‘Quick. Oh, please, come quick. Tessa’s having a baby.’
She’ll have to go to Cairns.’
‘Nonsense.’
Outside the labour ward Ryan and Abbey were neck deep in argument. Inside, Tessa Ludlow was neck deep in labour.
‘Hell, Abbey, I can’t deliver her here.’
‘She’ll deliver herself, then. For heaven’s sake, Ryan, all you have to do is go in there, check dilatation, check the foetal heart and stand around to catch. In fact, Sister’s probably done all the busy work for you while you’re hanging around here, procrastinating.’
Ryan raked his fingers through his hair. It was true. He was procrastinating. With good reason!
‘Abbey, I’m a surgeon. An orthopaedic surgeon. How many babies do you think I’ve delivered?’
‘They don’t let you through medical school unless you’ve delivered a few,’ Abbey said firmly. ‘Unless US training is very different to what it is here.’
‘But that was years ago. I haven’t delivered a baby since.’
‘It’s what you said about milking-it’s like riding a bicycle,’ Abbey said promptly. ‘Once learned, never forgotten. Nothing’s changed. Unless I’m very much mistaken, babies still come out just the same way they did a hundred years ago. Ryan, get in there and deliver that baby.’
‘But I’m not even registered here.’ Ryan gave a sound that was practically a moan. ‘Abbey, if something goes wrong I can get sued for millions.’
‘You know, if something does go wrong and you’re standing out here in the corridor, arguing about money, then you could be sued for even more!’
‘Abbey…’
Abbey sighed. And took a deep breath. ‘What is it? You want me to deliver the baby, Ryan? Is that what you’re saying? Your offer was for the easy stuff only? Well, I guess I can reach the bed from the wheelchair if I really try. Maybe if you hold me up under my arms… ’
Ryan glared.
‘Go on, Ryan.’ Abbey managed a smile. ‘You remember that day you wanted your tooth to come out so you could spend your tooth-fairy money at the fête the next day? It was wobbly-but only just.’
‘What on earth…?’
‘You showed determination then.’
‘Abbey, I must have been all of ten years old.’
‘No difference,’ Abbey said blithely. ‘You tied yourself up with string and then made me slam the door. And you didn’t even yell. Come on, Ryan, that’s the stuff you’re made of. Where’s your determination now?’
The labour ward door opened. The night sister stood, gazing from one doctor to the other in exasperation.
‘Have you two sorted out who’s delivering this baby yet?’ she asked sternly. ‘Because if you don’t figure it out soon I’m going to get all the credit. And that’d never do, now would it, Doctors?’
She winked at Abbey.
Ryan gave another groan, rolled up his sleeves-both metaphorically and physically-and went to deliver a baby.
In fact, it wasn’t as easy as Abbey had foreseen.
Second stage took far too long. It was a first-time birth. The young mother was exhausted and frightened and it took all Ryan’s bedside skills to calm her. Ryan finally effected a safe delivery, but only after applying forceps.
Funny that he remembered how. Abbey was right. It was like riding a bicycle.
Or like loving Abbey.
The thought flashed into Ryan’s mind as he stared down at the red and yowling infant in his hands, and he found himself smiling at the thought. Abbey had bullied him into delivering this baby and, to his astonishment, he’d found the experience deeply satisfying. Tessa and her husband were gazing at him as if he’d just personally produced their miracle, and the baby was warm and healthy and full of new life in his hands.
How many times in the past had Abbey bullied him into doing something he’d loved once he’d tried? ‘Come on, Ryan. Take your shoes off. You can’t catch crabs properly unless your toes ooze mud…’
Ryan inserted a few neat stitches in Tessa’s perineum, checked his baby over thoroughly-odd how it felt like his-and, with a chest expanded a few inches from an hour ago, went to find Abbey.
She was curled up on a couch in the waiting room in Casualty, and she was fast asleep.
Ryan stared down at Abbey for a long, long moment.
The same Abbey. She looked a real waif here. Dirty, bedraggled and her leg in the huge white dressing…
His mother had called her trash.
Abbey was no such thing.
Abbey was some lady, Ryan conceded, staring down at her in wonder. She was a lady with iron determination and courage to match her heart. A friend to be proud of.
What would his life have been if he’d stayed at Sapphire Cove? Ryan found himself wondering. In the background he heard his newly delivered baby start to cry. A nurse moved swiftly down the corridor. There were coos and chuckles and a low conversation between die young father and the nurse.
They all knew each other here.
This hospital was about as different from the hospital where Ryan worked as he could possibly get.
He’d go crazy working for a week here, he told himself. No research. No colleagues, bouncing ideas off each other. No social life outside the hospital. No concerts, art galleries or restaurants. How could Abbey stand it?
He looked down at the sleeping girl on the couch and a shaft of pain shot through him-a pain so fierce he almost staggered. A pain of sheer, absolute want. He wanted to gather her to him. Protect her from the pain he saw on her face. Take a load off her shoulders that seemed too heavy for any woman to bear.
It wasn’t on. This was crazy thinking. Ryan wasn’t about to walk away from a fantastic career and lifestyle just because he was being sentimental about an old friend.
There was a soft step behind him. Ryan turned to see Ted lurking in the doorway. Ghoul-like.
‘She looks at death’s door,’ Ted said with a certain amount of relish. ‘You’re not going to take her home now, are you, Doc?’
‘She’ll fight me if I don’t.’
‘Seems to me there’s not a lot of fight left in her,’ Ted said morosely. ‘Now, if I was a young fella I’d just gather her up and take her to bed.’ Then he coloured. ‘I mean… put her to bed, like…’
Ryan smiled.
He turned to look down at Abbey and his smile faded. A sudden image of what that might be like pierced his senses. To take Abbey to bed…
No way. That was the last thing he needed. The last thing Abbey needed. He was an engaged man. Abbey had responsibilities.
Bed, pure and simple-bed in the old-fashioned sense-was what this lady needed. With a wrench, Ryan forced his mind to practicalities.
‘Will Janet cope if Abbey doesn’t come home?’ he asked dubiously.
‘I’ve already rung Janet,’ Ted told him. ‘When I found our Doc Wittner asleep, like. She won’t worry. Janet’s a good ‘un.’
‘But the baby… And I’ve told her I’ll do the milking but she’ll panic…’
‘Janet says young Jack’s asleep. Janet can cope with the little ‘un’s breakfast, and the milking don’t need to get done again till morning,’ Ted told him. ‘And I’ve got ideas about that. So let’s worry about the morning in the morning. Sister’s got a bed made up in Room Four for Doc Wittner and one in Room Seven for you. So go tuck her in and then hit the sack yourself.’ He eyed Ryan shrewdly. ‘Looks to me you need a bit of shut-eye almost as much as Doc Wittner.’
He did, Ryan acknowledged.
The pressures of the day were crowding in, threatening to overwhelm him. With the time change in international travel, he’d missed two nights’ sleep. He’d hit Abbey’s bicycle and hurt Abbey. He’d coped with his father’s heart attack. He’d delivered a baby.
It was time to call it quits and do as he was told. But first…
He nodded acknowledgement to Ted, and stooped to lift Abbey into his arms. She was feather-light-far too slim for a woman of her age. He half expected her to wake when he lifted her, but the after-effects of the morphine and shock from the accident were taking their toll. There was no argument from Abbey. She sighed in her sleep and nestled easily into his arms, her breasts moulding themselves against his chest as if she were meant to lie there. As if she were part of him…