Marion Lennox - The Doctors’ Baby

But it was an excuse for her to get away from him, if only for a moment. For her to find her equilibrium again. Somehow.

Jonas was so dispassionate, she thought as she prepared the mugs of chocolate and Robby’s bottle. He’d help Anna and then he’d head back out of his sister’s life. And she knew that, given half a chance, he’d make love to her, and then he’d leave without a backward glance.

It wasn’t enough, she thought. He needed to see that there was more to life…

That there was more to loving than being needed. It was needing in return.

And Jonas Lunn didn’t need anyone!

If only he could see what he was missing out on!

When she returned to the sitting room, some of the work had been done. Robby was lying on Jonas’s knees. The baby was chortling up at him with his own brand of baby humour, laughing at some joke only an eight-month-old baby could understand, and Jonas looked like a man who’d been struck by lightning.

He glanced up at her as she returned, and somehow he forced his face back under control, but Em could see that Robby had spread some of his indefinable charm.

‘He’s…he’s quite a baby,’ Jonas said, and if his voice was a trifle unsteady, Em could pretend she hadn’t heard.

‘He is at that.’

‘Why did you say his aunt doesn’t want him?’

‘She has three of her own.’

‘It wouldn’t stop me,’ Jonas said, and his voice was suddenly so fierce that Em blinked. ‘I mean…if he was my sister’s kid.’

‘Of course,’ Em said kindly, but she looked at him and wondered whether he really meant it. She glanced down again at Robby. Robby was crooning his own happy little song, and his tiny hands were folded in Jonas’s much bigger ones.

There was magic going on here tonight, Em thought, but she didn’t say a word.

‘You want me to give him his bottle?’ she asked.

‘No.’ Jonas’s voice was strangely gruff. ‘I’ll do it. Finish your chocolate.’

‘Yours’ll get cold.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

And it didn’t. Em sat and sipped her chocolate, and watched Jonas tenderly feed Robby his bottle, and she found her precious equilibrium slipping further and further from her grasp.

Until it was gone for ever, like it or not.

Anna was transferred by ambulance to Bay Beach Hospital the next day. Em checked her on arrival, ensured she had adequate pain relief and watched as she nestled down against her pillows in relief.

‘I’ll send you your brother,’ she told her as Anna settled down to sleep. She touched her lightly on her hair, in a gesture of reassurance. ‘The ambulance ride will have stirred up the pain, but it’ll settle now. In a little while, if it’s OK with you, Jonas will bring the kids in. They’ll want to see you.’

‘And I want to see them,’ Anna whispered. ‘Oh, I’m so glad it’s over.’

‘Aren’t we all? Can you ring Dr Lunn in clinic?’ Em asked the nurse with her. She glanced at her watch. ‘Tell him Anna is back. Tell him I’ve just given her morphine and she’ll sleep for an hour or so, but after that…if he could bring in the kids, I’ll take over clinic.’

And that was that.

She didn’t see Jonas for the rest of the day, and if that was deliberate on Em’s part then who could blame her? She desperately needed time out. She was so confused she was having trouble concentrating on medicine.

And when she returned to the house that night, Robby was alone with Amy. Jonas was still out with the kids.

Maybe he needed time out, too, she thought, and if there was a trace of bitterness in her thoughts, who could blame her for that either? The man had stirred up so much unwanted emotion within her. It was to be hoped he felt a little bit stirred up as well!

She played with Robby for a while, then settled him to sleep. Then she left him in the care of the night staff and went through to the hospital to do a late round. She was expecting Anna to be alone. Instead, she found her with Jonas.

And her blasted emotions were stirred all over again.

‘What have you done with the kids?’ she asked. She raised her eyebrows at Jonas, and then smiled down at Anna in mock indignation. ‘He’s a fine babysitter, I don’t think.’

But Jonas was indignant in his turn. ‘I haven’t abandoned them. Jim’s taken them out for pizza.’

‘Jim?’ Em’s eyebrows rose still further. ‘Jim Bainbridge?’

To her surprise-and delight-a faint trace of colour was sweeping over Anna’s pale face. Well, well. So it wasn’t all one way.

‘He offered,’ she said defensively. ‘And the kids know him. He just lives over the back fence. He…’ Her colour mounted still further. ‘He came up to Blairglen but I didn’t want to see him. Then he waited for a couple of hours to see me here. In the end, I had to say I’d see him. And he wanted to do something so much.’

‘I think it’s a fine idea,’ Em said soundly. She picked up Anna’s observation chart to do a quick check and smiled down again at her patient. ‘Sometimes it takes courage to accept that people want desperately to help. I think, often, it’s easier to be the giver than the receiver.’

Anna nodded. ‘I’m not used…to receiving.’

‘Now, how did I guess that?’ Another smile, this time including Jonas. ‘These obs are good. The trip here doesn’t seem to have upset you too much. Everything’s looking fine, Anna. Now I’ll leave you with your brother,’ Em said gently, but Anna shook her head.

‘I’d like Jonas to leave, too,’ she said. ‘Please… I want to be alone.’

‘She always wants to be alone.’

Back in their shared living room, Jonas was pacing like a caged tiger, his frustration showing. ‘Hell. How can I let her see how much I want to be near?’

Em watched him pace. Robby had just woken and she was cuddling him. The baby was crooning his happiness to be reunited with her and she was undergoing all sorts of pain herself-but she felt for Jonas.

And she also felt for Anna.

‘Your parents hurt her badly,’ she said softly. ‘As they hurt you. She’s learned the hard way to be independent.’

‘If I was in this situation-’

‘Would you depend on other people?’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Of course I would.’

‘Emotionally?’ She rose and hugged Robby tighter. The baby snuggled against her breast, and Em’s heart twisted. ‘I’m not sure whether you know the meaning of the words emotional dependency.’ She certainly did.

But Jonas was turning on her, confused. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say.’

‘Of course you don’t.’ She took a deep breath, trying to figure the best way to say it. ‘Jonas, do you need Anna?’

He stared at her blankly. ‘She’s my little sister.’

‘I know that. But do you need her? Have you ever shown her that?’

‘I don’t need her,’ he said, his voice still uncomprehending. ‘Of course I don’t. I’ve always been the strong one.’

‘Because you’ve had to be. But emotional dependency works both ways.’ She took a deep breath and looked down at Robby. ‘Take me and Robby.’

‘Now, that’s another thing-’

‘Robby needs me,’ she said, ignoring the interruption. ‘At least, he needs someone to love him to bits. Which I could do so easily. But I have the honesty to acknowledge that I need Robby, too.’

‘You don’t need Robby. He’s a baby.’

‘But he gives.’ Em looked down at the child in her arms and her face changed. ‘Every time he grins at me, every time I have to hurt him when I change his dressings or massage his little limbs, and he doesn’t cry because he knows if I hurt him a cuddle will follow, every time he snuggles into me-that need grows. That’s the sort of need I’m talking about. I’m talking about love, Jonas. Anna has learned to survive without it. And I think…so have you.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘No. It’s the truth.’ A knock sounded through the house and she sighed and put her emotions on the back-burner. ‘This’ll be Jim, bringing the children home. He’s another one like me. Who loves-and needs-and who doesn’t stand a donkey’s chance of being loved and needed in return.’

Jonas stared at her blankly, not having the faintest clue what she was talking about. He was so blind! ‘You’re over-dramatising.’

But as Em went to answer the door she knew she wasn’t.

She loved and needed. And she was desperate to be loved and needed in return.

And it wasn’t just the little boy in her arms who was engendering these dangerous emotions.

It was Jonas Lunn!

THE days after Anna’s operation became a week. And then two.

Work and domesticity settled into a pattern Em found almost acceptable-if only her stupid emotions didn’t get in the way.

Once Anna’s drainage tube came out, she was allowed home. Her children went with her. She refused to let Jonas stay with her-he stayed on with Em, whether Em thought it was wise or not-but Anna did allow her brother to organise home help.

That was something, at least, Em thought. The prickly Anna of old wouldn’t even have allowed that.

And as for Jonas…

Jonas was frustrated with the little help he could give his sister. There was so little he could do!

He did insist on spending time each day with Ruby and Sam and Matt, using his wish to establish bonds with them as a way to give Anna much needed child care. He also threw himself into working for the town. He did what he could.

For both the women he was helping…

At least Em was a skilled doctor, he thought as he worked on beside her. He could trust her to look after Anna. And at least, with him staying on as her temporary partner, she had time to do it properly. Do house calls. Care…

She would have done it anyway, he knew, but in the equation without him, there would have been no time at all for Robby, or for Em herself.