The Surgeon's Miracle Baby

‘He wants to know when his discharge meds will be ready.’ Running a dry tongue over her pale lips, Louise forced herself to act normally. ‘I think he wants to go home.’

‘Well, he’s not going anywhere. The surgeons want him to stay for another twenty-four hours—I’d better go and break the news. Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ Louise said, then, seeing Elaine’s frown, thought she’d better come up with a reason. ‘I’m a bit sore, actually—I’ve never gone this long without feeding Declan.’

‘I know you didn’t get a coffee-break—why don’t you have an early lunch?’ Elaine offered. ‘Add your coffee-break to it. Theatre just rang and they’re going to be keeping that stab wound in Recovery for another hour or so—his blood pressure’s still very low.’

Louise didn’t need to be asked twice, so she headed down to the crèche and stepped into the hubbub of children’s cries and chatter. The room was a den of activity as toddlers messily ate their lunch at low tables and babies banged spoons for attention in their high chairs. But Louise had eyes only for one child in the room, an anxious smile breaking out on her face as Jess, the cheery child-care worker who had greeted her early that morning, ushered her into a chair. ‘Someone’s going to be very pleased to see you.’ Jess beamed. ‘He’s just woken up from his morning nap. Have a seat and I’ll get him for you.’

The sight of Declan’s angry red face as Jess brought him over tore at her heartstrings, her breasts literally aching for her son. ‘Did he take the bottle OK this morning?’ Louise asked anxiously.

‘It took a while.’ Jess gave a sympathetic smile at Louise’s distraught face. ‘He’ll soon get used to it and remember that it’s your milk that we’re giving him.’ Her tone was reassuring. ‘Don’t feel guilty for having to work. Like I said, he’ll soon get used to it.’

He had no choice but to get used to it, Louise thought, wishing it didn’t have to be like this. She took her red-faced, tearful son from Jess, her breasts weeping as he was handed over, hating the thought of him crying for her while she worked just a short distance away. Rage starting to trickle in that her tiny baby had to be in a crèche rather than at home, where he belonged at this tender age.

Yes, rage, Louise decided as slowly her baby calmed, as slowly he relaxed in her arms and hungrily took his feed. Rage that Daniel Ashwood had done this to her.

Had done this to them.

‘Danny wants to talk to you.’ Elaine’s face looked as if she’d been sucking lemons as she reluctantly passed on the message. ‘I told him you were in the crèche, feeding your son, but he said that he’d like a word when you came back.’

‘You told him…’ Louise snapped her mouth closed. Panic built inside her, which she tried hard not to let Elaine see. ‘What did he say?’

‘I’ve already told you,’ Elaine answered tartly, turning on her rubber-soled heel. ‘And can you make it quick please? When you’re done, I want you to give an enema to bed 2.’

If Elaine considered it a punishment, she was wrong—giving an enema was infinitely preferable to answering Daniel’s inevitable questions. Deep down she’d known this day was coming, just never in her wildest dreams when she’d woken up that morning had she thought it might be this one. Over the last twelve months she had penned so many unsent letters to him, and she wished she had one of them in her pocket now, could hand it to him to read, could let him know, without breaking down, why it had been so impossible to tell him she was pregnant, why she’d made the difficult decision to raise Declan alone.

Bracing herself, she opened the door, her usually sunny face pale and grim, her mind whirring as to how to play this, how to deal with the barrage of fire that was surely heading her way.

‘You wanted to talk to me?’

‘I think there’s quite a bit to say.’ The calmness in his voice caught her completely unawares. He looked much more together now. His bed had been freshly made, the curtains were open and his eyes more able to focus. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Not really.’ Louise gave a tight shrug, unsure where this was leading, confused by his demeanour. ‘I think you made things very clear the last time we spoke,’

‘Sit down, Louise,’ Daniel said, and then softened it slightly. ‘Please.’ It was easier to sit than stand, so she did so, utterly unable to look at him, terrified that if she did she’d start crying. ‘I just think it would be better if we clear the air now.’

Clear the air?

Her eyes darted to his, then darted away, her mind struggling to fathom his meaning.

‘We’re obviously going to be working together and things might get a bit uncomfortable if—’

‘Don’t worry,’ Louise broke in. ‘I’m not going to walk around with a megaphone, telling everyone I shagged the new consultant last year when I was on a working holiday.’

‘Louise,’ Daniel snapped like a schoolmaster. ‘There’s no need for language like that.’

‘Why not?’ Louise shrugged. ‘That’s exactly what it was, according to you—a quick fling with no involvement!’

‘I said some harsh things when we broke up,’ Daniel said a touch less loftily. ‘A lot of them I wish I could take back. I never meant to imply—’

‘You didn’t imply anything, Daniel,’ Louise interrupted. ‘You spelt things out—very clearly, in fact. And for the record, we didn’t break up. If I remember rightly, you woke up one morning—after we’d spent a night making love, I hasten to add—and told me that it was never going to work, that I wasn’t the sort of wife you wanted—’

‘Louise, listen—’

‘No, Daniel, you listen!’ She’d grown up in a year, the dizzy, happy-go-lucky girl he’d met gone for ever as the woman she now was turned her eyes to face him. ‘You told me that the last thing you wanted from me was a serious relationship, that you’d thought we were just having a “bit of fun” before I went back to Australia…’

‘Louise.’ His calm voice only exacerbated her agitated one. ‘Clearly we did both want different things. I just felt that it was all moving too quickly. Yes, that night we had made love, but that night you had also made it clear that somewhere in the not-too-distant future you wanted a husband and babies.’

‘I didn’t say that!’ Louise said indignantly. ‘God, you make it sound as if I was desperate. If you care to remember, we were talking about where we saw ourselves in five years. I’d have been thirty-two by then…’

‘And I’d have been thirty-nine.’ Daniel shrugged. ‘And I realised that night we had different visions of our futures. It was just all getting too serious. Louise, you were talking of extending your stay in the UK because of me, because of us!’

‘Because I thought there was an us,’ Louise choked. ‘Because I thought you felt as strongly as I did. I thought we wanted the same thing.’

‘Well, we didn’t,’ Daniel broke in, shattering her already broken heart just a touch further, if that were possible. ‘Clearly! Elaine mentioned you had a baby now…’ Louise sucked in her breath, every nerve taut, staring at his expressionless face and trying to fathom what he was thinking, trying to work out her answer to the question that was surely, after all this time, coming. ‘And I’m glad for you,’ Daniel said, oblivious to the bewildered frown spreading over her face. ‘I’m pleased that you’ve found someone who makes you happy. I just wanted to be sure there were no hard feelings between us, given that we’re going to be working together.’

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, had truly thought she was walking in the room to defend herself, to listen as he berated her for not telling him about their child, but instead he was wishing her and her supposed partner well!

‘That’s what you called me in to say?’ Her voice was shrill, her eyes blinking rapidly as she tried to take in what he was saying. She couldn’t believe that his denial could be so firmly ingrained. God, they’d been together a year ago and she had a three-month-old baby—how could it not even entered his head that Declan might well be his? Did he think she’d walked straight out of his bed and into someone else’s who could give her what she had apparently so badly wanted? ‘Daniel, I have a three-month-old baby—’

‘What did you call him?’ Daniel interrupted with that curiously snobby voice he used when he was addressing a patient or member of staff and keeping them at a distance.

‘Declan.’ She shook her head as if to clear it, stared at him open-mouthed, waiting—for what she didn’t know, revelation, realization? She truly didn’t know. But he just stared back.

‘And you’re happy?’ Daniel asked, and she felt his eyes drift down to her hand, clearly taking in the naked ring finger. ‘I mean, you and his father—

‘It didn’t work out between us.’ Finding her voice, she responded with the truth. ‘You know me—I’ve got lousy taste in men.’

He gave a pale smile at her thinly disguised insult. ‘So you’re on your own?’

She gave a nod, stared into the eyes of the man she had loved absolutely and wished to God she could hate him.

‘It certainly looks that way!’

‘You have to tell him!’

Pouring two glasses of wine, Maggie pushed one towards Louise. ‘And don’t tell me you can’t have a drink because you’re feeding—this is strictly medicinal!’

‘Believe me, I’m not going to.’ Taking a sip, Louise let out a long, exaggerated sigh, utterly exhausted physically from her first long day back at work and drained emotionally from the never-ending roller-coaster ride she’d embarked on the day she’d laid eyes on Daniel Ashwood.

‘They call him Danny!’

‘Of course they do.’ Maggie grinned. ‘I was Margaret until I met you—you Aussies change everyone’s names!’

‘You really didn’t know he was working there?’ Louise checked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion, but Maggie shook her head.

‘I’m as stunned as you are! Come on, Louise, it’s a massive hospital and there’s not exactly a huge demand for surgeons in the psychiatric ward—it’s not just the patients that are shut off from the rest of the world in the psych unit.’