A Wife for the Baby Doctor

She sat back and stared at the final message he’d sent before severing the connection and couldn’t help the satisfied grin that crept over her face.

She’d been proud of herself for getting that right, especially with him hovering over her shoulder. That fragile vein couldn’t have been much thicker than a thread of cotton and she’d been certain that everyone could see that her hands were shaking with nerves, but the needle had gone in as easily as if she’d been doing it for years.

‘So, my first day wasn’t too bad,’ she murmured aloud as warmth spread through her at his praise. ‘Well, that’s stage one of the master plan under way. By the time the next six months are over, I’ll know whether I’m on track towards a paediatric consultancy.’

She pulled a face when a familiar voice in the corner of her mind said, She’s always been determined to follow in her big brother’s footsteps, ever since she learned to walk.

‘Oh, Mum, if only you knew,’ she said on a sigh, smiling when she remembered the last time she’d seen Meredith Kasarian, the only mother she’d ever known.

Josh’s mother had only been persuaded to take early retirement when the consultant who had tried to save Pam Dixon’s life all those years ago had finally convinced her to marry him.

Meredith had always been the sort to put on a cheerful face…but it had been a real eye-opener to see the soft expression in her eyes as she’d gazed at her new husband and to see her blushing like a girl when he’d claimed her with a kiss at the end of the wedding ceremony.

‘That’s what I want, too,’ Dani whispered wistfully, far from certain that she would ever achieve it. After all, there was a huge obstacle in her way by the name of Joshua Weatherby.

She cringed when she remembered her first attempt at telling him about her dream, and mourned the death of the closeness they’d shared for the first eighteen years of her life. From that day on, he had erected an impenetrable barrier between the two of them, preventing her from sharing anything but the most superficial of social conversations.

‘Well, I’ve got six months to change his mind,’ she declared aloud, needing to hear the words bounce back at her from the bland walls of her tiny staff flat to bolster her determination.

Even so, she couldn’t help wondering just how different the last few years would have been if she hadn’t drunk that glass of birthday champagne to bolster her courage before she’d spoken to him.

CHAPTER TWO

‘AND what are you doing in here, young man?’ said a voice over Josh’s shoulder. After an initial start of surprise, he relaxed and smiled, knowing that the apparently gruff words would be accompanied by a twinkle in the consultant’s dark eyes.

‘I’m visiting my sister while I wait for Mum to finish work,’ he explained, then held up his hands. ‘I scrubbed and used the hand gel and haven’t touched anything I shouldn’t.’

‘Good. Good,’ Mr Kasarian said seriously. ‘And how is our patient doing today?’

‘Much better,’ Josh said with a beaming smile. ‘When she was first born I didn’t know if she would stay alive… well, she was just so tiny, like a little bird that fell out of its nest before it grew any feathers.’

The consultant chuckled. ‘That’s exactly what they look like when they’re that small,’ he agreed.

‘And then she kept forgetting to breathe, and Sally showed me how to flick her under her foot to remind her, but she hasn’t needed to be reminded for a whole day… And she’s put on some weight, too!’ Josh couldn’t believe how much better he’d felt when he’d seen that little rise on the weight graph. It was as if that tiny gain had given him permission to believe that they weren’t going to lose Pammy’s baby, too.

‘There’s something else that we’ve noticed,’ Mr Kasarian said, drawing him out of his thoughts. ‘Look up at the monitor screen next time you come to visit your sister and see what happens when you start to talk to her. Sally was watching the other day and saw a change in her pulse and respirations…her breathing.’

‘And that’s a bad thing?’ Josh felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. The last thing he wanted was for his visits to make the baby sick. He knew from what his mum told him that the unit was always busy and there was never enough time to spend with her little patients. All he’d wanted to do was let the baby know that he was her big brother and he was there for her, but if coming to see her was causing her harm…

‘Not at all!’ Mr Kasarian exclaimed heartily. ‘It’s good. Very good. It seems as if she already recognises your voice, and her heart and her breathing are stronger when you’re with her.’

It almost felt as if his own heart was swelling in his chest and for a horrible moment he thought he was going to cry.

‘Really?’ he croaked with a mixture of pleasure and disbelief, for once not caring that his voice still sounded like a childish squeak. ‘She knows when I’m here?’

‘Check it for yourself when you come next time,’ Mr Kasarian said with a smile. ‘Watch the readouts on the monitors when you start speaking to her and you’ll see what we mean.’

‘Don’t be afraid to talk to him,’ Dani encouraged the terrified new mother as she hovered at the side of the high-tech isolette.

‘But he’s so small,’ Linda Prentiss whispered as tears welled up in her bloodshot eyes, evidence of the hours of crying she’d done since her tiny son, James, had been born. ‘And he jumps at noises.’

‘Sudden loud noises will do that to them, the same way it does with us. Just keep your voice to a gentle murmur. That way you won’t overload his little system.’

‘Surely it’s too early for him to be able to take anything in,’ she argued softly. ‘I wouldn’t want to do anything that might hurt him.’

‘Actually, it will probably do him a power of good,’ Josh interrupted, although Dani had known he was nearby. Her whole body seemed to be tuned in to his presence whenever he was near. ‘He already knows your voice, from all those months inside you. You’ll be reassuring him that you’re still close by in this big scary world.’

‘How can you possibly know that he recognises my voice?’ she challenged, the expression on her face a confusing mixture of hope and disbelief. ‘My in-laws are saying that he’s already so badly brain damaged that he’ll never be any better than a vegetable.’

‘I don’t believe that for a minute,’ Josh reassured her. ‘Of course, some very early babies do end up with permanent disabilities, especially if they have serious bleeding in their brains. But, so far, your son hasn’t had any problems like that, and we’re going to do our very best to help him to get out of here in the best possible health. Many premature babies go on to lead perfectly normal lives; some even become doctors and come back to take care of other premature babies, isn’t that right, Dr Dixon?’

‘I’ve heard of at least one case where that’s happened,’ Dani agreed, silently cursing him for putting her on the spot. He knew how easily she blushed, and the last thing she wanted was for the whole hospital to know that she’d once been a scrawny little scrap like their tiny patients. She’d far rather that they judged her on her performance as a doctor now.

‘But you really think he recognises my voice?’ Linda was too firmly focused on her son to have taken in any hints of a personal history. ‘How can you tell?’

‘The electronic equipment will tell you,’ he explained, and Dani held her breath as he paused for a moment, wondering if he was going to tell their patient’s mother the tale that she’d heard about all her life.

For the first time since she’d joined his team he actually allowed their eyes to meet and the feeling of connection was like an electric charge through her body.

‘Next time you come into the unit, you can test it,’ he continued with a slightly husky edge to his voice that told Dani he was reliving that long-ago shock of realisation. She’d first heard about it so long ago that it had always been a part of her life. ‘Before you say anything to him, watch the monitors, then see what happens to his breathing and his heart rate when you start talking to him. It might take a couple more days before you can see it clearly, because he’s had a traumatic few hours and needs to catch up with himself, but I shall expect a full report before the end of the week. OK?’

‘OK,’ she whispered, and Dani wasn’t surprised to see that for the first time since her son had arrived on the unit, Linda’s expression held more hope than despair.

‘He’s so nice,’ she whispered to Dani as Josh let himself out of the room. ‘From what you see on the television and in films, I thought consultants were all pompous tyrants, but he sounds as if he really understands what I’m going through; as if he really cares.’

‘He’s special,’ Dani agreed readily, then could have kicked herself when she saw the flash of speculation in the young woman’s eyes. ‘As you said,’ she continued hastily, ‘some consultants are terrible to work with. I haven’t been here long, but so far he’s been fine—a good boss and a good teacher. Now, how about making yourself comfortable in that chair beside the isolette? Do you want a couple of pillows behind your back? You must still be very sore after the delivery, and your midwife will be very cross with me if I don’t look after you properly.’

She hardly saw anything of Josh for the rest of that day, or the next, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t constantly in her thoughts.

All it had taken was the retelling of the story of her infant self reacting to his presence to reawaken her teenage conviction that there had always been a special connection between the two of them.

As a little girl, she’d only known that Josh was the best big brother that any girl could have. He’d been endlessly patient with the way she’d slavishly followed him around, when her friends’ brothers were forever telling their siblings that they were pests. And as for those times when she’d succumbed to a childish illness, because his…their…mother had needed to be at work, it had always been Josh’s gentle ministrations that had soothed her feverish bad temper and distracted her with yet another story.

It had only been when she’d started looking at him with the new awareness of a teenager’s eyes that everything had changed.

At first, she’d been frightened by the way her feelings towards her adored big brother had altered. There had been security in being his little Dani…the name he and his mother had compromised on in memory of the baby brother he’d wanted to call Daniel. The trouble was, each time he’d come home from medical school she’d seen how much he had changed while he’d been away, and even though a part of her had longed for the security of their old relationship, it had been impossible to go back.

It was only after the disaster of her eighteenth birthday that she’d realised that the changes had all been on her side. The look of horror on his face when she’d kissed him had proved that he’d been completely oblivious to the fact that she’d been growing up, that she didn’t see him as just a brother any more, and that expression was something she’d never been able to forget.

So, what on earth was she doing working with the man? Was she completely mad to put herself through six months of…of what?

She forced herself to think about the situation, calmly and rationally.

For a start, there wasn’t a post anywhere in the country where she would get a better grounding in her chosen field than in Josh’s department. In spite of his comparative youth, there were few who could equal his knowledge or his dedication. And if that came with six months of butterflies in her stomach whenever she heard his voice, or fighting down the urge to leap on him every time she saw him and beg him to kiss her senseless? Well, that was a price she was willing to pay.

Anyway, she’d never given up hoping. If she was lucky, her protective big brother might finally come to realise that she wasn’t his baby sister any more but an attractive woman who was as dedicated to her profession as he was.

‘But that won’t happen if I stand around with a besotted expression on my face when there are tests to perform and results to chase up,’ she muttered under her breath, and had to stifle a shriek when she saw the time. She’d come in early that morning to give herself some leeway, but now there was less than an hour left before Josh started the morning’s staff meeting, and the last thing she needed was to arrive late with half of the files incomplete.