Emergency Baby

This pretty young nurse had dragged Steve’s notes from the trolley to show Alex.

‘He had a massive haemopneumothorax. Six fractured ribs. Would you like to see the X-ray?’

‘Maybe later. So he’ll still be pretty sore, then?’

‘Mmm. The chest drain only came out today. He’s had another CT scan on his head and neck, too. Did you know there was a hairline fracture in C6/7? Just as well you guys knew how to take such good care of him.’

Sam’s attention wandered as the nurse’s dimples flashed. There was a noticeboard in the central corridor beside the main desk. Photographs and thank-you cards from patients were interspersed with notices from support groups, rules for visitors and hospital services such as the hairdressing salon and chemist.

Below the large pinboard was a long, custom-built pocket that housed a variety of pamphlets. Idly, Sam scanned the titles. There were tips for incorporating a healthy level of exercise into a daily routine— ‘Push play for thirty minutes a day’. Dietary guidelines for a heart healthy eating plan had a cute little smiley red heart with legs. More professional looking were the warning signs and self-help checks for testicular and prostate cancer, but not many had been taken.

‘So, did you get any good calls today?’ The nurse was edging the conversation into a more personal arena.

‘Nah. Quiet day for us. Sam? You ready? Steve’s in room 3.’

‘Sure.’ But Sam didn’t turn directly towards Alex because her line of vision had just connected with something interesting.

Very interesting.

‘I’ll come with you,’ the nurse announced. ‘He’s due for obs, anyway.’

Sam started to follow the pair down the corridor but then hesitated. Too quickly for Alex to notice, she turned back, pocketed one of the pamphlets and then strode a step or two to catch up.

‘How’s Bruce doing?’ she queried.

‘Really well.’ You would have thought it had been Alex who’d spoken the way the nurse’s gaze was dragged back to the man she was keeping in step with. ‘They asked to be in the same room, which is why I’ve got them both on my list. He’s been up on his crutches today.’

The men from the caving club were delighted to see their visitors and show off their progress to representatives from the emergency services that had ensured their survival. Sam happily joined in the conversation but part of her mind was still firmly captured by the light-bulb moment she had experienced back at the noticeboard.

It wasn’t a flashy brochure trying to win people over to the benefits of a low-fat diet or thirty minutes of activity every day. It was even more discreet than the testicular cancer one. Sam hoped it would have lots of information inside but the two words that had caught her eye so effectively were enough all by themselves really.

Sperm bank.

A baby bank. An anonymous donation and then a withdrawal and bingo! A ‘no-strings’ baby. Sam’s buttons had not been pushed last week by the notion of falling madly in love, getting married and settling down to raise a family. Oh, no! What Sam wanted, purely and simply…was a baby. A being she could afford to love, heart and soul. A tiny person she could guide and protect and watch grow and develop. Someone who would love her back and could provide the bond between mother and child that had been missing from Sam’s life for what felt like for ever.

It wasn’t as though she needed a man in her life. Not on a permanent basis anyway. She was perfectly happy the way she was, thank you, and who needed the angst and stress of a relationship that didn’t work out long term? The argument that a child needed a father figure didn’t hold much water, either. Sam had no shortage of suitable male role models readily available if she happened to end up raising a son.

Financially she was secure enough and Sam didn’t intend giving up her job for ever anyway. A good day-care centre would have the added benefit of solving any issues regarding a lack of siblings for her child as well.

Dammit! Sam smiled at Bruce, realising she hadn’t heard a word he’d just said and he was looking at her expectantly, waiting for a response.

‘Hmm,’ she said thoughtfully, buying some time.

‘She’d love it,’Alex declared.

They were talking about caving, Sam realised as her brain retrieved snatches of the half-heard patch of recent conversation. Steve was actually looking as enthusiastic as Bruce at the thought of taking Alex off to climb dark vertical walls and squeeze painfully through impossibly small fissures. Did these men have rocks in their heads?

Maybe if Tim—the man who hadn’t made it through the disaster—hadn’t been a new and relatively unknown club member, his death would have made enough impact to dampen that enthusiasm a little longer.

‘I reckon I’ll be fit enough in a month or so,’ Steve was saying. ‘I’ll give you a bell.’

‘We’ll find somewhere easy for your first run,’ Bruce added.

‘Hopefully somewhere away from any fault lines,’ Sam suggested.

The three men looked at her sadly. The looks were eloquent enough to tell her they were using their passion as positive energy to get through their current discomfort and the tragedy that had occurred. They didn’t need someone pulling them down, but her reaction was only to be expected. She was a girl after all.

That was quite enough to push a button that had been well honed throughout Sam’s childhood.

‘Hey, don’t get me wrong,’ she said brightly. ‘I’m in. I need to keep an eye on my partner here, don’t I? Just to make sure he doesn’t get himself into trouble.’

Two sad glances were directed at Alex now.

‘Sounds as bad as being married, mate,’ Steve muttered.

‘Worse,’ Alex said cheerfully. ‘Can’t get away from her even when I’m at work.’

Sam’s eyes widened as a sharp retort sprang to her lips but it died as the softening she detected in Alex’s smile let her know he wasn’t serious. That he didn’t want to get away from her at all.

She smiled at Steve. ‘How’s Courtney?’ she queried. ‘And the baby?’

The memory of that tiny vulnerable face and the way the baby had lain in her arms, totally dependent on her protection, gave Sam a sharp twinge of longing.

It also triggered unease. How could Steve be so keen to put himself back into a situation that had almost denied that baby one of its parents? Sam recognised the hypocrisy of the criticism instantly. Wasn’t she planning to continue what most people would consider a high-risk profession if she had a baby?

But that was different. Her passion was a career, not a hobby. And she was very good at what she did. The risks were carefully calculated. Minimal, really.

Steve was beaming proudly in response to Sam’s query. ‘He’s great,’ he said.

‘He’s noisy,’ Bruce said. ‘That kid yells its head off every time it comes in for a visit.’

‘You might see them if you wait a bit,’ Steve told Sam.

‘We need to hit the road,’ Alex said hurriedly. ‘We’re overdue to hand over our vehicle to the next crew.’

Sam couldn’t object to the reason for their departure but she was surprised by the pace Alex set as they left the ward.

‘What’s the hurry?’

‘Time to go home. I’ve got a cold beer waiting for me in my fridge.’

Sam had her doubts about that response. Not that there was a beer waiting, of course, but she had the distinct impression that Alex was moving fast in order to avoid meeting Courtney and the baby.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t looked too thrilled at having to transport that infant from the accident scene this evening, either. Was Alex developing an aversion to children or was she just overly sensitised towards them at present? Alex would think she was mad and he could well be right, but the last week had proved that fighting this desire was swimming against an astonishingly powerful tide.

On her recent days off, Sam had tried everything she could think of to either distract herself or talk herself out of the idea of having a baby. Visits home to wrangle with her brothers and to try and find something to talk about that might impress her father. Punishing sessions at the gym, one of which had included Alex as they had their regular race along the most difficult climbing wall. She had only won that by the skin of her teeth this time. They’d had another afternoon together, on a refresher course for abseiling skills, and she’d gone out one night to the pub where most of her friends from various branches of the emergency services gathered.

None of these activities were remotely connected to children. They had all been as enjoyable as they always were but the sense that something big was lacking from Sam’s life refused to go away.

It simply got bigger.

‘You’ll need fresh batteries in the life pack.’

‘Cool.’ Angus McBride hung his reflectorised, wet-weather coat behind the driver’s seat in the ambulance. ‘Anything else?’

‘Trace paper might be low. We ran through rather a lot with the arrest we went to this morning.’

‘Successful?’

‘No.’ Sam shook her head with resignation. ‘Sad case, too. Eighty-five-year-old lady was on the plane ready to go for a trip to see all her new great-grandchildren in England. It took years for the family to persuade her to make the trip and a daughter actually came out to accompany her. They were taxiing down the runway for take-off when she collapsed.’

‘And running an arrest scenario in the aisle of economy class is definitely not to be recommended.’ Alex reached past Sam to remove his kit from the back of the ambulance. ‘Which reminds me. What did you do with that code summary, Sam?’

‘Oh—I completely forgot to do anything with it.’ Sam fished in her pocket for the carefully folded strip of paper from the life pack that had recorded each stage of the arrest scenario. ‘Here it is.’

‘What’s this?’ Angus’s partner, Tom, came around the side of the vehicle at that moment and stooped to pick something up. ‘Did you drop this, Sam?’

‘Yeah, thanks.’ Sam reached to grab the item but the look on her colleague’s face told her she was way too late. Tom had already spotted those two eye-catching words. Why on earth hadn’t she thought to fold the dratted pamphlet so they would have been hidden on the inside?

‘Whoa!’ Tom held the pamphlet just high enough for Sam’s reach to be inadequate, which wasn’t difficult given that his height matched that of Alex and Sam was a good six inches shorter.

‘Tom!’

Her tone attracted the attention of both Alex and Angus.

‘I know you consider yourself to be one of the boys, Sam,’ Tom said gleefully. ‘But this is going a bit far, isn’t it?’

‘What is it?’ Alex asked with interest.

‘Nothing,’ Sam growled. ‘Just something I picked up on the ward.’

Tom had opened the pamphlet and was holding it above his head to read. ‘Apparently, they’re short of donors for the sperm bank,’ he announced.

Even Angus was grinning. ‘Just how did you think you could help, Sam?’

‘By giving it to you lot,’ she retorted. ‘One of these days you might like to consider doing something useful with all those little tadpoles you waste.’

‘Hmm.’ Alex’s eyebrows rose, which seemed to accentuate a familiar mischievous glint in his dark eyes. ‘She could have a point. Think of all those fantastic genes that aren’t getting passed on.’

‘Especially yours.’ Sam was quite ready to pass this off as a joke and make sure none of these men came anywhere near guessing the real reason she had pocketed that pamphlet. ‘I was intending to leave it in your locker, as a matter of fact.’ She glared at Tom. ‘But somebody has spoiled the surprise factor.’

Angus was still smiling. ‘I think you’re right, Alex. Sam does have a point. With the way you treat your women, it’s probably the only way you’ll ever see a son and heir.’

‘Except I wouldn’t see him, would I?’ Surprisingly, Alex seemed to be giving the notion serious consideration. ‘He’d be some stranger’s kid.’

‘There might be ten of them,’ Tom suggested. ‘You’d go to a job at a kindergarten one day and half the kids would look just like you.’

‘They wouldn’t do that.’ Sam didn’t like the idea of there being an unknown number of half-siblings for any child of her own. ‘Would they?’

‘Depends how short they are on the good oil, I guess.’ Angus certainly wasn’t going to take any of this seriously. ‘Personally, if I was going to have a kid, I’d want to know about it. And I’d want to be there while it was growing up.’

A slightly uncomfortable silence fell for a moment as they all remembered that Angus had recently been dumped by the very woman he would have chosen to be the mother of his children. Alex cleared his throat and took on the task of making the atmosphere less strained.

‘I dunno,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Speaking as someone who has no intention of getting married, it seems like a socially responsible kind of thing to do. I wonder if they let you know about any kids. Send a photograph on birthdays or something.’

‘Doubt it,’ Tom said. ‘They probably wouldn’t want the sprog to know so they definitely wouldn’t want some stranger who’d insist on turning up at birthday parties.’

‘Try a private arrangement,’ Angus suggested.

‘Yeah.’ Sam didn’t want to appear silent for a suspiciously long time. ‘Put an ad in the paper,’ she said lightly. ‘“Sperm available to the right woman. No-strings baby required to preserve an exceptional gene pool.”’

‘No payment required either.’ Tom chuckled. ‘Provided the applicant has an exceptional body.’

They all laughed.

Except Sam.

She was staring at Alex as she experienced her second light-bulb moment in the same day.

He’d be perfect. Smart as a whip. Good-looking. Healthy. What more could she ask for? He wouldn’t make any claims other than genetic responsibility for the child’s best attributes and he’d probably be invited to the birthday parties in any case.

But Alex was shaking his head firmly, almost as though he could read Sam’s thoughts.

‘No way. I’d probably end up having to pay child support for triplets. I’d rather spend my spare money on beer, thanks.’ He picked up the kit he’d abandoned by his feet. ‘Speaking of which…’

‘Yeah. Have a good night.’ Tom finally held the pamphlet out to Sam. ‘Here you go.’

‘You can keep it,’ Sam told him. ‘I really don’t need it anymore.’

Turning, she caught a glimpse of Alex Henry’s back as he disappeared into the locker room. It was hard not to smile.

Everything happened for a reason, didn’t it? It had been worthwhile picking up that pamphlet, that’s for sure.

She could always go and get another one if she needed information but, with a bit of luck and some careful preparation, Sam was quietly confident that she would not need the services of a sperm bank.

Something much better might just become available.

CHAPTER THREE

IT COULD never work.

By 10:00 p.m. that night, Sam had changed her mind. Even ignoring having to get over the embarrassment of what she would have to ask Alex to supply, the potential complications of using him as a sperm donor loomed like clouds quite dark enough to dim the light of that bright idea.

What if Alex wanted a say in how the child was raised, for instance? If he thought that day-care centres were less than satisfactory, he would disapprove of Sam returning to her job and their working relationship would be irreparably undermined.

She might have to justify every decision she made, from where and how she chose to give birth to when and how she wanted to start potty training the child. Alex could be just as determined as she was when it came to getting his own way. Sam could conceivably end up with all the disadvantages of being married to the father of her baby without any of the benefits, like someone else getting up at night.

No. Being totally independent about this was the only way to go.

Sam wondered if Tom had thrown that pamphlet away. She would need to check whether she fitted any eligibility criteria for obtaining a totally anonymous donation.

The pamphlet was nowhere to be seen around headquarters the next morning and Sam certainly wasn’t going to make any enquiries, but it didn’t matter because by 11:00 a.m. that day she had changed her mind back again.

Her close observation of Alex since she’d arrived at work at 7:00 a.m. hadn’t been deliberate in any way and Sam was confident it had been subtle enough not to have been noticed. Maybe it had started because she was still finding it impossible not to throw things into the mental scales her brain had activated so energetically last night. She had come to work with the scales way down on the negative side of the equation but, bit by bit, the positive side was getting heavier again.

Maybe that cheerful smile and greeting from Alex had been the catalyst. Everybody else was grumbling about the weather. A southerly blast was catching the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island and it was cold, wet and blustery. Arriving at their airport base, Sam was inclined to agree with the helicopter pilot who was gloomily forecasting a dull day with them not being able to get off the ground.

The squally showers had eased by midmorning but it was still cold and grey and no jobs had come in. Boredom or frustration hadn’t dampened Alex’s mood, however. It never did. How come she had never noticed before how much she appreciated his generally cheerful demeanour? He was never surly first thing or too snappy or irritable when exhausted. Sam had seen him angry when things hadn’t gone the way he’d intended them to go but that anger was almost always used in a positive fashion. If an error had occurred, Alex Henry was going to make damn sure it wasn’t likely to happen again.

Cheerfulness was an attribute high on the list of what desirable children should have. Sam could imagine a small person beaming at her from its cot when she went in to wake it up in the mornings. Or toddling towards her with outstretched arms and a wide, cheeky grin on its face. Just like its father’s. The flash of fantasy was enough to make her smile. She would catch that toddler and hold it close. Maybe swing it around and hear a gurgle of laughter before hugging it tight and planting a kiss on a mop of silky curls.

At 11:30 a.m., Sam’s apparent concentration on her textbook was interrupted by the strident beep of her pager. Alex dropped the car magazine he’d been leafing through and picked up the phone that was a direct link to the control centre.

Sam kept writing to finish the note she was making about ‘Hammon’s crunch’—a noise that could be heard with each heartbeat from mediastinal emphysema caused by a pneumothorax. The incoming job was bound to be road-based, in which case Alex would be keen to drive and he could fill her in at the same time with any details he was gleaning from Control.

Any estimation of blood loss?’ she heard him ask. ‘Any other injuries?’

Something in his tone stilled Sam’s pen. Not tension exactly, but an alertness that suggested he was more than normally interested in what he was hearing. If Alex was that interested, the job had to carry a substantial element of danger.

‘It’ll be up to Terry, I guess.’ Alex was peering up at the sky through the window now. ‘It’s a hell of a lot better than it was an hour ago, anyway.’

So it was a helicopter job. Terry’s pager must have sounded already because he entered the office from where he’d been pottering about in the hangar. He saw the question in Alex’s expression and gave a brief nod.

‘I’ve just had the latest met report,’ he said. ‘We’re sweet.’

That gleam in Alex’s eye was definitely a worry. Sam ripped a small strip of paper from her pad and used it to mark the textbook page before closing the heavy volume on emergency medicine. She had the distinct impression it could be some time before she could resume her study.

‘It’s a fishing boat,’ Alex announced as he hung up the phone. ‘We’ve got rough co-ordinates but there’s no GPS on board. It’s about thirty kilometres off shore.’

An oddly heavy sensation settled in the pit of Sam’s stomach. Perhaps it was the thought of the heavily rolling sea that the ebbing southerly would have left in its wake. A winch job onto a vessel was tricky enough even in relatively calm seas. Not that Sam suffered from any kind of motion sickness. She was just experiencing an empathetic moment for whoever was unwell out there.

‘What’s happened?’ she queried.

‘Partial amputation.’Alex held the door to the hangar open just long enough for Sam to catch up. ‘Compound fracture tib and fib. Sounds like the guy got in the way of a wire that snapped when the boat hit a particularly deep swell.’

‘Mmm. Deep swells, huh?’ Sam tried to summon the reaction she would normally have to the prospect of such a challenging job. To see it as a personal step towards conquering anything that could hold her back. There was no need for either of them to discuss the dangers of trying to get from a helicopter to a pitching ship’s deck safely. ‘Sounds fun.’

Alex’s head turned sharply to catch her gaze and Sam had the horrible thought that he might have detected something she wouldn’t admit even to herself. That that heavy sensation in the pit of her stomach wasn’t empathetic seasickness at all. It was fear.

She grinned at him. ‘Toss a coin, then?’

It was their usual method of deciding who got to do the most challenging part of a job they were both equally qualified to do. Both Sam and Alex were trained to be either the winch operator or the person who got dangled. They needed to decide in advance, however, so that the winching harness could be put on and the correct seats taken before the confined space of the aircraft made it difficult.

‘It’s my turn,’ Alex said firmly. ‘You got to do it last time.’ He reached for the winching harness and stepped into it.

Had she? Sam tried to remember the last sea rescue they’d been on. It had been months ago and hadn’tAlex gone down and brought a conscious patient up in a nappy harness?

‘But—’

‘Too slow.’ Alex clipped the front of the harness together and turned to step onto the skid and into the cabin. ‘Get with it, Sam. We’re off.’

Terry had already done all the checks the helicopter needed. The rotor speed was increasing and Sam knew they would be off the ground as soon as her safety belt was fastened. There was no point trying to argue with Alex and it wasn’t until well after take-off, when they started scanning a menacing-looking sea beneath them, that Sam realised why it was still bothering her.

It wasn’t that she needed to face whatever was causing that irritating level of nervousness. It was more that she sensed Alex had picked up on it and had claimed the more dangerous part of the job because he was trying to protect Sam.

The cheerful grin she received on shooting a suspicious glance in Alex’s direction had an element of self-satisfaction that she would normally have put down to Alex scoring in the game of chasing the biggest adrenaline rush. The flash of something quite different that she caught in the depths of those dark eyes confirmed her suspicion, however.

The impression was gone in an instant. If she hadn’t been searching for it, Sam would never have recognised it. On how many other occasions might she have missed it? She’d never looked for anything like it because Sam had never had any doubts about what she wanted to do so had never been concerned that anyone would pick up on something potentially shameful.

They all had things that scared them to some degree. They would be idiots if they didn’t, but Sam, like the boys, had never allowed any level of fear to put up a barrier she couldn’t find a way to cross. She’d always fought for her chance to take on anything that came their way. Sometimes she won and sometimes she didn’t, but now that Sam was thinking along new lines, she realised that Alex had often found ways to circumvent the coin-tossing on jobs that had the potential to be particularly fraught.