Special Deliveries: Her Gift, His Baby: Secrets of a Career Girl / For the Baby's Sake / A Very Special Delivery

He’d had no idea how it all worked.

As it turned out, Gordon was now on paternity leave and would be juggling toddler twins and a six-year-old’s school run.

‘Not a problem,’ he had said to Gordon.

It was, though, a huge one.

Ethan had gone through everyone to cover for him in the morning and the only person who might possibly have been able to help had an appointment.

Well, Ethan had his cousin’s funeral to attend.

He’d been dreading it, but he would far rather be there than not.

He would love to just ring in sick tomorrow, to let someone else sort it out, to just sign off on the place, as Penny had tonight.

Still, he had expected more from her.

She was senior too.

Ethan loaded some toast into the toaster and some tinned spaghetti into the microwave and tried not to think about Justin and how he’d be feeling tonight. Though, he consoled himself, Gina would surely be handling things better than his own mother had, given they had broken up a couple of years ago.

He couldn’t not be there tomorrow and not just for appearances’ sake—Ethan wanted to see for himself that Justin was okay.

Ethan thought about Phil and the black game they’d played and, sorry, mate, he said to his cousin, because even if he didn’t fancy Penny, he was going to have to play the sympathy card.

He was scrolling through his phone to find her number when it rang.

‘Ethan?’ He didn’t answer her straight away; instead, he frowned at the sound of her voice. ‘It’s Penny. Penny Masters from work.’

‘Hi, Penny.’

‘I’m sorry to call you so late. I meant to tell you before I left for home—it just slipped my mind. I changed my appointment. I can get into work by nine tomorrow, if you still need me to.’

‘I do.’ The words just jumped out of him. ‘Thank you.’ Ethan closed his eyes in relief and it took a second to realise that she was still talking.

‘I’d also like to apologise for my words before.’ She sounded very prim and formal. ‘I really wasn’t in a position to go out tonight, but I didn’t explain myself very well.’

Penny had explained things perfectly, Ethan thought privately, but he was so relieved that he would be able to get the funeral tomorrow that he let go the chance for a little barb, and instead he was nice. ‘I don’t blame you in the least for not wanting to come out tonight.’ Relief, mixed with just a little bit too much champagne, had him speaking honestly. ‘I really don’t think that I’m going to be able to look Hilary in the eye when I go and visit her.’

‘Too much detail?’ He heard her smile.

‘Far, far too much.’

‘That’s Gordon for you. He’s very …’ Penny really didn’t know how to describe him.

‘In tune?’ Ethan suggested.

‘Something like that.’

‘I felt as if I was listening to him describe his labour,’ Ethan said, and was rewarded by the sound of her laugh. ‘Hold on a second.’ The microwave was pinging and he pressed Stop on the microwave rather than ending the call, not that he thought about it. ‘Look, thanks a lot for tomorrow. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.’

‘It was!’ Penny said, which had him frowning but sort of smiling too. ‘Don’t rush back.’

‘I’ll be back by one.’ Ethan really didn’t want to stand around chatting and drinking and talking about Phil in the past tense. He would be glad of the chance to slip away and just bury himself in work.

‘Whose funeral is it?’ Penny asked, and not gently, assuming, because he was fine to dash off from the funeral by one, that it was a patient from work and her mind was sort of scanning the admissions from the previous week as to who it might be, when his voice broke in.

‘My cousin’s.’

Penny closed her eyes, guilty and horrified too, because she’d been so upset tonight she had almost forgotten to ring him. ‘You should have told me that! Ethan, I assumed it was a patient. You should have told me that it was personal.’

‘I was just about to call you and do that,’ Ethan admitted.

‘Is that why you’ve been so …?’ Penny’s voice trailed off.

‘That’s fine, coming from you,’ Ethan said, but it actually came out rather nicely and Penny found herself smiling into the phone as he continued. ‘Yes, it’s been a tough few days.’

‘How old?’

‘My age,’ Ethan said. ‘Thirty-six.’

‘Was it expected?’

‘Sort of,’ Ethan said, and felt that sting at the back of his nose. ‘Sort of not. He was on the waiting list for a heart transplant.’

There was silence for a moment. ‘Was he the one you were going to go to the football with?’ For the first time he heard her sound tentative.

‘Penny …’

‘Oh, God!’ She was a mass of manufactured hormones, not that he knew, and this news came at the end of a very upsetting day. ‘He missed the football match because of me.’

‘It wasn’t something at the top of his bucket list.’ Ethan actually found himself smiling as he recalled the conversation he’d had with Phil when he’d told him that he couldn’t get the time off, the one about the sympathy vote.

And, no, he didn’t fancy Penny, he’d just had a bit too much to drink, he must have, because he was telling her that they’d often gone to watch football. ‘He went anyway—with Justin, his son.’ And he told Penny about the illness that had ravaged his cousin. ‘He got a virus a couple of years ago.’ And he could understand a bit better why the patients liked her, because she was very matter-of-fact and didn’t gush out her sympathies, just asked pertinent questions and then asked how his son and wife were doing.

‘Ex-wife,’ Ethan said, and he found himself musing—only he was doing it out loud and to Penny. ‘They broke up before he got ill, she had an affair and it was all just a mess. It must be hell for her too and she’s coming tomorrow. She’s bringing Justin.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Six,’ Ethan said.

She asked how his aunt and uncle were.

‘Not great,’ he admitted. ‘They’re worried that they won’t get to see Justin so much anymore. It’s just a mess all round.’

And he told Penny the hell of watching someone so vital and full of life gradually getting weaker. How he hated that he had only just made it to the hospital in time. He let out more than he had to Kate, to anyone, and during that conversation Penny found out that it had been his sister who had dropped him off at work, but there was no room for relief or dousing of red-hot pokers, or anything really, as she could hear the heartbreak in his voice.

‘Thirty-six,’ Ethan repeated, and was met by silence. He would never have known that her silence was because of tears. ‘So, while I suppose we were expecting it, it still came as a shock.’ He didn’t really know how better to explain it. ‘And it will be a shock for Justin too.’

‘Poor kid,’ Penny said.

‘Anyway, thanks for swapping.’

He hung up the phone, poured his spaghetti on the toast and then frowned because it was cold. He’d surely only been on the phone for a moment and so back into the microwave it went.

They’d actually been talking for a full twenty minutes.

At five a.m. Penny stood, bleary-eyed, under the shower, trying to wake up. She got out and then dried her hair. At least she didn’t have to worry about make-up yet, given that she would be crying it all off very soon.

And normally the terribly efficient Penny didn’t have to worry about what to wear because her work wardrobe was on a fourteen-day rotation, except it wasn’t so simple at the moment because her arms were bruised from all the blood tests and so her sleeveless grey top wasn’t an option.

Even the simplest thing seemed complicated this morning.

A sheer neutral jumper worked well with her black skirt, except it meant that she had to change her underwear because it showed her black bra, and with all her appointments and tests the usually meticulous Penny’s laundry wasn’t up to date. Racing the clock, she grabbed coral silk underwear that she’d never usually consider wearing for work and then raced downstairs, so rushed and tired that by mistake she added orange juice instead of milk to her coffee and had to make her drink all over again.

Still, Penny thought, she was glad to have been able to help out Ethan, and there was just a flutter of something unfamiliar stirring. Penny hadn’t fancied anyone for ages. Not since she and Vince had spilt up. Well, that wasn’t strictly true—she’d had a slight crush on someone a while ago, but she certainly wasn’t about to go there, even in her thoughts. She drove for what felt like ages until at last, at a quarter to seven, she lay with her knees up, loathing it despite being used to it, as she underwent the internal scan to find out how her ovaries were behaving. And if that wasn’t bad enough, afterwards she headed for her blood test.

‘Morning, Penny!’

They all knew her well.

Penny was determined not to make the scene she had yesterday. She was there willingly after all. But her resolve wavered as she sat on the seat and one of the nurses held her head as she cried while the other strapped down her arm—it was just an exercise in humiliation really.

‘I’m not doing this again,’ Penny said as she felt the needle go into her already-bruised vein.

But she’d said that the last time, yet here she was again, locked in the exhausting world of IVF.

Penny sorted out her make-up in the hospital car park and was, in fact, in the department well before nine.

‘Morning, Penny.’ Mr Dean was especially pleased to see her, because it meant that he could soon go home. ‘I hope that you had a good night’s sleep—the place is wild.’

Of course it was.

‘Where’s Penny?’ was a frequent cry that she heard throughout the day and Penny didn’t really stop for a break, just made do with coffee on the run, but by one o’clock she knew that she had to get something to eat, which she would, just as soon as Mrs Hunt’s chest pain was sorted out.

‘Cardiology knows that you’re here,’ Penny explained to her patient. ‘They haven’t forgotten you. They’re just a bit busy up on CCU.’ The medication patch wasn’t working and Penny was just writing Mrs Hunt up for some morphine when the department was alerted that a severe head injury was on its way in.

‘Can you sort out that medication, Vanessa?’ Penny asked as she pulled on a fresh gown and gloves and her eye shield. ‘Maybe you could give Cardiology another page, just remind them that she’s here?’ Penny said, because one look at her new patient and Penny knew she wouldn’t be back in to see Mrs Hunt for a while.

‘Fight at school,’ a paramedic said as they lifted the young man over. ‘Fell backwards …’

The teen was still in his school uniform and was, she was told, eighteen. Penny shut out the horror and focussed on her patient, feeling the mush of his skull beneath her gloved hands.

‘CPR was started immediately and continued at the scene …’ Penny listened to the paramedics’ handover as she worked. He’d been intubated and they’d got his heart started again, but it wasn’t looking good at all. She flashed a torch into his eyes but they were fixed and dilated. Still, he’d been given atropine, a medication that, amongst other things, dilated the pupils, which could account for that.

Hopefully.

‘Has anyone seen Penny?’ She heard Jasmine’s voice.

‘Curtain one, Resus,’ Penny shouted. ‘What?’ she asked a moment later when Jasmine popped her head around.

‘Nothing.’ Jasmine saw the seriousness of the situation and came and helped Lisa with the young man. The trauma team arrived then as well, but despite their best efforts and equipment things were looking seriously grim.

‘We’ll get him round for a head CT.’ The trauma consultant was speaking with Penny and she glanced up as Ethan came in. He was wearing a black suit and had taken off his tie. His face was a touch grey and he looked down at the young man on the resus bed and then at Penny. ‘I’m just letting you know that I’m back. I’ll get changed.’

‘Before you do, could you just check in on curtain three?’ Penny said. ‘I had to leave her for this.’

Ethan never did get to change. Mrs Hunt’s chest pain was increasing.

‘Vanessa!’ Penny was trying to concentrate on her patient but she could hear a commotion starting across the room. ‘Did you give her that morphine?’

‘I’m giving it now.’

It was a horrible afternoon.

Once the young patient was being dealt with by Trauma, Penny had an extremely tart word with Vanessa but she was just met with excuses.

‘I was trying to get through to Cardiology and then I was waiting for someone to come and check the drug with me, but everyone was in with the trauma or at lunch …’

And Penny said nothing. She didn’t have to, her look said it all.

‘Two staff members have to check morphine.’ Lisa stuck up for her nurse, of course. ‘And nurses do have to eat!’ Penny bit down on a brittle response, because she’d really love to have made it to lunch too. There was a gnawing of hunger in her stomach but more than that she was annoyed that Mrs Hunt had been in pain for a good fifteen minutes when the medication had been ordered well before that. ‘We do our best, Penny,’ Lisa said.

It just wasn’t good enough for Penny, though she held on to those words.

The police came in and so to did the parents and as the trauma team had taken the young man from CT straight to Theatre, it was Penny who had to speak to them.

‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ Lisa offered, but Penny shook her head.

‘I’ll be fine.’

Ethan watched as she walked towards the interview room and thanked God that today it wasn’t him about to break terrible news.

‘Mr and Mrs Monroe.’ Penny introduced herself and sat down. ‘I was the doctor on duty when Heath was brought in.’

And she went through everything with them. They didn’t need her tears, neither did they need false hope. She told them it was incredibly serious but that their son was in Theatre, and she watched as their lives fell apart. As she walked out of the interview room, Penny wondered if she could really bear to be a mum because the agony on their features, the sobbing that had come from Mrs Monroe was, Penny realised, from a kind of love she didn’t yet know.

‘How are they?’ Ethan asked when she came back to the nurses’ station.

‘They’re just having a nice cup of tea …’ Penny bristled and then checked herself. She was aware she was terribly brittle at times. Jasmine had happily told her that on several occasions, but speaking with Heath’s parents had been incredibly hard. ‘Awful,’ she admitted, then looked at his black suit and up into his hazel eyes and she could see they were a little bit bloodshot. Normally Penny didn’t ask questions, she liked to keep everything distanced, but she had seen his eyes shutter when he’d looked at the young patient, remembered the raw pain in his voice last night, and for once she crossed the line.

‘How was the funeral?’ Penny asked.

‘It wasn’t a funeral apparently, it was a celebration of life.’ He turned back to his notes. ‘It was a funeral to me.’

‘How was the son?’

‘Trying to be brave.’ He let out a breath.

He looked beautiful in a suit; in fact, Penny couldn’t believe that she’d never noticed until recently that he was a very good-looking man. Still, her mind had been in other places in recent weeks, but it was in an unfamiliar one now, because she wanted to say something more to him, wanted to somehow say the right thing. She just didn’t know what.

‘I need to get something to eat.’ Penny, of course, said the wrong thing, but she was actually feeling sick she was so hungry. ‘I’m sorry, Ethan, that sounded …’

‘It’s fine.’ For the first time that day Ethan actually smiled. Penny really was socially awkward, Ethan realised. It just didn’t offend him so much today.

‘Can I have a word, please, Penny?’ She turned at Jasmine’s voice, remembered she had been looking for her earlier.

‘Away from here.’ Penny saw how pale her sister was and even before they had reached her office, Penny couldn’t help but ask.

‘Is it the baby?’

‘No.’ Jasmine swallowed before speaking. ‘Jed’s mum had a stroke this morning.’

‘Oh! I’m sorry to hear that. How bad is it?’

‘We’re not sure yet. Jed’s trying to get away from work and then he’s going to fly over there.’

‘You need to go with him.’ Instantly, Penny understood her sister’s dilemma—Jed’s family were all in Sydney.

‘I can’t leave you now.’ Jasmine’s eyes were full of tears.

‘Jasmine. Your husband’s mum is ill, possibly seriously. How can you not go with him? You know how people had to just drop everything when Mum was sick.’

‘You’re mid-treatment and I promised you—’

‘You made a bigger promise to your husband when you married him.’ Penny was incredibly firm. ‘I will be fine.’ Jasmine gave her a very disbelieving look. After all, she was the one who gave Penny her injections and knew just how bad she was. ‘I will be,’ Penny insisted.

‘You’ll stop the treatment,’ Jasmine said.

‘I won’t. I’ll ring the clinic now and make an appointment or I’ll go to my GP. Jasmine, you know that you have to go with Jed.’

She did.

There really wasn’t a choice.

But what Penny didn’t tell her was that there was little chance of her getting to the clinic by six and even if she did, tomorrow she was on midday till nine.

‘Are you okay?’ Ethan frowned as she joined him at the nurses’ station.

‘I just had some bad news,’ Penny said. ‘Jed’s mother has had a stroke.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He saw tears starting to fill her very blue eyes and her nose starting to go red. ‘Are you close?’

‘No.’ Penny shook her head. ‘They live in Sydney, Jasmine is on her way there now.’

‘I meant close,’ Ethan said, as Penny seemed a little dazed, ‘as in are you close to her?’

‘Not really. I just met her once at the wedding.’ Penny blinked. ‘She seemed pretty nice, though. Ethan …’ Penny took a deep breath ‘… could I ask …?’ No, she couldn’t ask him to cover for her now, because even if he said yes to tonight, what about tomorrow and the next day? ‘It doesn’t matter.’

She went to walk off to her office and Ethan sat there frowning. Really, all he did was frown any time he spoke to Penny. She really was the most confusing woman he had ever met.

Cold one minute and then incredibly empathetic the next.

Ethan looked up and qualified his thought.

Make that empathetic one minute and a soon-to-be blubbering mess the next. Her face had gone bright red and she had stopped in the corridor by a sink and was pulling paper towels out of the dispenser, and her shoulders were heaving.

He didn’t know very much about Penny, she’d made sure of that, but from the little that he did know, Ethan was quite sure she would hate any of the staff seeing her like that. She was trying to dash off, but Lisa was calling out to her and he watched as the trauma registrar came into the department and caught a glimpse of her and, patient notes in hand, went to waylay her. Ethan stepped in.

‘I need a quick word with you, please, Penny.’ He took her by the elbow and sped her through the department into one of the patient interview rooms, and the second they were inside Penny broke down.

CHAPTER SIX

‘PLEASE, GO, ETHAN.’

He just stood there.

‘Ethan, please, just go.’

‘I’m really sorry about your sister’s mother-in-law.’ He saw her forehead crinkle and then intermingled with sobs she let out a strange gurgle of laughter.

‘It’s not that.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m not that nice.’

Ethan stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do. He could handle tears from patients and their relatives but this felt more personal than that. She had a handful of paper towels so he couldn’t even offer her a tissue.

Then she blurted it out.

‘I’m having IVF.’

And any fledgling thoughts that possibly he might rather like Penny in that way were instantly doused. Still, at least, in this, he did know what to do. My God, he did, because he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a cuddle. As he did so he was filled with a sense of déjà vu, because his twin sister had been through it so many times and had taught him what to do. Often Kate had wept on him, on anyone who happened to be passing really.

Except there was no feeling of déjà vu when he actually held Penny in his arms. She was incredibly slim and, he was quite sure from her little wriggle to escape, that she wasn’t someone who particularly liked to be held. ‘It must be horrible,’ Ethan said, because Kate had told him that that was a good thing to say when he’d messed up a few times and said the completely wrong thing.

‘I’m a mess,’ Penny mumbled.

‘You’re not a mess,’ Ethan said. ‘It’s just that your hormones are crazy at the moment.’ He would ring Kate tonight and thank her, Ethan thought as he felt Penny relax in his arms. Then he ventured off the given script. ‘So that’s what’s been going on?’

She nodded into his chest and Ethan realised then that her on IVF was the only Penny he had ever known. ‘It’s my second go. That’s why I was away when you started here. I should have taken time off this time.’

He realised now why she’d been so inflexible with the roster on other occasions, all the appointments she would have been juggling would have made it impossible to change—and yet yesterday, at short notice, she had. ‘Why didn’t you just say?’

‘I didn’t want anyone to know. But now I’m just being a bitch to everyone.’

‘You’re not.’

‘Everyone’s saying it.’

‘No,’ Ethan lied, ‘you just come across as a bit tough.’ He gave in then. ‘I bet you’re normally a really nice person.’ He held his breath, worried that he had said the wrong thing, but he felt her laugh a little. ‘I bet you’re a sweet, warm, lovely thing really.’

‘No,’ Penny said. ‘I am a bitch, but you’ve just met the exacerbated version.’ And then she started to cry again. ‘You missed going to the football with your cousin because of me. I’m a horribly selfish person.’

‘Penny, stop it.’

Except she couldn’t stop crying, just wished she could take back that day and he could have had that time with his cousin.

‘Phil and I often went to football, it really wasn’t a big deal, and remember Phil got to spend precious time with Justin that day.’

Finally she felt herself calming, embarrassed now at being held, and she pulled away.

‘You need to go home,’ Ethan said. ‘Were you at the clinic this morning?’

Penny nodded.

‘I can cover more for you now that I know. You come in to work a bit later some mornings, just text me.’

‘It’s not just because I’m tired that I’m crying.’ She took a big breath and told him the embarrassing truth. ‘I’m terrified of needles and Jasmine has been the one giving the injections to me. I’m due for one at six. I’m going to ring the clinic and see if they can give it to me, but I’m not sure what time they close, and then there’s tomorrow …’

Ethan sat her down. ‘Surely one of the nurses can give it to you?’ Ethan suggested, but realised that, of course, she didn’t want anyone to know she was on IVF. ‘I can give you your injections.’

‘God, no.’ Penny shook her head. ‘I’m not just a little bit scared of needles. I get in a right state sometimes—even worse than I am now.’

‘Can’t your partner come in?’ Ethan asked, because Carl had given Kate hers. ‘Surely he’d—’

‘I don’t have a partner. I’m doing this by myself.’

‘You’re doing this on your own?’

‘Yes.’

‘You mean you’d choose …’ As Penny looked at him sharply, luckily Ethan had the good sense to stop talking. He just couldn’t really believe someone would choose to be a parent, let alone a single one—babies really weren’t his forte. But, whatever his thoughts on the subject were, they really weren’t relevant here. Penny wasn’t asking for his opinion, just some help with logistics. Instead, he asked where the clinic was and then looked at his watch.