Delivering Love

She was playing the cheeky minx again, but she intrigued him. Still, he knew better than to lose his usual common sense. He’d always said that women in the health profession didn’t attract him. Women required more than he could give. Look at his marriage before Helen had died.

He was here to do the work he loved. His eyes narrowed. And make someone, somewhere in this small country town pay for his brother’s death, he reminded himself. He couldn’t forget why he’d come here—to find the woman responsible for stealing a month of his brother’s short life.

Someone had to fight against the new wave of alternative remedies that were causing people to turn their backs on real medicine. Maybe she was one of them.

The herbal scent in Poppy’s hair drifted to him and he found himself staring at her. One part of him sneered at her irresponsible stand on home births and the other half was sliding into a whirlpool of attraction that he knew was dangerous. But for the first time in nearly three years he felt alive. Something had shifted or cracked to allow some light in. He didn’t know if it felt good or not, but it was hard to back away.

If he ignored the voice of reason he had listened to for years, he could just cup her chin in his hand and drop a swift kiss on her parted lips. Just one.

Jake stepped back. She encouraged people to condemn conventional medical care. Just like the woman who’d killed his brother. Hell, that had been close. He turned away. ‘Goodnight, Sister.’

Poppy raised her eyebrows at the coldness and revulsion in his voice. The guy was all over the place. ‘Goodnight, Jake! Nice meeting you, too.’ She pulled her helmet on and puttered away as fast as the little bike could go.

CHAPTER TWO

POPPY felt unsettled all the way home. OK, so Jake was gorgeous. It might be amusing to bait him but it could be dangerous. Stop thinking with your hormones and think of the unit, she urged herself. She’d been crazy to risk alienating him by pushing home birth at him straight off, and then she’d laughed at him. He hadn’t liked that. She giggled and bit her lip. It wasn’t funny. But he was such a stuffed shirt.

It was a shame that what he stuffed in his shirt seemed to start a slow burn in her. Just when she’d thought her libido had been terminally extinguished. And doctors were definitely off the menu.

* * *

The next afternoon, Poppy arrived on the ward to start her shift. She barely had time to put her bag down before being hailed from the birthing room to assist.

Jake was the first person she saw as she entered the room and she instinctively bit back her smile. Strange how there still seemed to be time to notice how broad his shoulders looked in an open-necked white shirt that seemed to go on for ever across his chest. It wasn’t fair that he affected her like this. Her life was fine without a man to complicate it. She frowned and pushed the thoughts away. She’d been through this last night and had decided not to be attracted to him.

Her glance flicked away to rest on the young girl in the final stages of labour. All seemed to be well in hand but she ensured that Dr Gates and the two morning midwives had everything needed before she moved over to the infant resuscitation trolley and Jake.

The paediatrician’s presence meant that something wasn’t right.

She raised her eyebrows in a silent question and he leaned over to speak softly in her ear.

‘Lana is a sixteen-year-old first-time mum, due in ten weeks. She only came in half an hour ago and there was no time to send her off to the base hospital. She had a small antepartum haemorrhage at home and sudden onset of labour. No foetal heart rate found since admission.’

Poppy felt her stomach plummet. ‘It still could have a chance.’ Every midwife’s worst nightmare was a mother left without a baby to take home.

‘I haven’t given up.’ Jake’s quiet words reinforced her sense of denial. She never gave up until the end. They had that much in common. When he continued with, ‘NETS is on standby if the baby looks like it’s going to make it.’ He proved he was prepared to give the baby every chance.

The neonatal evacuation team from Newcastle Hospital flew to country areas with their own portable intensive-care unit, complete with highly trained nursing staff, all equipment and a neonatologist on board to stabilise the baby before transfer.

‘I’ll check the nursery crib.’ She slipped out of the room to turn on the oxygen in the nursery humidicrib, then rolled two hot bunny rugs to lay over the trolley just prior to the baby being born.

When she returned to the unit she could see the tip of the baby’s head as it descended down the birth canal. She arranged the blankets and Jake moved over to stand beside Dr Gates.

‘If we can get a decent heart rate and keep the baby well oxygenated without doing any damage, it has a chance.’

More of the baby’s head showed with each contraction until the tiny flaccid body eased gently into Dr Gates’s large palm.

Poppy winced at the obvious signs of prematurity. Wrinkled, almost transparent skin covered in downy hair. Vernix, the white creamy substance that acted as a barrier cream in the womb, covered her body and the head seemed much larger than the body.

Quickly, Dr Gates clamped and cut the cord to enable Jake to whisk the baby over to the resuscitation trolley.

The ease and speed with which Jake assessed, suctioned, intubated and initiated CPR on the infant was something Poppy had to admire. As she watched those large hands giving cardiac massage to the tiny chest to encourage the little heart to beat, she found herself willing the baby to live. Her mouth was dry as she concentrated on being able to anticipate Jake’s requests.

Barely a word passed between them in that fraught ten minutes. Her throat tightened as she saw the tiny hand clench and unclench as the baby’s heart rate settled into a stable rhythm.

‘Get NETS on the phone and on their way.’ Jake’s quiet voice carried clearly to everyone in the room and Poppy blinked the mist from her eyes. She bit her lip and motioned to one of the morning mid-wives to do as he’d bidden.

‘OK, Poppy, let’s get her in the crib and I’ll bag her until we can get her hooked up to the ventilator.’ He looked up and gave the exhausted mum a quick grin. ‘Congratulations, Lana, she’s a beautiful girl. Bag for a second, please, Poppy.’

He swiftly swapped places with Poppy and she rhythmically squeezed the oxygen into the tiny lungs. Jake steered the awkward trolley against the bed and lifted Lana’s hand to touch it to her baby’s cheek. He raised his own to rest it reassuringly on the mother’s head and said softly but firmly, ‘Baby’s going to have the best care we can give her, and she’s a fighter.’

To take the time to reassure the child’s mother made Jake a special man. Poppy had to admit it. A lot of doctors, including her ex-husband, were so one-tracked they didn’t realise how much of a difference that one touch could make—to give a frightened parent that tiny second of hand contact with their child and create bonds and memories that couldn’t be replaced with a Polaroid picture.

Only then did he allow them to wheel the trolley with its precious burden into the nursery. Away from her mother.

‘The next hour will be a battle while we try to maintain the baby in as stable a condition as we can while we wait for the NETS team to arrive.’

They’d connected the baby to the electric ventilator, and the sound of the rhythmic breathing of the machine seemed to dominate the room. Jake’s voice was low as he found a tiny vein into which to insert the even smaller cannula. Poppy could hardly see the blueness under the skin that showed him where to aim, but he slid it in with ease as she held baby’s arm still.

‘That’s impressive. I have trouble finding a vein in mothers sometimes. Remind me not to complain again when I have those big veins to work with.’

He looked at her under his brows and half smiled. ‘I’ve had lots of practice.’

By the time they had a drip running and the baby fully monitored, they could hear the thump of the helicopter.

Even though she’d seen it all before, it always amazed Poppy how much equipment a helicopter could disgorge when it arrived.

The specialist seemed to be surprised and pleased to see Jake, and even the flight sister was on a firstname basis with him.

Poppy turned away and pulled a face at herself for feeling superfluous. Surprised, she realised she felt vaguely annoyed with Jake and his easy camaraderie with the flight crew. She retreated to the birthing unit to take over from the morning midwife. Lana was tidying herself, preparing to go in the helicopter with her baby.

Soon the thump of the helicopter rotor faded into the distance and Poppy finished restocking the emergency trolley in case it was needed for the next delivery. She slowed her hands as she went over her feelings. All her nerve endings seemed to stand up and wave around whenever Jake was near her. She didn’t even know the guy. Get a grip, girl, she told herself firmly.

Poppy heard Jake being paged for the children’s ward, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then, just when she thought she was safe, he poked his head into the room.

‘Poppy.’

His sudden voice made her jump and she spun around. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears and the room seemed suddenly airless. It was just that he’d startled her.

‘Yes, Doctor?’ Her voice sounded remarkably cool and she managed to meet his eyes. The more she saw of him the more jangled she became. It was really starting to be a pain.

‘I’ll drop back later—there’s something I want to discuss with you.’ His head disappeared around the door again.

Poppy leaned shakily back against the bench and let out a ragged breath. What was it with this man? She hugged her stomach. How could he reduce her to this?

She’d make herself a remedy when she finished tonight. An essential oil bath perhaps, with a calming and stabilising blend for her nerves out of Mum’s aromatherapy book.

It should help.