The Surgeon's Doorstep Baby (3 page)

Even in two hours she’d changed. Her face had filled out a little, and the signs of dehydration were fading. She’d been stressed since birth, he thought. She was sleeping as if she was intent on staying asleep, because being awake was frightening and lonely and hard.

He was reading too much into the expression of one sleeping baby. How did he know what she’d been through? How could he possibly guess?

This little one was nothing to do with him. As soon as the river went down he’d hand her over to the appropriate authorities and let them deal with her. But until then...

Maggie should take her, he thought. That was the reasonable plan. A trained midwife, accustomed to dealing with babies every day of her working life, was a far more suitable person to take care of a little one as young as this.

But there was something about Maggie that was implacable.
Not My Problem.
The sign was right up there, hanging over her head like a speech bubble. Said or not, it was what she meant and it was how she’d acted.

She’d sent him home with his niece.

His niece.

He watched her sleep for a while longer. Ruby, he thought.

His niece?

He didn’t feel like he had a niece. He didn’t feel like he had a sister. He’d only seen his sister that one appalling time, when she’d been little older than Ruby. The moment had been filled with sounds enough to terrify a six-year-old, two women screeching at each other, his father threatening, the baby crying and crying and crying.

He remembered thinking,
Why don’t they stop yelling and cuddle her?
He’d even thought of doing it himself, but six was too young to be brave. He’d wanted a cuddle himself. He’d been scared by the yelling and far too young to cope with a baby.

Was he old enough now?

He didn’t feel old enough.

He looked down at the tightly wrapped bundle and thought of the tiny feet, facing inwards, needing work to be aligned. He could do that. He was an orthopaedic surgeon. Fixing twisted limbs was what he did.

Not the rest.

Maggie was just through the door. A trained midwife.

The phone rang and he picked it up with relief. It’d be Maggie, he thought, changing her mind, worrying about a baby who should rightly be in her charge.

It wasn’t. It was Miriam, doing what she’d promised. ‘I’ll ring you when I’ve finished for the day,’ she’d told him. ‘You don’t mind if it’s late? You know I’d like to be with you but the board meets next week to appoint the head of ophthalmology and I need to be present to be in the running.’

Of course he’d agreed. They were two ambitious professionals, and a little thing like an appendectomy shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of what was needed for their careers.

A little thing like a baby?

Miriam didn’t notice that he was preoccupied. She asked about the floods. He told her briefly that the bridge was blocked, that he was fine, that she needn’t worry. Not that she’d have worried anyway. She knew he could take care of himself.

There was little she didn’t know about him. They’d been colleagues for years now, in a casual relationship, maybe drifting toward marriage.

And now...

Now he was about to shock her.

‘I have a baby,’ he told her, and was met with stunned silence. He heard her think it through, regroup, decide he was joking.

‘That was fast. You only left town on Friday. You’ve met a girl, got her pregnant, had a baby...’ She chuckled—and then the chuckle died as she heard his continued silence. ‘You’re not serious?’

He outlined the night’s events, the letter, Maggie, their decision not to call for medical evacuation and Maggie’s insistence that he do the caring. He heard her incredulity—and her anger towards a nurse she’d never met.

‘She’s dumped it on you?’

‘I guess.’ But it was hardly that.

‘Then dump it right back,’ she snapped. ‘Fast. She has to take care of it. She’s the local nurse. It’s her job. This is like someone turning up in your office with a fractured leg and you refusing to help.’

‘She did help. She bathed and fed her.’

‘Her?’

‘She’s a little girl. Ruby.’

‘Don’t even think about getting attached.’
Miriam’s voice was almost a hiss. ‘That’s what she’ll be counting on. You being soft.’

‘I’m not soft.’

‘I know that, but does she? The nurse? And this sister you’ve never told me about... Who is she?’

‘I know nothing about her other than she’s called Wendy. I can’t be soft to someone I don’t know.’

‘So call in the authorities, now. If the bridge is properly cut...’

‘It is.’

‘How did they get over?’

‘They went round the road block and risked their lives.’

‘Okay,’ she conceded. ‘I don’t want you risking your life. You’ll probably have to wait till morning but then call for a medical evacuation.’

‘She’s not sick, Mim.’

‘She’s not your problem,’ Miriam snapped. ‘And don’t call me Mim. You know I hate it. Call the police, say you have a baby you know nothing about on your doorstep and let them deal with it.’

‘This is my father’s grandchild. My...niece.’

There was a hiss of indrawn breath. ‘So what are you saying? You want to keep it?’

‘No!’ He was watching the baby while he talked. She’d managed to wriggle a fist free from the bundle Maggie had wrapped her in, and her tiny knuckles were in her mouth. They were giving her comfort, he thought, and wondered how much she’d needed those knuckles in her few short weeks of life.

This was not his problem.
Nothing to do with him.

She was his niece. His father’s grandchild.

He’d loathed his father. He’d left this place when he’d been six years old and had had two short access visits since. Both had been misery from first to last.

His father had been a bully and a thug.

Maggie had known him better, he thought. Had there been anything under that brutish exterior?

He could ask.

‘Just take the baby back to the midwife and insist,’ Miriam was saying. ‘It’s her professional responsibility. You could...I don’t know...threaten to have her struck off if she doesn’t?’

‘For handing a baby back to her family?’

‘You’re not her family.’

‘I’m all she has.’

‘Her parents are all she has. The police can find them tomorrow. Meanwhile, lean on the nurse. You’re recovering, Blake. You do not need this hassle. Okay, misconduct mightn’t fly but there are other ways. You’re her landlord. Threaten to evict her.’

‘Mim—’

‘Just do whatever you need to do,’ she snapped. ‘Look, love, I rang to tell you about the paper I presented this afternoon. It went really well. Can I finally tell you about it?’

‘Of course,’ he said, and he thought that would settle him. He could stand here and listen to Miriam talk medicine and he could forget all about his little stranger who’d be gone tomorrow.

And he could also forget about the woman who’d refused to take her.

Maggie.

Why was he thinking about Maggie?

He was remembering her at the funeral. It had been pouring. She’d been dressed in a vast overcoat and gumboots, sensible garments in the tiny, country graveyard. She’d stomped across to him, half-hidden by her enormous umbrella, and she’d put it over him, enclosing him for the first time, giving him his only sense of inclusion in this bleak little ceremony.

‘I took on your father’s dogs because I couldn’t bear them to be put down,’ she’d said. ‘But I’m sharing a too-small house with my too-big family. The dogs make the situation unworkable. I assume your dad’s farm will be empty for a while. It has a housekeeper’s residence at the back. If I pay a reasonable rent, how about you let me live there until you decide what to do with it?’

‘Yes,’ he’d said without any hesitation, and he’d watched something akin to joy flash across her face.

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘You won’t regret it,’ she’d said gruffly. ‘The dogs and I will love it.’ Then she’d hesitated and looked across at the men filling in the open grave. ‘He was a hard man, your father,’ she’d said softly. ‘I’m sorry.’

And he’d thought, uncomfortably, that she understood.

Did this whole district understand? That he and his father had had no relationship at all?

They weren’t a family.

Family...

His mother had gone on to three or four more relationships, all disastrous. He’d never worked out the concept of family. Now...

He listened on to Miriam and he watched the sleeping baby. Would he and Miriam ever have babies? Family?

Now wasn’t the time to ask, he thought, and he grimaced as he realised he hadn’t heard a word she’d said for the last few minutes.

Focus, he told himself. Do what the lady says. Concentrate on medicine and not baby. Tomorrow give the baby back to Maggie or get rid of it some other way. Do whatever it takes. This was an aberration from the past.

One baby, with twisted feet and no one to care for her. An aberration?

He carried on listening to Miriam and he thought, Maggie’s just through the wall. She might even be listening to half this conversation.

The thought was unnerving.

Forget it, he thought. Forget Maggie. And the baby?

Do whatever it takes.

If only she wasn’t sucking her knuckles. If only she wasn’t twisting his heart in a way that made him realise a pain he’d felt when he’d been six years old had never been resolved.

She was his father’s grandchild. She was the child of his half-sister.

Family?

It was his health that was making him think like this, he told himself. He’d had his appendix out barely a week before, and it had been messy. He was tired and weaker than he cared to admit, and he was staying in a house that held nothing but bad memories.

He had a sudden, overwhelming urge to thump a hole in the wall in the sitting room. Let his father’s dogs through.

See Maggie.

Heaven knew what Miriam was saying. He’d given up trying to listen. It had been an important paper she’d presented. Normally he’d listen and be impressed. Tonight, though, he looked at one tiny baby, sleeping cocooned in Maggie’s cashmere blanket, and suddenly he felt tired and weak—and faintly jealous of the deep sleep, the total oblivion.

And he also felt...alone.

If the bridge was safe, maybe he’d suggest Miriam come down.

Don’t be nuts, he told himself. She’d never come, and even if she did there’d be nothing for her to do.

She wouldn’t care for a baby.

He had to.

Baby. Floods. Maggie. The images were drifting around his head in a swirl of exhausted confusion.

Baby. Floods. Maggie.

‘I need to go,’ he told Miriam, cutting her off in mid-sentence. ‘Sorry, love, but I’ll ring you back tomorrow. The baby needs me.’

‘The midwife—’

‘She’s gone to sleep,’ he said. ‘That’s where I’m heading, too. Hours and hours of sleep. I just have to get one baby called Ruby to agree.’

CHAPTER THREE

M
AGGIE
fed the
hens at six the next morning and she heard Ruby crying.

She sorted feed, cut and chopped a bit of green stuff and threw it into the chookpen—there’d been a fox sniffing around and she wasn’t game to let them out. She collected the eggs.

Ruby was still crying.

It wasn’t her business, she told herself. Not yet. What district nurse dropped in at this hour? She’d make a professional visit a little later. Meanwhile, she should make breakfast and head to the makeshift clinic she’d set up in the back of the local hall, to do last-minute preparations and sort equipment.

That could wait, though, she conceded. The authorities had only put the roadblock up yesterday. Everyone who’d needed anything medical had had two days’ warning. The weather forecast had been implacable. The water’s coming. Get your stock to high ground. Evacuate or get in any supplies you need because it may be a week or more before the river goes down.

The pharmacy over the river and the doctors at the Valley Hospital had worked tirelessly over the last few days, checking every small complaint, filling prescriptions to last a month. The Valley people had seen floods before. There’d be no last-minute panic.

There would, however, be no doctor on this side of the river for a while.

Except Blake. The thought was strangely comforting.

Floods often meant trauma as people did stupid things trying to save stock, trying to fix roof leaks, heaving sandbags. Knowing she had a doctor on this side of the river, even one recovering from an appendectomy, was a blessing. If he’d help.

And if she expected him to help...maybe she could help him with his baby?

She’d made it clear she wasn’t taking responsibility. That was what he wanted her to do, but even if she agreed, she couldn’t care for a newborn as well as for the medical needs of everyone on this side of the river.

So she’d been firm, which wasn’t actually like her. But firmness was her new resolve.

Right now, though, she was figuring that firm didn’t mean cruel. The guy really didn’t know anything about babies. If she had a teenage mum floundering, she’d move in to help.

Hold that thought, she decided, and she almost grinned at the thought of one hunky Blake Samford in the role of teen mum.

She’d help—even at six a.m.

So she knocked on his back door and waited. No answer. The wailing got louder.

She pushed the door tentatively inwards and went to investigate.

Blake was standing in the living room, in front of the vast, stone fireplace that was the centre of this huge, old homestead. The room was as it always was when she did her weekly check on the whole house, huge and faded and comfortable. A vast Persian rug lay on the worn, timber floor. The room was furnished with squishy leather settees, faded cushions and once opulent drapes, now badly in need of repair. The fire in the vast fireplace made it warm and homelike. The house was a grand old lady, past her prime but still graciously decorous.

Not so the guy in front of the fire. He was wearing boxer shorts and nothing else. He looked big, tanned, ripped—and not decorous at all.

Maggie was a nurse. She was used to seeing human bodies in all shapes and sizes.

She wasn’t used to seeing this one.

Tall, dark and dangerous. Where had that phrase come from? She wasn’t sure, but she knew where it was now. It was flashing in her head. Danger, danger, danger. A girl should turn round and walk right out of there.

Except he was holding a baby—all the wrong way—and his look spoke of desperation.

She put down her bucket of eggs, headed wordlessly to the kitchen to wash her hands, then came back and took the little one into her arms.

Blake practically sagged with relief.

‘You need to wrap her,’ she said, brisk and efficient because brisk and efficient seemed the way to go. ‘She’s exhausted.’

She cradled the little one tightly against her and felt an almost imperceptible relaxation.
Babies seemed to respond instinctively to those who knew the ropes. To their mothers, who learned from birth how to handle them. To midwives, who’d delivered too many babies to count.

‘She’s been safely in utero for nine months,’ she told him. ‘She’s been totally confined, and now her legs and arms are all over the place. It feels weird and frightening. She can handle it if she’s relaxed, but not if she’s tired and hungry.’

‘But she won’t feed,’ he said helplessly, motioning to the bottle on the table. ‘I can’t—’

‘She’s gone past it. She needs to be settled first.’ She sat on the settee and almost disappeared. These settees must be older than Blake, she thought. Old and faded and stuffed loosely with goosedown. She’d never seen such huge settees.

In truth she was finding it hard to thinking about settees. Not with that body...

Get a grip. Settees. Baby.

Not Blake.

She set about rewrapping Ruby, bundling her tightly so those flailing little legs and arms could relax, and the baby attached to them would feel secure. But she was a midwife. Bundling babies was second nature. She had more than enough time to think about settees and baby—and Blake Samford’s body.

Which was truly awesome. Which was enough to make a girl...make a girl...

Think unwisely. Think stupid, in fact. This was her landlord—a guy who wanted to get rid of a baby.

You show one hint of weakness and you’ll have a baby on your hands, she told herself. And if you fall for this baby...

She’d fallen for two dogs. That was more than enough.

She lived in this man’s house as a tenant, and that was all. If babies came with the territory then she moved out.

This was dumb. She was thinking dramatic when the situation simply needed practical. This guy had a problem and she could help him, the same way she’d help any new parent. She’d help and then she’d leave.

Ruby was still wailing, not with the desperation of a moment ago but with an I-want-something-and-I-want-it-now wail.

She lifted the bottle and flicked a little milk on her wrist. Perfect temperature. She offered it, one little mouth opened and accepted—and suddenly the noise stopped.

The silence was magical.

She smiled. Despite very real qualms in this case, Maggie Tilden did love babies. They sucked you in.

Her mother had used that to her advantage. Maggie’s mother loved having babies, she just didn’t like caring for them.

Over to Maggie.

And that was what Blake wanted. Over to Maggie.

Do not get sucked in, she told herself desperately. Do not become emotionally involved.

Anything but that. Even looking at Blake.

At his chest. At the angry red line she could see emerging from the top of his shorts.

Appendix. Stitches. Even if the external ones had been removed, it’d take weeks for the internal ones to dissolve.

‘So no keyhole surgery for you?’ she asked, trying to make her voice casual, like this was a normal neighbourly chat. ‘You didn’t choose the right surgeon?’

‘I chose the wrong appendix,’ he said, glancing down at his bare abs. ‘Sorry. I’ll cover up.’

‘I’m not squeamish about an appendix scar,’ she told him. ‘I’m a nurse. So things were messy, huh?

‘Yes.’

‘No peritonitis?’

‘I’m on decent antibiotics.’

Her frown deepened. ‘Are you sure you’re okay to stay on this side of the river?’

‘Of course.’

But she was looking at problems she hadn’t foreseen. Problems she hadn’t thought about. ‘If there’s the least chance of infection... I assumed you’d had keyhole surgery. If I’d known...’

‘You would have ordered me to leave?’

‘I’d have advised you to leave.’

‘You’re in charge?’

‘That’s just the problem,’ she said ruefully. ‘I am. Until the water goes down there’s no way I can get anyone to medical help. There’s just me.’

‘And me.’

She nodded, grateful that he was acknowledging he could help in a crisis—having a doctor on this side was wonderful but one who’d so recently had surgery? ‘That’s fine,’ she told him. ‘Unless you’re the patient.’

‘I don’t intend to be the patient.’ He was looking down at the blissfully sucking baby with bemusement. ‘Why couldn’t I do that?’

‘You could. You can.’ She rose and handed the bundle over, bottle and all, and Blake was left standing with an armload of baby. ‘Sit,’ she told him. ‘Settle. Bond.’

‘Bond?’

‘You’re her uncle. I suspect this little one needs all the family she can get.’

‘It’s she who needs medical help,’ he said, almost savagely, and Ruby startled in his arms.

‘Sit,’ Maggie said again. ‘Settle.’

He sat. He settled, as far as a man with an armload of baby could settle.

He looked...stunning, Maggie thought. Bare chested, wearing only boxer shorts, his dark hair raked and rumpled, his five o’clock shadow a few hours past five o’clock. Yep, stunning was the word for it.

It’d be wise if she failed to be stunned. She needed to remember she was here for a postnatal visit. Maternal health nurse visiting brand-new parent...

Who happened to be her landlord.

Who happened to be a surgeon—who was telling her the baby had medical needs.

She needed to pay attention to something other than how sexy he looked, one big man, almost naked, cradling a tiny baby.

With medical needs. Get serious.

‘If you think her legs are bad enough to require immediate medical intervention I can organise helicopter evacuation,’ she said. She knelt and unwrapped the blanket from around the tiny feet and winced.

‘I can’t believe her mother rejected her because of her feet,’ she whispered, and Blake shook his head.

‘No mother rejects her baby because of crooked feet.’

‘Some fathers might. Some do. A daughter and an imperfect one at that. If the mother’s weak...’

‘Or if the mother’s on drugs...’

‘There doesn’t seem any sign of withdrawal,’ Maggie said, touching the tiny cheek, feeling the way the baby’s face was filling out already. ‘If her mother’s a drug addict, this little one will be suffering withdrawal herself.’

‘She’s three weeks old,’ Blake said. ‘She may well be over it. But if she was addicted, those first couple of weeks will have been hell. That and the talipes may well have been enough for her to be rejected.’

‘That and the knowledge that you’ve come home,’ Maggie said thoughtfully. ‘If your sister knows you’re here, and thinks you’re in a position to care for her, then she might see you as a way out.’

‘She’s not my sister.’

‘Your father is her father.’

‘I don’t even know her surname.’

‘No, but I do,’ she said smoothly. ‘She’s Wendy Runtland, twenty-nine years old, and she lives on a farmlet six miles on the far side of the base hospital. Ruby was born on the twenty-first of last month. Wendy only stayed overnight and refused further assistance. The staff were worried. They’d organised a paediatrician to see the baby to assess her feet but Wendy discharged herself—and Ruby—before he got there.’

‘How the—?’

‘I’m a midwife employed by the Valley Health Service,’ she told him. ‘If I’m worried about babies, I can access files. I rang the hospital last night and asked for a search for a local baby born with talipes. Ruby’s the only fit. The file’s scanty. No antenatal care. First baby. Fast, hard labour with a partner present for some of the time. They were both visibly upset by the baby’s feet and there’s a note in the file that the guy was angry and abusive.

‘The next morning Wendy discharged herself and the baby against medical advice. There were no grounds to involve the police but staff did notify Social Services. The maternal health nurse has tried to make home visits but each time she’s found gates locked and dogs that didn’t allow her to go further. There’s a phone number but the phone’s been slammed down each time she’s rung. You might have more luck. You want to try while I check the bridge?’

‘What’s to check?’

He looked almost dumbfounded, she thought. Man left with abandoned baby. Surgeon way out of his comfort zone.

‘I’ve been listening to the radio and it’s still raining up north,’ she said evenly. ‘There’s a vast mass of water coming down. If the water keeps rising it might be a while before you can get her to Social Services.’

‘Social Services?’

‘Unless we can get her back to her mother—or unless you want her—I assume that’s where she’ll be placed. Either way, the decision has to be made soon. Those feet need attention now, although I assume you know that.’

‘I know it,’ he growled, and then he fell silent.

He stared down at the baby in his arms and she thought...there was something there, some link.

Family.

He’d said he didn’t have a sister. He’d said he didn’t even know her full name.

This was a guy who was an intelligent, skilled surgeon, she thought, a guy who’d know how to keep his emotions under control. But his recent surgery would have weakened him, and a sleepless night would have weakened him still more.

She had a feeling this guy didn’t let his defences down often, but they were down now. He was gazing at the child in his arms and his face said he didn’t know where to go with this.

Evacuate her? Hand her over to Social Welfare? Keep her until the river went down?

Risk attachment?

She couldn’t help him. It was his decision.

‘I’ll try and phone Wendy,’ he said at last, and she nodded and got to her feet and collected her eggs.

‘Excellent. I’ll leave some of these in your kitchen. Tell me how you go.’

‘Maggie?’

She paused. Met his gaze. Saw desperation.

‘Stay here while I ring,’ he said, and she thought maybe she could at least do that.

But as he handed back the now fed, sleeping Ruby, and she gathered her into her arms and watched Blake head for the phone, she thought...she thought...

She thought this was as far as she should go.

Babies did things to her. Her mother had used that, played on it, trapped her with it. And now...

The sight of Blake was doing things to her as well.

He was all male, one gorgeous hunk of testosterone, but it wasn’t that that was messing with her head.