She should be thankful Hunter hadn’t lied about how he felt. She could go home and call herself a fool for believing he’d realised his mistake for even a minute.
Keith wandered across and Kirsten smiled blindly at him. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to Hunter, and stood up.
‘Keith, I’ve been meaning to ask you about the new helicopter…’ Her voice faded as she took Keith’s arm and steered him across to the other side of the balcony.
Hunter stared after her. She’d looked wounded and he felt like a heel, but unfortunately he didn’t believe he’d been wrong. He’d seen Kirsten in the man’s arms with his own eyes, and Eva had confirmed it. So why did he still want to believe in her? He tensed as he watched Keith pat her hand and dropped his sandwich back onto the plate. He’d begin compiling the statistics he was working on for the study.
The MIRA phone stayed blessedly quiet for the rest of the afternoon and Hunter left as soon as the clock hit five.
The rest of the week was peaceful for Kirsten as Hunter worked his hours in the NICU. Kirsten was paired with Pete Chee, one of the full-time registrars who had almost finished his six months’ stint gaining emergency experience with MIRA.
They did a couple of road ambulance transfers for closer hospitals and two fixed-wing retrievals in the west of the state, as well as the usual rotary-wing transfers. By the end of the week, Kirsten felt as if she’d never been away from MIRA.
She kept telling herself how much more relaxing it was without Hunter there to throw questions at her and keep her off balance, but she couldn’t help missing his annoying presence. That was a worry.
She’d been on the road to recovery, she really had, before she’d run into him again at MIRA, and if she was this affected by only a few days of working with him again, maybe this wasn’t going to work out.
Hopefully he wouldn’t be there in NICU on Saturday night if everything went smoothly, and she clung to that thought because she wasn’t ready for the roller-coaster yet again.
Of course, Hunter was the first person she saw as she put her bag away on the ward. ‘Good evening, Kirsten,’ he said, and Kirsten gritted her teeth.
Kirsten closed her eyes briefly before she turned around and sighed. And she didn’t care if he heard it. ‘How about you just leave me alone?’
When she turned to face him he took a step backwards from the denial in her face and held up his hands. ‘I’m sorry if I upset you the other day.’
‘Hunter—get over it. I am.’ She brushed past him and Hunter watched her go. He’d had a lot of trouble getting her out of his mind for the last few days and he wasn’t sure what was more stressful—being with her and trying to ignore the effect she had on him or being away and trying to block her out of his thoughts. Either way he needed to get a grip on what she was and wasn’t going to be in his life.
Though judging by the way she’d brushed him off just then, she knew exactly where he wasn’t going to be. Anywhere close to her. Why that attitude on her part should make him even more determined to follow her he had no idea. It was either psychiatric help or find out how Kirsten Wilson ticked. Ignoring her hadn’t worked, and if he wanted some control back over his life then this problem needed sorting.
Kirsten shook hands with the evening staff she hadn’t met before, and took a seat in the hand-over circle to listen to report, pretending Hunter wasn’t leaning on the wall beside the nurses’ station. As soon as report was finished the other staff could go home and she could find something to do away from Hunter.
All was reasonably quiet in the unit, it seemed, and Kirsten gladly took over the care of the Baker twins from the previous week. They had been extubated and were breathing well for themselves, and were even having a few mils of expressed breast milk from Mum down tubes into their stomachs.
She introduced herself to Kinny’s and Carla’s mum, Maxine, who was having a late visit to express her milk. ‘Hi, Maxine, I’m Kirsten. Your daughters have come a long way since last week and I see they’ve started on a little EBM already. That’s wonderful.’
Maxine Baker was a small woman with big blue eyes and an air of fragility that, amazingly, reminded Kirsten of the twins. She smiled at Kirsten confidingly. ‘It seems a bit useless to see them get two mils down their tubes but I’ve been told it’s the best thing for them.’
Kirsten grinned at Carla’s little bottom sticking up into the air as she lay on her tummy in the humidicrib, and then looked at Maxine.
‘One of the more recent changes to premature babies’ care has been the earlier introduction of breast milk. Those babies started within a few days, even with only the tiniest quantity of expressed breast milk, had many less problems with their intestinal systems than those who were given nil by mouth for extended periods. So it is very important.’
She smiled. ‘The most amazing thing, I think, is that your breasts will be producing exactly the right milk for a twenty-nine-week baby this week, and someone else who had a forty-week baby will be producing milk for a full-term infant.’
‘That’s incredible.’ Maxine shook her head and patted her breasts. ‘Clever boobies.’
The two women smiled at each other in mutual mischief.
Maxine peered at Kirsten’s name badge again. ‘Were you here when they came down here last week, then?’
Before Kirsten could answer, Hunter arrived and joined in the conversation. At least Maxine was happy to see him. ‘Kirsten was here all right. She looked after them on their first night.’
Kirsten agreed and wished he’d go away. She turned her shoulder on Hunter. ‘I met your husband, too.’
Apparently Maxine didn’t hear her as she smiled at Hunter. ‘Hello again, Dr Morgan, I thought you said you were going home?’
‘I’m just on my way.’ He stared at Kirsten but she refused to look at him. He’d upset her at the barbecue and he regretted that, but mostly he remembered her walking away with Keith. Tonight her arms were crossed and she’d turned one shoulder towards him. He doubted she could have made her aversion to his company any clearer.
Maxine turned back to Kirsten. ‘So, did you take the photo of the girls that my husband brought up to me?’ When Kirsten nodded Maxine smiled and reached into her dressing-gown pocket. She pulled out a ‘Mummy’s brag book’ of photos. ‘I keep the photos in my pocket so I can look at them whenever I need to.’ Hunter accepted he was superfluous and after one last fleeting look at Kirsten, he took himself off.
Kirsten sighed as she sneaked a glance at his back as he walked away.
‘He’s a bit of a looker, isn’t he?’ Maxine smiled knowingly. ‘And he’s a sweetie.’
Kirsten made some kind of noncommittal sound of semi-agreement then saw that the bigger twin, Carla, was awake. ‘Have you had a cuddle yet?’
‘I had a nurse of Kinny three days ago but Carla was still too sick then.’
‘Well, Carla is awake now—would you like a nurse for a few minutes?’
Maxine’s eyes misted. ‘I’d love it. I’ve only stroked her hand so far.’
Kirsten gave Maxine a quick hug. ‘I’ll just check that no one else will need me for a little while and then we’ll do that. Carla needs to snuggle up to you just as much as you need it.’
Kirsten strongly believed in the practice of kangaroo nursing, where the mother of a premature infant tucked her baby down inside her clothes against her skin for a little while. The babies had shown to be more settled and peaceful after skin contact with their mothers but it required a lot of juggling and rearranging of leads and equipment. At least every three days if the infants were stable was a good interval because it didn’t tire the babies too much.
Fifteen minutes later, Kirsten felt her own eyes mist as she watched Maxine whisper to her baby daughter as she snuggled her between her breasts. It was moments like these that were for treasuring, and Kirsten took a photo at Maxine’s request so the mum could add it to her brag collection.
The rest of the night passed swiftly and Kirsten was b
usy enough to avoid thinking of Hunter at all. She decided the night shift would be no hardship as long as Hunter stayed away.
By the time she arrived home in the morning, she was so tired she fell into bed and slept dreamlessly, thank goodness, until late Sunday afternoon.
Unfortunately the first person she thought of when she opened her eyes was Hunter Morgan. ‘Get out of my head,’ she groaned as she opened her eyes. She picked her pillow up and threw it at the wall and then remembered it was Maggie’s birthday.
Jim had asked Kirsten to join them for tea if she’d had enough sleep after her night shift, and the idea of a diversion from the dreaded Hunter Morgan ghost sounded a good thing.
She phoned the Rumbles and promised to arrive in due time and Maggie sounded so pleased Kirsten was glad she’d made the effort.
After a shower and dressed in her new pair of stretch jeans that she’d fallen in love with, Kirsten slid the quiche she’d made yesterday out of the fridge and hummed her way to the door.
She picked up the flowering cyclamen she’d chosen as a gift and once outside juggled her load to lock the door behind her.
‘Would you like me to take that for you?’
Kirsten jumped, dropped the quiche and then bumped heads with Hunter as they both caught the dish at the same time.
She let go of her half of the dish and used her hand to rub the painful bump on her forehead. She didn’t notice the little smear of egg that she wiped into her hair but she was so monumentally angry she wouldn’t have cared anyway.
Hunter was oblivious as he admired the way her tight black jeans encased her long legs and he straightened up slowly. The scent of her perfume rang bells he didn’t want to hear and she had some low-cut wrap-around top on that looked as though all it would take was a flick of a bow and it would fall to the floor. He swallowed. Her breasts rose and fell with agitation and he turned his head to try and drag his eyes away.
Lord, she had him panting like a teenager, he realised, as he forced his attention back to her face. That was when he realised she was furious.
‘What the heck are you doing here?’ she practically snarled at him, and he began to see the funny side of it.
‘Catching quiches.’ He rubbed his own head with his free hand. She wasn’t amused and he shrugged at her lack of humour. ‘Jim asked me to pick you up in case you wanted to have a glass of wine with dinner. And he said your car was unreliable.’
She spoke through clenched teeth. ‘And he gave you my address?’
‘Actually, he offered to but I already had it.’
Kirsten dropped her chin and looked at him from under her brows. That little trick was right up there with the hair flick. He remembered how much he used to love it when she did that, but he didn’t think it was a good time to mention that.
‘Why would you have my address?’ She was glaring at him so hard he wondered that he was still standing. He shrugged. ‘In case I needed it.’
Kirsten went to answer and then changed her mind and said nothing. She turned her back and checked that her door was locked then walked straight past him.
‘I gather you don’t want a lift?’ He followed her down the stairs and out to the car park, carrying the quiche.
‘Not if you were the last man on earth. Goodbye.’ She held out her hand to take the pie dish.
He gave it to her and then he grinned because she had to give it back to him to get out her keys. ‘I’ll wait until you go.’
Darn. Kirsten chewed her lip. She hoped her car would start. She’d been riding her pushbike to work the last few days because her old bush-basher, which she’d picked up from her sister’s, was almost beyond it. Both brothers-in-law had suggested she trade Bessy in, and even Abbey and Bella had agreed. But she’d seen a lot of Australia in her old mate and she wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet.
‘Please, Bessy,’ Kirsten muttered as she climbed up into the Land Rover. She held her hand out for the quiche and plant and set them down on the passenger side floor as a gesture of faith that her car would start. Then she shut the door in Hunter’s face.
She turned the key. Bessy tried, she really did, but she just couldn’t get up enough enthusiasm to turn over. ‘Come on, Bessy. Do it for mama,’ Kirsten pleaded under her breath. If only Maggie hadn’t sounded so pleased she was coming.
‘I think your starter motor is shot,’ Hunter was mouthing at her through the windscreen, and she felt like squirting him with the windscreen washers. She took her hand away from the ignition, sank her head down onto the steering-wheel and drew a deep, calming breath.
OK. Fate had conspired against her but that didn’t mean she’d be on the back foot for the rest of the evening. She opened her door.
‘I was planning on an early night,’ she said ungraciously as she handed him the quiche and the pot plant before she got out.
‘So was I,’ he said, and restrained himself from saying anything else.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE ride over to the Rumbles’ was mostly accomplished in silence but just before they found the correct address, Hunter pulled the car over to the side of the road. Kirsten’s heart rate jumped but her voice was even when she spoke.
‘They live in the next street.’
Hunter glanced at the road sign in front of the car. ‘I know. There’s something I want to say.’
Kirsten turned her head and looked out the window. ‘Say it and then let me be.’
‘I guess what I want to say is that I can’t leave you alone.’ He clasped his hands at the top of the steering-wheel. ‘You don’t leave me alone.’
Kirsten turned back to him and stared. ‘That is so not true. You can’t accuse me of that. I barely talk to you unless I have to.’ She couldn’t believe he was blaming her for chasing him.
He smiled ruefully and she felt the knife twist inside her stomach. There was something she couldn’t identify in his face. ‘What I mean is,’ he said slowly, ‘thoughts of you won’t leave me alone, and I don’t know what to do about it.’
Kirsten felt as if a huge vice was squeezing her heart and she didn’t think she could stand it. She couldn’t do roller-coasters with Hunter any more. ‘So you believe I had an affair with another woman’s husband but you still want me?’ She didn’t think she could have been hurt any more but she found that she could.
‘In a nutshell,’ he said, and her hand slid down the door until it found the handle and she opened the door.
‘You are unbelievable. This is your problem. I’ll walk the rest of the way.’
He was out of his door and beside her before she realised he’d moved. His bulk blocked her escape. ‘I don’t want this either and I just want to try to be friends. Maybe learn to know you again.’
Kirsten blinked back the tears that had sprung up at his words. She’d really loved him and he’d hurt her badly. Now he was asking her to lay herself open to more hurt. ‘You can’t know someone you don’t trust!’
She shook her head, unable to comprehend why he could think that of her. ‘Believing lies of your friends is no way to treat people. Not all women are like your first wife, Hunter. I’m not like her but I’m beginning to wonder if she was as bad as you tell yourself she was. Maybe you got that wrong, too?’
He laughed harshly at that and the scorn in the sound was not what she associated with Hunter. ‘I heard my mother’s lies and I saw my wife in bed, with my boss, in my house.’
Kirsten bit her lip. ‘Whoops.’ The word accidentally came out a loud but then she regrouped. ‘OK. She did it.’
She pointed her finger at his chest and stared up into his face. ‘But you saw me hug Jack Cosgrove as I sent him back to his wife. Think about it, Hunter. Do I hug a lot of people? Hug all my friends and the parents of the children I nurse? Did it ever enter your suspicious little mind that maybe you were wrong about me? That you threw away something precious we both had because of your insecurities?’
Hunter shook his head. ‘At the time it was plausible. His wife sai
d she’d also caught you together before, and I was swayed.’
‘She is jealous and insecure and you believed her over me—when you’d already told me she wasn’t your favourite person in the world. It seems strange to me but, then, I’m a fairly straightforward person. Unlike someone else I know, I’m loyal to my friends.’
He tried to tell her he’d begun to change, begun to suspect maybe he’d jumped to conclusions, but she wouldn’t listen. It was as if she was afraid to listen and he didn’t know what to do.
She pushed him out of the way and walked up the street towards the Rumbles’ house. He followed her slowly in the car so that they’d arrive together. They pretended to be civil to each other when Maggie met them at the door. It was going to be a really early night.
By Wednesday, Kirsten knew she had to find some common ground with Hunter because it was just too stressful worrying about when she was working with him next. They’d been avoiding each other since the fiasco at the Rumbles’ three nights ago. Although they’d tried to act normally for their hosts’ sake, they’d had little success and Kirsten only hoped that they hadn’t ruined the night for Maggie. She knew that until Hunter convinced her he’d accepted he’d been wrong, it was too dangerous to allow him any closer. In fact, she was crazy even considering anything to do with Hunter Morgan on whatever grounds. But they had to talk if they worked together.
Thankfully the first two days they’d been rostered on different shifts. Today they’d have to work together and she still wasn’t sure what it was that Hunter wanted. She had a sneaking suspicion he didn’t either.
They began the shift together with an armed truce.
‘Good morning, Hunter.’
‘Good morning. Kirsten,’ he said, and they both paid minute attention to their lockers. Kirsten sighed. Hopefully they’d be able to get through the morning without any personal hiccups. Because that was what was needed. A firm professional basis to keep their work and private lives separate.
The first call came two hours into the shift. When he heard the name of the referring hospital Hunter couldn’t help looking across at Kirsten. He bet she’d love this.
The Pregnant Midwife Page 6