‘When did your husband die?’ he asked gently as he moved the wand on.

‘Three years ago.’

His hand paused in mid-stroke. Three years.

‘World’s longest pregnancy,’ Maggie whispered, still watching the screen. Then she managed a wavering smile. ‘Sorry. William had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and we stored sperm before he started chemotherapy. When the chemotherapy didn’t work he said if I ever wanted to have his baby he’d be honoured. At first the thought was unbearable but gradually it seemed…right. But it took me this long and Betty’s coercion to feel strong enough, and maybe that strength was an illusion anyway.’

She winced and bit her lip, fighting for composure. ‘But, hey, it’s okay,’ she said, and struggled to smile again. ‘As long as my baby’s fine.’

‘He is,’ he said. And then he paused.

They were both looking at the screen.

‘You know you called him Archibald?’ Max ventured cautiously, not sure where to take this conversation with a colleague who was seeing exactly what he was seeing. ‘That may cause problems. Not that unusual names aren’t all the rage, but…’

‘She,’ she breathed. ‘My baby’s a girl.’

‘You didn’t know?’

She was staring at the screen in stunned amazement. ‘I had my last ultrasound at three months, but Betty and I always assumed it’d be a boy.’

‘Because?’

‘Because Betty has a blue crib,’ she breathed. ‘She’s been knitting blue matinee jackets for ever. Someone should alert the share market. It’s about to be flooded with blue.’ She looked again at the screen, seeing the irrefutable evidence, and she was smiling again, this time like she meant it. ‘Don’t tell Betty,’ she whispered.

‘You think she’ll be upset?’

‘She wants a boy so much, and why tell her?’ The smile faded and her voice was suddenly bleak again. ‘Do you think Betty will live to see my baby born?’

He glanced across at Betty. She’d collapsed into sleep but it was more than sleep. The amount of morphine he’d given her couldn’t explain the look of total lack of consciousness. He shifted slightly so he could reach over and take her wrist. Her skin was parched and dry, her pulse was thready and her fingers were cold to touch.

‘She needs fluids,’ he said. ‘She’s dehydrated. And blood tests. Is she hypoxic?’

‘I’m assuming so. She hasn’t let me do anything but give her pain relief for weeks now. But it’s okay. It’s what she wants. And now…now I know my baby’s okay… If you could just check the other one before you go…’

‘The other one?’

‘The one you left in the bathroom,’ she reminded him.

He knew that. But he was moving past it in his head. Facing the inevitable.

‘Okay, here’s the plan,’ he said softly. ‘I stay here. I attend to our bathroom baby. I dress your head and your knee, I keep a check on you tonight to make sure your head injury’s not causing trouble, and in the morning I find a way to get you X-rayed. Until those things happen I’m not leaving.’

She stared up at him for a long moment-and then she closed her eyes. For a moment he thought she was going to react with anger. With denial.

Instead she opened her eyes again and the relief he saw there was stunning. Her face looked lighter, younger. Free. As if an unbearable burden had been lifted.

He’d given her a promise of one night. Her eyes said it was much more.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered softly. ‘You have no idea how much I would love you to stay.’ And she reached up and took his hand and held it.

He’d finished the ultrasound. He’d sorted Maggie’s need for the night. His next priority was the baby in the bathroom. He should move.

Instead he stayed, looking into her eyes while her hand held his. Just looking.

Feeling the touch of Maggie’s hand, and knowing it was so much more.

Feeling a web he’d taken years to break free from tighten once more inexorably around his heart.

This woman was pregnant. This woman represented everything he ran from.

Yet still he couldn’t disengage his hand.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE tepid bath had worked. When he finally made it to the bathroom he found the little family comforted and happy.

‘We need two doctors so much,’ the woman said as he saw them to their car a little later, the baby wrapped in light cotton and nothing else. ‘We had old Doc Sharrandon, but the minute Maggie arrived he left. Said he’d waited ten years too long for retirement and he wasn’t waiting a minute longer. So instead of having one ancient doctor we have one pregnant one. Not that we’re complaining. Maggie’s lovely, only it’s too much for her.’

It was.

He saw them off from the veranda-then as he turned to go inside he paused. There was a dark shape moving down the track, behind the tractors. Or… Several shapes.

He stood watching, waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the moonlight.

It was a figure in some sort of greatcoat, behind three-no, four-calves. And one dog.

Bonnie and the calves, he thought, and this must be Angus. Until now he hadn’t realised it was weighing on him-the thought of calves and dog on the beach alone-but it felt great to see them come. He walked down through the garden to meet them, only to have both man and calves start away from him. Fifty yards away it was clear he wasn’t getting closer-indeed, it looked as if only the dog stopped both man and calves from bolting.

He left them, walking slowly back into the house to find Maggie propped up on her cushions, watching the door with anxiety. Was she wondering whether he was true to his word-that he’d come back? More and more the knowledge settled in his mind. He couldn’t leave her. The part of him that was fearful of relationships was screaming at him to stay dispassionate but it was being firmly overruled by sensations he wasn’t close to understanding.

‘What’s wrong?’ Maggie demanded. Maybe his emotions were showing on his face. Who knew? If he was having trouble quelling them internally, how did he keep his face in order?

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he told her. ‘Angus has the calves. Four calves and Bonnie, walking up the driveway right now.’

‘He’s brought them here.’ For a moment he thought she was about to cry-and once again came that stab of need to comfort. He stayed where he was but it was hard.

‘He must have seen you bring me home,’ she said, so happily that she was obviously oblivious to what he was feeling. ‘He’d have walked back looking for them.’ She sighed and managed a wavering smile. ‘Thank heaven. Can we wake Gran and tell her?’

Wake Betty? That was the last thing he wanted to do. ‘I’m about to clean your head.’

‘This is more urgent.’

‘Waking Betty?’

‘Please,’ she said, suddenly passionate. ‘It really is. If you knew how Gran’s connived for this, you couldn’t doubt it. Gran’s sole focus for the last year has been to get me and my baby here, to set Angus up with a milking herd again, and keep him safe. She’s so close to running out of time and she knows it. I had to get the calves today no matter what, and she’s desperate to know they’re here. Please.’

‘So we wake her up and tell her?’

‘No. We wake her up and show her. Can you get me a set of crutches? You’ll find some out in the garage. There’s three pairs-I reckon I’m the middle.’

‘Why do you want crutches?’ he demanded, appalled at the sudden change in her. From passive and frightened patient she was suddenly all purpose.

‘I’m going with you. And you’re carrying Gran over to see Angus’s calves.’

‘In the morning, maybe.’

‘No! Look at her,’ she said urgently. ‘Can you guarantee there’ll be a morning? Max, I know this seems dumb,’ she admitted, ‘but medicine’s not only about drugs and bed care. Betty needs this more than anything in the world and I need to give it to her. This whole night will leave me with a debt I can never repay, but you’ve said you’ll stay and we have to do this. Please can you carry Gran over to see what she’s achieved.’

He stared down into her face, saw desperation, saw passion, and more. There was love, he thought. Maggie had spoken of coercion but, whatever was between these two women, her commitment to her now was absolute.

And suddenly he thought, It’s not just for Betty. Maggie must be a wonderful doctor. She cared. Where he’d spent the last six years pushing his emotions away, hers were out there, front and centre. Her husband’s death hadn’t taught her to protect herself. She was way too exposed.

What should he tell her now? ‘You’re not fit to do anything more tonight. Betty needs to sleep. To do what you ask would be crazy.’

He couldn’t. Her passion was shifting his armour, finding a way in.

Tomorrow he’d put this behind him, he thought, but for tonight…he had to do it her way.

He stared down at her and she stared straight back, those luminous eyes meeting his with a directness he found disconcerting. More than disconcerting.

He should run a mile from what he was starting to feel, he thought inconsequentially, and then he thought maybe he was running out of time to run.

Maybe he couldn’t run if he tried.


Time out of frame.

He was walking across an unused cow-yard in the moonlight, carrying a dying woman in his arms, with a seven-months-pregnant colleague limping along on crutches beside him.

Gran was still half-asleep. She’d roused when he’d lifted her, but Maggie had simply said, ‘The calves are here, Gran. You’ve got what you want. You need to see them.’

She shouldn’t be on crutches. He was walking slowly, worrying about her, but she wasn’t complaining. Her whole focus was on what lay ahead.

Ahead was a haystack, dark and forbidding against the night sky. As they neared it Maggie paused and so did he.