Special Deliveries: Her Gift, His Baby: Secrets of a Career Girl / For the Baby's Sake / A Very Special Delivery

Thankfully Penny’s pager crackled into life, urgently summoning her down to Emergency.

‘I’ll come and see if they need me too,’ Ethan offered.

‘That was you.’ Penny grinned as they fled out of Maternity.

‘I’m sorry!’ Ethan said. ‘I just couldn’t sit there while she fed the baby. I’m fine with patients, with women in cafés, but when I know someone …’ He was honest. ‘I was the same with my sister. I just break out in a sweat. Please,’ he said. ‘I beg of you, when you have your baby, please don’t feed it when I come to visit.’

‘I promise I won’t,’ Penny assured him.

‘I know that sounds terrible.’

‘Absolutely not.’ Penny could think of nothing worse than feeding a baby in front of Ethan. ‘I don’t even know if I want to feed it myself.’

‘Stop!’ Ethan said. He just didn’t want to think about Penny and breasts and babies and the black panties she was wearing today.

Yes, he’d seen, even if he’d tried very hard not to.

‘Sorry.’ Even Penny couldn’t believe she was discussing breastfeeding with him. ‘You don’t approve, do you?’

‘Of bottle-feeding?’

She didn’t smile at his joke. ‘I meant you don’t approve of me doing this on my own.’

‘I can’t really say the right thing here.’

‘You can,’ she offered, because she didn’t mind people’s invited opinions.

‘No.’ He was honest. ‘I just can’t imagine that someone would choose to be a single mum. My mum raised my sister and I on her own and it wasn’t easy.’

‘My mum got divorced,’ Penny said, ‘and, believe me, things got a whole lot better when Dad wasn’t around.’ Then she checked herself. ‘Actually, things got a whole lot worse for a couple of years, but then they got better. And my sister was a single mum for a while.’

‘By choice?’

‘No,’ Penny said. ‘Well, yes, by choice, because she had no choice but to leave Simon’s dad. I really have thought things through.’

‘Tell me?’

‘I’ve got to work.’

‘Dinner?’ Ethan said, because he really was starting to like Penny, well, not fancy like, he told himself, but then he remembered the flash of her knickers and what had almost happened yesterday. Maybe he should recant that invitation to take her out for dinner, except he’d already asked.

‘Why?’

Ethan shrugged. ‘Well, I’ve been out with a new father and listened to his labour and if I add a woman going through IVF, I figure by the end of the week I could qualify as a sensitive new-age guy.’

Penny smiled and he had been right—she really was attractive when she did.

‘Okay, then.’ Her acceptance caught him just a little by surprise. He’d sort of been hoping, for safety’s sake, that she might decline. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘After you stab me.’

Penny was on a day off, so it was she who ‘dropped in’ just as Ethan was finishing up.

She was wearing a dress that buttoned up at the front and her heels were a little higher. He caught the musky scent of her perfume as he followed her into the office and locked the door.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said, taking her little cool bag.

She told him her doses and he heard the shake in her voice as she did so.

‘I am so sorry about this.’ He turned and she was trying to undo the little buttons on her dress. It really was a very genuine fear, made worse today because she’d had the whole drive here to think about it. Ethan actually saw her break out into a cold sweat as he approached and she was trying very hard not to cry.

‘I need a bit more skin than that, Penny.’ She’d only managed two buttons. ‘Here.’ He undid a couple more and felt the splash of a hot tear on the back of his hand. ‘You must really want this baby.’

‘I do.’

He could see tiny goose bumps rising on her stomach. He was really impressed with himself because he was completely matter-of-fact and, despite a glimpse of purple underwear and the heady scent of her, he was not a bit turned on. Two evenings in a row now!

He just kept reminding himself that there’d be a baby in there any time soon and that those small breasts would soon look like Hilary’s.

‘Done,’ Ethan said.

‘Thanks.’

‘Where do you want to go and eat?’

Penny didn’t care, so they ended up in the same pub near the hospital where he had been with Gordon, and they took a booth and sat opposite each other. He saw the dark smudges under her eyes and the paleness of her skin. The treatment must really be taking its toll by now.

‘Jasmine’s coming back the day after tomorrow,’ Penny said. ‘Well, as long as Jed’s mother keeps improving, so tomorrow should be the last time you have to do it.’

‘It’s not an issue.’

‘I am very grateful to you, though. Jasmine was worried that I’d just stop the treatment and I think she was right.’

‘Have you told her I’m giving them?’

‘Yes.’ Penny nodded. ‘She sends you her sympathies.’

He’d prefer self-restraint.

‘When’s your next blood test?’

‘Seven a.m. tomorrow.’

‘Do you want to change the next one?’ Ethan asked. ‘Go in a little bit later?’

Penny shook her head. ‘Thanks, but it has to be done early.’

She ordered nachos smothered in sour cream and guacamole and cheese, and it surprised him because he’d thought she’d order a salad or something.

And usually she would but this was like PMS times a thousand so she just scooped up the cheesiest bit she could find and sank her teeth into it with such pleasure that Ethan wished he hadn’t ordered the steak.