Czytaj książkę: «The Pregnant Midwife»

CHAPTER ONE

Sydney—late September

MIRA! Kirsten Wilson stood outside the familiar three-storey headquarters of Mobile Infant Retrieval Australia and sighed with contentment at the sign. It was a relief to be back, both at MIRA and in Sydney.

Six years ago she’d watched the stabilisation and retrieval of a premature infant from Gladstone, her home town in northern New South Wales, and Kirsten had known MIRA was where she wanted to be. Before her stint in Dubai, she’d spent a year here at MIRA headquarters learning the ropes. It would be great to be back in the team.

Kirsten had moved her focus from the birthing suites favoured by her two older sisters, who still lived and worked in the tiny hospital at Gladstone, to the more specialised medical area of neonatal intensive care. But she would always share the Wilson family love for birth and holistic midwifery.

Kirsten adored tiny babies and revelled in the methodology of protocols in an emergency, which was why she’d gained as much experience as possible before her return to MIRA. Eagerly Kirsten swung open the door and stepped confidently into the foyer.

The receptionist jumped up to welcome her and Kirsten felt instantly at home. It was going to be a wonderful day.

‘Hi, Maggie.’ Kirsten couldn’t contain her grin. Maggie and Jim Rumble were childless and ran MIRA headquarters and the dynamic staff like the parents of a large family. Their unobtrusive guidance worked well in the often highly stressful situations.

Maggie, thinner and aged a little since last Kirsten had seen her, bustled out from behind the desk and hugged the much taller flight sister. ‘Kirsten. It’s wonderful to see you. Welcome back. I’ll take you through because I want to watch Jim’s face when he greets you.’

She pulled Kirsten to walk beside her, effervescent with excitement. ‘So when did you get back to Australia?’

Kirsten looked down at Maggie and slipped in a quick hug of her own. ‘I’ve only been back in Australia about two months. My older sister—you know Bella, she visited me here a few times—married one of the locums in Gladstone. I filled in on the wards up there while she was on her honeymoon.’ Her face softened. ‘And I’ve been learning to be an auntie to my eldest sister Abbey’s baby.’

She refocussed on the familiar corridors with approval. ‘Now I’m back in Sydney for a while and I’m so glad there was a vacancy here.’

‘There would always be a place for you here, you know that. For as long as your feet can stay in one place, that is.’ Maggie winked up at her. ‘Did you meet our current paediatrician, Dr Morgan, over in Dubai? He’s only worked here for a couple of months.’

Kirsten’s fingers tightened on her shoulder-bag strap and she forced them to relax their death grip. Not Hunter Morgan? Of all people! She kept her face expressionless but it wasn’t easy. She swallowed to moisten the sudden dryness in her throat. ‘It’s a big place, but his name does ring a bell.’

Kirsten tried to contain the familiar sting of pain and disappointment that came when she thought of Hunter, but it washed over her like a shore-dumping wave at Manly Beach and the force of it left her so cold she shivered.

From an oasis of sharing and caring and joy in her relationship with Hunter, something she’d never planned on, she’d been evicted from his life with a shattering suddenness that had left her reeling in an emotional desert more barren than any sand outside the hospital compound. Hug a married man in sympathy a couple of times and lectures on morality was where she landed! She’d tried to make him see how ridiculous his accusations were but he’d doggedly avoided her. Then anger had come to her rescue and at least straightened her spine. Piously, he’d even warned her of the penalties of adultery in Arab countries before he’d left. She gritted her teeth at the memory.

The urge to just walk out of MIRA now and think about this before she got in too deep was tempting. Maggie was looking up at her, puzzled by something she heard in Kirsten’s voice, and Kirsten forced herself to smile.

It was too late already. She’d so looked forward to being part of the team again. Now this. There’d be no freedom from tension if she had to fly with that man.

In the control room, three other people were waiting and Kirsten tilted her chin with a determined smile.

Hunter Morgan dominated the room even with his back towards her and his concentration directed to a phone conversation. Her heart sank in a shivering mess. Kirsten knew the thick dark hair and square set of his shoulders intimately. Her eyes had drilled holes between those massive shoulders many a time in those last few weeks as he’d walked away from her. He swivelled slowly to face her, still talking into the phone, and Kirsten looked away to Jim.

‘Welcome back, my dear.’ Jim was the senior paediatric consultant, control room supervisor and occasional flight doctor. A short, round man, Jim had the kindest face in the world. His eyes crinkled with years of good humour and he bounced across the room when Maggie announced Kirsten’s arrival. He shook her hand so hard Kirsten could feel her head wobble and she suppressed a smile. The warmth in his face almost brought tears to Kirsten’s eyes as she suddenly longed for the safety and shelter of her own family.

He presented her to the other woman in the room as if she were a major prize. ‘Kirsten Wilson, Ellen! This is our senior flight nurse, Ellen Gardner, who I think started just after you left.’ The other nurse inclined her head in acknowledgement. She was three or four years younger than Kirsten’s twenty-eight and if she felt any anticipation at Kirsten’s arrival she hid it well beneath a smooth makeup mask.

They shook hands and Kirsten offered a friendly smile, and then, for Kirsten, the other woman’s presence faded away as Hunter replaced the telephone receiver and turned fully to face her.

‘Kirsten, meet Dr Hunter Morgan. Hunter comes to us fully qualified and plans to move into emergency paediatric care after his stint with us.’ Jim completed his sentence as if he had just given Kirsten a huge present.

Great, Kirsten thought. I’d rather have herpes. There was something in Hunter’s face that made Kirsten raise her chin even higher. The man had an aura that ensured women were aware of his presence, and few could resist falling at least a little under his spell. Kirsten vowed to be one of those few if it killed her.

His chiselled features matched the fierce intelligence behind his insolent grey eyes and that unexpected sensuality in the tilt of his lips still packed a punch that landed somewhere below Kirsten’s midriff.

She felt like stamping her foot. Hunter Morgan must be her nemesis. Just when things promised to go to plan, he intruded into her carefully ordered world and threw her into chaos.

Hunter met Kirsten’s glare and memories of their last battles hung between them. Neither blinked and the moment froze for an extended few seconds until they both looked away.

Oblivious to the tension between his two newest staff members, Jim rubbed his hands together. ‘Well, let’s hope you two don’t run off to get married, like the last lot.’ The older man laughed with a slow, deep resonance that seemed to reverberate in his rounded stomach. Jim’s idea was bitterly humorous and his rolling laugh helped. Kirsten’s usual good humour asserted itself. Dr Rumble, indeed.

‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that,’ she said, and hung onto her calm smile as if meeting the man who had caused the only professional problem in her career wasn’t in front of her. So what was she going to do?

MIRA was her vocation and an environment in which she knew she could make a difference. And only Hunter stood in her way. She’d gone to Dubai to set herself up financially and gain more experience to be better at this job. How ironic that a man she’d met there could ruin it for her when she came back.

But he could only ruin it for her if she allowed herself to be brought down by his negative attitude. The good news had to be that most doctors only stayed at MIRA for a six-month term. With luck she’d have just a few months of discomfort. She began to feel better.

Kirsten held out her hand with resolve. ‘Hello again, Dr Morgan.’

Hunter couldn’t believe her bare-faced gall after what had passed between them. While he’d been devastated at seeing her in the arms of another man, she’d thrown herself into dangerous pursuits as if nothing had been between them. Desert skiing, ballooning, four-wheel-drive safaris—she’d been in the thick of it everywhere he’d looked until he’d stopped watching in those last few weeks. Working with her in the unit had been so icily professional the other staff had avoided the pair of them when they’d had to be together.

He took her slender fingers in his and although the tension was slight, he was aware how she stiffened beneath his touch. Unintentionally, his grip tightened.

Her fingers were warm under his and he remembered when he’d finally accepted he’d been drawn to her as a woman. Her red hair flying straight out behind her head as she’d revelled in the danger of the race. She loved danger all right, he thought cynically. Life of the party, and always on the lookout for some mad new adventure or life experience, Kirsten had been the sun that less exuberant staff had gravitated around yet she had never seemed to favour one person—until him.

Initially, Hunter had blocked that attraction because he’d thought, mistakenly, he’d sensed a core of innocence beneath her bravado that he’d had no right to taint with his cynical distrust of women. But the joy she seemed to find in the everyday had worn his resistance down and he’d finally allowed himself to accept the idea that he’d found the woman he could plan his future with.

Until that morning!

He’d thought the tearoom was empty when he rounded the corner but then he saw them. Cosgrove twisted to protect the woman from his eyes and at first he only realised it wasn’t Jack’s wife cradled so passionately in the man’s arms. And then Kirsten stepped out of the man’s embrace to face him. He knew his face mirrored his devastation.

‘It’s not what you think,’ Kirsten whispered. The same words Portia, his wife, had said when he’d confronted her with her lover five years before. It felt as if a stiletto was still lodged under his ribs after all this time and Kirsten was twisting it deeper.

Foolishly, in the last few months at MIRA, he began to believe he was over his shock at Kirsten’s behaviour. What a fool he was.

Aware at first hand of the devastation that could be caused by infidelity, both as a child and as a husband, Hunter did the right thing when he ruthlessly severed their relationship. Afterwards, the gap left by Kirsten’s friendship in his life warned him how close he’d come to repeating the mistake of his first marriage.

Here she was, threatening his peace of mind again. Typical. Jim’s promise of the perfect candidate for the job had been too good to be true. He lifted his own chin, staring down at the top of her colourful red head and not into her magical if devious eyes.

‘Kirsten, how nice to see you. Settled back into Australia?’ He could feel the tug of her arm as she tried unobtrusively to free her hand. He chose to let her go and she snatched her hand back so fast he smiled.

Interesting. He looked down to see her eyes narrow as she probed behind his smile, and Hunter realised he could make this woman’s life hell. That wasn’t his style but he couldn’t help a little satisfaction that he wasn’t the only one feeling discomfort.

Hunter had left for Sydney and stepped straight into this job. He’d never really understood the dramatics Cosgrove or his doctor wife had displayed. He understood less why Kirsten had felt the need to come between a married couple.

Jack had even seen Hunter and tried to explain away his involvement with Kirsten, but Hunter had wanted no bar of it. He’d heard that Jack and his wife had moved on to Canada for a holiday before heading back to Australia so the man must have seen sense. He wondered if Kirsten had been asked to leave Dubai and if she was sad she’d lost her conquest back to his wife. Maybe Jack had been just another diversion—like he’d been, Hunter thought with gritted teeth.

‘We must catch up later on how your last few days in Dubai panned out. Do you see much of Jack Cosgrove or Eva?’

‘Sure,’ Kirsten answered easily enough, but she felt the innuendo in the question. A few months ago, with Hunter, she’d known she’d found the man she wanted to spend her life with and it had certainly seemed as if he’d felt the same way.

Then it had all stopped with his ridiculous accusations. Hunter’s lack of faith had shattered her. Obviously his suspicions remained. Kirsten had always prided herself on her honesty and came from a family that had high moral standards. To see that the man she’d loved had no capacity for trust, had shown her a serious flaw in what she’d thought a perfect relationship. Kirsten had forced herself to accept it had been better to find out then, but it hadn’t helped her hide her hurt and disillusionment from Hunter. There’d always been an extra tension or double meaning in any communication they’d shared since Jack.

But she was over the brief Technicolor space he’d occupied in her life. Kirsten turned away to ask a question of the senior flight sister. He had the problem, not her, and she’d just have to learn not to let it rankle.

Ellen Gardner wasn’t much warmer than Hunter, but she was safer. The two women moved across the room to discuss a map on the wall and Kirsten was glad to increase the distance between her and that man.

The area serviced by MIRA was bounded by the New South Wales border, though sometimes patients were transferred to Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory if beds were scarce. MIRA serviced around one hundred and forty hospitals of varying levels of care by road or air. They transported the critical patients to the closest paediatric or neonatal intensive care facility that had the resources to cope, often using fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters, depending on the ground facilities, weather and condition of the patient. The whole structure worked closely with the NSW Ambulance Service.

‘Are the same number of personnel still flying in the aircraft?’ Kirsten imagined it would be running in a similar vein from when she’d been here over eighteen months ago. Jim, as supervisor, hadn’t changed, but she needed to convey to the other sister that she herself wasn’t a threat to Ellen’s authority.

‘The minimum team consists of one transport doctor, one transport nurse and, of course, the pilot. Your first few flights will be supervised by me—’ Ellen smiled without humour ‘—to ensure you don’t require any further orientation on the use of the latest equipment or updates on aviation medicine. I’ll also make sure you still have the skills needed for clinical call conferencing. Of course, space is always at a premium, but if there’s room, we try to accommodate a parent as well. I’m not sure how many were here in your time…’

Kirsten suppressed a grin at the inference she’d worked at MIRA back with the dinosaurs.

‘But now we have ten doctors,’ Ellen continued, ‘most on a part-time roster, and twenty-five nurses as well as support staff. Plus our very experienced pilots.’

‘The pilots were good even back then,’ Kirsten murmured, tongue-in-cheek.

‘I gather you’re not afraid of flying.’ Ellen raised pencilled eyebrows.

As if. ‘I’m not afraid of much,’ Kirsten said quietly as the men came across to join them. Hunter obviously caught the end of the conversation.

‘So what are you afraid of, Sister Wilson?’ Hunter looked down at her with a wicked smile and Kirsten’s concentration slipped for a moment. She’d forgotten, or had maybe blocked out the memory, of what it felt like to be on the receiving end of one of his smiles.

When he was amused, Hunter’s eyes became flecked with molten silver and he had the ability to thaw her reserve with sudden heat. A heat that wasn’t helped by the sensual curve of his lips. The man was too blatantly male and eight weeks of unresolved sexual tension lay buried, sizzling, somewhere deep between them. She flushed and tried to remember the question. She wasn’t going to let him do this to her again. She wasn’t going to let him tantalise her with possibilities and then refrigerate her with his chilly moral lectures.

Her brain clicked into gear, no thanks to him.

‘Afraid? Only of leeches.’ She shuddered. ‘I discovered that on a survival course. But that’s why I’m a midwife and neonatal nurse and not a doctor like you.’

The others laughed and Ellen looked admiringly across at Hunter. ‘I’ll bet you’re not afraid of anything, Hunter.’

Kirsten only just resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she turned back to look at the map again. As she did, she saw that Hunter was watching her and not Ellen. ‘I’m a commitment-phobe. I have one other phobia but as it’s not flying, it shouldn’t worry you,’ he quipped, and arched his eyebrows at Kirsten.

Jim called them all to order and the meeting started. They discussed rosters and allocation of calls and the division of labour to ensure the skill mix remained even among the disciplines while integrating the new staff member.

When the meeting was over, Jim took Kirsten’s arm. ‘Come and look at the latest photos.’ He flicked open the album and Kirsten smiled as photos of country hospital nurseries all over the state flipped over.

Dozens of photos were of tiny patients, dwarfed by mountains of equipment, and the recognisable trousers and shirt of the MIRA team with the reflective stripe below the knees as they hovered over their charges. Kirsten even saw two old snapshots of herself, smiling into the camera. Then there were photographs of the aircraft and grinning pilots, as well as some aerial photos of different airstrips.

Kirsten could feel the thrill stir in her stomach. She was meant to be here. The excitement that had been there before she’d met Hunter Morgan was here again too. The intensity she’d planned to fill the hollow emptiness left from her shattered relationship with Hunter rekindled.