A Month To Marry The Midwife

Ellie sat, staring at the nurses’ station window in a strangely rigid hunch, her hand clutching her pen six inches above the medical records, and he paused and turned his head to see what had attracted her attention.

He couldn’t see anything. When he listened, all he could hear were frogs and the distant sound of the sea.

‘You okay?’ He’d thought his voice was quiet when he asked but she jumped as though he’d fired a gun past her ear. The pen dropped as her hand went to her chest, as if to push her heart back in with her lungs. His own pulse rate sped up. Good grief! He’d thought it was too good to be true that this place would be relaxing.

‘You’re back?’ she said, stating the obvious with a blank look on her face.

He picked up the underlying stutter in her voice. Something had really upset her and he glanced around again, expecting to see a masked intruder at least. She glanced at him and then the window. ‘Can you do me a favour?’

‘Sure.’ She looked like she could do with a favour.

‘There’s a green tree frog behind that plant in front of the window.’ He could hear the effort she was putting in to enunciate clearly and began to suspect this was an issue of mammoth proportions.

‘Yes?’

‘Take it away!’

‘Ranidaphobia?’

She looked at him and, as he studied her, a little of the colour crept back into her face. She even laughed shakily. ‘How many people know that word?’

He smiled at her, trying to install some normality in the fraught atmosphere. ‘I’m guessing everyone who’s frightened of frogs.’ He glanced up the hallway. ‘I imagine Josie is in one of the ward rooms. Why don’t you go check on her while I sort out the uninvited guest?’

She stood up so fast it would have been funny if he didn’t think she’d kill him for laughing. He maintained a poker face as she walked hurriedly away and then his smile couldn’t be restrained. He walked over to the pot plant, shifted it from the wall and saw the small green frog, almost a froglet, clinging by his tiny round pads to the wall.

Sam bent down and scooped the little creature into his palm carefully and felt the coldness of the clammy body flutter as he put his other hand over the top to keep it from jumping. A quick detour to the automatic door and he stepped out, tossing the invader into the garden.

Sam shook his head and walked back inside to the wall sink to wash his hands. A precipitous human baby jammed in a bikini bottom didn’t faze her but a tiny green frog did? It was a crazy world.

He heard her come back as he dried his hands.

‘Thank you,’ she said to his back. He turned. She looked as composed and competent as she had when he’d first met her. As if he’d imagined the wild-eyed woman of three minutes ago.

* * *

He probably thought she was mad but there wasn’t a lot she could do about that now. Ellie really just wanted him to go so she could put her head in her hands and scream with frustration. And then check every other blasted plant pot that she’d now ask to be removed.

Instead she said, ‘So you’ve seen the hospital and your rooms. Did they explain the doctor’s routine?’

He shook his head so she went on. ‘I have a welcome pack in my office. I’ll get it.’

She turned to get it but as she walked away something made her suspect he was staring after her. He probably wasn’t used to dealing with officious nursing staff or mad ones. They probably swarmed all over him in Brisbane—the big consultant. She glanced back. He was watching her and he was smiling. She narrowed her eyes.

Then she was back and diving in where she’d left off. ‘The plan is you come to the clinic two hours in the morning during the week, starting at eight after your ward round here at seven forty-five. Then you’re on call if we need you for emergencies, but most things we handle ourselves. It’s a window of access to a doctor for locals. We only call you out for emergencies.’

‘So do you do on-call when you’re off duty?’ He glanced at her. ‘You do have off-duty time?’

Ellie blinked, her train of thought interrupted. ‘I share the workload with the two other midwives, Trina and Faith. I do the days, Faith does the afternoons and Trina does the nights. We cover each other for on-call, and two midwives from the base hospital come in and relieve us for forty-eight hours on the weekends. We have a little flexibility between us for special occasions.’

‘And what do you do on your days off?’ She had the feeling he was trying to help her relax but asking about her private life wasn’t the way to do that.

She deliberately kept it brief. Hopefully he’d take the hint. ‘I enjoy my solitary life.’

She saw him accept the rebuke and fleetingly felt mean. He was just trying to be friendly. It wasn’t his fault she didn’t trust any man under sixty, but that was the way it was.

She saw his focus shift and his brows draw together, as if he’d just remembered something. ‘Syntocinon after birth—isn’t giving that normal practice in all hospitals?’

It was a conversation she had with most locums when they arrived—especially the obstetricians like him. ‘It’s not routine here. We’re low risk. Surprisingly, here we’re assuming the mother’s body has bleeding under control if we leave her well enough alone. Our haemorrhage rate per birth is less than two percent.’

His brows went up again. ‘One in fifty. Ours is one in fifteen with active management. Interesting.’ He nodded. ‘Before I go we’d better check this baby in case your patient wants to go home. I borrowed the computer in the emergency ward and read over the new-born baby check. Don’t worry. It all came back to me as I read it.’

He put his hand in his pocket and she heard keys jingle and wondered if it was a habit or he was keen to leave. Maybe he was one of those locums who tried to do as little as possible. It was disconcerting how disappointed she felt. Why would that be? Abruptly she wanted him to go. ‘I can do it if you like.’

‘No.’ He smiled brilliantly at her and she almost stumbled, certainly feeling like reaching for her sunnies. That was some wattage.

Then he said blithely, ‘We will practise together.’ He picked up a stethoscope and indicated she should get one too.

Ellie could do nothing but follow his brisk pace down the corridor to Renee’s room. So he was going to make her copy him. Served her right for telling him she’d done the course.

In Renee’s room when he lifted back the sheet, baby Jones lay like a plump, rosy-cheeked sleeping princess all dressed in pink down to her fluffy bloomers. Ellie suppressed a smile. ‘Mum’s first girl after four boys.’

‘What fun,’ he murmured.

He started with the baby’s chest, listening to both sides of her chest and then her heart. Ellie remembered the advice from the course to start there, because once your examination woke the baby up she might not lie so quietly.

Dr Southwell stepped back and indicated she do the same. Ellie listened to the lub-dub, lub-dub of a normal organ, the in-and-out breaths that were equal in both lungs, nodded and stood back.

He was right. She’d been putting off asking someone to sign her off on this. Before Wayne, she would have been gung-ho about adding neonatal checks to her repertoire. A silly lack of confidence meant she’d been waiting around for someone else to do it when she should really just have done this instead. After all, when she had the independent midwifery service this would be one of her roles.

By the time they’d run their hands over the little girl, checked her hips didn’t click or clunk when tested, that her hand creases, toes and ears were all fine, Ellie was quite pleased with herself.

As they walked away she had the feeling that Dr Southwell knew exactly what she was feeling.

‘Easy,’ he said and grinned at her, and she grinned back. He wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, he was delightful.

Then it hit her. It had been an action-packed two hours since he’d walked in the door. This physically attractive male had gone from being a stranger standing in her office, to coffee victim, to birth assistant, to frog remover, to midwife’s best friend in a couple of hours and she was grinning back at him like a smitten fool. As if she’d found a friend and was happy that he liked her.

Just as Wayne had bowled her over when they’d first met. She’d been a goner in less than an evening. He’d twisted her around his finger and she’d followed him blindly until he’d begun his campaign of breaking her. She’d never suspected the lies.

Oh, yes. Next came the friendly sharing of history, all the warm and fuzzy excitement of mutual attraction, pleasant sex and then bam! She’d be hooked. The smile fell off her face.

Not this little black duck.

Ellie dragged the stethoscope from around her neck and fiercely wiped it over with a disposable cleaning cloth. Without looking at Sam, she held out her hand for his stethoscope. She felt it land and glanced at him. ‘Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Dr Southwell.’

She watched his smile fade. Hers had completely disappeared as she’d looked up at him with the same expression she’d met him with this morning. Polite enquiry. He straightened his shoulders and jammed his hand back in his pocket to jingle his keys again.

‘Right,’ he said evenly. ‘I’ll go check into my guesthouse.’ Without another word, he strode away to the front door and she sagged with relief.