LITMIR.BIZ

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Liv. This is Emily—the friend I told you about? Em, Liv’s a senior midwife and she’s amazing.’

      ‘And you’re a smooth talker,’ Liv said with a laugh. ‘Hi, Emily, it’s good to meet you. I’ll come up with you, get you settled in. Want me to stay for the delivery?’ she added to Jake, and he nodded.

      ‘That would be great if you can,’ he said, as Emily turned into his arms, gripped his shoulders and moaned softly. ‘It’s OK, Em. Just breathe, in and out, nice and light,’ he coaxed gently, and felt the soft huff of her breath drift against the open V of his scrubs. ‘That’s it, well done, you’re doing really well.’

      ‘Two minutes forty,’ Liv murmured, and he nodded. They were coming thick and fast. No wonder she was struggling.

      The lift pinged, and the grip on his shoulders eased.

      ‘Are we there?’

      ‘Yes. Come on, let’s get you comfortable.’

      * * *

      They felt like the longest two hours of his life, Em’s contractions blurring into each other in an untidy avalanche punctuated by calm reassurance and steady progress reports from Liv.

      He was so glad Liv had stayed with them. He trusted her, and in this situation he felt so out of his depth it was absurd, but Liv was calm and in control and she handled it brilliantly while he tried to stop being a doctor and did what he could to help Em.

      He rubbed her back, he held her hand, he walked her round, he held her, rocked her, mopped her brow, and then at last he lifted up the squalling, slippery little body of her son and laid him against the bare skin of her breast, his eyes blinded by tears as he tucked a warm towel around the baby.

      ‘Well done, Em. Well done. Clever girl.’

      ‘What is it?’

      ‘A boy,’ he said, his voice catching. He swallowed hard and tried again. ‘It’s a boy.’

      Her head was bent so he couldn’t see her eyes, but he could see her fingers, the tender, sure curve of them over the baby’s head, the loving touch of a mother soothing her baby in those momentous moments after birth.

      She pressed her lips to the baby’s head. ‘Hello, little one,’ she murmured, her voice a caress. ‘Welcome to the world.’

      He was quiet now, his eyes fixed on his mother’s, tiny fingers curled around hers, and Jake’s throat was so clogged he couldn’t speak, but he squeezed her shoulder and she looked up at him and smiled, her eyes shimmering in the slanting light of the early morning sun.

      ‘We did it,’ she said softly, her voice incredulous. ‘We actually did it.’

      ‘No, you did it,’ he said, his voice cracking. ‘You’ve been so brave through all of this. Pete would be really proud of you.’

      A tear slid down her cheek, and she gave a tiny nod and kissed the baby again.

      ‘He’s lovely and pink,’ Liv said with a smile, and Jake stepped back and made room for her to do her job. His presence was redundant now, and he just wanted to get out into the fresh air and sort out his feelings, because they were all over the place and some of them had no business being there at all.

      ‘Apgar score ten at one minute,’ Liv was saying to the other midwife, and he turned to the basin and washed his hands on autopilot, his emotions flayed.

      It was fourteen months since Matilda had been born last April at his old hospital on the other side of Suffolk, but it could have been yesterday. It was the only other time he’d been at what felt like the wrong end of a delivery bed, and he’d been shocked at how emotional he’d been when his tiny daughter had been put in his arms, and how much he’d instantly loved her.

      He’d only just started here at Yoxburgh Park Hospital then and Jo had refused to move with him, but he’d been there for Matilda’s birth, heard her first cry, been there to hold her, to bond with her, and he spent as much time with her now as he could.

      It didn’t feel like enough, but at least he was alive. At least he knew his precious, darling Tilly, and she knew him. Pete would never know his son. The nearest he’d got was a grainy ultrasound image of a tiny foetus taken shortly before he’d died. Now Em was alone, and her little boy would never know his father. That gutted Jake, but he’d always be there for them, whenever he could. He’d promised Pete, and that promise to a dying man was unbreakable.

      He went back to Em and stroked her damp, tangled blonde hair gently. ‘I’ll see you later. Give me a call when you’re all tidied up, and I’ll come back.’

      Her mouth opened—on a protest?—and then closed again, and she gave him a fleeting smile and nodded. ‘Go and get a coffee or something. I’m not going anywhere fast.’

      ‘OK. Look after them for me, Liv.’

      He gave Em a smile no steadier than her own, shunted the door out of the way and went out into the corridor.

      It was deserted, thankfully, because right then he just needed to be alone. He headed for the lift, strode down the corridor to the Park Café as it opened, picked up a cappuccino with an extra shot and went outside, sucking in the fresh air.

      It was still cool, only seven o’clock, but it was going to be a gorgeous summer’s day and he found an unoccupied bench and sat sipping his coffee in the slanting post-dawn sunshine, letting the tension ease out of him.

      He’d been so tense at times during Em’s labour—totally illogically because it had been utterly straightforward, but he had been, anyway. She’d been through so much with Pete in the last few years and he’d felt so responsible for her care and safety during her labour, so duty-bound to make sure that nothing bad happened either to Pete’s baby or to Emily herself.

      He’d worried until he’d heard that first cry, but not for the baby so much as for Emily and what it would have done to her if anything had gone wrong. If the baby hadn’t made it...

      He’d been much more detached about Jo when she was in labour—partly, he had to admit, because he’d never really been in love with her. Not that he was in love with Em, not that he’d ever admit to, even to himself, and certainly not to her, although he’d come close to it years ago after the wedding of mutual friends. It was shortly after she’d met Pete, and after the wedding wound up they’d walked back to their hotel and she’d gone to his room for coffee and things had got a little out of control.

      Maybe it was the champagne, maybe it was the music, maybe just the whole soppy romantic thing of it, but before he’d known what had happened they’d been on the brink of making love. Then her phone had pinged with a text from Pete, and it had acted like a bucket of cold water over both of them, stopping them in their tracks.

      She’d fled to her room and they’d never mentioned it again in all these years, but it had been the moment when he realised the full extent of his feelings for her. Feelings she hadn’t reciprocated, because she’d gone straight back to Pete the following day and he’d had to learn to live with it.

      He’d buried those feelings for her so deep he’d almost forgotten them, but he still loved her deeply as a friend, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, or her for him. She meant the world to him. She was his best, his dearest, most loyal and honest friend, and he’d be lost without her.

      Not that her honesty was always an asset. There were times you didn’t want to be told you were being an idiot, but she’d never been wrong.

      He’d met her in freshers’ week, when she’d found him handcuffed to the railings outside university halls at six in the morning, stark naked and horribly hungover, next to a pile of dew-soaked clothes carefully placed just out of reach. She’d been heading out for a run when she’d seen him, and she’d found the key taped to the fence beside his clothes and set him free, but not before she’d lectured his ear off.

      In between laughing herself silly.

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