LITMIR.BIZ

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blinked. ‘Just shutting the blinds so I can see better.’ He reached across to the wall behind her head and the remote-control curtains dulled the brightness of the Queensland sun. Zoomed in closer. Uh-oh.

      The room dimmed behind Lucy’s closed eyelids and then she heard it. The galloping hoofbeats of a tiny foetal heart. No other reason to have a galloping horse inside her belly except the cloppety-clop of a baby’s heartbeat.

      She was pregnant.

      It was true. She couldn’t open her eyes. Was terrified to confirm it with sight but her ears wouldn’t lie.

      She couldn’t cope with this. Give up her hard-won career just when it was starting. Throw away the last three years of intense study, all the after-hours work to pay for it, all her dreams of being the best midwife GCG had ever seen.

      Cloppety-clop, cloppety-clop. The heartbeat of her baby, growing inside her. Her child. Something shifted inside her.

      She had to look. She opened her eyes just as Dr Kefes sucked in his breath and she glanced at his face. She saw the frown as he swirled the transducer around and raised his eyebrows.

      What? ‘Has it got two heads?’ A flippant comment when she was feeling anything but flippant. Was her baby deformed? Funny how the last thing she wanted was to be pregnant but the barest hint of a problem with her tiny peanut and she was feeling…maternal?

      ‘Sort of.’ He clicked a snapshot with the machine and shifted the transducer. Clicked again.

      Her stomach dropped like a stone. There was something wrong with her baby?

      ‘What?’

      ‘Sorry. Not what I meant.’ He was looking at her with a mixture of concern and…it couldn’t be wonderment surely. ‘Congratulations, Lucy.’

      That didn’t make sense. Neither did a second heartbeat, this one slower than the other but still a clopping sound that both of them recognised. ‘The measurements say you have two healthy fourteen-week foetuses.’

      ‘I’m sorry?’ He had not just said that. ‘Two?’

      ‘Twins.’ He nodded to confirm his words. Held up two fingers in case she still didn’t get it.

      Lucy opened and shut her mouth before the words came out. ‘Twins? Fourteen weeks?’ Lucy squeaked, and then the world dimmed, only to return a little brighter and a whole lot louder than before—like a crash of cymbals beside her ear. She wasn’t just pregnant. She was seriously, seriously pregnant.

      She watched the screen zoom in and out in a haze of disbelief. Followed his finger as he pointed out legs and arms. And legs and arms. Two babies!

      ‘I don’t want twins. I don’t want one,’ she whispered, but even to her own ears there might be a question mark at the end of the sentence. She couldn’t really be considering what she thought she was considering.

      She thought briefly of Mark, her midwifery colleague already settled in Boston at his new job, a good-time guy with big plans. Their actions had been a silly impulse, regrettable but with no bad feelings, more a connection between two euphoric graduates than any kind of meeting of souls.

      They’d both been sheepish after the event. The whole ‘do you want coffee, can I use your bathroom’, morning-after conversation that had made it very clear neither had felt the earth move—friends who should never have been lovers.

      Dr Kefes broke into her thoughts and she blinked. ‘If you are going to think about your options you don’t have much time. In fact, you may not have any.’

      Think about what? Terminating her babies that she’d heard? Seen? Was now totally aware of? She didn’t know what she was going to do but she couldn’t do that.

      ‘Do they look healthy? Are they identical?’ From what she’d learned about twin pregnancies there’d be more risk with identical twins than fraternal and already that was a worry.

      ‘Looks to be one placenta but it’s hard to tell. Early days, to be sure. They look fine.’ His accent elongated the word fine and her attention zoned in on something non-traumatic—almost soothing—but he was forging on and she needed to pay attention. ‘Both babies are equal size. Nothing out of the ordinary I can see.’ He smiled and she was distracted for a second again from the whole tragedy. He was a serious darling, this guy. Then his words sank in.

      Relief flooded over her. Her babies were fine. Relief?

      She didn’t know how she would manage. Certainly with no help from her own mother—how on earth would she tell her?—but she would manage. And no way was she going to blame her babies like her mother had always blamed her for ruining her life.

      But that was for home. For quiet, intense thought. And she’d held this kind man up enough with her sudden drama that had blown out of all proportion into a life-changing event. Events.

      She was having twins.

      Holy cow.

      On the first day of her new job.

      She had no idea where to start with planning her life but she’d better get on with it. ‘Thank you.’

      Nikolai removed the transducer and nodded. As he wiped her belly he watched in awe as this slip of a girl digested her news with fierce concentration.

      She was thanking him?

      Well, he guessed she knew a lot more than she had half an hour ago because of him. And she seemed to be holding together pretty well. He thought of his sister again and his protective instincts kicked in. He didn’t stop to think why he felt more involved than usual. But it was all a bit out of left field. ‘Will you be all right?’

      He wasn’t sure what he’d do if she said no, and as he caught her eye, her delightful mouth curved into a smile and he saw her acknowledge that.

      ‘Not a lot we can do if I’m not, is there?’ She sat up and he helped her climb down. ‘But, yes, I’ll be fine. Eventually.’

      He thought of his sister and the disastrous decisions she’d made in the heat of her terrifying moment all those years ago. And the ramifications now.

      He thought of this woman under the care of a less-than-proficient practitioner like his sister had been, and his mind rebelled with startling force. ‘I realise it’s early, but if you’d like me to care for you through your pregnancy, I’d be happy to. There’d be no additional cost, of course.’

      ‘Thank you, Dr Kefes. I think I’d like that when I get used to the idea of being pregnant. That would be most reassuring.’

      She straightened her scrubs and he gestured for her to sit in the office chair.

      ‘Wait one moment and I’ll print out a list of pathology tests I’d like you to have. The results will come to me and we’ll discuss them when they come back.’

      The little unexpected catches of his accent made him seem less formidable and Lucy could feel the relief that at least she wouldn’t be cast adrift with the bombshell all alone.

      She watched his long fingers fly across the keyboard as he opened a file on his desk computer. He made her feel safe, which was dumb because she was just a silly little girl who’d got herself pregnant, and she almost missed it when he asked for her full name, date of birth and residential address.

      Luckily her mouth seemed to be working even if her brain wasn’t and she managed the answers without stumbling.

      He stood up. Darn, that man was tall. ‘The rest we will sort out at your next visit.’

      Lucy nodded, took the form, and jammed it in her bag. ‘Thank you. It’s been a huge day.’

      ‘Enormous for you, of course.’ Nikolai decided she still looked dazed and he resisted the urge to give her a quick hug. He would have given Chloe one but he wasn’t in the habit of hugging patients or staff.

      ‘And…’

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