A Doctor, A Nurse: A Christmas Baby

He looked like all kids with severe malabsorption disorders. Skinny arms and legs and a protruding stomach. While long-term parenteral nutrition was lifesaving for Dougy it did have its side effects, and Maggie knew liver damage was a major contributing factor to Dougy’s pot belly. She could feel its rounded contours through the thin cotton of his hospital-issue pyjama shirt and dropped another kiss on his head.

‘So this is where the party’s at.’

Maggie would have jumped a mile in the air had Dougy not been weighing her down as Nash Reece’s voice intruded into the studio bubble. What the…? Was the man stalking her?

‘Dr Reece!’

Maggie blinked as Christine jumped up from the console, reefing her headphones off smiling crazily at him. She turned to see him standing in the doorway in dark chinos and another checked shirt. A young child sat on his hip, pulling at a lopsided bandage wrapped around its head. Nash looked natural, at ease with the child and her stomach did that strange flopping thing again.

Nash smiled at the teenager. ‘Hello, Christine.’Then he turned to Maggie, looking smoking hot in her tight black denim Capri pants and her red Radio Giggle top fitting snugly across her breasts. ‘Hello, Maggie from ICU.’

Maggie felt heat creep into her cheeks as his eyes roved all over her body.

‘This little munchkin says his name is Brodie and he wants to say hello to everyone on ward three,’ he announced to Christine, dragging his eyes off Maggie.

‘Bring him over here.’ Christine smiled, holding out her arms and waggling her fingers. ‘I’ll help him. Then we can do your interview.’

Maggie looked at him dumbly as Christine settled the little one on her lap. ‘You’re the interviewee?’

Nash chuckled. ‘You think I’m going to tank?’

Maggie felt more fire in her cheeks. ‘Of course not.’ It was hardly Meet the Press. She’d just wished she’d known. She hadn’t asked Christine about the interview because she’d assumed it was going to be one of the other inpatients as usual. ‘How’d that come about?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve been dropping in from time to time and Christine asked if she could interview me.’

Nash had been dropping in to Radio Giggle? ‘Oh,’ she said.

‘What about you? You help out here much?’

Maggie shrugged. ‘From time to time.’

‘Hey,’ Christine said, butting in. ‘That’s not true. Don’t listen to her, Dr Reece.’ She pointed to a series of framed photos on the wall above the console, several of them starring Maggie. ‘Ross says Maggie was the driving force behind Radio Giggle and that it wouldn’t even exist without her.’

Nash cocked his head back and looked at the enlarged snaps. A younger-looking Maggie with headphones on, sporting a wedding band and grinning at the camera caught his eye. And another with Maggie helping a very official-looking gent in a suit cut a ribbon across the doorway behind him.

He whistled. Yesterday he’d seen her as the efficient PICU nurse and today he’d seen her in another light. While his libido saw her as a gorgeous, sexy woman, the evidence of his eyes told him Maggie was definitely more than a pretty face.

Dougy finally looked up from his picture. ‘Dr Reece,’ he called, and Maggie was spared from the frank curiosity in Nash’s face.

‘Hey, Dougy.’ Nash crossed the small distance and crouched beside Maggie. Doug had been his patient during his medical rotation. ‘How you doin’, mate?’

Dougy held up his colouring book. ‘I’m colouring in a princess. Isn’t she pretty?’

Nash nodded. ‘As a picture.’

‘She’s not as pretty as Maggie, though.’

Nash, fully aware that his knee was almost brushing her thigh, glanced at her face and smiled as Maggie’s cheeks bloomed with another flush of red.

Out of the mouths of babes.

‘No,’ he agreed, his gaze holding hers. ‘No one’s as pretty as Maggie.’

There was a strange couple of seconds when everyone else in the room ceased to exist. And it was in that moment that Maggie saw the difference in Nash. He wanted her, she could tell, but there was something more there. Respect maybe. Whatever it was it was infinitely more seductive than flirty Nash of yesterday.

‘Okay,’ Christine said, pulling the earphones away again while simultaneously jiggling her new assistant on her lap. ‘After this song you’re up, Dr Reece. Are you ready?’

Nash reluctantly flicked his gaze from Maggie to Christine, giving the teenager his full attention. ‘Ready when you are.’

Maggie watched Christine blush under Nash’s gaze. It was apparent the girl had a massive crush on him, a fact of which he was obviously aware as he carefully navigated the interview. He was charming and gentlemanly to a fault, and everything a teenager hooked on Jane Austen could ever hope for, but Maggie could tell he was constantly aware of the boundary.

He spoke about growing up on a huge cattle property hundreds of kilometres west of Sydney in rural New South Wales and taking his school lessons via a radio through the School of the Air and mustering cattle in a helicopter.

‘And why did you decide to become a doctor?’ Christine asked.

Maggie, who’d been preoccupied with colouring a pink flower, looked up at the question. Christine had her back to Maggie but Nash was facing her. She noticed that at some stage Brodie had switched laps and was once again cuddled into Nash’s side. She wouldn’t have thought it possible but he looked more masculine, more appealing. Their gazes locked as he answered.

‘My sister was sick a lot when we were kids and she had to go to Sydney frequently for treatment because there just weren’t the services in the bush. I promised her then I’d become a doctor and change it.’

Maggie noticed the lightness to his voice and the smile he flashed Christine as he broke eye contact with her, but it was too late. For a brief moment she’d seen a vulnerability in his gaze as he’d spoken about his sister that called to her more than any amount of sexual attraction. And who could resist a fervent boyhood promise?

‘You told me the other day that Radio Giggle was a life-saver. What did you mean by that?’

Maggie gaped at the very grown-up question. Forget community radio, Christine was heading for a career with 60 Minutes.

‘The hospital in Sydney where Tammy…stayed had its own kids’ radio station. My sisters and I used to ring up and put in requests for her. She listened every day, she said it helped her miss home a little less.’

Goose-bumps broke out on Maggie’s arms at the streak of raw emotion in Nash’s not-quite-steady voice. His family had obviously been close and the connection with his ill sister through a hospital radio station, no matter how far in the past, clearly still resonated with him.

She’d never thought of that aspect of Radio Giggle before, more concerned with its diversionary attributes. But as a way for inpatients to feel connected to home, it was extraordinarily touching and she was proud all over again to be part of such a great organisation.

‘Do you have a special request for us today, Dr Reece?’

Brodie started to grizzle and Nash shifted him to the other hip and jiggled him a little. ‘I sure do. I’d like to hear “Puff the Magic Dragon.” It was Tammy’s favourite.’

Maggie was pleased for Dougy and her enforced activity as the mournful strains of ‘Puff’ filtered through the studio. She gripped the crayon hard, the goosebumps multiplying.

‘Thanks, Dr Reece,’ Christine enthused, pulling her headphones off.

Nash smiled and stood. Brodie was becoming more fractious, rubbing his eyes. ‘No probs.’ He started to sway as Brodie’s grizzling became louder. ‘Better get this little one back to the ward.’

Christine nodded. ‘See you later.’

He nodded to the teenager then looked down at Maggie, who was colouring in studiously. ‘See you, Maggie.’

Maggie looked up, unprepared for the picture Nash made as he swayed with bandage-headed Brodie. He was lean and sexy and utterly endearing. Yesterday she had thought how totally out of his league she was but today, child on hip, amidst the background chaos of Radio Giggle, he looked totally down-to-earth. Easily within reach. Temptingly so.

‘Bye,’ she dismissed, returning her attention to Dougy almost immediately.