A Daddy For Baby Zoe?

The edges of that very beautiful mouth tweaked up slightly—not quite a smile but as close as he’d ever seen her come to one. Her warm hand closed around his wrist with a surprisingly strong grip and he pushed against his injured hand to help them both. Red-hot pain ripped through him and he swayed on his feet.

‘Steady.’ Meredith pressed her shoulder under his and put her arm around his waist. ‘Just stand still for a second and wait for everything to catch up.’

Her warmth flowed into him and he had the craziest sensation that she fitted in against him as if she was his matching piece in a puzzle.

What the hell? The pain was making him hallucinate. ‘I’m good to go.’ He started to walk, fighting the silver dots that danced in front of his eyes.

He thought he heard her mutter something about men taking stupid risks and then her fingers were digging into his forearm and stalling his progress. ‘This isn’t a race walk, okay?’

With one hand holding her bag and the other on his arm, they made their way slowly through the front doorway and into the house. ‘Where’s the kitchen?’

Right now it seemed a million miles away. ‘Down the hall and to the left.’

A minute later Raf gratefully slid into the chrome and vinyl kitchen chair and rested his arms on the green Laminex-topped table. Meredith blinked twice as if she was clearing her vision and then she pulled up a chair and opened her medical bag.

He gave a wry smile. ‘Yes, you have stepped back in time to 1975.’

She didn’t say anything, just pumped hand sanitiser onto her hand before deftly rubbing it into her skin. After she’d snapped on gloves, she finally spoke. ‘Let’s see how much damage you’ve inflicted on yourself.’ She gingerly unwrapped the blood-soaked shirt and more oozed from a deep and uneven cut. ‘You did a good job.’

‘I only ever do my best,’ he joked feebly as he forced himself to look at his hand. His gut flipped as a wave of nausea washed through him. Being objective about a cut was much easier when it wasn’t his hand that was bleeding.

‘Wriggle your fingers for me,’ she said, not taking her gaze off his hand.’

‘One, two, three, four, five,’ he said as he moved each one individually. ‘No tendon damage.’

Surprise crossed her face as she pressed a wad of gauze against the wound and then she picked up his other hand and placed it over the top to apply pressure. ‘That’s right. Are you in the medical profession too?’

‘Not exactly, but I’ve been a volunteer ambo for years. I work the big events in Melbourne like the tennis and the footy grand final.’

He heard the combined noises of shuffle and thump echoing down the hall—the new sound of his father’s gait that had replaced his previously brisk and determined thwack of work boots.

A few seconds later, Mario appeared in the doorway. ‘Rafael.’ His voice was coolly censorious. ‘You didn’t mention we have a visitor.’ He turned his attention to Meredith with a smile. ‘Hello, I’m Mario Camilleri.’

‘I’m Meredith,’ she said crisply in a doctor’s voice. ‘I’m your neighbour but I’m not here on a social call.’

Before Raf could open his mouth she added, ‘I’m a doctor and Raf’s injured himself with the saw.’

Mario’s gaze moved to the blood-soaked shirt and gauze and then flicked to Raf’s face, his expression critical. ‘I taught you better than that. Just as well you didn’t use the chainsaw.’

‘Meredith,’ Raf said, trying to stay calm, ‘meet my father.’

Meredith thought she saw Raf’s jaw clench and had the almost palpable tension that ran between father and son been an object, it would have been a big, solid brick wall. Mario’s hand gripped the handle of his cane and despite the fact his face hadn’t blanched at the sight of the blood, she really didn’t need two men down. ‘I’m going to stitch Raf’s hand so if that makes you feel queasy …’

‘I’ve been a professional fisherman all my life,’ Mario said. ‘It takes more than some blood to upset me.’ He flicked a disapproving glance at Raf. ‘My wife had a rule about wearing a shirt in the house. I’ll get Raf a clean one.’ He turned and walked away, his left leg dragging every few steps.

As a doctor, Meredith had seen a lot of bodies in her day and she could understand how some men’s torsos—especially lily-white-skinned ones with flabby abdomens—could be off-putting and a definite appetite suppressant in a kitchen. Raf’s, on the other hand, was olive skinned, muscular with a hint of a six pack and not at all unappealing.

Eye candy for you, Merry. Richard’s teasing voice sliced into her.

She quickly snapped open an ampoule of local anaesthetic and concentrated on drawing the clear liquid into the syringe, desperate not to think about Richard. Whenever she thought about his unnecessary death, she never knew if she was going to start screaming at him, start sobbing, or both. She’d learned in the last weeks that there was a minute distance between anger and despair.

She shot the clear anaesthetic liquid out of the needle until it measured the correct amount. ‘Let’s get this hand stitched up.’

Raf grimaced. ‘That stuff stings.’

‘Sorry.’

He shrugged. ‘There are worse things.’

‘Yes,’ she said savagely. ‘There are.’

‘That was heartfelt.’ His large, kind chestnut eyes—the same deep, rich colour as the eyes of the Jersey cows she’d grown up surrounded by—studied her intently, as if he was searching for something.

She dropped his gaze. ‘This might hurt.’ She jabbed the needle into the back of his hand and injected the local.

He flinched. ‘You’re not wrong.’

‘We just have to give it a minute to work.’ She laid out her scissors and the suture thread on the sterile paper towel from the dressing pack before swabbing the wound with antiseptic.

He sucked in a breath through his teeth. ‘Okay, Meredith, you need to talk to me to take my mind off this burning pain.’

She opened her mouth to mention the weather when Raf asked, ‘When’s the baby due?’

‘Three weeks.’ She pressed the tip of a needle onto his hand, testing if the local had taken effect. ‘Can you feel that?’

He shook his head. ‘So really the baby could arrive any day now.’

‘No,’ she said emphatically, and started stitching, pushing the curved needle into the skin layers and twirling the thread around the forceps before tying the knot. ‘Three weeks is the minimum and I could have up to five.’

Raf laughed. ‘You’ve told the baby that, have you? It’s my experience they come when they’re ready.’

‘You have kids?’ she asked, wanting to turn the attention away from herself.

For a brief moment his nostrils flared and she felt sure she saw a flash of emotion. Whether it was regret or relief, it was impossible to tell.

‘No. My sister has twins and they came early.’

‘Multiple pregnancies always do but I’ve only got one baby on board.’ A baby I’m not ready to have on my own.

A thread of panic scuttled through her and she heard herself saying, ‘He or she is not allowed to come early.’ He looked at her with astonishment clear on his face and she didn’t blame him because she knew she sounded crazy, and, in a way, she was probably slowly going mad. Having a husband die weeks before the birth of their first child could do that to a woman. She immediately braced herself for the expected, ‘Do you think you should talk to a professional?’ She already had.

‘You have to be the only pregnant woman I’ve met in the last three years who doesn’t know the baby’s sex. It seems to be the thing to do these days,’ he said in a tone that hinted at disapproval. ‘Goes along with the designer nursery and matching stroller.’

Come on, Merry, of course we need to know if it’s a boy or a girl so we can plan. She kept her eyes down on the stitching as the memory of her and Richard arguing over her refusal to find out the baby’s sex came back to her. ‘Call me old-fashioned,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t want to know ahead of time.’

‘I guess you’re going to be doing a lot of hard work during labour so you deserve a surprise at the end.’

The unexpected words made her glance up from his hand. ‘Thank you.’

He frowned. ‘What for?’

‘You’re the only person who gets that. My husband, Richard …’ The words slipped out as naturally as breathing. The bolt of pain that followed almost winded her. She cleared her throat. ‘My in-laws really wanted to know so they could fill out school enrolment forms.’

His brows rose. ‘That’s a new one. I thought grandmothers wanted to know so they could knit pink or blue.’ His tone was light but his eyes were doing that searching thing again as if he knew she was hiding something from him.

Talk about the stitches. ‘This is the fifth and final stitch,’ she said, snipping the excess thread and then picking up a low-adherent dressing and taping it in place. ‘You need to keep this clean and dry for a week. Are you up to date with your tetanus shots?’

He nodded, his curls bouncing and brushing his intelligent forehead. ‘Yes and I know the drill. I’ll see my doctor to have the stitches removed.’

She stripped off her gloves. ‘I can do it for you.’

‘Won’t you be back in Melbourne by then? You are from Melbourne, right?’

‘Yes, I’m from Melbourne,’ she said briskly as she bundled up the rubbish. ‘And I’ll still be here.’

‘But that’s only two weeks before the baby’s due.’ Deep concentration lines carved into the skin between his eyes as he took a quick look at her wedding band before saying gently, ‘You and your husband do know that the nearest hospital is on the mainland at Wongarri. That’s seventy kilometres away.’

‘We do.’ It was both the truth and, in a way, a lie. Richard had known the distance to the hospital but he wasn’t here to drive her.

‘So your husband’s planning on coming to the island very soon to be with you, right?’

The question froze the breath in her lungs.

Raf Camilleri’s concern for her pulsed between them, reflected in the creases in his high forehead, in the depths of his rich, warm eyes and in the deep brackets around his mouth. She knew she should tell him that Richard wasn’t coming but she also knew that the moment she did, everything would change.

People’s reactions to death were never uniform but as she and Raf barely knew each other, she was pretty certain he’d feel embarrassed and that could play out in one of two ways—mortified and choking silence or prattling pity. Men usually went silent.

Thankfully, Mario chose that moment to return to the kitchen holding one of Raf’s shirts in his hand. He draped it over a chair. ‘Meredith, can I make you an espresso, latte, cappuccino?’

‘Dad,’ Raf said with resignation ringing in his tone, ‘pregnant women shouldn’t drink coffee.’

Mario muttered something that sounded both Italian and empathetic before saying, ‘Meredith, can I offer you tea or hot chocolate?’

‘Thank you, but there’s really no need,’ she said, zipping up her medical bag. The noise sliced through the frosty air that surrounded the two men.

‘I insist.’

Two male voices—both deep, one slightly accented—collided, tumbling over each other as Mario and Raf spoke simultaneously. Mario continued, ‘Indulge an old man and a foolish one.’

Raf shot his father a dark look. ‘I think Dad is trying to say we’re grateful for your help.’

‘As you can tell, Meredith,’ Mario said, ‘we’re sick of each other’s company and we’d welcome your delightful presence a little longer.’

‘You may also prevent me from committing patricide,’ Raf muttered under his breath.

Mario slapped the top of a very expensive, stainless-steel Italian espresso machine. ‘I can make you whatever you want and milk is good for the bambino.’

Meredith had a similar machine sitting on her kitchen bench next door and she’d been returning from the small corner shop with the milk to make herself a drink when she’d heard Raf’s pained and loud swearing.

During the first week after Richard’s death a lot of people had made her drinks, because they hadn’t known what else to do for her and it had made them feel better. But right now, with Mario’s coal-black eyes twinkling at her and Raf giving her a wry smile that held an element of save me from my father, this offer of a drink was completely different. Suddenly the idea of someone without pity or sympathy in their eyes making her a hot beverage was very tempting. ‘Hot chocolate would be great, thank you.’

‘And chocolate and hazelnut biscotti,’ Mario said firmly, opening the fridge and lifting out the bottle of milk.

‘I don’t need—’

‘Don’t even think about fighting Italian hospitality, Meredith,’ Raf said, rolling his eyes. ‘You’ll never win. Dad will feed you until you waddle.’

She grimaced. ‘I’m eight months pregnant so I already waddle.’

‘Do you?’ The words were laden with query and utterly devoid of sarcasm. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

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