The Surgeon's Doorstep Baby (9 page)

‘I’m thinking you’re important, Maggie Tilden.’

‘Then think again,’ she snapped. ‘You’re trapped, you’re wounded, you’re exhausted, and I have the right chromosomes. Nothing more. Get a grip.’ She pushed herself to her feet, which was hard when she realised he’d stepped toward her to help and she had no intention of letting him help. She gathered the bowl, the dressing wrappers, the dishcloths and turned away.

‘This is the main house,’ she muttered. ‘I live in the servants’ quarters. My brothers and sisters might have infiltrated their way over here but me...me, I’m scared stupid. Leave it, Blake. I have a flood, a dependent community and a dependent family, and I need no other complications. None. Your wound is fixed. You need to feed Ruby and put yourself to bed. By yourself,’ she added, as she saw what looked suspiciously like laughter in his dark eyes.

‘You’re overreacting.’

‘That’s the story of my life,’ she muttered, stalking to the door. ‘Setting boundaries and hoping people respect them. And being told I’m overreacting when they don’t.’

‘Maggie...’

‘I have to check I’m not needed at the clinic. Liselle will look after my kids.’ She glanced down at Ruby. ‘You look after yours. Goodnight, Blake.’

And she walked out and closed the door behind her.

* * *

What had just happened?

Blake stared at the closed door and thought he’d just been hit over the head with a sledgehammer. That’s what it felt like.

He’d really, really wanted to kiss her. The need had felt extraordinary, but it hadn’t been a simple sexual urge. It had been all about the smattering of freckles on her nose. The shadows under her eyes. The way she’d stood in the top paddock and yelled, ‘Oi, oi, oi.’

It had been about the way her fingers had felt, gently touching his skin. She was a nurse. She’d been doing her job but it hadn’t felt like that. It had felt...electric. It was as if everywhere she’d touched there had been this frisson, this connection, two halves desperate to come together.

But it wasn’t true. His half was all for it. Her half was backing away like a startled rabbit.

Did she think he was about to seduce her? Local landowner taking advantage?

His father’s reputation had gone before him.

She didn’t know him.

And he didn’t know her, he told himself. She was like no one he’d ever met. There was no artifice about her—what you saw was what you got. She was taking care of this valley, taking care of her siblings, taking care of...him?

At his feet Ruby finally tired of waiting. She’d been perfectly patient while her uncle had been treated, but enough was enough.

She opened her mouth and she wailed.

Maggie wasn’t taking care of Ruby. Fair enough, he thought ruefully. He could hardly expect it of her.

As if in rebuttal, her head appeared around the door.

‘You should be in bed,’ she said, and she sounded reluctant, like this was her conscience talking. ‘If you like, I’ll feed her and we’ll take care of her on our side for the night. Only for tonight, mind.’

‘You’re going back to the clinic.’

‘There are five of us. One thing the Tilden kids learned early is to take care of each other. For tonight only, we can do it.’

She would, too, he thought. She was looking at him and seeing a guy who was recovering from appendicitis, who’d pushed himself too far.

He did not want to be this woman’s patient.

‘Ruby and I will be fine,’ he said, a bit too shortly.

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Knock if you change your mind,’ she told him, sounding relieved. ‘And I’ll check when I get home. Sleep tight, Blake. Sleep tight, Ruby.’

She closed the door again—and he felt even more...

Like he wanted the door to stay open.

* * *

He fed Ruby.

He wandered out to see what the kids were doing.

Ruby had gone to the clinic. The rest of the kids were in his big sitting room.

Liselle was hunched over a side table with a bunch of books in front of her that looked truly impressive.

‘Calculus?’ he asked, checking over her shoulder.

‘Yes,’ she said tersely.

‘Trouble?’

‘This,’ she said, and pointed hopelessly. He sat and helped her integrate a complex equation, with techniques he thought he’d long forgotten, and felt absurdly pleased with himself when it worked.

If Maggie was out saving the world, he could at least do maths.

Susie was under the table with her dolls.

Christopher was propped up on cushions, his leg high in front of him. The painkillers would be making him feel sleepy but he’d obviously decided he wanted to be with his siblings. He was watching something violent on television. Was it suitable for a twelve-year-old? But then he thought these kids must be pretty much independent by now.

‘It’s okay,’ Liselle said briefly, seeing him watching the TV and reading his doubt. ‘Maggie and Chris go through the guide once a week, Chris reads out the reviews of what he wants to watch and they negotiate.’

Fair enough, he thought, feeling awed.

He looked down at Ruby, who was still in his arms, and wondered who’d negotiate for her.

What was this baby doing to his head? He’d had one image of his baby sister, embedded in his memory thirty years ago. He’d hardly thought of her since, and yet this little one, a baby of that baby, was calling to something he hadn’t been aware he had.

A need for family?

He gazed round the living room, at the kids sprawled over the furniture. Sleepy Christopher with his bandaged leg, who’d come so close to death but was recovering fast. Susie, spilling out from under the table with her dolls. Pete with his video games and Liselle keeping vague watch as she studied. Maggie must have lit the fire before she’d left—or maybe Liselle had. They were independent kids, but he just knew...

Threaten one and you threatened them all.

Family.

Ruby was dozing in his arms. He should put her to bed. He should put himself to bed, he thought. He didn’t understand the way he was feeling...

It was all about weakness, he decided. It was the after-effects of appendicitis, the shock of
Ruby’s arrival, working with Christopher and the physical demands of rescuing the calves.

And the way he was feeling about Maggie?

Um...no. Family. Maggie. That was emotional stuff, feelings he’d long suppressed because they ought to be suppressed. He had a very practical, very satisfactory life and the sooner he could go back to it, the better.

‘You look tired,’ Liselle said. ‘You want me to cuddle Ruby until Maggie comes home?’

So Maggie could come home and see that he hadn’t managed one baby?

‘Thank you,’ he said gravely. ‘But I’m fine.’

‘Call us if you need us,’ Pete said, emerging from his computer game for a moment. ‘I’ve buried nappies before,’ he offered nobly. ‘One spade, one hole and the job’s done.’

The kids chuckled and so did he, and then he escaped.

They were great kids, he thought, and then he thought of Maggie.

They weren’t great kids because of their parents, he thought. They were great kids because they had a great big sister. An awesome big sister.

A really cute, really sexy, big sister.

That was exactly what he didn’t want to think. He needed to think of practicalities. Ruby. Bed.

Not Maggie.

* * *

She had two patients to see at the clinic. Both minor complaints. Aida Batton had cricked her neck lifting piglets out of a sty that was becoming waterlogged. Anyone else would have figured that driving the sow out first and leaving the piglets to follow was the best option, but Aida considered herself an earth mother, and thought the sow might slip in the mud and squash one of her babies—and now she was paying the price.

Maggie gave her a gentle massage, sent her home with anti-inflammatories and a heat pack, and was promised a side of bacon in exchange.

Robbie Neal—a mate of Christopher’s—had decided to use the run-off from the hill beside his house as a water slide. He’d used a tyre tube, there hadn’t been a lot of control from the beginning and he’d hit a tree. He had grazes and bruises everywhere but as far as Maggie could see, the damage was superficial.

No hint of loss of consciousness. No sign of head injury. She cleaned him up and sent him home with his long-suffering parents.

She cleaned the clinic, walked through into the hall where the locals had set up a temporary evacuation centre, noted that her mother wasn’t there—she’d be sponging on any of half a dozen neighbours, she thought grimly, no communal evacuation centre for Barbie—and then she thought she shouldn’t care.

How did you turn off caring?

She drove home thinking just that. And also...how did you stop yourself starting to care?

For a guy who’d kissed her?

It was nothing, she told herself fiercely, but unbidden her fingers wandered to her lips as if she could still feel...

‘I can feel nothing,’ she said harshly into the silence. ‘I can’t afford to feel anything. Honestly, how many complications do you want in your life? A womanising Samford is exactly what you don’t need.’

A womanising Samford...

She was tarring him with the same brush as his father, she thought. Was that fair?

Of course it wasn’t. Up until now he’d been awesome. He’d helped her care for her little brother. He’d saved his life. He’d saved his cows. He’d dispatched her mother.

He’d kissed her.

‘Which has turned you into a simpering schoolgirl,’ she snapped. ‘Grow up, Maggie. It was only a kiss.’

Only it didn’t feel like just a kiss. It felt...so much more.

* * *

The house was silent. It was eleven o’clock and she was dead tired.

She checked the fire, checked each of the kids, made sure Christopher was okay.

Christopher and Liselle both stirred and hugged her as she leaned over them—something they’d done since they’d been babies.

Part of her loved it.

How could she ever walk away?

She couldn’t, she thought, as she tucked them in and kissed them goodnight. When Blake sold the farm she’d move back home. Of course she would. The events of the day had shown her just how dangerous it was to leave the kids with her mother.

Tonight she didn’t even have the luxury of her own bed. Susie had demurred at sleeping in a big, strange bedroom by herself. She was very definitely sharing with Maggie.

It’s fine, Maggie told herself. You’ve had six months’ luxury of having your own place. That’s it.

She was so tired...

But she did need to check on Blake. Just in case, she told herself. He’d pushed himself past the limit this afternoon. If he was bleeding internally, if he was in pain, would he call her?

Maybe he wouldn’t and the nurse in her wouldn’t let herself go to bed without checking.

She slipped through the darkened house. His bedroom door was open, just a crack.

She had no wish to wake him—or Ruby—if he was asleep. She pushed the door just enough for her to slip inside.

He had the curtains wide open. The clouds had cleared for once, and the almost full moon was lighting the bed, the man sleeping in it, and the baby tucked in her bed beside him.

They were both soundly asleep.

Blake was bare to the waist. He was sleeping right on the edge of the bed, and his arm was trailing down so his fingers were resting beside Ruby’s face.

It was as if he’d gone to sleep touching her. Giving her human contact. Letting her know he cared?

Something was twisting...

This man...

Don’t, she told herself fiercely. No. Put your hormones right back where they belong.

He stirred and she backed out of there so fast she almost tripped over her feet. He was fine. She didn’t need to check again.

She didn’t need to go near this man when he was half-dressed, or in his bedroom, or when he was smiling, or when he was feeding Ruby, or when he was doing any of the stupid, dumb things that were mounting up that made her feel...

Like she had no business feeling. When the river went down he’d head back to his city hospital, to his independent life, and she’d just...

Just...

She needed to get a grip. Any minute now she’d be putting something violinish and maudlin on the sound system and start weeping into her beer.

The phone rang and she grabbed it with real relief. Work. That way lay sanity—not looking at half-naked men in the moonlight.

But the phone call wasn’t for her.

* * *

One problem with sharing Blake’s house was that she shared his phone.

Bob Samford’s existing line had never been disconnected. An extension of that same line rang in her apartment. She’d been covering the costs since she moved in.

Maggie had a cellphone. The locals knew it, but they disliked using the longer phone number and contacting her cellphone was a more costly call.

When she’d lived with her mother, no matter how much she’d discouraged it, they’d rung her there. As soon as she’d moved, they’d simply phoned here. So when the phone rang as she reached the hall, she answered it fast, to stop it waking the house.

‘Maggie Tilden,’ she said, polite and professional.

‘Who is this?’ a female voice demanded.

Uh-oh. She didn’t recognise this voice. It was cool, slightly arrogant and startled. Like she was expecting someone else.

She guessed this was Blake’s call.

‘I’m the district nurse,’ she said, a tad too quickly. ‘Maggie Tilden.’

‘The woman living at the back of Blake’s house?’

How could you dislike a woman after two sentences? Not possible. She got a grip and managed a bright smile. Someone had said smile on the phone and the person at the other end could hear it. She tried—hard.

‘That’s right,’ she said, determinedly chirpy. ‘Did you wish to speak to Blake?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry, but he’s asleep.’

‘It’s only eleven.’

‘Yes, but he’s had a very big day. He had to save his calves from drowning and Ruby needs feeding in the night.’ She paused. ‘I’d rather not wake him.’

‘He’s not answering his cellphone.’

‘He dropped it in the water. I don’t believe it’s working.’