A Mother For His Child Read online

  For no clear reason, as she wrapped herself in a warm, cherry-red robe, a memory of her mid-teen years came into her mind. She had stayed up until after one in the morning to study, and she’d heard her father coming home. He’d crept up the stairs, but not nearly as quietly as he’d thought. Her parents’ room had adjoined her own, and the walls had been thin. She’d heard her mother’s colourless voice, had felt her scalp tighten at its unaccustomed edge.

  ‘You’re home early tonight. Didn’t she beg you to stay the night?’

  ‘Give it a rest, Dolly.’ That had been her father’s low, irritated rumble.

  ‘Oh, another woman who “means nothing”?’ The colourless voice had risen.

  ‘They never do. Why can’t you believe that? It’s physical.’

  ‘I’m physical! I’m physical, David!’

  ‘I’m tired…’ her father had said.

  Maggie thought it was probably soon after that night when she’d started rising early to study instead of staying up late. Mom had finally left Dad about seven years ago, when Maggie’s younger sister Nancy had gone away to college…

  ‘Dr Lawless? Dr Lawless?’

  She heard the treble of a boy’s voice as she hurried down the stairs, but couldn’t yet put a name to him. Should have done, she realised as soon as she saw him at the sliding door leading in from her wide wooden deck. It was Tyler Bailey. He was a thin, wiry ten-year-old, who was prone to chest infections. She’d seen him in her office several times over the past few years.

  ‘Mom’s having the baby,’ he gasped, as soon as she’d opened it. ‘She can’t walk and Dad can’t help her. He needs his stick too much.’

  ‘I’m coming, Tyler. Where’s Lily?’

  ‘With Mom and Dad.’ He was shivering.

  ‘You stay here in the warm,’ she told him. ‘I’ll send Lily and your dad up. He can make you all some hot chocolate while I help your mom get up the steps.’

  The ten-year-old nodded, still shaking. It was chilly out there. Maggie could feel the cold breath of the lake breeze coming in through the sliding door.

  ‘There’s a rug over the back of the couch. Wrap yourself up,’ she urged, then left him to hurry across the deck and down to the dock.

  Laura was still in the boat, trapped there by the force of her contractions. Curtis had his hand stretched out to her. He was crouched awkwardly, and his stick was angled on the wooden planking of the dock beside him. Maggie wondered if he had fallen while trying to help his wife to shore.

  ‘I can’t!’ she heard Laura say. ‘I have to wait till this one ends.’

  ‘They’re coming so fast,’ Curtis answered. His voice was harsh with frustration. ‘There isn’t time between them for me to get you out. And I’m just not strong enough any more.’

  ‘Mom-my-y!’ six-year-old Lily wailed from the dock. She was stretching out in a vain effort to help, and looked frozen and shivering, just as her brother had been.

  They all caught sight of Maggie.

  ‘Dr Lawless, thank heaven!’ Laura’s breathing had eased now as the pain ebbed.

  Maggie quickly shooed Lily up to the house with more promises of hot chocolate and toast, then turned back to her patient. ‘Let’s do this,’ she said. ‘Can you stand up?’

  ‘Maybe…’

  ‘Lean on me.’

  ‘OK. Curtis—’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he growled.

  Behind her, Maggie was aware of his struggle to get his stick into position and get to his feet but, knowing his independent spirit, she resisted the impulse to help. She understood this sort of defiant courage, and in any case, she had her hands full enough with Laura. Another contraction came as soon as Laura was safely on the dock, and she sagged into Maggie’s arms, overwhelmed by pain.

  When it was over, she gasped, ‘You said yesterday that my cervix was ripe. Now I know what you meant. Don’t think…hospital…is going to…happen.’

  ‘We’ll get you into my office,’ Maggie said. ‘I have everything we need. You do your job and I’ll do mine, OK?’

  The walk from the dock was slowed and punctuated by several relentless contractions, and they barely made it up to the deck before Laura felt her first compulsion to push.

  Curtis was torn. ‘I want to see to the kids, but—’

  ‘They were shivering. I promised them hot chocolate,’ Maggie reminded him. ‘Check back here when they’re settled. I’ll call you if things move too fast.’

  Laura leaned her shoulder and forehead crookedly against the wall, straining. Curtis squeezed her hand and said, ‘Three minutes, I’ll be back. Don’t rush this, OK? Wait for me!’

  She couldn’t summon a smile.

  ‘If you want to stay like this, that’s fine,’ Maggie told her. ‘Any position that works, OK?’

  ‘My legs are shaking,’ Laura moaned.

  ‘You’re scared you’re going to fall?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘How about we try the couch?’ Without waiting for an answer, Maggie whipped out a couple of sheets and spread them over the fabric, plumped up the cushions and tried to help Laura to settle, but she was too out of control.

  ‘I can’t do this!’

  ‘Yes, you can!’

  ‘It doesn’t feel good.’

  ‘I know.’

  Laura was straining again, her knees on the floor and her head and arms resting on the couch. ‘It’s not working. It hurts too much.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Maggie urged. ‘The baby’s coming.’

  She scrambled down beside Laura and was able to feel the baby’s position at last. Good. Normal. Head low and about to crown, in the occiput anterior position, which most women found the least painful. Pain being a relative word in this case…

  Laura’s contraction ebbed and she immediately began shuddering violently. Maggie stroked her back and held her shoulders, but the next contraction was already beginning. ‘Focus now, Laura. You’ll really feel some progress this time.’

  Her face darkened with effort and the head crowned fully, slipping back only a little as Laura’s effort ceased.

  ‘It’s there!’ Maggie said. ‘It’s right there, Laura!’

  Curtis’s stick and his arrhythmic gait sounded just beyond the connecting door that joined the professional suite to the private part of the house. Maggie opened it for him and said urgently, ‘This is it, Dad. Next contraction should bring the head out if she really works hard.’

  They heard Laura’s groaning cry and hurried back. ‘Help me!’ she said.

  Curtis threw his stick aside and half collapsed beside his wife. Laura had risen to her feet now, legs braced wide apart.

  How am I going to catch this one? Maggie wondered briefly, but then it all happened so fast that she only had time to act, not to think at all.

  The head squeezed out, slick and dark and wet. She grabbed a suction bulb, cleared the small airway and checked the position of the cord. Laura pushed again, and the rest of the baby—a perfectly formed boy—rotated in the birth canal then slid free and into Maggie’s waiting hands. He cried at once, and so did Laura, her tears blurring into incoherent words of delight and relief.

  Maggie slid the baby onto Laura’s stomach as she lay back on the rumpled sheet that covered the couch. She did a quick calculation and gave him an Apgar score of seven, at one minute of age. Curtis had his face buried in his wife’s hair.

  ‘Love you…love you,’ he whispered.

  Then he lost his balance and fell awkwardly to the floor. Laura cried out, but he hissed between his teeth, ‘It’s nothing. Watch the baby. I’m OK. Let me sit here.’

  ‘Sit’ wasn’t really the word. He was lying awkwardly, propped up a little on one forearm. It had to hurt, but his closed, angry face warded off Maggie’s instinct to help.

  ‘Nobody’s going anywhere,’ she said, more cheerfully than she felt. ‘It’s fine. How’s he doing, Laura? Are you trying to put him to the breast?’

  ‘Yes, and look! He knows exact
ly what to do, don’t you, little guy? He’s so alert!’

  ‘Could you push for me again, Laura? Easy this time.’

  Working with the mild contraction, Maggie eased out the remaining length of cord and a healthy-sized placenta, which she placed in a metal dish to be weighed and checked. A cursory look suggested that it was complete, but it was important to make sure.

  ‘Mom?’ A quavery voice called from just beyond the connecting door. ‘Lily’s scared, out by ourselves. Can we come? We can hear the baby.’

  ‘Oh, please! Please, come and see him!’ Laura called back, and the two children appeared, nosing their way tentatively though the doorway. They were obviously and understandably worried they might be ambushed by the sight of something ‘gross’. But when they saw the baby…

  Maggie couldn’t hide her smile.

  ‘Is it really a boy?’ Tyler asked.

  ‘He’s so little!’

  ‘Why is he so red?’

  ‘His hair is stuck down,’ Lily said.

  ‘What’s he called? You wouldn’t tell us names before, in case we said yuck.’

  ‘We won’t, I promise, Mommy…’

  ‘Joel Adam,’ Curtis said. ‘He’s called Joel Adam.’ He had sat up more fully, and was leaning his back against the edge of the couch. ‘Is he pretty cool, kids?’

  ‘Yeah!’ They both grinned.

  Maggie saw Curtis make a brief spurt of effort, as if to try and get up, but he must have decided he couldn’t. He stayed where he was. She sensed that something was wrong, but couldn’t give priority to the problem right now.

  ‘We have to decide what we’re going to do with the two of you, Laura,’ she said.

  Laura winced. ‘You mean the hospital? Do I have to? They’ll only send us home again tomorrow.’

  ‘You mean you want to head home now? That’s a little too soon…’

  ‘I’ve twisted my ankle, Laura,’ Curtis cut in quietly. He added something under his breath that sounded like a curse.

  Her face fell. ‘I guess that means…I mean, in any case, you’re right, Dr Lawless, I can’t hop in the boat right this minute, can I? Forget it. Stupid! I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess you should call the ambulance.’

  ‘You said you had friends on standby,’ Maggie suggested.

  ‘And my parents are all set to drive up from the city as soon as we call.’

  ‘Stay here for a couple of hours. Phone whoever you like. I can keep an eye on you. So far, everything’s looking fine. Curtis, I’ll check your ankle and bandage it up. It’s not the worst mishap I’ve seen happen to a dad during delivery.’

  ‘OK, thanks,’ he growled, then deflected attention quickly from himself by asking, ‘Kids, are you hungry? What’s the time? Six? How’s about we make Mom and Dr Lawless some breakfast?’

  ‘How crazy am I to be going for this?’ Will muttered to himself. He eased his rental car into the neat apron of gravel that served as the parking area for Maggie’s practice.

  ‘Yake!’ Daniel exclaimed from the back seat.

  ‘Yes, that’s the lake,’ he agreed automatically. ‘Isn’t it pretty?’

  ‘Pretty yake!’

  Pretty lake, pretty house, pretty town—if you could call this loose string of well-cared-for houses set on carpets of lush grass a town. The doctor wasn’t exactly a strain on the eyes either.

  Pretty doctor.

  Daniel probably wouldn’t say it, but Will would still be thinking it.

  ‘Oh, just get over it!’ he berated himself. He opened the door and reached into the back seat to unstrap his son.

  Last night hadn’t gone according to plan. The plan had been that Will would be in full possession of his usual instinct for the right approach. The maddening, thwarted, senseless attraction he’d always felt towards Maggie Lawless would have completely disappeared in the years since he’d seen her. They would relate to each other in a normal way, over a pleasant yet businesslike meal. He wouldn’t feel compelled to confirm her negative opinion of him by behaving badly, and he’d know by the end of the evening if the partnership idea was going to work out.

  This morning’s get-together over a late breakfast should simply involve setting out some practical details. Instead, it felt more like one of those psychological profile tests that certain large corporations now administered to prospective employees.

  He’d been electrified last night by his sudden realisation that Maggie was attracted to him. Was it new? Or had she felt it years ago, as he had, only she’d hidden it better? He didn’t know what to do with the new knowledge. Dismiss it? Chemistry could be a superficial thing. Treat it as a danger signal? Maybe this whole idea was a mistake. He hated this level of doubt.

  A couple of times he and Maggie had connected last night, agreed about something, arrived at a truce, sparked off each other’s ideas, and he’d thought, Yes, this is what I want.

  In a medical practice partner, of course.

  A second later, she had lacerated him with her tongue, reminding him of just how little a man could get away with when an intelligent woman knew him that well. The contradiction in her responses to him didn’t make sense. He didn’t need that sort of complexity in his life at the moment. He should run a mile.

  So why was he here?

  Because he just couldn’t lie down and accept defeat. Couldn’t do it in his twenties, and couldn’t do it now.

  Every item on his wish-list would have a check mark beside it by Christmas. A place for Daniel to be happy and healthy and safe and free. Check. A practice where his own workload was satisfying but not crushing. Check. A partner he trusted and respected on a professional level, in a way that he didn’t fully trust the two rather jaded and cynical doctors he worked with now. Most importantly, perhaps, there was distance—crucial, precious distance from his old life in Arizona.

  And from Maggie, he wanted…?

  Ah, hell! Admit it. Sex. He wanted sex.

  She was right. She was absolutely right. He was despicable. Worse, he was predictable. He was a carbon copy of countless unthinking males down the ages who believed that if they could get a woman into bed, they’d get what they were after in other areas as well.

  For years, even while perfectly satisfied with the physical aspect of his relationship with Alison, he’d flirted with the idea that if only he could race Maggie off for a one-night stand, she’d lose her ability to get him where it hurt.

  Why hadn’t he actually done it? He’d always told himself that it had been about not betraying Alison. That fancying another woman the way he’d fancied Maggie was bad enough, let alone acting on it, when Alison was the woman he’d loved. Despite what Maggie herself thought, he had had standards and principles, even at twenty. His principles were stronger now.

  But he suspected that, beyond this, his true motivation was a lot less admirable.

  Maggie was right in what that cool, rigid distance of hers communicated to him. He could deliver the most raw, romping, turbulent, flaming sex ever known, he could reduce himself to ashes on the pyre of her sensuality, and what, exactly, would he win?

  Maggie would still be Maggie. Self-contained. Securely grounded. Faintly amused but fundamentally unimpressed. If there was a hidden layer to her, a place where she wasn’t quite so sure of herself, it was buried pretty damned deep.

  ‘We’re here,’ he said, when she opened the front door.

  Will held Daniel in his arms and felt that his own heart was thudding too hard and too slowly against his ribs. If she didn’t respond well to Daniel then, after all, this would be easy. He despised anyone who looked askance at his little son once they knew of his rare genetic condition.

  ‘This is Daniel,’ he added gruffly. The importance of the moment made him ache.

  Dan wriggled in his arms, wanting to be put down. Will set him on his feet and Maggie bent down to him.

  ‘Hi, Daniel,’ she said easily, meeting his steady, two-year-old gaze. ‘I have some big kids here this morning. They’re havi
ng some juice. Would you like some?’

  ‘Hear that, Dan? Want some juice?’ Will prompted.

  No answer. Daniel was staring up at Maggie with Alison’s big blue eyes.

  ‘Come in. You’ll tell us what you want in a minute, won’t you, Daniel?’

  She turned and Will followed her, Daniel’s hand in his. He was grateful that she hadn’t kept them there on the doorstep, waiting for the child to find his voice. So far, she was passing the test.

  A crowd of thoughts and impressions elbowed each other for space in his mind. The cool tranquillity of the living-room they were passing through. The simple decor, including an open fireplace already set with a pyramid of small logs, ready for fall’s first chilly night a few weeks from now. Maggie’s compact, confident, square-shouldered, sexy walk. His own unfamiliar lack of certainty in the presence of this unique woman. Maggie would never believe this if he said it to her. He found it difficult to accept himself.

  She led him straight out to the deck that fronted the lake, and he saw the kids she’d mentioned.

  ‘Friends?’ he asked.

  ‘Clients, really.’ She gave a wide, almost iridescent smile. ‘Their mom had a baby in my office this morning.’

  ‘Wow! That’s not routine!’

  She said quietly, ‘The family’s not routine. Can’t tell you now.’ Then she raised her voice. ‘Tyler and Lily, this is Dr Braggett and his little boy, Daniel. More juice, kids?’

  ‘Yes, please!’ they both said, and Daniel piped up at last, too.

  ‘I want juice!’

  ‘Juice, please,’ Will suggested firmly.

  ‘Juice, pease.’

  The girl giggled. ‘He’s cute. His hair is so white and soft. Does he want to see our new baby?’

  ‘Mom and the baby are sleeping,’ the older boy said, squashing his sister’s eagerness with a frown.

  ‘Uh-oh, not any more, I don’t think,’ Maggie answered, pricking up her ears. ‘I can hear crying.’

  ‘Can we come?’ Lily asked.

  ‘No, honey, let me see if Mommy needs anything first. Then maybe she and the baby will want to come out here for a while, since it’s so nice.’