The Pregnant Midwife

He took her slender fingers in his and although the tension was slight, he was aware how she stiffened beneath his touch. Unintentionally, his grip tightened.

Her fingers were warm under his and he remembered when he’d finally accepted he’d been drawn to her as a woman. Her red hair flying straight out behind her head as she’d revelled in the danger of the race. She loved danger all right, he thought cynically. Life of the party, and always on the lookout for some mad new adventure or life experience, Kirsten had been the sun that less exuberant staff had gravitated around yet she had never seemed to favour one person—until him.

Initially, Hunter had blocked that attraction because he’d thought, mistakenly, he’d sensed a core of innocence beneath her bravado that he’d had no right to taint with his cynical distrust of women. But the joy she seemed to find in the everyday had worn his resistance down and he’d finally allowed himself to accept the idea that he’d found the woman he could plan his future with.

Until that morning!

He’d thought the tearoom was empty when he rounded the corner but then he saw them. Cosgrove twisted to protect the woman from his eyes and at first he only realised it wasn’t Jack’s wife cradled so passionately in the man’s arms. And then Kirsten stepped out of the man’s embrace to face him. He knew his face mirrored his devastation.

‘It’s not what you think,’ Kirsten whispered. The same words Portia, his wife, had said when he’d confronted her with her lover five years before. It felt as if a stiletto was still lodged under his ribs after all this time and Kirsten was twisting it deeper.

Foolishly, in the last few months at MIRA, he began to believe he was over his shock at Kirsten’s behaviour. What a fool he was.

Aware at first hand of the devastation that could be caused by infidelity, both as a child and as a husband, Hunter did the right thing when he ruthlessly severed their relationship. Afterwards, the gap left by Kirsten’s friendship in his life warned him how close he’d come to repeating the mistake of his first marriage.

Here she was, threatening his peace of mind again. Typical. Jim’s promise of the perfect candidate for the job had been too good to be true. He lifted his own chin, staring down at the top of her colourful red head and not into her magical if devious eyes.

‘Kirsten, how nice to see you. Settled back into Australia?’ He could feel the tug of her arm as she tried unobtrusively to free her hand. He chose to let her go and she snatched her hand back so fast he smiled.

Interesting. He looked down to see her eyes narrow as she probed behind his smile, and Hunter realised he could make this woman’s life hell. That wasn’t his style but he couldn’t help a little satisfaction that he wasn’t the only one feeling discomfort.

Hunter had left for Sydney and stepped straight into this job. He’d never really understood the dramatics Cosgrove or his doctor wife had displayed. He understood less why Kirsten had felt the need to come between a married couple.

Jack had even seen Hunter and tried to explain away his involvement with Kirsten, but Hunter had wanted no bar of it. He’d heard that Jack and his wife had moved on to Canada for a holiday before heading back to Australia so the man must have seen sense. He wondered if Kirsten had been asked to leave Dubai and if she was sad she’d lost her conquest back to his wife. Maybe Jack had been just another diversion—like he’d been, Hunter thought with gritted teeth.

‘We must catch up later on how your last few days in Dubai panned out. Do you see much of Jack Cosgrove or Eva?’

‘Sure,’ Kirsten answered easily enough, but she felt the innuendo in the question. A few months ago, with Hunter, she’d known she’d found the man she wanted to spend her life with and it had certainly seemed as if he’d felt the same way.

Then it had all stopped with his ridiculous accusations. Hunter’s lack of faith had shattered her. Obviously his suspicions remained. Kirsten had always prided herself on her honesty and came from a family that had high moral standards. To see that the man she’d loved had no capacity for trust, had shown her a serious flaw in what she’d thought a perfect relationship. Kirsten had forced herself to accept it had been better to find out then, but it hadn’t helped her hide her hurt and disillusionment from Hunter. There’d always been an extra tension or double meaning in any communication they’d shared since Jack.

But she was over the brief Technicolor space he’d occupied in her life. Kirsten turned away to ask a question of the senior flight sister. He had the problem, not her, and she’d just have to learn not to let it rankle.

Ellen Gardner wasn’t much warmer than Hunter, but she was safer. The two women moved across the room to discuss a map on the wall and Kirsten was glad to increase the distance between her and that man.

The area serviced by MIRA was bounded by the New South Wales border, though sometimes patients were transferred to Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory if beds were scarce. MIRA serviced around one hundred and forty hospitals of varying levels of care by road or air. They transported the critical patients to the closest paediatric or neonatal intensive care facility that had the resources to cope, often using fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters, depending on the ground facilities, weather and condition of the patient. The whole structure worked closely with the NSW Ambulance Service.

‘Are the same number of personnel still flying in the aircraft?’ Kirsten imagined it would be running in a similar vein from when she’d been here over eighteen months ago. Jim, as supervisor, hadn’t changed, but she needed to convey to the other sister that she herself wasn’t a threat to Ellen’s authority.

‘The minimum team consists of one transport doctor, one transport nurse and, of course, the pilot. Your first few flights will be supervised by me—’ Ellen smiled without humour ‘—to ensure you don’t require any further orientation on the use of the latest equipment or updates on aviation medicine. I’ll also make sure you still have the skills needed for clinical call conferencing. Of course, space is always at a premium, but if there’s room, we try to accommodate a parent as well. I’m not sure how many were here in your time…’

Kirsten suppressed a grin at the inference she’d worked at MIRA back with the dinosaurs.

‘But now we have ten doctors,’ Ellen continued, ‘most on a part-time roster, and twenty-five nurses as well as support staff. Plus our very experienced pilots.’

‘The pilots were good even back then,’ Kirsten murmured, tongue-in-cheek.

‘I gather you’re not afraid of flying.’ Ellen raised pencilled eyebrows.

As if. ‘I’m not afraid of much,’ Kirsten said quietly as the men came across to join them. Hunter obviously caught the end of the conversation.

‘So what are you afraid of, Sister Wilson?’ Hunter looked down at her with a wicked smile and Kirsten’s concentration slipped for a moment. She’d forgotten, or had maybe blocked out the memory, of what it felt like to be on the receiving end of one of his smiles.

When he was amused, Hunter’s eyes became flecked with molten silver and he had the ability to thaw her reserve with sudden heat. A heat that wasn’t helped by the sensual curve of his lips. The man was too blatantly male and eight weeks of unresolved sexual tension lay buried, sizzling, somewhere deep between them. She flushed and tried to remember the question. She wasn’t going to let him do this to her again. She wasn’t going to let him tantalise her with possibilities and then refrigerate her with his chilly moral lectures.

Her brain clicked into gear, no thanks to him.

‘Afraid? Only of leeches.’ She shuddered. ‘I discovered that on a survival course. But that’s why I’m a midwife and neonatal nurse and not a doctor like you.’

The others laughed and Ellen looked admiringly across at Hunter. ‘I’ll bet you’re not afraid of anything, Hunter.’

Kirsten only just resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she turned back to look at the map again. As she did, she saw that Hunter was watching her and not Ellen. ‘I’m a commitment-phobe. I have one other phobia but as it’s not flying, it shouldn’t worry you,’ he quipped, and arched his eyebrows at Kirsten.

Jim called them all to order and the meeting started. They discussed rosters and allocation of calls and the division of labour to ensure the skill mix remained even among the disciplines while integrating the new staff member.

When the meeting was over, Jim took Kirsten’s arm. ‘Come and look at the latest photos.’ He flicked open the album and Kirsten smiled as photos of country hospital nurseries all over the state flipped over.

Dozens of photos were of tiny patients, dwarfed by mountains of equipment, and the recognisable trousers and shirt of the MIRA team with the reflective stripe below the knees as they hovered over their charges. Kirsten even saw two old snapshots of herself, smiling into the camera. Then there were photographs of the aircraft and grinning pilots, as well as some aerial photos of different airstrips.

Kirsten could feel the thrill stir in her stomach. She was meant to be here. The excitement that had been there before she’d met Hunter Morgan was here again too. The intensity she’d planned to fill the hollow emptiness left from her shattered relationship with Hunter rekindled.

‘Glad to be back, my dear?’ Jim said as she closed the album.

Kirsten smiled up at him. ‘MIRA is something I’ll always love.’

‘We’re lucky to have you. Welcome home, Kirsten.’

Kirsten hugged the older man but her eyes drifted to Hunter, who raised one eyebrow cynically then turned away. Just one annoying fly in the ointment, she thought to herself, and suppressed a sigh.

Hunter left the room as if he were back in the camel race, out of control. Despite the fact he was heading towards the neonatal intensive care unit and his tiny patients. The great thing about babies was they had no ulterior motives. They struggled to survive by sheer tiny heart and determination and the skill of their carers, and you could trust them. Not like women.

As he entered the huge teaching hospital, his thoughts kept drifting back to that last scene of Jim with his arm around Kirsten. Hunter couldn’t believe that Kirsten was here at MIRA and, knowing his luck, no doubt would show up in his NICU. And as before, she’d be blatantly in his face. The hell of it was, he couldn’t deny he was still attracted to her.

Nearly six months ago, he’d begun to let her close, until that episode with Jack Cosgrove. Painfully, but almost with relief, his heart had hardened implacably as if pleased to justify that distance. Having been a cuckolded husband once before, Hunter had vowed to stay immune to the power of a woman. But Kirsten had burst into his black-and-white world like a comet and had showered him with so many bright moments and such a zest for life he’d been blasted out of his usual comfort zone. Thank God and good sense he hadn’t slept with her. Fantasies of her in his arms were bad enough, without having to contend with real memories.

After the truth had come out, such had been his bitter disappointment at his own stupidity he’d found he could barely speak to the woman and it had become untenable for him to continue working there, though he’d cited other reasons for heading back to Sydney.

Hunter stabbed the elevator button with more force than necessary and he spared a glare at the female orderly who warily shifted a few paces away from him. The last thing he would allow was distraction during neonatal transfers at MIRA. His passion for his work as his tiny patients struggled for life was what had helped him through Portia’s deceit. And it would get him through Kirsten’s return, he thought as the elevator doors opened. Getting out at his floor, he strode through the swing doors that led towards the neonatal intensive care unit. And he wouldn’t be distracted in his unit either.

Kirsten had mapped her life out twelve years ago when her mother had died a year after her father. She’d decided she would be self-sufficient, travel and live the adventurous life she’d read about to escape a fifteen-year-old’s reality of her parents’ deaths. Until she’d begun, to her surprise, to imagine settling down with Hunter.

Thanks to Hunter Morgan and his icy lectures, she remembered why she didn’t need any man, why she was determined to stay focussed on the two-bedroom flat she’d transferred her attention to. All she needed was a home to return to occasionally and the world was an adventure. The extra income for a casual night duty once a week in the NICU would help pay extra off her mortgage and maybe she’d even be able to start saving for her next overseas holiday.

Her interview at NICU was brief and she was swiftly accepted as a casual RN to start immediately. Gloria Westerland, the nursing unit manager of the NICU, introduced her to the other staff.

Hunter, her nemesis, just had to keep popping back into her life. Because she was prepared this time, Kirsten was pleased her reaction didn’t register on her face. When Gloria paused at the crib where Hunter examined one of his tiny patients, he barely looked up.

‘This is Kirsten Wilson, Hunter. She’s a very experienced NICU nurse and will be working Saturday nights here.’