The Surgeon's Doorstep Baby (5 page)

‘But what about Ruby?’ Maggie demanded

And he thought...
Ruby
.

Uh-oh. Ruby.

His baby?

She was not his baby, he told himself harshly. She was merely his responsibility until she could be evacuated or her mother reclaimed her. No more.

‘Your sister’s caring for her,’ he told Maggie. ‘In the car,’ he added, and hoped she was.

‘If she’s with Liselle, she’ll be fine,’ Maggie assured him. ‘Liselle loves babies. She makes money babysitting.’ But she was frowning, obviously thinking ahead.

‘Blake, Chris obviously needs careful stitching.’ She glanced at the leg Blake had now bound so tightly the bleeding had completely stopped. ‘I think...even if Christopher’s okay with it, it might be too big a job to do here. I can cope with simple suturing, but this might need more. On top of that, Ruby’s legs need attention. The sooner the pair of them get professional care, the better. Added to that, I don’t want the responsibility for your appendix. The sensible plan is to organise evacuation for the three of you. I’ll get the chopper in now—they’ll fly you all over to the hospital.’

‘I don’t want to go to hospital,’ Christopher whimpered, sounding panicked, and suddenly Blake was right there, concurring.

‘I don’t either,’ he said. ‘I can fix this.’ He put a hand on Christopher’s shoulder, settling him. ‘I’m a surgeon and I do a neat job of stitching,’ he said. ‘No criticism of your sister but she’s a girl. What do girls know abut needlework?’

That produced a faint smile on the boy’s wan face. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘So it’s okay if I put your leg back together instead of your sister? Without sending you to hospital?’

‘Okay,’ Christopher whispered, and Maggie hugged him.

Blake wondered why Maggie was doing the hugging instead of the wimp of a woman that was their mother.

‘I’m going to make myself a nice cup of tea,’ the woman was saying, staggering to her feet. ‘I’m Barbie, by the way. Barbara, but my friends call me Barbie. Maggie, you might have introduced me.’

Right, Blake thought. Introductions before saving her son’s life?

Christopher was slipping towards sleep. The saline was pushing his blood pressure up. The painkillers were taking effect. They had time to think this through but what he was suggesting—staying here—still seemed sensible.

Even to him.

‘What about Ruby?’ Maggie asked as her mother disappeared, jerking him back to his baby, his responsibility.

But responsibilities weren’t only his. His thoughts were flying tangentially, from a wounded child to a baby—and to one lone nurse.

One look at this family and he’d seen what Maggie was facing. The mother was feeble and hysterical, the father was nowhere to be seen, and these kids were too young to be alone. Maggie seemed to be caring for everyone. More than that, she was taking on the medical needs for the entire population of this side of the valley. Until the water receded, she was on her own.

Christopher would live. If Maggie had been on her own, he might well not have. They both knew that. Maggie’s white face told him she’d seen it and was still seeing it. But together they’d worked well. They’d worked as a team.

He was on leave. He needed to sort the house. How hard would it be to provide back-up for this woman?

And care for a baby while he did?

She’d help him with Ruby, he thought. Maggie was that sort of woman.

‘No,’ she said.

‘No?’

Her eyes narrowed, and she made her voice resolute. ‘I know what you’re thinking and no. I’m
not
helping look after your baby and you
are
being evacuated.’

‘I wasn’t asking you to look after my...my sister’s baby,’ he said, and thought, Okay, he might have been going to suggest it but he wasn’t now. ‘And you don’t need to look after my appendix. In case you hadn’t realised it, most appendectomies result in removal of same, and I’ve left mine safely in Sydney.’ Then, as she opened her mouth to protest some more, he held up his hand to pre-empt her.

‘Plus,’ he said, ‘I was looked after by colleagues, medical mates who know they’ll get joshed for ever if I’m hit by complications, so I have enough antibiotics on board to protect a horse. I’m healing nicely. Plus...’ she’d opened her mouth again... ‘if you send Ruby to hospital the first thing they’ll do is to organise an orthopaedic surgeon opinion. I’m suspecting Corella Valley doesn’t run to an orthopaedic surgeon. The nearest orthopaedic surgeon would therefore be me, and I’m on this side of the river. Maggie, not only can I assess Ruby, I can manipulate and cast her legs. I can do everything she needs until the water comes down.’

‘And look after her?’

‘I... Yes,’ he said, and he met her gaze full on. ‘And Wendy knows where she is right now,’ he said. ‘She might change her mind. That option’s not available if Ruby’s sent to the city.’

‘I doubt—’

‘So do I doubt,’ he said softly. ‘But Wendy’s my sister so maybe I should care for this little one for a week or two and give her that chance.’

‘Would you want her to go back to...that?’ she demanded, appalled.

‘No,’ he said truthfully. ‘But I do want to talk to Wendy. I do want to figure this mess out. I don’t want to walk away...’

‘From your family,’ she said, her voice softening.

‘I’ve figured it,’ he told her, glancing up at the roof. ‘Risks are everywhere. If I turn my back, the next thing I know Ruby will be roof-sliding.’

‘You’ll take responsibility for her?’

‘For a week or so,’ he said, wondering what on earth he’d let himself in for. But there was something about this moment...something about the way this woman was shouldering so much responsibility—that made him think, One baby for a week. Was that a lot to ask?

Family for a week.

He could do this, he thought, and somehow...maybe it’d be his only chance to make reparation for a sister who’d never had a Maggie.

Why?

Because he’d thought of Wendy. For whatever reason, he’d thought of that baby, glimpsed only that once.

He hadn’t had a great childhood, but many had it worse. His mother had had enough strength to walk away from her abusive husband. She hadn’t been a particularly affectionate mother but the man she’d married next had been distantly kind. Money had never been an issue. He’d gone to a great school, to an excellent university.

Wendy, though...

He knew enough of his father to know there’d have been no support for an illegitimate child. He didn’t know who her mother was, but he remembered hysteria, threats, floods of tears, and he thought... He thought Wendy must have had the worst side of the deal by far.

You’ve got the farm...
She’d thrown that at him as an accusation.

Did he have the right to accept it? For the first time he was questioning it.

Maggie was watching him. Waiting for him to realise what he was letting himself in for. Waiting for him to realise that evacuation was the easiest way to go.

But then he thought back to that moment all those years ago. Seeing a child... Thinking for one amazing moment that he had a little sister.

Family.

He didn’t do family. He was a loner. Miriam was all he needed—a woman as caught up in her career as he was in his.

Miriam would think he was nuts.

‘Hey, mister, I think your baby’s filled her nappy. You want me to change it? I can but I charge babysitting rates.’ It was a yell from the far side of the house and it jerked him out of introspection as nothing else could have. It even made him smile.

‘He’s coming, Liselle,’ Maggie said. She was cradling Christopher, hugging him close, surveying Blake like he was an interesting insect species. She was watching to see what he’d do. ‘There’s no need for him to waste money employing nappy-changers, and there are no nappy-changers available for hire anyway. There are nappies in my bag,’ she told him. ‘Or there’s still the choice of evacuation. What’s it to be?’

And he looked down at Christopher—who’d need to be evacuated with him—that wound needed careful stitching and it was too much to expect Maggie to do it. He looked at Maggie, who’d taken on responsibility for the valley.

He thought about Ruby, whose need had just graphically been described.

‘I guess I’m staying,’ he said, and Maggie smiled up at him. It wasn’t a confident smile, though. Maybe she still thought he’d be more trouble than he was worth.

‘You’re a brave man,’ she told him. ‘Changing nappies isn’t for sissies.’

‘Then I guess I can’t be a sissy,’ he told her, grinning back at her. Thinking this could be a very interesting week. Thinking Here Be Dragons but he could just possibly tackle them and do this woman a favour in the process. ‘I can’t be a sissy until the floods subside.’

‘Or until after you’ve coped with one nappy,’ Maggie said. ‘Nappy or floods...take your pick.’

‘I have a feeling I’m facing both.’

* * *

They tucked Christopher into the back seat of Maggie’s wagon. It was a tight fit around the baby seat but they stuffed the leg space with cushions so he could lie down, they wrapped him in blankets and he settled. It wasn’t only the drugs that made him relax, Maggie thought. Whenever one of the kids was ill it was ‘We want Maggie.’ More, it was ‘We
need
Maggie.’ And they did.

She slid behind the steering-wheel, checked on her now sleeping little brother, an awake but changed and clean Ruby—and one recovering appendectomy patient beside her.

Mother hen with all her chicks.

Blake wasn’t quite a chick.

He was staying.

She should be relieved. She was relieved. He’d been brilliant with Christopher. She might have got the bleeding checked in time, but she might not have. The odds said not. She glanced again at Christopher and her heart twisted.

She glanced at Blake—and something inside twisted in a different direction.

Weird?

Yes, it was weird. This guy was a doctor, a surgeon. He was here to help and she should be overjoyed, in a purely professional capacity. But there was a little bit of her that wasn’t professional, which was reacting to the sense of this guy sitting beside her, which was saying that Blake deciding to stay might cause problems...

What problems? She was being ridiculous. It was the shock of what had just happened, she told herself firmly. It was the shock of almost losing one of her family.

She loved the lot of them. All eight. They held her heartstrings and she was tied for life.

So put the weird way she was feeling about Blake right away—forget it.

‘Why did you decide to leave them?’ Blake asked and she concentrated on the road for a while, concentrated on getting her thoughts in order, concentrated on suppressing anger and confusion and whatever else was whirling in her traitorous mind.

‘You think I should still be living with them?’

‘I don’t think,’ Blake said mildly. ‘But I’m wondering if your father’s a bit more capable than your mother.’

‘He’s not,’ she said shortly. ‘And he doesn’t live there any more.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘It’s one less responsibility.’ Then she caught herself. ‘Sorry. That sounds like they’re all hard work. They’re great kids. Nickie, Louise and Raymond have scholarships and are at university. Donny’s in his last year as an apprentice motor mechanic. They’re all safe.’

‘How did you train?’ he asked, mildly, thinking if she had been responsible for them all...had she left and come back?

‘Luck,’ she said briefly. ‘Dad was restless and moved us all to Cairns. It was dumb—we knew no one there and ended up reliant on Social Services but it took four years to get enough money together to come back, so I was able to do my basic nursing training while I lived with them. Otherwise I’d be stuck with nothing.’

‘Stuck with your family?’

‘That’s it,’ she said quietly. ‘And it’s a quandary. The kids love me and need me, but they’re growing up. Gradually they’re making their way into the world, so I need to work out my own independence as well. I know I have eventual escape, but Liselle, Peter, Christopher and Susie are seventeen, fifteen, twelve and ten and too young to be left with the cot case that’s my mother. But I didn’t have a choice—until your father’s farm became available.’

‘You’re saying you left your family to take care of my father’s farm?’

‘I left my family for me,’ she said grimly, and there was a moment’s silence while she obviously decided whether to reveal more of herself. And came down on the yes side.

‘My dad left two years ago,’ she told him. ‘He’s as bad as my mum. Totally irresponsible. Six months ago, just as your dad was dying, he turned up with a new young partner in tow. Sashabelle. What sort of name is that? Anyway they giggled and mooned over each other and Sashabelle kept saying how cute Susie was and how she’d love to have a daughter—all in my mother’s hearing—and then Dad looked at me and grinned and said to her, “Yeah, sweetheart, you know I love travelling but if you really want a kid...if worst comes to worst we can always bring her home to Maggie.”’

‘And I thought that’s exactly what would happen. Just like Wendy’s dumped Ruby on you—only I’ve already cared for eight and I’m d— I’m darned if I’ll look after more. So I told him no more, ever, I was moving out. Then I had to find somewhere where I could reach the kids in a hurry when they need me, but my useless parents know that I’ve drawn a line and any more kids—no way. Once Susie’s left home, I’m out of it. Good ole Maggie... I love my brothers and sisters to bits but the end’s in sight.’

‘So that’s why you won’t take on Ruby?’

Her face froze. ‘No,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘It’s not why I won’t take on Ruby. I’m not taking on Ruby because she’s not my family, and it’s totally, crassly, cruelly irresponsible for you to ask it of me. I’m your tenant, Blake, but if
babies are involved you won’t see me for dust. Put that in your pipe and smoke it—and don’t forget it. And here we are.’

They’d pulled into the grounds of the local hall. A dumpy little lady in her forties was tacking a banner to the fence.

‘
Medical Clinic, Temporary, Corella Valley East
.’