Wish Upon a Star (41 page)

‘Is the baby all right?’ She felt completely shocked by the
speed and violence of it all. If Jake hadn’t been there, she didn’t know what she would have done.

‘Not a baby. A little girl, and she seems absolutely fine.’ Jake’s voice was strangely flat. ‘She’s beautiful. Well done.’

He placed the baby carefully in her arms and she stared down at the tiny, perfect features with wonder in her eyes. The howls turned to whimpers as the baby nuzzled Miranda’s breast.

‘Good idea.’ Brisk and businesslike, Jake settled himself into a more comfortable position. ‘Feed her, Miranda, if you can. I don’t have any drugs with me. Nothing to help your uterus contract so we’re going to have to do this the way that nature intended as well. Physiological third stage. Feed her. It will help your uterus contract.’

Some women opted to have a physiological third stage, but Miranda knew that the risks of bleeding were greater and understood why Jake was now paying her more attention than ever. He was worried that she might bleed and he had no access to a telephone.

He was a doctor doing his job.

And he didn’t seem at all interested in the baby.

She undid the buttons of her maternity dress and gently lifted the baby to her breast. With remarkably little encouragement, the baby latched onto her nipple and sucked happily. Miranda breathed a sigh of relief but suddenly the happiness of the birth mingled with despair. She wanted to say something, want to speak, but none of the words in her head felt right.

Seemingly oblivious to her emotional state, Jake slid a hand over her abdomen, checking her uterus. ‘Everything feels fine.’

And everything was fine. The placenta came away easily and Jake breathed a sigh of relief.

‘I don’t know what you midwives complain about.’ He dragged a forearm over his forehead and gave a lopsided smile. ‘Piece of cake. I’m just going to wash my hands and find another heater to put in here. This room isn’t warm enough for her.’

He vanished for a moment and the returned with two heaters, a drink for Miranda and the phone in his hand.

‘The phone’s working again. I want you to go into hospital, Miranda. She looks fine to me and you look fine, too, but it was all a bit quick for my liking and the roads are so bad that we wouldn’t be able to get you to hospital in a hurry if it suddenly became necessary.’

Miranda frowned. ‘Do I have to?’

‘Just for tonight. Oh, by the way, there was a message on the machine. Someone about a flat. The landlord told you it wasn’t available until the spring but apparently the tenants have found somewhere else and are moving today, so it’s yours whenever you want it.’

She waited for him to say something about not wanting her to leave but he said nothing at all, just finished clearing up, fetched her a few things that he knew she’d need and made a few notes to give to the ambulance crew.

And he still didn’t look at the baby.

Which meant only one thing as far as she was concerned. He wasn’t interested in her, Miranda thought miserably, holding back the tears that threatened.

It was late the following afternoon when Jake walked up to the side room. In his arms were a teddy bear and a huge bunch of flowers.

This, he decided as he put a hand on the door and steeled himself to open it, was going to be one of the hardest five minutes of his life.

He was going to deliver the flowers, say all the things he was expected to say and then just get out as fast as he could, hopefully before he made a complete and utter fool of himself.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door and walked into the room, a smile pinned on his face. The smile faded instantly when he saw that the room was empty.

And then he heard a faint gurgle coming from the cot by the bed and he realised that the room wasn’t empty at all. The baby was in the cot. But there was no sign of Miranda.

Wondering why he was intent on torturing himself, he stepped over to the cot and stared down.

The baby lay with her eyes closed, her tiny mouth moving in her sleep.

Jake felt his heart twist. ‘Hi, there.’ His voice was soft as he reached down and touched her cheek. ‘It’s nice to meet you properly.’

Miranda paused in the doorway of her bathroom, her eyes on Jake.

He obviously didn’t realise she was in the room and he was talking to the baby.
Touching her.

‘I didn’t get a good look at you yesterday,’ he was saying softly, a gentle look in his eyes as he leaned over the cot. ‘I was too busy worrying about your mum.’

Miranda frowned. He’d been worried about her? He certainly hadn’t seemed worried.

The baby gurgled sleepily and Jake smiled. ‘You’re going to make your mum very happy. Which is a good thing, because it’s what she deserves.’

‘Jake?’ Miranda stepped into the room and he turned to face her, his eyes suddenly wary.

‘I didn’t know you were there.’

‘I was using the bathroom.’ She looked at him. ‘I—I heard what you said. I didn’t know you were worried about me.’

He gave a faint smile. ‘You were eavesdropping on a private conversation.’

‘Why were you worried? You’re a brilliant obstetrician and I’ve never known you worry about anyone before.’

He stared at her for a long moment and then he gave a humourless laugh. ‘I’ve never been called on to deliver the baby of the woman I love before. Believe me, it’s entirely different. Objectivity flies out of the window. I was scared to death.’

Her heart fluttered in her chest. ‘The woman you love?’

He shook his head and gave a weary smile. ‘I can’t argue this with you again, Miranda.’ He handed her the flowers and put the teddy bear down on the bed. ‘These are for you. I know you’ll be coming home later, but everyone needs flowers when they’re in hospital. And now I ought to go. I have a clinic and—’

‘The clinic can wait.’ She clutched the flowers against her chest, her breathing unsteady. ‘You haven’t told me that you love me since that night we made love. And yesterday, when the baby was born, you hardly looked at her. I assumed that I’d ruined everything. That you’d changed your mind. About her and about me.’

He was silent for a moment and then he ran a hand over the back of his neck, visibly tense. ‘Does it really make any difference how I feel, Miranda?’

‘Actually, yes, it does.’ Her voice cracked and she found herself hoping that the baby wouldn’t wake up for a few minutes. There were things that she needed to say, things that were so difficult for her she couldn’t risk being interrupted.

But Jake spoke first. ‘All right. I wasn’t going to say this now. Giving birth is an emotional time for a woman and I
wanted to give you some space, but I may as well be honest. You’re right when you said that I didn’t look at the baby. I didn’t. And the reason for that was that I didn’t dare. I knew that if I looked at her, all attempts at being one step removed and functioning as an obstetrician would fly out of the window. You gave birth very quickly, Miranda.’ His tone was quiet and serious. ‘No end of things could have gone wrong and I wanted to make sure that they didn’t. I couldn’t afford the distraction.’

‘And that’s why you seemed so detached? Uninterested?’

He walked across to the window and stared out across the hospital car park. ‘I wasn’t uninterested.’

‘What then?’

‘It was self-protection.’ He turned. ‘Because if I’d looked at the baby then I would have fallen in love with her and I can’t afford to do that. It’s bad enough losing you, without losing her as well.’

‘Losing me?’

‘You’re moving out and you’re taking the baby with you. And I don’t know how to stop you. I don’t know how to prove to you that I love you and I don’t know how to prove to you that I love your daughter.’

‘I thought it was too late. I thought you’d changed your mind.’ Miranda closed her eyes and allowed the happiness to flood through her. ‘All night I lay awake, fantasising about you saying those words.’

He frowned. ‘Why would you have to fantasise when you knew how I felt?’

‘Because I thought you’d changed your mind. You were so cool and detached when you delivered her, I thought that reality had finally hit home. It seemed as though you couldn’t wait to get the pair of us out of your house and into hospital.’

‘In a way I couldn’t,’ he confessed. ‘I didn’t want to put more pressure on you at that particular moment when all your attention should have been on your new baby. And you’d already made it clear how you felt.’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘That isn’t true. I told you about my fears. I told myself that I had to protect the baby at all costs. What I didn’t tell you was that I love you, too. I knew it weeks ago, but I knew if I admitted it you’d never take no for an answer.’

He stilled. ‘But if you loved me, why would you want me to take no for an answer?’

‘Because I have a responsibility towards my daughter. I’m responsible for her happiness. I thought that promise meant never marrying anyone.’ She put the flowers down carefully. ‘But then I realised that my daughter’s happiness might involve giving her an amazing father. You. I was ready to tell you last night but then I went into labour.’

For a moment he just stood there, staring at her, and then he muttered something under his breath, crossed the room and hauled her into his arms.

‘I can’t believe you’re saying those words,’ he groaned against her neck. ‘I’ve been planning my next move with the precision of a military campaign. I’ve been planning ways to persuade you to trust me enough to marry me.’

‘You don’t need a military campaign. I trust you, Jake.’ She slid her arms round his neck. ‘I love you.’

‘And I love you.’ He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her long and hard. Then he lifted his head and stroked her hair away from her face. ‘How could you possibly think my feelings had changed?’

‘I pushed you away—I assumed you’d given up.’

He gave a slow smile. ‘I don’t give up easily, sweetheart. You should know that about me by now.’ He studied her face
for a long moment and his smile faded. ‘It’s important that you understand that. No matter what happens, nothing is going to stop me loving you and the baby. Nothing.’

‘You’ve no idea how it feels to hear you say that.’

‘Well, you’d better get used to it because I’m going to be saying it all the time. And what about you?’ He hugged her closer. ‘As a matter of interest, what changed your mind?’

‘I didn’t exactly change my mind. I knew I loved you. The only thing that changed was that I decided to tell you. Last night Christy came to see me and after she left I sat in the dark and did a lot of thinking.’

He gave a short laugh. ‘That explains the mess in my kitchen. I wondered where the scones came from.’

‘She told me a few things. Things that I already knew. Things I was allowing myself to ignore because of Keith.’

‘What things?’

‘That you’re a good man. That you were fully aware of the responsibility you’d be taking on, that if you said you wanted the baby, too, you meant it…’

He frowned and his gaze turned to the cot where the baby lay sleeping. ‘It doesn’t feel like a responsibility, Miranda. It feels like a gift.’

At that moment the baby woke up and started to whimper. Miranda smiled at Jake. ‘Go on, then—if you’re going to be her father, you’d better start getting to know her.’

‘Have you thought of a name? I can’t keep calling her “the baby”.’

Miranda brushed her hair out of her eyes. ‘Can we call her Hope?’

‘Hope Blackwell.’ Jake said it slowly and then nodded. ‘Hope. Sounds good. What made you think of it?’

She hesitated. ‘It’s what you’ve given me. When we met on Christmas Day I was in the depths of despair. I was cold,
lost and completely alone,’ she said softly, ‘and then you appeared out of the mist. And from then on, no matter how many times I tried to push you away, you were always by my side. And that made everything better. I’d grown up believing that happy families were an illusion, but you’ve convinced me that I’m wrong.’

He smiled and lifted the baby out of the cot. ‘So are you giving me Hope or am I giving you Hope?’

‘Both.’ She watched him. Watched the tender way he held the baby. How could she have doubted him? Feeling ridiculously happy, she sat down in the chair and prepared to feed the baby. ‘I’d better ring that man and tell him I no longer want the flat.’

‘No need.’ Jake placed the baby carefully in her arms. ‘I’ve already done it.’

‘You have?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Why?’

‘Because there was no way I was letting you move out! I was buying myself more time.’

She shook her head in amazement. ‘You’re manipulative, do you know that? Some might even call you arrogant.’

‘The word is constant.’ He leaned forward and kissed her. ‘I’m in love, Miranda. And seeing the baby just doubled my determination to marry you. Two for the price of one. My girls. I love you.’

‘And I love you, too.’