Saving Maddie's Baby Read online

  ‘I’d like them both in hospital,’ Keanu growled. ‘All of them. Maddie and baby and Josh. Twenty-four hours’ observation. The conditions underground weren’t exactly clean and this is the tropics. Josh, this cut’s deep and needs stitching. You get it infected, you risk long-term damage. The rest of your scratches need care and you need rest. So care it is. No one’s growing infections on my watch.’

  ‘Use the homestead,’ Caroline said. ‘You know we have six bedrooms. I’ll send a message to our housekeeper to make up beds. Keanu, you can do Maddie’s obstetric checks there. Once you’ve done Josh’s stitching and you’re happy with them they should be fine. I can do obs.’

  And Keanu stood back and looked at Josh—assessing. Seeing him not as a colleague but as a patient. Someone who needed help?

  It was all Josh could do not to get up and walk out. To lie on the examination table and be assessed like this was almost killing him.

  ‘I want gentle, gradual exercise,’ Keanu said at last, still talking to Caroline. ‘Slowly, no sudden movements. They’ve been cramped too long with injuries. So gentle movement with support, then food and bed. I’ll give Maddie a thorough check first but if she’s okay... I’ll want them watched but the house should work. If we clear you from hospital shifts, you can look after them, and I can organise one of the night shift to take over while you sleep.’

  ‘And act as chaperone, too.’ That was Beth, standing at the entrance to the tent. She had her cheek back. When Josh had emerged from the mine she’d looked whey-faced but now she was practically bouncing. ‘These two have been married,’ she told the tent in general. ‘Josh and your Maddie. Once there were sparks, so separate bedrooms at separate ends of the house.’

  ‘I don’t think we need to worry about these two and red-hot sex,’ Keanu said dryly, and managed a grin. ‘When two sets of bruises unite—ouch—and there’s nothing like a one-day-old baby to dampen passion. However, they’re consenting adults. Whatever they choose to do or not to do is up to them.’ And then his smile widened, and Josh thought for the first time in two days the stress had come off.

  ‘No, actually, that’s not true,’ Keanu added, still grinning. ‘For now Maddie has no obstetrician so I’m it. So, Dr Campbell, no matter what your intentions may be regarding your ex-wife, could you please take sex off the agenda?’

  ‘I have no intention...’ He paused, practically speechless. Of all the...

  ‘She’s a lovely lady, our Maddie,’ Keanu said. ‘If I wasn’t otherwise engaged I’d be attracted to her myself.’

  ‘Hey!’ Caroline said, and everyone laughed, and the tension lessened still further.

  Except Josh’s tension didn’t ease. He was stuck on this island. He was about to spend the night in some sort of private house, even if it was a big one.

  If he was at one end of the house and Maddie was at the other—she’d still be there.

  No sex... There was no chance of that, but a part of him was suddenly remembering sex from a long time ago, how it had felt lying in Maddie’s arms—how it had felt to be needed by Maddie.

  That was the only time when his world had seemed right.

  His world was right now, he told himself savagely. His world was exactly as he wanted it. All he needed was to get away from this island and get home.

  Home? To his base in Cairns? An austere apartment he spent as little time in as possible?

  He glanced around the tent at this tight-knit medical community, and then out through the tent flap to where a huddle of women crouched around Maddie. They were readying her for transport to the Lockhart house but this wasn’t medical personnel doing their bit. These were friends, and even from here he could tell how much she was loved.

  But not by him. He could never admit how much he needed her.

  Not even to himself?

  But this was exhaustion talking, he thought. This was nonsense.

  ‘You’ll be fine.’ It was Hettie, washing his already cleaned face again, as if she knew that the grit felt so ingrained it’d take months to feel as if he was rid of it. ‘We’ll take care of you.’

  ‘I don’t need—’

  ‘Need or not,’ she said cheerfully, ‘you’re trapped until the storm front passes over Cairns, so you might as well get used to it.’

  * * *

  The bedroom was amazing. Luscious. Or maybe luscious was too small a word to describe it. ‘It was my parents’ bedroom,’ Caroline had told her last night. ‘Best room in the house.’

  ‘Caro, I can’t.’

  ‘Of course you can.’ Caroline had helped her shower and tucked her into bed, brooking no argument, and Maddie had been too overwhelmed to argue.

  And now it was morning. She lay in a massive bed with down pillows and a crisp white coverlet, surrounded by delicate white lace that served as a mosquito net but looked more like a bridal canopy.

  The bed was an island of luxury in a room that screamed of age and history and wealth. Old timber gleamed with generations of layers of wax and elbow grease. Vast French windows opened to the wide veranda beyond. White lace curtains fluttered in the warm sea breeze, and beyond the lagoon and then the sea.

  Even her bruises thought they were in heaven.

  She did ache a little, she conceded, but this was a bed, a room, a house to cure the worst bruises she could imagine.

  And Caroline was standing in the doorway, holding her daughter.

  ‘Sleepyhead.’ Caroline chuckled as she set Lea into her mother’s arms. At some time in the small hours she’d come in and helped Maddie feed—surely Maddie remembered that?—but the rest... How deeply had she slept? ‘Your daughter’s been fussing so I took her for a little stroll and introduced her to her world,’ Caroline told her. ‘She seems to approve. At least she seemed to approve until five minutes ago, when...’

  As if on cue, Lea opened her mouth and wailed.

  And Maddie felt her face split into a grin. There was nothing she could do about it—she couldn’t stop grinning.

  And Caroline smiled, too, as she helped Maddie show Lea to her breast—not that Lea needed much direction.

  ‘Hmm,’ Caroline said, standing back as Lea started the important business of feeding. ‘I don’t think you two will need breastfeeding advice.’

  ‘I had a booklet I intended reading before she arrived,’ Maddie told her, smiling and smiling down at her tiny daughter. ‘Stupidly I left it behind when I went in, but Lea and I figured it out all by ourselves.’

  ‘You left a lot else behind when you ran in,’ Caroline retorted. ‘Including all our hearts. Maddie, how could you?’

  ‘How’s Malu?’ Maddie asked, answering Caroline’s question with those two words.

  ‘He’s okay,’ Caro conceded. ‘Keanu had a call from Cairns a couple of hours ago. He’s settled and stable and sitting up, having breakfast. Thanks to you and your Josh.’

  ‘He’s not my Josh.’ She said it automatically. She was touching her tiny daughter’s cheek as she suckled, and she was trying to think about Lea. Just Lea.

  Only Josh was in her thoughts, too.

  ‘He seems very concerned, for someone who’s not your Josh.’

  ‘Josh always cares,’ she said carefully. ‘It’s what he’s good at.’

  ‘He wants to see you.’

  ‘I’m sleepy.’

  ‘You mean you don’t want to see him?’

  She thought about that for a moment. Of course she wanted to see him. She had to see him. After all, without Josh Lea would be dead. The thought made her feel...frozen.

  If only he wasn’t...Josh.

  ‘How about breakfast first, a shower, maybe even a hair wash and then think about audiences,’ Caroline suggested, with a sideways glance letting on that maybe she saw more than her words suggested. ‘If I can tell him that, I may
be able to bully him back to bed. He has a nasty haematoma on his thigh and Kiera wants him to stay in bed for the day.’

  ‘A haematoma...’

  ‘Cork thigh for the uninitiated,’ Caroline said, and grinned. ‘Honestly, don’t you doctors know anything? He has a ripped and stitched arm, he’s bruised all over and we know he hurts. So can I tell him if he’s a good boy and stays in bed you’ll see him before lunch? A ten-minute visit before you both go back to sleep?’

  ‘Caro...’

  ‘Mmm?’

  There was silence while she thought of what to say. It lasted a while.

  ‘He’s stuck on the island?’ she asked at last, and Caroline nodded.

  ‘We all are. FIFOs are cancelled. Cyclone Hilda’s hovering just above Cairns and the weather gurus don’t know which direction she’ll swing.’

  ‘It’s okay here.’ There was safety in weather, she thought. It was the only discussion to be had when there was an elephant in the room so big it was threatening to overwhelm her. An elephant by the name of Josh. She made herself look out the windows to where the glassy calm of the lagoon and distant sea gave the lie to any hint of a cyclone. Still, it was the cyclone season...

  ‘You’re not really thinking of the weather, are you?’ Caroline asked, and Maddie sighed.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So Josh is your ex-husband—only he’s not acting like an ex-husband. Do you know how many orders he’s throwing around about your care? If he could, he’d swim back to Cairns and swim back, dragging an obstetrician behind him.’

  Maddie smiled at that, but absently. That’d be Josh. Caring above and beyond the call of duty. ‘I’ll see him before lunch,’ she managed.

  ‘Can I do your hair?’

  ‘I don’t need to be made pretty.’

  ‘It never hurts.’

  You have no idea, Maddie said, but she said it to herself, inwardly.

  It never hurts?

  It still did hurt—so much—after all these years.

  She glanced down at her tiny daughter and she knew she needed all her strength and more if it wasn’t going to keep hurting forever.

  * * *

  ‘Ten minutes and not a moment more,’ Caroline told Josh as she escorted him along the vast, portrait-lined hallway to Maddie’s room. ‘Lea’s just fed and Maddie is tired. When I trained, it was the baby’s dad and the baby’s grandparents—immediate family only—in the first twenty-four hours, and that’s not you.’

  It was said as a warning.

  He stopped, which was a mistake. He’d been walking quite well until then. Caroline had wanted him to use a wheelchair. The idea was ridiculous but in truth his leg was weak and when he stopped he wobbled.

  Caroline held out a hand to support him but he pulled back. What was happening here? Down the mine he’d coped well, apart from the brief and overwhelming panic attack, but on the surface he was suddenly as weak as Maddie’s baby. He was wearing boxers and a T-shirt borrowed from Keanu. His own clothes were ruined, ripped and bloodied. He wanted jeans and a shirt that fitted, but Keanu had had the nerve to grin and tell him clothes would be forthcoming when he, Keanu, deemed Josh fit to leave this makeshift hospital and not before.

  For once in his life Josh Campbell was out of control and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. He didn’t like it that his legs had the shakes—and now this woman was warning him about visiting Maddie.

  Only family—and that’s not you.

  ‘I may not be family,’ he said through gritted teeth ‘but apart from a bedridden and confused mother, I’m all she’s got.’

  ‘You think so?’ Caro said, quite lightly. ‘Let me tell you, Dr Campbell, that if you step one inch out of line, if you upset Maddie enough to even make her blink, you’ll find out this island is what she’s got. The entire island and beyond. The whole M’Langi group. She’s loved by us all. Family comes in so many forms.’

  ‘That’s not love,’ he snapped. ‘She’s your local doctor. You people need her. She needs someone—’

  ‘To protect her? That’s what I’m saying, Dr Campbell. That’s what she has. She ran into the mine to protect Malu but if you hadn’t gone in after her I can think of over a dozen islanders who would have, including me. So let’s not get carried away with heroics. Our Maddie might have needed saving in the mine, but she doesn’t need saving from anything else.’

  ‘Caro?’ It was Maddie’s voice floating down the hallway. ‘What are you telling him?’

  ‘Just normal midwifery stuff,’ Caroline called out cheerfully. ‘About not outstaying his welcome and new mothers need rest and not to cough anywhere near the baby. Oh, and there’s antiseptic handwash on the bench...’

  ‘He is a doctor,’ Maddie called, and she was laughing.

  ‘He might be a doctor where he comes from,’ Caroline retorted, ‘but from where I’m standing he’s a patient wearing Keanu’s boxers and learning to play by our rules.’

  * * *

  He was wearing boxers and a T-shirt. His dark hair was rumpled, tousled by sleep.

  He had an ugly bruise on his thigh and his arm was wrapped in a stark white dressing.

  He looked young, she thought, and absurdly vulnerable. She had a sudden urge to throw back the bedcovers and hug him.

  He wouldn’t let her. She knew it. Letting people close when he was vulnerable was not what Josh did.

  She’d just finished feeding Lea. She cradled her close, almost as a shield.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, and she managed a smile.

  ‘Have you remembered your antiseptic hand wash?’

  He grinned back at her and held up his hands. ‘Yes, ma’am. Do you think I dare disobey Commander Caroline? I stand before you, not a bug in sight—or out of sight, either.’

  Oh, that grin. She remembered that grin. It did things to her.

  Or not. Past history, she told herself fiercely. That grin could not be allowed to influence her in any way at all.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked, and it was as if he was holding himself back. He was still standing by the door. Unsure.

  Maybe he wanted to hug her, too, she thought, and then she decided of course he did. Josh did comfort in a big way.

  ‘We’re both excellent,’ she told him, cradling Lea close. Lea was still fussing a little, not hungry, just wide-eyed and not inclined to sleep. ‘Me and Lea both.’

  ‘What did Keanu say? Is he worried about infection? You tore a little. Has he put you on antibiotics? And how is Lea? I couldn’t clean that cord stump properly. And has he checked both your lungs?’

  ‘You know, if you’re going to play doctor you need to find a white coat,’ she told him. ‘Boxers just don’t cut it.’

  ‘Maddie, I’m serious.’

  ‘And so am I. Keanu’s my doctor.’

  ‘He’s not an obstetrician.’

  ‘Neither are you, though you did do a neat job of filling in,’ she conceded. ‘I wasn’t too fussed about lack of white coats underground.’ She smiled, forcing herself to stay light. ‘But we’re aboveground again now. Normal standards apply. We’re both patients for the duration. Keanu’s demanding I stay here for a week. I was due to fly back to Cairns today, but with Cairns airport closed I’m stuck. Caroline’s been very kind.’

  ‘It’s her house?’

  ‘It’s her father’s house, though it’s been used by her uncle Ian. But until she came back a couple of months ago it’s been empty. It seems Ian’s done a runner. Apparently he’s been ripping off money from everywhere. That’s why the islanders were down the mine—they haven’t been paid for months and they decided to do a bit of gold-mining for themselves.’ She shrugged. ‘But that’s the island’s problem, not yours.’

  ‘But you care.’

  ‘About the islanders? Of course I do.’ She b
it her lip. ‘Kalifa died. He had no business...’ And to her annoyance she felt tears welling behind her eyes. ‘Damn, I’m as weak as a kitten.’

  And Josh was over to her bed before she could begin to swipe the stupid, weak tears away, tugging her into his arms and holding. Lea was in there, too. He was cradling them both. His...family?

  And it felt right. It felt like home. She could just sink into his shoulder and have her cry out, and let him comfort her as he’d comforted her so often in the past.

  ‘Maddie, we could build again.’ What was this? He shouldn’t be speaking, she thought. She didn’t want him to speak. This was Josh in his let’s-make-things-better mode. Let’s distract Maddie from what’s hurting. She didn’t want it but he ploughed on inexorably. ‘We could make things right. Neither of us is happy apart. What you’ve done is extraordinary. You’ve rebuilt your life and I’m in awe. But, Maddie, I should never have walked away. I should have tried harder. I love you so much, and I love Lea already. We could buy a house with a view of the sea near the air rescue base. It’s close to your mum. I can afford a housekeeper. It’s near the base hospital, too, if you want to continue medicine. We could share parenting. We could start again.’

  He was still holding her. She was still crumpled against his chest. She couldn’t move.

  She took time to let his words sink in. She needed to take time. The last few days had left her hurt and shocked, and now... Josh’s words felt like a battering ram, threating to crumble what was left of her foundations.

  To calmly leave here... To go and live in Josh’s beautiful house—she had no doubt he’d buy her something special... To have a housekeeper on call...

  Share parenting, though... Was that a joke? That’d be where the housekeeper fitted in, she thought. Josh would be flitting in and out in between rescues, playing husband, playing father.

  ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ she whispered, still against his chest because it was just too hard to pull away. ‘You still want me to need you. You want us to need you.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  And she did pull away then, anger coming to her aid. How could he be so stupid? How could he be so blind?