It Started with a Pregnancy

He lowered his eyes slightly. ‘I came into some money and I earn a relatively good salary.’ He plumped down next to her on the oversized sofa.

Melissa nodded. She could tell when not to press him. She turned sideways to face him. ‘Whose turn is it to ask a question?’

He ran his finger down her arm, causing her skin to come out in tiny goose-bumps. ‘I’ve lost track,’ he whispered, leaning forward and twisting a finger in her chestnut curls, pulling her face towards his.

She expected his kiss to be light, gentle, and it was anything but. It was hard and passionate, instantly setting her body alight with desire. She felt the heat spreading throughout her being. Heat she hadn’t felt in months—no, heat like this she had never felt. His other hand came up and caught the other side of her head, cradling her face. He drew his head back from hers, looking her in the eye. ‘I didn’t have any plans like this tonight,’ he said sincerely, ‘but right now I’m going to ask you if you want to come through to the bedroom with me.’

Melissa went to speak but he placed one finger on her lips. ‘Shh. Missy, if you want to leave I won’t stand in your way. But I would really like it if you’d stay.’ His breath was slightly ragged now, as if he was trying to fight the fire building inside him.

Her heart was pounding. This was sexual chemistry like she’d never felt before. She reached her hands around his neck and whispered in his ear.

His eyes lit up with wild excitement. ‘What was that?’ he asked in amazement.

‘My next question,’ Melissa said with quiet assurance. ‘I just decided what I wanted to ask.’

Cooper looked at her with his steady brown eyes, a smile forming across his lips. ‘In that case, this takes me back to show and tell from school, and this answer is definitely a show.’ And he took her by the hand and led her to the white bedroom.

CHAPTER TWO

Eight weeks later

MELISSA had just finished zipping up her tunic when she heard the shouting at the top of the labour ward. Hurrying to pull her newly washed curls back into a ponytail, she straightened her tunic, and set off down the corridor at speed.

Melissa had been one of the sisters in the labour ward for nearly three years and when she was on duty she prided herself on the calm running of the ward. Today, though, the midwives station at the central point in the labour ward seemed to be in chaos. Melissa tried to make herself heard above the rabble surrounding her. Two junior doctors appeared to be having an argument, two midwives were trying to deal with telephone calls, one consultant was angrily trying to attract the attention of anyone at all, and in the midst of it all stood a man, holding an empty jug of water. He was holding it out gingerly, saying, ‘Excuse me, excuse me?’

Melissa shook her head, lengthening her last few strides as she reached the station. ‘Enough!’ Her hand thudded on the desk and immediately silenced her bickering colleagues. ‘You two…’ she pointed at the junior doctors ‘…take your discussion elsewhere. My midwives are trying to deal with telephone enquiries.’ She grabbed one of the passing nursing auxiliaries, ‘Fran, can you assist this gentleman, please?’ she asked, gesturing in the direction of the bewildered man.

Finally she turned to the consultant standing at the desk. ‘Dr Mackay, can I help you with something?’

He nodded and pointed towards the nearby room. ‘I need a set of notes for the lady in Room 4, Katherine Kelly. I’m not happy with her presentation.’

Melissa nodded and walked around to the other side of the midwives’ station and retrieved a set of case notes from the trolley. It was the same place where notes had been kept on the labour ward for the last twenty years. She handed him the buff-coloured folder. He took them with a sigh of relief, ‘Thank God you’re on duty today,’ he muttered as he turned and headed back down the corridor.

Melissa watched his retreating back with a smile on her face. Had that been a compliment? Dr Mackay was not famed for his compliments. He was nearing retirement and becoming increasingly grumpy with age. A new consultant had been appointed but Melissa hadn’t met him yet.

She waited until one of the midwives at the desk had hung up her phone. ‘Carrie, what’s going on in here today?’

‘Just what you’d expect. The new junior and senior doctors have started today and the place is in chaos. We seem to have more women in labour than usual and we’ve had a few late presentations with complications.’ She pointed in the direction of the midwifery suite. ‘Sister Baird is in charge of the midwifery side today—she can update you on the admissions. Jen Connell was in charge of the medical side—she’s still in Room 4 with the patient Dr Mackay just collected the notes for.’

Melissa nodded and set off towards the midwifery unit to touch base with her colleague. The labour ward was divided into two sides: the midwifery side, where women with routine pregnancies and routine labours were looked after by a team of midwives from start to finish; and the medical side, where women with high-risk pregnancies were looked after by a team of doctors and midwives. Both sides of the labour ward had a midwifery sister or senior midwife on duty at all times, along with a team of more junior midwives to help support all women through the labour process. Melissa had always worked on the medical side. She had been diabetic since childhood and in this hospital all women with diabetes were automatically under the care of the medical staff. Knowing how single-minded the medical staff could be made Melissa all the more determined that women like her had the best possible birth experience. The only way that would happen was if experienced midwives like her worked hand in hand with their medical associates.

She heard her colleague’s voice and pushed open the nearest door. ‘Hi, Andrea.’ Her colleague looked up from the foetal monitor she was watching. ‘Just letting you know that I’ll be taking over in the medical side. Let me know if there are any patients you need to discuss.’

Andrea tucked a stray piece of short blonde hair behind her ear and shot her a quick smile as she pressed a button on the monitor for a printout of the foetal heart. ‘Any word on our lady with the breech presentation yet?’

Melissa shook her head. ‘I haven’t had a report yet from Jen—I’m just going to see her. It was bedlam at the midwifery station when I arrived.’

Andrea gave her a big smile. ‘So you haven’t seen the new consultant yet? I believe he’s in with that patient. She arrived less than an hour ago, already in labour with a breech presentation. We had to transfer her over to the medical side.’

She crossed the room away from the patient she was dealing with and whispered under her breath, ‘He’s spent the last month covering all the outlying areas, but he’s here permanently now. Hunk, total hunk.’

‘What?’

‘You’ll see. Let me know how the patient does, will you?’

Melissa gave her a quick nod and ducked back out of the door. The three midwives she would be working with were waiting at the midwives’ station and she assigned them each to an area of the ward before going to take over from Jen.

‘Hi, Jen,’ she said breezily as she entered the room, crossing behind the curtains to join Jen and the patient. ‘I’m here to take over from you—can you give me a report?’

Jen looked up from the notes she had just finished writing and put her pen down. ‘Hi, Missy, that’s great. Thanks.’

The woman lying on the bed was pale and sweating. Her dark hair lay limp in a cloud around her white face. She was breathing shallowly, small rapid gasps, leaning forward at first and then sagging back against the pillows whenever another contraction took hold. As an experienced midwife Melissa could tell from the shape of the woman’s abdomen that the baby was in the wrong position.

Jen continued quickly, ‘This is Katherine Kelly. She’s twenty-two and this is her first pregnancy. She missed her last two antenatal appointments and presented in labour just under an hour ago. Her contractions were only four minutes apart when she arrived and it was noticed on admission that baby was in the frank breech position. Her blood pressure had also spiked so she was transferred through to the medical side.’ She handed the observation chart she was holding over to Melissa, who cast her eyes over it rapidly.

‘She’s 40 weeks’ gestation. We’ve just done an ultrasound to confirm the position and size of the baby. Everything looks normal. Her contractions are now two minutes apart. We are too late to turn the baby, and Dr Mackay had been considering Caesarean section, but thankfully our new consultant…’ she gestured into the corner of the room ‘…has plenty of experience of this type of delivery and is happy to take the lead.’

Melissa nodded, assimilating all the information she’d just been given. If Katherine had attended her last two antenatal appointments it was likely that the breech presentation would have been picked up beforehand and dealt with. Now it meant that the baby was going to come out bottom first instead of head first. Some congenital malformations could result in a breech presentation but the ultrasound must have ruled that out. This meant that all that was really left to do now was to assist the new consultant in the delivery of this baby.

She sat on the bed next to Katherine and took her hand. ‘Hi,’ she said, ‘I’m Melissa and very soon I’m going to help you have this baby.’ She turned to face Jen again. ‘Is the paediatrician on his way?’

Jen nodded. ‘He said he’d be here in the next five minutes.’

Melissa fastened the blood-pressure cuff around Katherine’s arm and set the machine to record every five minutes. She turned to face the new consultant in the corner of the room and stretched out her hand towards him. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Melissa Bell, one of the midwifery sisters.’

He looked up from the notes he had been checking over and her heart froze. Time stopped. Cooper. Cooper was the new consultant obstetrician?

Cooper—the man who’d said he did a bit of ‘this and that’. Cooper, the man who lived in the show flat overlooking the marina. Cooper, the man who had taken her through to the glistening white bedroom with the mahogany four-poster bed and…

Cooper ran one of his hands through his floppy brown hair and reached his other hand out to meet hers. ‘Pleased to meet you, Melissa. I’m Cooper Roberts.’ Not a flicker of recognition. His actions were as smooth as silk, the consummate professional.

He stood up from his chair and pushed the bed table he had been leaning on away from him. Melissa hadn’t moved. She stood rooted to the spot. The last time she’d seen this man they’d both been naked and he’d been trailing his tongue around every part of her body, awakening sensations she’d never felt before. Her brain was spinning so fast that she thought she might fall over. She wrenched her hand free of his, conscious of the electricity that had just shot up her arm, and grasped the bottom of the bed. Cooper moved effortlessly past her and sat down on the side of the bed to talk to Katherine.

‘Is there anyone with you?’

Katherine shook her pale head. ‘No, it’s just me. My mum lives miles away. I phoned her early this morning but I don’t think she’ll be here in time.’

‘Is there anyone else I can phone for you?’

Melissa was still in shock. She knew what he was doing and why he was doing it. A breech delivery could be traumatic and it would be better if Katherine had someone to support her. He spoke soft, reassuring words to Katherine, whilst resting his hand on her abdomen and explaining how the delivery would proceed.

‘If my baby is the wrong position, shouldn’t I have a Caesarean section?’

Cooper glanced at her chart. ‘From your history you’ve been in labour for more than twenty-four hours. Your waters have broken and we’ve already examined you and established that you’re fully dilated.’ He held her hand reassuringly. ‘If we’d known about the baby’s position in advance we may well have considered a Caesarean section. But you’re pretty far along now and the baby is ready to come out. There’s no reason to think there will be any problems.’ He gave her hand a little squeeze as another contraction clearly gripped her. ‘Do you feel the sensation to push yet?’

Katherine’s face crumpled and she nodded. She was clearly growing tired. ‘I just want this to be over.’ She started to sob.

The blood-pressure cuff round her arm automatically started to inflate again and Cooper’s eyes followed the reading carefully. The door opened and the paediatrician appeared, pushing a special cot to allow assessment of the newborn. He gave Cooper a quick nod. ‘Nice to see you again, Dr Roberts.’ Then shot a smile over towards her. ‘And you, Melissa.’