me what was wrong and I just lost it. And then when you thought I’d slept with her and kicked me out it seemed like the best idea because I thought if you hated me you’d find it easier to move on, but you haven’t, and neither have I. But that’s really why I didn’t tell you the truth about Suze, because I didn’t want you taking me back out of pity and going through endless cycles of IVF when you didn’t really love me any more anyway.’

  She slid her hand into his, threading their fingers together and holding on. ‘I never stopped loving you, Nick.’

  His fingers tightened. ‘It felt like it, when you said you wanted a divorce. It felt as if you hated me, and I could see why, because I hated myself then and I thought if I got out of your life you’d find someone else and have babies the easy way, because IVF’s tough, Liv. It can be really tough, I didn’t know how tough until I saw others going through it, and you’re younger than me, you’ve got years to find another man who can give you babies—’

  ‘But I don’t want another man, Nick, and I don’t want anyone else’s babies! I want you, and if it was right for us, down the line, I’d want your babies, via IVF or whatever other route we had to take so I could give them to you.’

  She lifted her other hand and curled it round his jaw, turning his face back to her. ‘That’s why I never divorced you, because I love you,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll always love you, and I couldn’t bring myself to let you go.’

  ‘Oh, Liv…’

  He closed the gap between them, his mouth finding hers, sipping, searching, coaxing. She tipped back her head and his lips trailed down over her jaw, down her throat, over her collarbone until they met the soft, clinging fabric of her top.

  And then he stopped, motionless for a moment before he lifted his head and dropped the lightest, sweetest kiss on her lips and moved away.

  ‘Don’t stop.’

  ‘I have to. We can’t do this now, Liv. Not yet. Apart from anything else you’re exhausted, you’ve had a long day and you need to go to bed.’

  ‘So take me to bed.’

  He gave a despairing little laugh and kissed her again. ‘Nice try, but I need to go,’ he whispered softly.

  ‘I’ll miss you.’

  ‘I’ll miss you, too, but it might be good for us. As they say, abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.’

  She felt her mouth twitch into a smile, and she reached out and cupped his jaw again, her fingers testing the slight roughness of the stubble coming through. ‘Promise me something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Keep the stubble this time? It makes you look sexy and a teensy bit badass.’

  ‘What?’ he said with a laugh. ‘Why would you want me to look like that?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yeah. Your bit of rough,’ he said self-mockingly, and she smacked his hand and laughed.

  ‘You are so not my bit of rough. It just makes you look—’

  ‘Badass,’ he said on a chuckle. ‘Good grief. I don’t want to upset my patients.’

  ‘Too late to worry about that. You heard what Judy said about me letting you go. She thinks you’re hot.’

  He frowned and stared down at her. ‘Hot? Judy? You’re kidding me.’

  She rolled her eyes, and he laughed again.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘You just have no idea, do you?’ she said, shaking her head slowly from side to side. ‘Nick, you are such a hottie.’

  He lifted his hand, fingering his jaw thoughtfully. ‘Well, maybe I should get a stubble blade for my razor. You know—just to keep you interested.’

  His eyes were sparkling with mischief, and he looked so like his old self that it made her want to cry—or hug him. She did that, as the safest option, and then let him go.

  ‘Go on, go home.’

  ‘I wish,’ he said softly, and she felt like crying again.

  ‘I meant back to Sam’s. Quick, while I’ll still let you.’

  He got to his feet and pulled her up, then kissed her again, his mouth lingering on hers for the longest moment before he took a step back out of reach.

  ‘You go on up to bed. I’ll put the dishwasher on and clear up before I leave. Shoo.’

  She shooed, because she truly was exhausted, but she didn’t sleep until she heard the front door close softly, and then the scrunch of tyres as he drove a
way. By the time the sound of his engine had faded, she was asleep…

  * * *

  He kept the stubble.

  Not because of what she’d said, apparently, but because he had a call from the hospital about Judy Richards, so he’d thrown on his clothes and gone straight there.

  By the time Liv went on duty at seven, he’d already been in the hospital for two hours and Judy had had another Doppler ultrasound scan of her placenta because the monitor had shown a slight dip in the baby’s heart rate and it hadn’t been moving quite as much as usual.

  ‘Is she going to be all right?’ she asked him, moving to stand next to him behind the nursing station desk, and he pursed his lips, his eyes still tracking over the scan images on the computer.

  ‘I hope so. Her placenta’s certainly not brilliant, but she’s going to have another scan in two hours. If there’s any change at all, I’m going to deliver it.’

  ‘At thirty-two weeks?’

  ‘Thirty-three today. And every day counts at this stage.’

  He turned and gave her a tired smile. ‘Talking of which, how are you?’

  ‘Better. I slept like a log.’

  ‘See? I told you you were tired,’ he murmured.

  ‘I’m not tired now,’ she murmured, ‘not looking at that badass stubble,’ but he just laughed and stood up.

  ‘No, you’re at work,’ he pointed out, but he winked at her as he turned away and her heart fluttered. Then he turned back.

  ‘What are you doing this evening?’

  ‘Eating with you?’

  He smiled. ‘Good. Want to come down to the cabin? I’ll pick you and the food up, if you like.’

  ‘Assuming Judy’s OK, because I know you and I know she’ll come first.’

  ‘Are you jealous of a patient?’

  She folded her arms. ‘Absolutely.’

  He laughed again and walked away, and she stood there staring after him like a moonstruck fool.

  ‘You two seem to be getting on pretty well.’

  She jumped and spun round.

  ‘Ben! Do you have to sneak up on me like that? You scared the living daylights out of me!’