Brought Together by Baby (3 page)

She hadn’t set eyes on Gus for weeks: a deliberate ploy but an unsuccessful one, because she hadn’t stopped thinking about him for a moment. Anger and humiliation churned inside her, as did the fire of resentment and jealousy, and the hurt that never went away. She’d tried to convince herself she hated him—she certainly hated what he’d
done
—but she despaired of the part of herself that missed him and cared about him. Now, like someone parched with thirst stumbling on a fresh oasis, she greedily drank in the sight of him.

An inch or two under six feet, he wasn’t the tallest man in the room, but to her he was the most impressive, the one
who immediately held her attention. Even in the unflattering scrubs he looked heart-stoppingly handsome and intensely masculine. His thick dark brown hair was mussed—a result, she knew, of his characteristic habit of running a hand through it when he was stressed—and the way a few defiant strands flopped rakishly across his forehead was so familiar and endearing it brought a sting to her heart.

Her first instinct was to rush to him and hug him, needing both to comfort and be comforted, but as if he sensed her presence he turned to look at her. One glimpse at the stony mask on his unusually pale face and the distant expression in his smoky green eyes halted her in her tracks. Instinctively she shrank back.

That he was ravaged by shock was evident. But his pain also pained
her
, because it drove home again the way he’d publicly rejected her and chosen Julia…and how the two people she should have been able to trust most had hurt and betrayed her, leaving her the broken-hearted object of hospital gossip. Withdrawing into herself, she had wrestled with the stark contradiction and confusion. She remained filled with pain and bitter regret, yet a part of her couldn’t stop caring about him.

Instinctively she clung to Gina’s hand, allowing her friend to guide her to some nearby chairs to sit down. The tension in the room was palpable, and Holly tried to put her own feelings aside and assess what was happening. Frazer and Rick were in conversation with the policeman, giving their accounts, she assumed, of events at the scene of the accident. As for Gus, he was now talking with the woman from the operating room, and as Holly listened it became clear that his request to access Theatre had been refused. Moved to protest on his behalf, Holly stood up again, her legs trembling as she took a step forward to voice her own opinion.

‘Surely Gus has a right to be in there?’ she argued, all too conscious that the man in question was looking at her once more.

* * *

Gus stared at Holly in surprise. He hadn’t expected such staunch support from her, but here she was, planting herself firmly in his corner, and there was no doubt her indignation was genuine.

‘This is a difficult situation for both of you,’ the theatre administrator responded, calm and yet firm, looking from Holly to Gus. ‘But I’d ask for your patience. The specialist team are doing all they can to ensure the baby’s survival. As soon as they are free to talk to you, one of the consultants will give you all the information you need.’

He hated being denied the opportunity to witness the moment his child came into the world, especially given the risk to his or her life, yet he understood from a medical perspective why they were keeping him out of the operating room.

‘The most crucial thing is the baby,’ he allowed, his voice hoarse, a mix of emotions raging inside him.

Holly nodded, and she was close enough that he heard the little hitch in her breath. ‘I agree.’

As the theatre assistant left, and Holly returned to her seat next to Gina, Gus turned and gazed out of the window. The hospital sat on the side of a hill, and from here he could look over the valley in which the picturesque town of Strathlochan sprawled around two sides of the loch that gave it its name. The town drew patronage from a wide area, and many villages and isolated communities depended on Strathlochan’s small but comprehensive services.

There had been times in the last few months when he’d wished he’d never set foot in Strathlochan, Gus admitted, running the fingers of one hand through his hair. Times when
bitter regret and intense loneliness had overtaken the brief spell of unusual happiness he’d experienced when he’d first arrived, before things with Holly had turned sour.

Right now he was struggling to come to terms with the shock of hearing Robert speak the accident victim’s name. The reality that Julia had been fatally injured brought feelings he couldn’t allow himself to dwell on, because overshadowing everything was the knowledge that his baby’s life hung in the balance.

It felt like hours, not minutes, since the helicopter had arrived and his world had turned upside down. He’d rushed up to the operating suite from A&E alone, the tension, fear and uncertainty of the wait making him nauseous. He had questions—many questions. Talking with Frazer and Rick was a priority, but they were still being questioned by one of the policemen investigating the accident.

An accident he couldn’t understand.

Why had Julia been driving? As far as he knew she’d never had a licence. He’d parked his car in the hospital car park that morning, so how and when had she taken it? Where had she been? Why? And what had happened? The police would want answers, too, but they would have to wait—one issue overrode everything else.

Had his child won the battle for life?

A ragged breath shuddered through him and he tried to refocus his thoughts before they overwhelmed him.

Thoughts that slid inexorably back to Holly.

Seb Adriani had reached the operating suite’s waiting area a few seconds after him. Gus didn’t know the Italian doctor well—although he was the husband of one of Holly’s best friends—but he’d been grateful when Seb had told him that Gina was with Holly. At least he’d had some forewarning of her possible arrival.

But nothing had prepared him for the moment when she’d walked into the waiting room. After weeks, months, of not seeing her, the instant he’d been aware of her presence and turned to look at her he’d experienced a whole gamut of confusing emotions. The first thing he’d wanted to do in these most desperate of circumstances was to take her in his arms and hold her, but as she’d hesitated and turned away from him he’d managed to prevent himself from doing anything stupid. He’d made a fool of himself over Holly once. He didn’t plan on doing it again.

On edge and impatient, Gus wrestled with his reaction to Holly. He could see her now, her image reflected in the glass of the window as she sat across the room, and he shifted to bring her more into focus. In her smart, staff-nurse’s uniform, and with her shoulder-length wavy blonde hair tied back in a short ponytail, she looked fresh-faced, incredibly young…and scared.

Her flawless skin was ashen, so pale that the cute smattering of freckles dusting her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose were more noticeable than usual, while her sky-blue eyes, fringed by long sooty lashes, looked far too big and bruised with worry. Drawn to her, he turned around, his disobedient gaze clashing with hers. Tension hummed between them for several long moments. He tried to look away but found he couldn’t, held as if by some invisible force.

It was the sudden arrival of one of the consultants that ended the strange and uncomfortable interlude.

‘Gus Buchanan and Holly Tait?’ the man queried, pushing through the heavy swing door into the room, the mask he had worn in Theatre now hanging limply around his neck. ‘You’re the relatives?’

‘Yes,’ Gus confirmed, stepping forward as Holly stood up.
He recognised the man by sight, and knew of his reputation, but they’d never met before.

‘I’m Shaun Haggerty, consultant neonatologist.’ The introductions made, he shook hands with them both. ‘If you come with me, I’ll bring you up to speed on what’s happened and we can discuss in private what you want to do.’

Intensely aware of Holly’s presence, Gus held open the door of the waiting room, finding it hard to breathe past the restriction in his throat, scared at what he was about to hear regarding the condition of his baby.

* * *

‘Seb and I will wait here in case you need us,’ Gina promised, and Holly nodded her appreciation before she forced unsteady legs to move.

She followed Gus and Mr Haggerty down the hall and into a small nondescript office. Her stomach was so churned up with emotion that she felt positively ill, and she couldn’t stop shaking. As Mr Haggerty closed the door and walked around the desk Holly sat on the vacant chair next to Gus.

‘This has been a big shock for you both,’ Mr Haggerty began, his expression sombre. ‘I’m sure you have a lot of questions. The police are investigating the accident and will want to talk to you, so I’ll leave that side of things to them and deal only with the medical issues.’ He paused, looking from Gus to her and back again. ‘Is that all right with you?’

‘Yes. Thank you. Right now I just want to know about the baby,’ Gus replied, and tears stung Holly’s eyes at the unmistakable desperation in his voice—a desperation that matched her own.

Realising both men were waiting for her response, Holly nodded her agreement, too off-balance for more coherent thought. ‘Me, too.’

As she spoke she was painfully conscious that none of
them had mentioned Julia. She glanced at Gus. His face was a mask, revealing none of the emotion she knew must be rampaging through him. Instinctively she wanted to comfort him, and to seek comfort in return, but the special rapport they’d once shared had broken down so completely she was now nervous and uncertain of his reaction. So she curbed the urge to reach for his hand, and as the consultant began speaking she focused on his words.

‘I’m afraid Mrs Buchanan suffered serious head, neck and facial injuries,’ Mr Haggerty informed them, and Holly closed her eyes at the horror that had befallen her sister. ‘The air ambulance was returning from transferring a patient to Glasgow when the call came in to attend the car crash, which meant they were close by and on scene within minutes,’ he continued, leaning forward and steepling his fingers together. ‘The flight doctor and the paramedic detected a weak foetal heartbeat and did everything they could to maintain the baby’s life in order to reach the hospital.’

Holly flicked another quick glance towards Gus in time to see him running fingers through his hair—such a familiar sign of his stress and agitation.

‘The only blessing to emerge from this tragedy is thanks to Frazer and Rick,’ the consultant added, the ghost of a smile relieving the sternness of his expression.

‘How do you mean?’ Gus asked, his voice hoarse.

Holly clenched her hands together until the knuckles turned white, hoping and praying that there was still hope for the baby.

‘There is much we still need to talk about,’ Mr Haggerty stressed, ‘but I can tell you, Gus, that thanks to the quick actions of the flight crew, combined with the skill and determination of everyone in Theatre, you now have a son.’

* * *

A son.

He had a
son
.

The words hammered inside Gus’s head, and for several moments all he could hear was the rushing of blood in his veins as it pulsed with a matching rhythm…a son, a son, a son, a son.

A shiver of reaction ran down his spine. As he struggled to control the welling of emotion that brought an uncharacteristic sting to his eyes he felt the light brush of Holly’s fingers on the back of his hand. Without conscious thought he gratefully accepted the physical contact, moving so they were palm to palm, their fingers naturally interlocking.

‘My s-son…?’ he asked, stumbling as he voiced the word aloud for the first time. ‘How is he?’

‘He’s a fighter. Given the trauma of the accident and the delivery—and the suggestion that he could be up to four weeks premature—he’s in miraculously good shape. So far,’ Mr Haggerty informed them.

Relieved despite the words of caution, Gus expelled a shaky breath. ‘Thank God.’

Holly’s fingers tightened on his and he returned the pressure, overwhelmed after the nerve-racking and stressful wait for news that his son was alive. Not only alive, but by all accounts with a real chance of survival.

‘We’re transferring him to the paediatric intensive care unit in the maternity wing so we can monitor him closely,’ the consultant continued. ‘He’s small. And he’s bruised. It appears your wife wasn’t wearing her seatbelt, so he must have taken a battering in the crash, and then there was his somewhat unceremonious entry into the world. We need to do some tests—’

‘What kind of tests?’ Gus demanded, anxiety once more rising within him.

‘As I said, your son seems remarkably robust. At the moment we can’t tell whether he’s suffered any ill-effects from the accident…how long he experienced any loss of oxygen or blood-flow, for example. There are a couple of other issues we need to clarify with you, too,’ the man added, a frown on his face.

Gus’s chest tightened. ‘What kind of issues? What’s wrong?’

‘We have questions about the validity of his due date—’

‘There’s no doubt about that,’ Gus interrupted, tension ripping through him. It was one of the few things he
was
certain about.

The older man raised an eyebrow. ‘No room for error at all?’ he asked, a note of disbelief edging his voice.

‘None,’ Gus confirmed, although he had no intention of explaining
why
he was so certain about his baby’s conception—especially in front of Holly.

‘If that’s so,’ the consultant remarked, his doubts obvious, ‘then he’s unusually well-developed. He’s not displaying the signs of prematurity we would expect in a baby of that age.’

‘Maybe the upheaval of the accident and delivery are masking other things,’ Holly suggested softly.

Gus glanced at her, noting the pallor of her skin and feeling the tremor of her hand in his. Her support of him took his breath away. And confused him. Guilt and self-disgust about the fateful night in question—the one that had resulted in the baby and sparked off everything else—returned with a vengeance. As did the memory of Holly’s reaction…her anger, confusion, hurt, and the cool disdain in her eyes when she’d looked at him that had chilled him to the marrow of his bones.