Single Dad in Her Stocking Page 15

  ‘Do you remember that I told you that Maggie’s daughter Ruth is an infant school teacher?’

  Emma nodded. ‘You said she was wonderful with the children.’

  She’d been looking after them when Max had taken Emma up to the attic to find the boxes of decorations. It seemed a long time ago already that James had been so upset to see them being used again. He had a grandchild on his lap right now and another one leaning on his leg and he looked like a man who’d had his heart well and truly stolen.

  ‘She is. And Maggie says she wants to come and live in Upper Barnsley so that her mum can help after the baby’s born. They’ve cooked up a plan between them that Ruth could be our nanny and Maggie can stay on as housekeeper as well as helping to look after Ruth’s baby. It sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it?’

  Emma’s head was definitely spinning now. ‘It sounds perfect,’ she agreed. ‘You’ll be able to go back to work. You might not even need to wait until the New Year?’

  Which meant that Emma wouldn’t be needed as a locum any longer. If she left the manor house tomorrow, she might never see it again. Or see James or the children or Max again and that simply felt...wrong...

  Very wrong...

  ‘Dr Cunningham?’

  ‘What is it, Maggie?’ Both Max and James turned towards the anxious voice at the door, where their housekeeper was wiping her hands on her apron.

  ‘Would one of you have a minute? Ruth isn’t feeling terribly well.’

  Emma put her glass on the mantelpiece, turning back swiftly, but Max was well ahead of her as she left the room. Glancing over her shoulder just before she pulled the door closed behind her, Emma could see that Ben was climbing up to join his grandad and Tilly in the roomy leather chair and that James was nodding, quite prepared to take responsibility for the children.

  A short time later Emma wished she had stayed where she was and sent James in to assist his son. It had taken Max only minutes to find out why Ruth had started feeling so awful she had gone to lie down on the old couch at one end of the huge kitchen.

  ‘You’re in labour,’ he told her. ‘You’re far enough along for it to be safe for the baby but it looks as though you might already be close to the end of the first stage and that means that it’s happening very fast. I’m not happy to try driving you to hospital and risk you having your baby on the side of the road. I’ll call for an ambulance but there’s no guarantee it’ll get here in time with the amount of snow on the road.’

  The way Emma’s head was spinning now had nothing to do with fatigue or the sip of champagne she’d had. This was more like an adrenaline overload. A fight or flight response and all she wanted to do was flee.

  Another baby was about to be born on Christmas Day?

  No...no, no, no...

  She couldn’t do this.

  But now Max was standing in front of her and his gaze was telling her that she could do this. That she had to because he needed her to.

  ‘You know where the kit is in the clinic,’ he said. ‘Could you go and get it, please? There’s an obstetric pack right beside the drug cupboard too. Maggie’s got a key. She’ll go with you to get what we need, but we need it fast.’

  Getting out of this room was good. Getting out fast was even better.

  Emma turned and ran.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THIS HAD TO be the most unusual management of an emergency that Max had ever been in charge of. Here he was, in the kitchen of his childhood home, the aromas of a traditional Christmas dinner beginning to fill the room, and he was about to help a new baby into the world.

  An ambulance was on its way to the house but he was pretty sure it was not going to arrive in time for the crew to be present at the birth of this baby. He hoped that was the case, anyway, because a long delay at this stage of a delivery could mean there were complications so a smooth transition and fast birth were preferable.

  Ruth must have been having contractions for some time. She’d told Max that she’d put her discomfort down to an increase in the backache she’d been aware of for a couple of days, due to being on her feet since early this morning helping her mother cook the Christmas dinner they’d all been planning to share. By the time Emma and Maggie had come back into the room with the kit and Max had pulled gloves on, he could feel the bulge in Ruth’s perineum that meant that crowning of the baby’s head was imminent.

  Ruth wasn’t his only patient here. There was a baby that was about to come into the world a lot faster than usual, and that was a worry due to increased risks of haemorrhage or tearing for the mother and aspiration of amniotic fluid for the baby, or infection due to a less than sterile environment for the birth.

  ‘Grab some clean towels, Maggie. We’ll put some under Ruth right away. I’m surprised her waters haven’t broken already.’

  Maggie was pale but composed. ‘I’ll be right back... Oh, my...that’s the bread sauce boiling over. I thought I could smell something burning...’

  Max wasn’t the only doctor here either. Emma had opened the kit. She had also put gloves on and she was unrolling the IV pack. She knew that IV access was a priority. Not for intravenous pain relief because it was probably already too late for that, but they might need to be able to give fluids if Ruth started losing too much blood.

  But Emma was even paler than Maggie. She was doing what she needed to do but Max could feel how difficult this was for her. He could almost see the pressure that she was fighting against.

  And he understood completely just how hard this had to be for Emma.

  Her own baby had been born on Christmas Day and, while Holly had been born alive, it had only been a short time later that Emma had lost her daughter. This had to be taking her back to the pain, both physical and emotional, and Max could feel a piece of his own heart tearing.

  It was unbearable to see Emma in such pain. He wished he could have protected her from this but he hadn’t been able to. The urge to offer comfort now was so strong it had the potential to interfere with what he needed to focus on, and it was in that split second that Max realised just how important Emma was to him.

  He wasn’t in danger of falling in love with this woman.

  It had already happened. In the space of only a few days, with his world as he knew it crumbling into chaos around him, he had found a human rock who had anchored him. Who had shown him a future that he could embrace. Someone who had touched him on levels he’d never experienced before and he knew he could never find with anyone else. Max was a better man for having had Emma Moretti in his life for only a matter of days. Already, he couldn’t imagine his life without her in it.

  So he was feeling her pain but he knew that, somehow, she had to face it or she would never be able to move on and embrace a future of her own—whether it was with him or not. And, because he loved her, he had to help her.

  The thoughts flashed through his brain as more of an awareness than any conscious analysis. His focus had to be fully on his patients and, as Maggie arrived with soft, clean towels that were put in place merely seconds before Ruth’s waters broke, Max only had a heartbeat to catch Emma’s gaze. To try and let her know that he understood. That he was going to do whatever it took to make sure that Emma could cope. That everything was going to be okay.

  You’ve got this...

  His message was silent but he knew that it had been received because he could sense the contact. As if she had accepted an outstretched hand. As if his strength was welcome.

  * * *

  It seemed as if every new situation that Emma saw Max dealing with increased her respect for this man and filled her heart with a mix of emotions that felt limitless.

  Like how proud she was of his abilities. Like how much she loved how gentle he was trying to be but how uncompromising he was in doing what needed to be done, like cradling the back of the baby’s head as it appeared and putting pressure on it to
prevent an explosive delivery. His hand looked huge as he supported the tiny head as the forehead and then the face and finally the chin and neck were delivered and then helping to deliver each shoulder by careful downward pressure for the first and upward for the second.

  ‘You’re doing great, Ruth. Almost there...’

  Dear Lord, it was hard to try and keep a totally professional focus, here. Emma could feel the pain of every contraction Ruth was having and she could remember exactly what it felt like to have the rest of a baby’s body slither out after the shoulders were delivered. That moment, suspended in time, when you were listening for the first cry of your child. That moment had been so much worse for Emma, because she’d known there was a very good chance she might never hear a first cry but oh...she could have wished to have had Max present at the birth of her own baby.

  The way he’d looked at her, only minutes ago, when she’d returned to try and assist him in this unexpected and precipitous birth. As if he understood exactly how hard this might be for her but he had complete confidence that his admiration for how she could cope with difficult things was not misplaced. It felt like the way he’d looked at her when she’d first told him the tragic story of Holly’s birth. As though the threads of connection between them were becoming so strong they could be trusted to take any amount of weight.

  But perhaps he was wrong...

  It was that first cry of Ruth’s baby that tipped the balance. It took Emma straight back to that delivery room five years ago. To the mindset that she could cope because she’d known what was going to happen but...but then she’d been wrong. It might have looked to others as if she’d coped and carried on coping but that was only because she’d been hiding. She’d run away emotionally and built protective walls that had just come crashing down with the single warbling cry of a newborn baby.

  ‘I’m...sorry...’ The words came out as a whisper as Emma pushed herself to her feet. ‘I... I have to go...’

  * * *

  Where was she?

  It was nearly an hour later that Max could finally focus on what had been an increasingly urgent concern. Emma hadn’t been seen since she’d fled the kitchen after the birth of Ruth’s baby. He hadn’t been able to go after her then, of course. His responsibilities lay with caring for his patients, even though it appeared that everything had gone as well as he could have hoped it would. The baby’s Apgar score was good at one minute and perfect at ten minutes. Ruth experienced only minor blood loss and her placenta was delivered without any problem. When the ambulance arrived, along with a police escort and a snow plough waiting at the end of the driveway, Ruth’s tiny son was already nursing well and a proud grandmother was ready to accompany them to hospital.

  ‘Just to be on the safe side,’ Max told Maggie. ‘I’m sure they’ll have you all back home by this afternoon.’

  ‘I can’t thank you enough.’ Maggie brushed back tears. ‘I’ve just helped Dr Cunningham to change Alice’s nappy and given him a bottle for her but I think your Christmas dinner might be a bit ruined. The turkey and potatoes have been in the oven a bit too long and that bread sauce is inedible.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Max was smiling. ‘It was your Christmas dinner as well and I’m sure you’re not worried about missing it.’

  ‘You could heat up the pigs in blankets for Ben. And there’s red jelly in the fridge. I’m sorry, Max. I wanted to help make this Christmas perfect for all of you.’

  ‘We’ll be fine. You go and take care of your family, Maggie. I can take care of mine.’

  ‘But where’s Emma?’

  ‘That’s what I’m about to find out.’

  He checked the drawing room but hadn’t expected to find her with his father and the children. That heartbreaking look in her eyes when she’d heard Ruth’s baby cry for the first time had told him that she was facing a ghost she thought she had to grapple with alone.

  But she was wrong.

  She needed him. Or maybe it was that Max needed to be with her.

  He checked her room but it was empty.

  He went outside into a world that was silent and white, with a fresh burst of fat snowflakes drifting slowly down to cover the tyre tracks of the emergency vehicles that were now long gone. The biting cold nipped at his skin and Max stared towards the woods on either side of the driveway but then he shook his head. Emma was far from stupid and she hadn’t been dressed for being outdoors. Besides, there were no footprints in the snow leading towards the woods.

  There were, however, footprints that led around the corner of the house. A lot of prints, but was that because they’d been made when Maggie and Emma had gone to fetch the medical gear he’d asked for? With the new snow falling, it was hard to tell whether there were any more recent tracks but Max kept following them.

  Because he was remembering walking this way with Emma when they’d brought the emergency kit back from the neighbours’ house and where they’d ended up, later that night. He was remembering not the mind-blowing sexual encounter but what it had been like afterwards. When he’d held Emma in his arms, skin to skin. Heartbeat to heartbeat. How it had felt like the most perfect place in the world to ever be.

  If he was in pain, or scared, or he simply needed comfort, that would be the place he would want to be, wouldn’t it? In Emma’s arms. But, if that hadn’t been possible, he might well have chosen the next best thing—to be in the place that he had once been in Emma’s arms, so that he could imagine that comfort and wrap himself in it like the warmest blanket on a day exactly like today.

  Max let himself into the clinic and then headed for the stairs to the room above.

  * * *

  Those agonised tears had finally stopped a while back.

  Emma had curled herself into the smallest ball and pulled the old eiderdown that had been rolled up on the end of this antique brass bed over herself. She’d heard someone coming up the stairs from the clinic rooms and she’d known that it would be Max, because he was the only person who would know that she knew about the existence of this room, but she was too exhausted to move. So utterly drained she thought she might never be able to move again.

  He didn’t say anything when he came into this room. What he did do was to lie down on the other side of the bed, beneath the eiderdown and behind Emma, to not only take her into his arms but to wrap his whole body around hers. His warmth seeped into her skin with far more effect than the feather-filled cover over them both and she could feel his heartbeat against her back. A steady ticking that was an affirmation of life.

  Of caring...

  It felt like love...

  His words, when they came, were soft against her ear.

  ‘I know it hurts. I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay...’

  Emma’s words were shaky. ‘But it’s not. I thought it was. I want it to be but... I’m scared. I thought I had it sorted but I didn’t really. I’ve been hiding—all this time. It broke me, Max, hearing that cry. I would give anything to hear another baby of mine cry, but how could I ever go through that again when I know how much it can hurt?’

  ‘You can’t hide for ever.’ Max was stroking Emma’s hair. ‘Well, you can, but I hope you don’t. You have so much love to give, Em. So much love that others will want to give you. If you keep hiding, they won’t be able to find you and you’ll miss out on both giving and receiving that love, and how sad would that be?’

  Emma turned in his arms so that she could press her face against the reassuring beat of his heart.

  ‘Nobody’s trying to find me,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve made sure I never stay in one place long enough for that to happen.’

  ‘It doesn’t always take a long time.’ Emma felt Max’s lips press against the top of her head. ‘I’ve found you—and I wasn’t even looking.’

  Emma’s breath caught.

  ‘I didn’t want to look,’ he continued softly. ‘Bec
ause I guess I was hiding too. Even when it was right in front of my eyes I couldn’t see it properly. Like that night when you were making stars with Ben and Tilly and I was feeding Alice and I felt like...like we were...’

  ‘A family?’ Emma whispered into the silence. ‘I know. I felt like that too, when we were decorating the tree. Until your dad got so upset. Until I remembered how much safer it was to step back. To hide...’

  ‘I didn’t believe in Christmas,’ Max said. ‘I knew the magic wasn’t real. That it had died when Mum had gone but, you know what?’

  Emma pulled back just far enough to be able to see Max’s face. ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve made me believe in a different sort of Christmas. And a different sort of magic. Not the sort when you believe someone comes down the chimney and gives you the bike you’ve wanted for so long, but it’s still magic. The family kind. My dad’s probably still sitting in front of the fire, playing with his grandkids or reading them another story. Maybe he’s gone into the kitchen to heat up those pigs in blankets for Ben or maybe they’ve just gone straight for the red jelly. But what he’s really doing is letting those kids into his heart and that means he’s going to start living again. Really living...and that’s magic, isn’t it?’

  Emma could feel her eyes filling. A single tear escaping to trickle down her cheek. ‘It is... It’s real magic. Like love...’

  ‘I tried to make you stay with us because I knew that couldn’t have happened without you. We need you, Em. We all need you but I need you most of all. I love you, Emma Moretti. I’m in love with you and I never thought I’d ever say that to anyone because I didn’t believe in that magic either and I know that you’re the only woman in the world that could make me believe in it. I want you to stay for the rest of this Christmas. And next Christmas. For every Christmas to come for as long as I live.’