Midwife in the Family Way (8 page)

‘That was very sensible of you. We don't want anyone else becoming ill, and there could be some nasty mozzies around at the moment.'

‘Okay.' Grace wriggled out of her mother's arms. ‘I'm going to make a hospital in my doll house in case Barbie or any of her friends get sick.'

‘That's a good idea, sweetheart.' Emma watched her daughter run off happily to her room and wished she too could be so blithely settled in life.

G
IANNI
couldn't track Emma for the next week. Missed her by minutes every time he searched, and he knew that she'd arranged it that way.

He was sure Emma hid in birthing as her clients went into labour and he couldn't get away from his own work, snowed under as they were with minor accidents and a slow increase of dengue fever sufferers, to search her out. He was helping to cover the ward work as well as Emergency, with the other two doctors, Andy and Ben, also working long hours. Angus had picked a good time to go away.

When Gianni called on Christine and Seamus out of hours, he found Seamus slowly improved at home again after a brief relapse, but it seemed Emma had only just left. Every time.

On the Friday of that hectic week he glanced at the clock as it edged towards four and decided he'd waited for an accidental meeting long enough. He would search every house in town if he had to.

Then the emergency doors opened and it was Emma. Fortune was finally smiling, he thought with satisfaction,
until he noticed the two men, both decidedly unwell, who droopily flanked her.

He frowned. There was something familiar about them and then he recognised Emma's brothers, the ambulance officers he'd seen nearly every day, bringing people into Emergency, in civilian clothes.

‘What's happened?' He indicated two beds side by side in the little ward and both men lay down with relief. Tammy covered them with light sheets before she began to check observations. Emma avoided his eyes.

He watched her twist her hands as she glanced from one blond-haired man to the other and not once did she look at him. ‘I think it's dengue.' She spoke to the curtain behind his head and he resisted the urge to move into her line of sight. He needed to concentrate on what she was saying, not how she was saying it.

‘You know Russell and Craig, my brothers. Seamus and the boys fish together once a week. It seems some mosquitoes have been sharing the dengue from before Seamus came down with it. When I came home this afternoon I found them like this, waiting for me. I'm hoping it isn't the fever but they've both got sky-high temperatures.'

Gianni expected it was. He'd seen a few cases that week and he could make a good guess. He looked at Emma, drank in the sight of her, and thankfully she seemed healthy if a little pale. ‘And you? Are you well?'

She nodded. ‘So far. I've been using repellent every day since Seamus came in.'

‘Good.' Gianni nodded, relieved. ‘I, too. We will have to remind those not doing so.' He felt Russell's pulse. ‘I'm inclined to agree about their symptoms, but we'll do bloods, of course. We will have the results after lunch. Perhaps you would ring Andy as Medical Director, and he can get onto the media to remind the public about using repellent if he decides. It seems we have an epidemic. We will look after your brothers.'

She nodded, relieved to have something to take her mind off her siblings and the other problem she'd buried deep and wasn't facing, and dialled Andy's number. Before she could get back to see how they fared, another woman and her father came in, complaining of the same symptoms.

By the time Andy arrived, Gianni had assessed three more people with similar symptoms. His dark sculpted face turned grave, and Emma watched as he explained to the senior medical officer about the new cases.

Emma stayed to help Tammy, and both women assessed, treated and transferred patients to the new dengue ward in a previously closed section of the hospital. Always in the back of her mind was the awareness of Gianni. Dark head bent over a frail, grey-haired lady, his capable hands cradling a small child's ankle, his flashing smile as he shook hands on a patient's departure. So tall and caring and clever with his diagnoses, and his orders so clear and concise that working as a nurse beside him could have been a pleasure if it wasn't for the spectre of her secret that hung between them.

She'd avoided him for a week and what had that
solved? Nothing. When the rush was over this time she didn't try and slip away without seeing Gianni.

She smiled ruefully at his surprise when she waited for him at the door. ‘It's good to finally see you, Emma.' Gianni raised his black brows. ‘I thought you had moved to another planet.'

She gave a strangled laugh. So he'd noticed she'd avoided him. ‘I seemed to just miss you all the time.'

‘That is what I thought,' he said sardonically. So he hadn't been misled. ‘Why don't you come in and say hello to Louisa?' he suggested as they walked out the front of the hospital. ‘Tell her about our day. Is your daughter home from school yet?'

‘Grace visits her other grandmother tonight.' And Emma's brothers in hospital meant no visitors would drop in. With all that had happened, that seemed too much to bear. She was over being alone with her thoughts.

She didn't meet his eyes. ‘I'll pop in and see her. Thank you.' And Louisa would be there to chaperone, she reassured herself. She'd come to the conclusion her weakness for Gianni was worse than the dengue, and she was vibrantly aware of how little a dose of Gianni she needed before her symptoms of infatuation could get out of control.

Darned shame she couldn't find a repellent for that, though the worry of the secret that lay between them was a pretty good deterrent to getting up close and personal.

A week had passed since that momentous afternoon,
and she'd arrived at a semblance of calm—in the way of an ostrich—and decided to wait before any decisions were made about sharing her news with anyone. Especially Gianni.

And on Wednesday she'd gone for the last counselling visit because it had already been scheduled and she'd forgotten to cancel. The blood had been taken but the results would be held until the time she might screw up her courage for the truth. Though the confirmation of her pregnancy made her less keen for a decision.

None of that was for discussion, and she'd be careful. This was just a supervised visit to see how Louisa was.

They crossed the lawn, both intent on their own thoughts, and Emma broke the sombre silence. ‘So how is Louisa?' The poignant memories of their first walk to the kitchen seeking the widow settled over them like mist and dampened the afternoon sunshine.

‘I think she's okay. She smiles, mostly at my appetite, which is apparently much greater than her late husband's. I must admit she is gifted with food and we are sharing recipes.' He shrugged. ‘I think my coming here even for a short while has been an excellent thing for both of us. I feel more settled than I have for a long time.'

Emma turned her face and poked her tongue out at the idea that at least
he
was feeling settled, then looked back at him with assumed calm.

He patted his barely discernible stomach. ‘And well fed.' He shrugged his impressive shoulders, and she tried
not to remember the feel of them under her hand. ‘My life revolved around my work,' he said, then gestured to the lake. ‘And this is a whole new setting. Although without the fever patients, it would be more relaxing.'

She had to smile at that and glanced at the vista over the lake. The view shifted her thoughts, thankfully. She had a sudden memory of the lyrebird's song to them that morning with Gianni, and the peace from that moment stole over her.

‘I like the people here,' he went on, and she returned to the present. ‘Even the sick and their families are warm and friendly.'

His words reminded her of his wonderful manner with patients, and how good she believed he'd be with birthing mums. ‘You haven't even had a chance to be with us for a birth yet, have you?'

He shook his head. ‘When this craziness with the dengue settles, I hope to have the chance to see you at your work, if I can catch you.' He glanced at her. ‘Hopefully I'll get the time before I leave.'

She needed to remember he was going. ‘When do Angus and Mia get back?'

His eyes crinkled with his affection for Angus and his wife, and she was surprised at how the ache in her heart pierced deeper. ‘They make me smile to see them together.' He shook his head at some memory he didn't elaborate on and then remembered her question.

‘Sorry. A little over two weeks. They wish to spend a week in Paris before they come back. They tried to
convince Louisa to meet them there. But she will not leave.'

‘Paris. Mia will love that.' She guessed Gianni had seen Paris and a lot of other places she hadn't visited. He was in a different league from her. Travel wasn't on Emma's agenda. Especially now.

Maybe in twenty years. When her ‘children' were grown. Oh, God. If she didn't have the gene…

She couldn't imagine such a time but the moment was coming when she needed to face that fear and find out once and for all. But she couldn't do it now.

When they entered the kitchen Louisa looked up with a warm smile at her unexpected visitor. ‘Emma. How lovely to see you.' She looked at Gianni and shared her smile with him. ‘And how was your day, young man?'

Emma stifled the urge to laugh. ‘Young man' made him sound like a schoolboy and he was far from that, though the smile he gave Louisa gave a glimpse of the carefree boy he must have once been.

‘We must be fed,' he whispered to Emma, and Gianni moved to the kitchen table and held the chair for Emma, who had no choice but to sit. To Louisa he said, ‘My day has been busy, like every day since your stepson left. I think it is a conspiracy to get all of his work out of the way before he returns.'

Obviously Gianni and Louisa had no problem communicating. This was a different side to the man she knew. Where had this playfulness come from?

‘Tut. To earn your keep. As you should.' Louisa
winked at Emma and turned back to the stove. ‘Now, I've just boiled the jug and have scones, fresh from the oven.'

‘I will be fat,' Gianni stated as he reached for a scone.

‘Pshew.' Louisa looked at Emma. ‘He runs every morning along the lake.' She looked at the pile of scones. ‘I'll bundle up a few for you to take home, Emma. Keep them in the freezer for guests. Those brothers of yours are always dropping in at your house.'

The conversation turned to Russell and Craig's admission to hospital and the prospect of further cases to come. The health department was sending out an assessor and relief staff were coming in.

Half an hour passed swiftly and Emma realised that, apart from work, she'd needed a dose of the outside world, and conversations other than those repeating in her brain. Slowly, in Louisa's kitchen, she began to feel less desperate and disconnected. She hadn't realised how alone she'd felt in the last week rushing from work to home, obsessed with dodging Gianni.

It was good to sit beside him, buffered by Louisa, having a normal conversation and not living in dread. It was good to see the everyday side to him that Louisa saw.

‘It's a crisis for a small hospital like ours,' Emma was saying when the phone rang.

Louisa shoed Gianni away from it as he went to stand. ‘Have your tea,' she said.

She answered the phone herself then she looked
across at them. ‘Yes. Gianni's here and actually Emma is, too. You want her?' She handed the phone to Emma. ‘It's Montana.'

Gianni watched Emma's face, having missed her with an aching need that grated with a rawness he hadn't expected. Now he could see her he felt more settled. Then he saw her frown and glance at him. He hoped Montana's call was not going to take her away from him now that he had finally managed to capture her company.

‘I'll come straight away,' she said, and Gianni frowned. There must be something wrong.

‘Montana needs a quick hand. A post-partum haemorrhage with a birthing mum.'

‘I will come, too,' he said, but he was speaking to Emma's back and he hurried to catch her as she strode swiftly across the grass to the rear of the hospital where the little birthing centre was situated.

When they arrived Montana had removed the new mother from the bath and returned her to bed. It would be hard to tell the extent of a bleed in the bath but from the little he'd seen of her, Montana was no careless attendant and would have moved swiftly at any deviation from normal.

The woman's husband, Trent, sat with his shirt off and his new baby skin to skin against his chest. A blanket lay across his shoulders as he looked on helplessly. Calmly Montana massaged the woman's belly to encourage the uterus to contract.

Post-partum haemorrhage, most often due to the
failure of the uterine muscle to clamp down on the richly blood-vesselled bed inside the uterus, could bleed at an alarming rate. The husband certainly looked alarmed, and Gianni could well imagine thoughts that would run through a man's brain as his wife seemed to be in such danger in front of him.

Like watching a woman die from snakebite miles from any help. Gianni had watched Maria's life slip away, but there was little risk of that here with what was available, so he nodded with empathy to the man as he passed him. ‘All will be well.'

The woman, Elise, appeared pale and shocked, and Gianni swiftly inserted the second intravenous cannula that Montana offered him, and took the bloods for the clotting factors and cross-matching she wanted.

Emma loaded and hung the Syntocinon flask, the drug most often used to help the muscles of the uterus contract, and gave ergometerine as a separate injection. Montana continued to rub Elise's uterus though the skin of her belly, and gradually the flow slowed to a trickle and finally stopped completely.

Gianni and Emma's eyes met with relief and Emma slid the blood-pressure cuff over Elise's arm while Montana took the woman's pulse as she looked at Gianni. ‘It started slow, so wasn't too bad before we got out of the bath, but it flowed once we made it to the bed.'

‘Pulse is ninety-eight.' She stripped off her gloves and brushed the hair out of her eyes. ‘Thanks for coming, both of you.'