An Unexpected Bonus

Lord, how maudlin!

‘Stop matchmaking, Sue,’ she told her friend firmly. ‘Anyway, haven’t you got anything better to do?’

‘Oh, tons—all my PNs. You can tell me what you think of him later. See you!’

Jo watched her go despairingly. She had a few postnatal checks to do herself, but first of all, since Dr Latimer was in the building, he could make himself useful.

She quickened her stride, bustling down the corridor towards the entrance, and as she rounded the corner she almost fell over a group of people standing clustered in Reception.

Matron, the receptionist, a nursing sister—and him. At least, she imagined it was him—and, yes, he was gorgeous, she supposed, if your taste ran to that sort of thing.

Tall, dark, handsome, clichéd—the stuff of fiction. As far as Jo was concerned, though, he was just a man like all the others.

Then he looked at her, those storm-grey eyes meeting hers and holding, and, like a display of baked beans in a supermarket, she felt as if someone had yanked out a tin from the bottom row and tumbled her into a heap at his feet.

‘Ah, Jo—perfect timing.’

She blinked, breaking the spell, and looked away. To her astonishment she was still standing, rather puzzled by the strange hiccup in her heart rate and the fizzing in her veins.

Not because of him, surely? Men just didn’t do that to her!

Matron smiled, holding out her arm to welcome her to the group. ‘This is Jo Halliday—she’s the senior community midwife. You’ll be seeing a lot of her, of course, because she runs the antenatal clinics in your surgery as well as the classes here. Jo, come and meet Ed Latimer.’

Come and meet him? She might, if she tried really hard, be able to remember how to walk!

‘Hi, there,’ she said, thankful that her voice at least sounded normal. ‘Pleased to meet you. Actually, I’ve got a job for you, if I could hijack you from the grand tour?’

‘Oh, we’ve finished,’ Matron said airily. ‘He’s all yours.’

He chuckled, a deep, rich sound that for some reason sent a shiver down her spine. ‘At your service,’ he said with a little bow of his head, and the grin that accompanied it made her heart do something crazy and stupid and not entirely normal. ‘What did you want me for?’

She wasn’t sure any longer. Her body seemed to have a hidden agenda all its own. She swallowed. ‘New baby needs a check—I wonder if you’d do the honours.’

‘Sure. Lead the way.’

She did, taking him back down the corridor towards the GP unit, aware with every step of his presence at her side.

‘Here we are, female infant of Angela Grigson, born at eight-thirty this morning.’

‘So, little baby Grigson is the first of the New Year?’

‘Yes. It’s a small unit, so it’s amazing we’ve had one on New Year’s Day. Sometimes it’s days before we get a baby—last year it was the ninth of January.’

‘Normal vaginal delivery, I take it? Was she booked for admission to the GP unit?’

‘No. She was due to go to the hospital, it’s only her first, but she didn’t have time. I was hardly here myself! I’ve checked everything except the heartbeat, but I expect you’ll want to check her again.’

She was running on like a steam train! She shut her mouth with a little snap and stepped back.

Ed Latimer gave her a quizzical little look, then turned his attention to the peaceful baby. ‘OK. Sorry, little one, I’m going to wake you up.’ He looked round. ‘Where’s Mum?’

‘Gone to the loo. She’s very relaxed about it all.’

‘Not to mention hasty! What was the Apgar score?’

‘Ten,’ she replied promptly, glad to focus on the professional rather than the general. ‘She was very alert and vocal at birth, bright pink and flailing furiously!’

‘Excellent. No other problems, I take it, apart from the unseemly speed?’

‘No, everything was perfectly normal, just fast. Mum had the shakes afterwards, but that’s quite common with hasty deliveries.’

Jo watched him undress the tiny scrap, his big hands astonishingly gentle, his eyes scanning the baby for anything out of the ordinary. He checked the eyes, the ears, the mouth and nose, the fontanelles or soft spots on the head, both hands and feet, all the digits, then laid the baby face down over his palm and checked the spine with a big, blunt fingertip.

Then he checked her bottom to make sure that all necessary organs were present and correct, dropped her an inch onto the cot to test her Moro reflex and grunted in satisfaction as the baby flung her arms out and cried. She grasped his fingers and held on as he lifted her, and when he dangled her so her feet just touched the mattress she tried to walk.

‘Good girl. Now the bit you’ll hate. Sorry, poppet.’ He folded her little legs up, bent them up against her sides and wiggled them to check her hip joints.

Predictably she wailed, and he scooped her up and hugged her. ‘Sorry, little one,’ he murmured, cradling her against his chest. Just to get her revenge, she emptied her bladder down his shirt.

‘Well, that answers that question,’ he said with a grimace. ‘Her waterworks function.’

Jo laughed and, taking the baby from him, she put her into a nappy and laid her back into the cot so he could listen to her heart.

‘That’ll teach me to hug them when they’re naked,’ he said ruefully, blotting at his shirt with a paper towel.

‘At least she isn’t a boy. They always pee in your eye.’

He grinned at her, and once again her heart did that stupid thing.

Nuts.

She watched in silence as he checked the baby’s heart for any unusual sounds, and then he folded the stethoscope and tucked it back into his pocket, before dressing the little one again.

‘Can you manage?’ Jo asked, which earned her a wry look.

‘Why do you women think you’re the only ones who get to play with the new babies?’ he said softly, and turned his attention back to the little one in his hands. ‘Can I manage?’ he murmured. ‘The nerve of the woman! Just so cheeky, isn’t she? Yes!’

He was competent, she had to give him that. She wondered if there was a child in his life—or a partner not covered by the standard ‘single/married/widowed/divorced’ categories of the application form.

Very likely. He was the boy next door grown up, and if he was still single it was very odd.

Perhaps he had unspeakable habits after all?

Then he straightened and met her eyes, and there was something sad and lonely lurking in the depths of them—something that tugged at an echo in her heart. She wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, to ask what it was that made him sad, but before she could make a fool of herself there was a shuffling behind her, and a cheery voice said, ‘Hello, there. Everything all right?’

She turned, dragging her eyes from his, and smiled at the young woman in the tatty dressing-gown who climbed up onto the bed and sat down cautiously.

‘Hi, Angela. Fine—just a routine check on the baby. How are you feeling now?’