A Wife for the Baby Doctor

None of them knew whether it was a girl or a boy… Pammy said she wanted to wait until the baby was born to find out, the way she always waited till Christmas morning to open her presents. Josh had already persuaded her that it should be called Daniel if it was a boy, but if it was born too soon, it wouldn’t be able to live and it wouldn’t matter what it was called because it would never survive long enough to know that he would have been the best big brother ever.

‘Josh, they have to operate,’ his mother said in a funny choked voice, and he felt even worse when he saw that she was crying, too. She and Pammy had known each other for hundreds of years…ever since they’d met in that group home when they were little. They always said that they might not have been born sisters, but they were sisters now. Better than sisters.

‘If they don’t operate quickly, Pam will die,’ she continued urgently. ‘She might die even if they do, and then the baby would die, too, so Mr Kasarian really doesn’t have any choice.’

He flung himself into her arms and they clung together, sobbing and terrified that they were going to lose the only family they had in the world.

‘I’m sorry, Sister Weath—Meredith,’ Mr Kasarian interrupted himself, the grey pallor of defeat dulling his stubble-darkened golden skin and robbing his dark eyes of their usual sparkle.

Josh had never seen him like this before; had usually seen him smiling as he answered one of the millions of questions Josh peppered him with, even though he wasn’t supposed to be visiting the unit. ‘Even though Pam didn’t work in this particular department, she was one of ours, too, so you know that we did everything we could…’

‘Of course you did,’ his mother agreed softly from behind a shaky hand, her other hand tightening painfully around Josh’s. He didn’t care how tight she squeezed. Nothing could hurt worse than the pain inside him.

‘If only someone had found her sooner,’ the consultant continued. ‘By the time we got her to Theatre she’d already been convulsing for so long that…’ He shook his head. ‘She was already going into multi-organ failure. All we could do was to try to save the baby.’

‘So they’re both dead,’ his mother mourned, her voice so choked with tears that Josh could hardly understand the words. ‘My best friend and her baby, both gone in one day when we’d got so many plans to—’

‘No!’ the consultant interrupted, suddenly quite flustered. ‘I’m so sorry, Meredith. I can’t have made myself clear. I lost your friend, but her baby is still alive…for the moment, at least.’

‘What? It’s alive?’ Josh wasn’t certain whether he’d spoken or if it had been his mother.

‘Yes, Josh. It was a little girl, and she’s very small, but she’s a real fighter.’

‘A girl!’ Josh didn’t know whether to be disappointed that it hadn’t been Daniel, the little brother he’d wanted, or just to be pleased that Pammy’s baby was still alive.

‘Can we see her?’ his mother asked, and for one horrified moment Josh thought she was asking to see Pammy, and the idea that he might see the woman who had been an extra mother to him the whole of his life lying there, dead, made him feel sick.

‘Of course you can, Meredith,’ the consultant said with a reassuring smile, and with a silent sigh of relief, Josh realised that he and his mother were talking about the baby. ‘Just as soon as she’s been settled in the unit and… well, I don’t need to tell you any of that,’ he added with a shrug. ‘You probably know just as much about that side of things as I do…probably more. You’ve been working in the unit long enough.’

‘Oh, Josh,’ his mother murmured when Mr Kasarian left, and when he saw her eyes filling with tears again a feeling of panic filled him in an overwhelming flood.

All his life it had been the three of them coping together against the world, him, his mum and Pammy. He’d never known his own father because he’d died in a motorcycle accident before he’d been born, and he’d never met the father of Pammy’s baby either, but there’d never been a time when Pammy hadn’t been there to help him cheer his mother up when she was sad. Now there was only him, and he had no idea what to say to stop her crying, not when he felt so much like giving in to the tears, too.

‘We’ll manage, Mum,’ he said shakily as he patted her arm, wishing he believed it even as he voiced the words that Pammy had always said. ‘We’re the three musketeers, remember? And we’ll still be the three musketeers…only this time I won’t be the youngest.’

‘The three musketeers,’ Josh murmured as he hung his stethoscope around his neck and stuffed a notepad in the pocket of his white coat. ‘What on earth made me think of that today?’

That scene had taken place at least twenty-seven years ago and had been a pivotal point in his life. The first moment he’d seen that tiny, almost transparent scrap of a baby he’d known exactly what branch of medicine he wanted to concentrate on when he was all grown up.

It must have taken some determination on his mother’s part to survive in those early years, going from a household consisting of one child supported by two wage earners to one of two children supported by just one SCBU nurse. He never did know how she’d persuaded the authorities to allow her to adopt Pammy’s baby, but he did know that she was a formidable woman when she set her mind to something. By his early teens he’d become very adept at finding employers who would overlook the fact that he was underage for a job by playing on the fact that he was tall and blessed with a responsible attitude. But even though he was helping to support their little family, nothing was allowed to interfere with his grades at school; nothing was permitted to get in the way of his eventual acceptance into medical school and the first step on the road to becoming a paediatric consultant.

The ring of the phone dragged him out of his unaccustomed ramble down memory lane.

‘Yes, Caitlin?’

‘Dr Dixon has arrived,’ his secretary told him quietly, and a quick glance at his watch reminded him that he should have been ready ten minutes ago to greet the new member of staff beginning her first day on the unit.

Exactly how many minutes had he been standing there wool-gathering when there was a whole department out there depending on his input?

‘Twenty-seven years on and I still can’t forget the chaos that tiny baby caused in our lives,’ he complained to the walls of his cramped office, then growled at the fact that Dr Danielle Dixon would definitely get the wrong impression if she heard him talking to himself.

He strode out into the corridor, trying to ignore the fact that he hadn’t a clue whether it was dread or excitement that was filling his stomach with butterflies.

‘I’m a consultant, for heaven’s sake,’ he muttered crossly as he strode out of the room. A relatively new one, admittedly, but as far as could tell, he was well respected by his immediate colleagues and his peers. He certainly didn’t need to worry that the newest member of the team was going to be able to find fault with anything that happened in his unit, but…

His thoughts stalled abruptly when he caught sight of the slender, almost child-like figure waiting uncertainly by the main reception desk at the entrance to the unit.

He couldn’t seem to breathe for a moment as he was struck by her ethereal beauty, then couldn’t help taking advantage of the fact she hadn’t seen him to look his fill.

She looked as if a puff of wind would blow her away, and that impression was only compounded by the soft cloud of silvery blonde curls and deep blue eyes that made her seem as if she only needed a pair of gossamer wings to complete the picture.

Utter nonsense, he scoffed silently. You only had to take a look at that determined little chin to realise that she had enough stubbornness for a whole herd of mules. That, after all, was what it would have needed to get her to this point in her life.

‘Ah, there you are, Mr Weatherby,’ the receptionist said, and the newest member of his team turned sharply towards him and almost felled him in his tracks with a single smile.

‘Josh!’ she exclaimed, hurrying towards him and clearly bubbling over with excitement.

‘Dr Dixon,’ he replied firmly, in spite of the fact that his voice felt almost rusty in his throat.

He saw the split second that she realised her faux pas and watched her deliberately replace her happy expression with a more serious one. ‘I’m sorry. I mean, good morning, Mr Weatherby.’

The attempt at keeping her expression straight failed in a second and he was almost tempted to laugh out loud. That face would never be able to hide what she was thinking and feeling, any more than those blue eyes could stop gleaming with the sheer joy of being alive. That was just one reason why he would always blame himself for…

‘I can’t believe it, can you?’ she demanded, stepping close enough to grab his arm with one slender hand and almost bouncing with excitement.

Even through the thick cotton of his white coat and the thinner sleeve of his shirt he could feel the warmth of her hand, but the sensation was far closer to the sharp hum of electricity as every hair stood to attention all over his body at the innocent contact.

‘I finally made it, Josh! I’m on the way to being a paediatrician. Isn’t it just the most—?’

‘Congratulations,’ he interrupted formally, conscious of watchful eyes and wary of gossip.

As he forced himself to step back, he told himself that it was not only on his own account but for the sake of the newest member of his team. She would hardly want to be the subject of hospital gossip on her first morning.

The increased distance between them meant that she had to release her hold on him but he still had to stifle a groan at his body’s instant response to the innocuous contact from her slender hand.

It was just so wrong.

This was Dani, the tiny baby he’d fallen in love with from the first moment he’d seen her in the incubator that day, and who’d been his baby sister in everything but blood and name.

And from this morning on, he reminded himself silently, she was just the latest doctor to spend six months in his department while she decided whether it was the area of medicine in which she wanted to specialise.

‘Now,’ he said briskly, ‘if you’d like to follow me, let’s see just how much you’ve learned.’

He turned and strode back towards the other end of the unit, cursing himself for his abruptness. Once again he’d wiped the happiness off her face as swiftly as if he’d slapped her, and that hadn’t been his intention. He just couldn’t cope with any physical contact between the two of them, no matter how innocuous; had deliberately avoided being anywhere in her vicinity ever since the disastrous events of her eighteenth birthday.

‘I don’t know how detailed a tour you were given around the unit when you came for your interview, but—’

‘Josh,’ she interrupted softly, her dark blue eyes looking almost bruised. ‘Is this going to be too difficult for you…having me working in your unit?’