Her Festive Doorstep Baby

Was it her imagination? Or maybe the courier was listening to something on the radio. An ad, perhaps.

She knew that she was being ridiculous, but something made Amy go out of her own front door and into the main lobby, just to check that everything was all right.

And there, in the corner by the front door, was a cardboard box.

Except she could still hear a baby crying, and this time she was pretty sure it wasn’t on a radio.

When she drew closer, she could see that the cardboard box wasn’t a parcel at all. The top of the box was open. Inside, wrapped in a soft blanket, was a baby. There were traces of blood on the baby’s face and Amy had a moment of panic; but then she thought that the blood might be because the baby was very, very young.

Young enough to be a newborn.

Who on earth would leave a newborn baby in a cardboard box, in the lobby of a block of flats?

She quickly opened the front door and looked outside, but there wasn’t anyone in the street who looked as if they’d just left a baby on a doorstep. Nobody running away or huddled in a hoodie, trying to hide their face.

What were you supposed to do when you found an abandoned baby? Should she take the baby straight to hospital to be checked over, or should she ring the police? If she moved the box or picked the baby up to try to soothe it, would she be disturbing forensic evidence that would help the police find the baby’s mother?

Yet the baby was so tiny, and the lobby wasn’t heated. She could hardly leave the poor little mite to freeze there. She was about to try the other intercoms to see if any of her neighbours was in and could ring the police for her, when the door to the lobby opened and Josh Farnham walked in.

She didn’t know Josh very well; he’d moved into one of the flats on her floor about six months ago. They were on smile-and-nod terms, and she occasionally took in a parcel for him, but that was about it.

‘Is everything OK?’ he asked. And then he frowned as the baby cried again.

‘No.’ Amy gestured to the cardboard box. ‘Someone’s just left a baby on our doorstep.’

Josh looked utterly shocked. ‘A baby? But—who?’

‘I have no idea.’

He bent down to touch the baby’s hand. Clearly he had the magic touch because the baby immediately stopped crying.

‘Someone pressed my intercom but didn’t speak,’ Amy continued. ‘I assumed it was a courier trying to find someone in so they could deliver a parcel to someone in our block, but then I thought I could hear a baby crying.’ She spread her hands. ‘It could’ve been on the radio, but something made me come out here to see, just in case. That’s when I found the baby.’ She bit her lip. ‘There’s blood on the baby’s face, but I think that might be because the baby’s a newborn. As in really newborn.’

‘Have you called the police?’ he asked, his blue eyes narrowing.

‘I was just about to,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t bring my phone out with me, and I’m not sure if I’m going to mess up the forensics or what have you if I take the baby into my flat.’

‘You can hardly wait out here until the police arrive,’ Josh said, frowning. ‘Both of you would freeze. Look, let me grab some stuff from my flat so I can put up a makeshift barrier round the area where the box is now, to protect any potential evidence, then I’ll check the baby over properly while you call the police.’ The concern clearly showed in her expression, because he added, ‘It’s OK. I’m qualified. I’m a doctor in the local emergency department.’

That would explain why she hardly ever saw him. His shifts at the hospital would be very different from her own hours teaching at the local high school. But most of all Amy felt relief that she wasn’t going to have to deal with this completely on her own. Where babies were concerned, she was totally clueless, and Josh seemed to know how to deal with them. ‘All right. Thanks,’ she said.

‘I’ll be quick,’ he promised.

‘Should I pick the baby up?’ she asked when the crying started again.

‘Movement usually helps settle a crying baby. If you walk up and down—obviously avoiding the area where whoever left the baby might’ve trodden—the baby will probably stop crying.’

That sounded like experience talking. Better and better: because Amy was very used to dealing with teenagers, but her dealings with babies had been minimal.

Especially since Michael had ended their engagement.

She pushed the thought away. Not now. She needed to concentrate on helping this abandoned baby, not brood over the wreckage of her past.

‘What about supporting the baby’s head?’ she asked.

‘Just hold the baby against you, like this,’ Josh said, picking the baby out of the box and then holding the baby close to him to demonstrate, with one hand cradled round the baby’s head so it didn’t flop back.

‘OK.’ Carefully, Amy took the baby from him.

His hands brushed briefly against hers and it felt as if she’d been galvanised.

Oh, for pity’s sake. Yes, the man was pretty—despite the fact that he needed a shave and she suspected that he’d dragged his fingers rather than a comb through his wavy dark hair—but for all she knew he could be in a serious relationship. This was so inappropriate. Even if he wasn’t in a relationship, she didn’t want to get involved with anyone. Because then eventually she’d have to admit to her past, and he’d walk away from her—just as Michael had. And then that would make their relationship as neighbours awkward. Amy knew she was better off on her own and keeping all her relationships platonic. Josh Farnham might be one of the most attractive men she’d ever met, but he wasn’t for her.

Hoping that he’d mistake her flustered state for nerves about dealing with the baby—which was partially true in any case—Amy murmured something anodyne and started walking up and down the lobby with the baby.

Josh came back what felt like hours later but could only have been five minutes, carrying several tin cans, a pile of bandages, safety pins, a marker pen and a spiral-bound notebook.

‘Are you OK to keep holding the baby?’ he asked.

No. It was bringing back all kinds of emotions that Amy would much rather suppress. But she wasn’t going to burden a near-stranger with her private misery. ‘Sure,’ she fibbed.

Josh swiftly wrote out some notes saying, Please do not touch—waiting for police, then marked off the area where Amy had found the cardboard box. When he’d finished, he held out his arms for the baby. ‘My turn, I think,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ she said, grateful to be relieved of her burden. Though again her hands touched his as they transferred the baby between them, and again she felt that peculiar and inappropriate response to him, that flare of desire. She picked up the box. ‘I’d better bring this.’

He nodded. ‘Your flat or mine?’

‘Mine, I guess,’ she said.

She let them into her flat, then called the police and explained what had happened while Josh examined the baby. She couldn’t help watching him while she was talking; he was so gentle and yet so sure at the same time. He checked the baby over thoroughly before wrapping the infant in the soft blanket again.

The baby wasn’t wearing a nappy and had no clothes. They definitely had a problem here. And what would happen once the baby got hungry? Amy had absolutely nothing in her kitchen that was suitable for a newborn, let alone any way of feeding a baby.

‘The police are on their way now. They said they’ll contact Social Services and meet them here, too,’ she said when she put the phone down. ‘How’s the baby?’

‘Doing fine,’ Josh said. ‘Our doorstep baby’s a little girl. Definitely a newborn. But I’d say she’s a couple of weeks early and I’m a bit worried about the mum. She clamped the umbilical cord with one of those clips you use on packaging to keep things fresh, and my guess is she’s very young and didn’t tell anyone she was having the baby, and she didn’t go to hospital so she had the birth somewhere on her own.’

‘And then she put the baby in a box and left her in our lobby with no clothes, no nappy, no milk—just the blanket,’ Amy said. She winced. ‘The poor girl must’ve really been desperate. Do you see that kind of thing a lot at the hospital?’

‘Abandoned babies, improvised cord clamps or complete lack of any baby things?’ he asked. ‘Not very often to any of them, let alone all three together. Though on the rare occasions the police do bring in an abandoned baby, it usually turns out that the mum’s very young and very scared.’

‘The police might be able to find this baby’s mum and get her to hospital so she can be checked over,’ Amy said.

‘Let’s hope so,’ Josh said, sounding very far from convinced.

‘I’m sorry. I rather hijacked you when you came into the lobby,’ she said. ‘I guess now the police are on their way I ought to let you get on.’

* * *