LITMIR.BIZ

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nice that he wanted to check up on them. Ellie’s lips curved into a smile, which was taken as an invitation to come into the room, but then the smile wobbled.

      Had he come to have a go at her for what had been said in a moment of both physical and emotional agony? When this whole, sorry story of her attempt to be a surrogate mother had looked as if it was about to end in disaster?

      He didn’t look as if he was angry about anything. Closing the door softly behind him, Luke stepped towards her bed, stopping to gaze down at the sleeping, snuffling baby.

      Ellie found herself gazing at him. There was something about those rather craggy features and that shaggy hair that seemed very familiar. Had he worked in the same hospital as her in the past, maybe? Way back, when she was newly qualified and too focused on doing her job well to take much notice of staff members in other departments?

      ‘I hear he passed his paediatric check with flying colours.’

      ‘Mmm.’ Ellie found both her voice and another smile. ‘He’s perfect. A good weight, too, even though he was four weeks early. He’s almost seven pounds.’

      She was still trawling through dim memory banks.

      Luke Gilmore...doctor...

      Or not yet a doctor?

      ‘Oh, my God...’ Ellie breathed. ‘You’re Lucas Gilmore, aren’t you?’

      Startled eyes met her own. ‘Ah...yes. But I haven’t been called Lucas in about fifteen years. By anyone other than my parents, that is...’

      ‘You went to Kauri Valley District High School?’

      His face had gone very still. He didn’t say anything but he was frowning—as though he was searching his own memory banks as he stared at her face.

      ‘I went there, too. You won’t remember me—I was a couple of years behind you. But we shared the school bus every day. You lived on the coast, didn’t you? Near Moana Beach?’

      Uninvited, Luke sank to balance his hip on the end of Ellie’s bed, one arm over the base board, his fingers touching the clip of the board that held her observations chart.

      ‘No way... Wait...I do remember you. You always sat up the front. You had really long plaits.’

      The thought that he’d noticed her at all on a crowded bus made Ellie feel suddenly shy. She would have died if she’d known it at the time. Lucas Gilmore—Kauri Valley high school’s bad boy—aware of her existence? It would have been scary. And...thrilling?

      ‘You always sat right at the back,’ she heard herself saying. ‘With all the cool kids.’

      ‘The ones who got into trouble, you mean?’

      There was something intense in his glance now. Did he want to know how much Ellie knew about the kind of trouble he’d been in as a kid?

      Okay, she knew quite a lot. Ellie could almost hear an echo of her mother’s voice.

      ‘Stay away from that Gilmore boy. He’s bad news. Nothing but trouble...’

      She wasn’t about to say anything now, though. He’d clearly turned his life around. He was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. A doctor who’d just saved the lives of both herself and her baby.

      There was a flash of something like relief on Luke’s features as she shrugged his comment away. She could sense the tension ebbing away from his body. Or maybe she could feel it, as the mattress dipped with his settling weight.

      ‘You were always with another girl who always wore hats.’

      Ellie nodded. ‘Ava. My best friend. Her hair was never the same after all the chemo she had and it took her a long time to get used to it.’

      ‘Chemo? What for?’

      ‘Leukaemia.’

      ‘Did she survive?’

      ‘Oh, yeah... And her hair came back even better than ever. Turned out that she’d never be able to have kids, though.’

      The sudden stillness in Luke’s face told her that he’d put two and two together with remarkable speed. Almost as though he was reading her mind.

      ‘That’s who you were being a surrogate for?’

      Ellie nodded. She had to bite her lip to push back the wash of loss. Ava had been such a big part of her life for ever and now she had gone and it was going to leave a gaping hole.

      ‘Wow...’ She listened to the deep breath that Luke took and then let out in a long sigh as he pushed his fingers through that mop of sun-streaked hair. The front locks immediately flopped down onto his forehead again. ‘That’s an incredible thing to do for a friend. Huge...’

      There was a long silence. It had to be obvious that she was struggling to keep herself together right now. Most strangers would have probably realised they were intruding in something very personal and made some kind of apology and then an excuse to let her have some time to herself or an offer to find someone she wanted to talk to. But Luke just sat there quietly. Absorbing her struggle. Offering his company and what felt like...empathy?

      ‘It’s all gone so terribly wrong,’ she found herself whispering into the silence. ‘Her husband walked out on her a couple of weeks ago. The marriage is over. And now Ava’s gone, too. Just gone...’ She had to stop and take a very shaky breath. ‘And I can’t really blame her. She’s devastated and, as she told me, it’s not really her baby. It was my egg. And now...now it’s my baby and...and I have no idea what I’m going to do...’

      Luke’s frown had deepened but he was still listening. Nodding very slowly. ‘And the father?’

      ‘Marco? I don’t think he’s coming back. Apparently he said he’d never really wanted a baby in the first place.’ Ellie’s voice was stronger now. She was on much more solid ground. ‘And I don’t want him to.’

      An eyebrow quirked under that shaggy fringe but Ellie saw the subtle lift of the corners of Luke’s mouth. He liked what he was hearing, she realised, and that made her want to say a whole lot more.

      ‘I thought I could do it, you know? Donate an egg and carry a baby for someone else. I thought I could hand him over the minute he was born and then just be...I don’t know...a kind of auntie, I guess. We’d planned to tell him eventually. When he was old enough to understand.’

      ‘But...?’

      ‘It was when I heard him cry...’ Again, Ellie had to stop talking to try and deal with the flood of emotion but, this time, it wasn’t anything to do with loss or grief. This was joy, pure and simple. ‘That was when I knew that this was my baby. That I could never give him away. That he’s...he’s the most important thing in my life now...’

      Ellie had to scrub away an errant tear but it didn’t matter. Luke looked as though he was blinking back some extra moisture in his own eyes. And his voice sounded a bit rusty when he spoke again.

      ‘Have you given him a name?’

      Ellie sniffed inelegantly and then smiled. ‘I had the best dad in the world. He was a forestry worker and got killed in an industrial accident when I was only six but I’ve never forgotten how much he loved me. How much I loved him. His name was James but everyone called him Jamie.’ She had to use the fingers of both hands to wipe her cheeks this time. ‘So that’s what I’m going to call him. Jamie.’

      As if he’d heard his name, the baby stirred and started to cry. Ellie turned and leaned towards the bassinet but then froze, unable to stop her gasp of pain. It wasn’t just the stitches in a very tender place. Her whole body felt bruised and battered right now.

      ‘Let me...’

      Luke got to his feet in a smooth movement that was both relaxed and confident. He picked up the swaddled bundle of baby but he didn’t immediately hand him to Ellie. He stood there, holding the baby in his arms, patting him

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