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

‘I do,’ Ethan said, and got back to his notes. But that was the problem exactly—he’d never have heard it from Penny herself.

And then he stopped writing, took another handful of chocolate nuts as it dawned on him …

Like him, Penny had refused to play the sympathy card.

CHAPTER ONE (#u4745aace-ed9b-57fe-b4a0-9cab8ef91f28)

‘HAVE YOU THOUGHT about letting a few people at work know what’s going on?’

Penny closed her eyes at her sister’s suggestion and didn’t respond. The very last thing Penny wanted was the people at work to know that she was going through IVF.

Again.

It was bad enough for the intensely private Penny that her mum and sister knew but, given that Penny was seriously petrified of needles, she’d had no choice but to confide in Jasmine, who would be giving Penny her evening injections soon.

While she couldn’t get through it without Jasmine’s practical help, there were times when Penny wished that she had never let on that she was trying for a baby.

Yes, her family had been wonderfully supportive but sometimes Penny didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to hear that they were keeping their fingers crossed for her, didn’t always want to give the required permanent updates and, more than anything, she had hated the sympathy when it hadn’t worked out the first time. Naturally they had tried to comfort her and understand what they could not—they had both had babies.

The two sisters were walking along the beach close to where they both lived. Penny lived in one of the smart townhouses that had gone up a couple of years ago and took in the glittering bay views. Jasmine lived a little further along the beach with her new husband Jed and her toddler son Simon, who was from Jasmine’s first marriage. The newlyweds were busily house hunting and trying to find somewhere suitable between the city, where Jed now worked, and the Peninsula Hospital.

Now, though, the sisters lived close by and, having waved their mother off from Melbourne airport for her long-awaited overseas trip, they walked along the beach with Simon, enjoying the last hour of sunlight.

‘It might be a good idea to let a couple of people in on what you’re going through,’ Jasmine pushed, because she wanted Penny to have the support Jasmine felt that she needed, especially as Penny was going through this all alone.

‘Even my own friends don’t really understand,’ Penny said. ‘Coral thinks I’m being selfish, and Bianca, though she says I should go for it if that’s what I want …’ Her voice trailed off. ‘If I can’t talk about it with my own friends, what’s it going to be like at work?’

‘Lisa especially would be really good.’

‘Lisa is a nurse unit manager,’ Penny broke in. ‘I’m not a nurse.’

‘She runs the place, though,’ Jasmine said. ‘She’d be able to look out for you a little bit.’

‘I don’t need looking out for.’

Jasmine wasn’t so sure. She could see that the treatment was taking its toll on her sister, not that Penny would appreciate her observations.

Jasmine wanted so badly to help her sister. They had never really been close but Penny had always looked out for her—several years older, Penny had shielded her from the worst of their parents’ rows and their mother’s upset when their father had finally left. It had been the same when their mother had been brought into Emergency—Penny had made sure Jasmine hadn’t found out about their mother in the same way that she had.

‘I know this is all a bit new to you, Jasmine,’ Penny said. ‘But I’ve been living with this for years. I’ve known for ages that I had fertility problems.’

‘How long did you and Vince try for?’

Penny heard the tentativeness in Jasmine’s question. They were both working on their relationship, but there were still areas between them that were rarely, if ever, discussed.

‘Two years,’ Penny finally answered.

One year of serious trying and then a year of endless tests and consultations and a relationship that hadn’t been able to take the strain. ‘We didn’t just break up over that, though,’ Penny admitted. ‘But it certainly didn’t help. I can tell you this much.’ She gave a tight smile. ‘We’d never have survived IVF. It doesn’t exactly bring out the best in you.’

‘How are you feeling this time?’ Jasmine asked.

‘Terrible,’ Penny admitted. ‘I’m getting hot flashes.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘I’m completely serious. I’d forgotten that part—you know, at the time you think that you will never forget, but you actually do.’

Jasmine opened her mouth to agree with her sister and then closed it again as Penny turned around.

Penny knew that Jasmine had been about to admit to the same thing, but for very different reasons—Jasmine’s breasts were noticeably larger and she’d had nothing to eat at the airport and had then screwed up her nose when Penny had suggested they get some takeaway for dinner, choosing instead a slow walk on the beach.

Jasmine was pregnant.

Penny just knew.

‘I don’t need the whole department watching me for signs of a baby bump,’ Penny said, though it was the opposite for Penny with her sister. She had been trying so hard to ignore the signs in Jasmine, but more and more it was becoming evident and Penny wished she would just come out and tell her now. ‘Or gossiping,’ Penny added.

‘It wouldn’t be like that.’

‘Of course it would,’ Penny snapped. ‘And, of course, they’ll all have an opinion on whether I should be doing this, given that I haven’t got a partner.’ She gave an exasperated sigh. It wasn’t a decision she was taking lightly, not in the least. At thirty-four there was no sign of Mr Right on the horizon and with her fertility issues, even if he did come along, it was going to be a struggle to get pregnant.

After many long conversations with the fertility consultant, more and more Penny felt as if time was running out. ‘If there’s good news at the end of this, I’ll tell people, but they don’t need to know that I’m trying.’

‘But the treatment is so intense. If people only knew …’

Penny didn’t let her finish. ‘You don’t walk into the staffroom and tell them that you’ve come off the pill and had sex with Jed last night.’ When Jasmine laughed, Penny carried on. ‘No, you feed the sharks when you’re good and ready.’ Penny paused, waiting for her sister to open up to her, because even if Penny snapped and snarled a bit she wasn’t a shark, but Jasmine changed the subject.

‘I can’t believe that Mum has finally made it to her cruise.’ Jasmine smiled. ‘Well, she’s made it to her flight.’

‘And she’ll make it to her cruise.’ Penny was firm.

‘What if something happens while she’s stuck in the middle of the ocean?’

‘There’s a medical team,’ Penny said, but of course that didn’t reassure her sister. ‘Jasmine, are you going to spend the next month worrying about things that might happen and every imagined scenario while Mum is no doubt having the absolute time of her life?’

‘I guess,’ Jasmine conceded. ‘Though I really did think we were going to lose her.’

‘We didn’t, though,’ Penny broke in.

While Louise Masters’s heart attack and emergency admission had been a most difficult time, from there good things had sprung—an urgent reminder for all concerned that you should live your life to the full.

Which was why their mother would soon be sailing around the Mediterranean, why Jasmine had followed her heart and opened up to Penny’s then fellow senior registrar Jed, and why Penny was, at this moment, walking along the beach with a face that was bright red and breaking out into a sweat as she experienced yet another wretched hot flash. Not that Jasmine noticed; her mind had moved on to other things.

‘What do you think of Ethan?’ Jasmine asked for Penny’s thoughts on the new consultant, but Penny didn’t answer; instead, she suggested a walk in the shallows, much to little Simon’s delight. Both holding his hands, they lifted him up between them, swung him over the water, and finally Penny felt herself calm, the heat fading from her face, her racing heart slowing, and then Jasmine asked her again what she thought of Ethan.

‘He thinks that he’s God’s gift.’

‘So do a few other people,’ Jasmine pointed out, because since Ethan had arrived, a couple of hearts had already been broken. ‘He is funny, though.’ Jasmine grinned.