LITMIR.BIZ

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she sent all the negative thoughts down the drain with the soapy water, and breathed out.

      Still ten minutes apart, plenty of time to tell people. She just wanted to hug the excitement and her baby to herself. This was the last day that she and her baby would be together so intimately. A miracle in itself.

      She stayed in the shower for a long time.

      Until Rayne knocked on the door. ‘You okay in there?’ A hint of concern in his voice.

      She had to wait for the contraction to stop before she could answer. They were getting stronger but that was a good thing. More powerful, not more painful, she reminded herself. A tiny voice inside muttered about that not being true but she ignored it. The pain eased.

      ‘I’m fine.’ Wow. Her voice sounded kind of spacy. Endorphins.

      ‘Can I come in?’

      ‘Sure,’ she breathed. Then had to repeat it a bit louder. ‘Come in.’

      Rayne pushed open the door and a cloud of steam billowed out past his head. He waved it away and stepped into the bathroom. ‘You’ve been in here for ages.’ He crossed the tiles to the corner shower. Stood outside the curtain. ‘Is there something I should know?’

      He waited. She didn’t answer and he could hear her breathing. Eventually he pulled back the curtain so he could see her. She smiled at him and he thought she looked almost half-asleep. Looked again. Now, that was something you didn’t see every day. A glistening wet, very rounded, amazingly breasted, porcelain pregnant lady naked in the shower, with her black hair curling on her shoulders.

      She said, ‘If we ever live together, you’ll need a very large hot-water system.’

      He had to smile at that. He assumed Louisa did own one of those if this house could sleep twelve. ‘I’m getting that.’

      ‘And also,’ she went on in the same distant voice, ‘my contractions are about seven minutes apart.’

      His heart rate doubled and then he slumped against the wall. Sex fiend. He’d done that. Come on. Pull yourself together. You’re a doctor, for crikey’s sake.

      ‘Is that a good thing?’ he asked cautiously. Who knew what Maeve was thinking? He was trying to be supportive because that was his job, and he’d agreed without coercion when, in fact, he wanted to run screaming to Simon.

      ‘As long as baby waits till after midnight, that’s fine.’

      Rayne glanced at his watch. Eight o’clock. Four hours until midnight. Of course she’d have her own way and the baby would wait. Four hours of stress.

      ‘Shall I go and tell Simon? Or Tara?’

      ‘No hurry.’

      It was all very well to say that, along with some heavy breathing, and he observed, as if from a long way away, that his fingers were white where he was clutching the handrail. ‘You sure?’

      ‘Mmm-hmm …’ Loud exhalation.

      Geez. Rayne prised his fingers off the towel rail and straightened off the wall. ‘Um. Might just mention it to them in case they want to go out.’ Though where they would go on Christmas night was a mystery.

      Quietly, on an out breath, an answer came from the shower. ‘Okay.’

      Rayne left and he wasn’t quite jogging. He skidded into the kitchen but it was empty. Typical. This house had crawled with people all day and now he couldn’t find anyone when he needed them. Even Louisa was missing but he guessed she, out of all of them, deserved a rest.

      Poked his head out the back door but the darkening yard, a space that had seen so many Campbells, was deserted.

      He went back inside, walked down the hallway, but both Simon and Tara’s doors were ajar and he guessed if they were in there they’d have closed the doors. He went out to the front veranda in case they were sitting on that bench, looking at the nodding animals, and he was distracted for a minute by the fairy-lights that had come on with the sunset. Nobody there. He glared at the manger. Mary and Joseph had had their baby in a manger, with animals and wise men, so what was his problem?

      He ran his hand distractedly through his hair. Took a deep breath. It was okay. Maeve was calm. Happy even. The hospital was across the road for pity’s sake. He could see the porch lights. All he had to do was be a support person.

      It would have been nice to have that ‘couples’ discussion with Tara that he’d had a knee-jerk reaction about today before Maeve had gone into labour. But, no-o-o, Maeve had had to have nookie.

      What was it he’d learnt in med school? A first-time mum, after a slow start while the contractions got sorted out, dilated about a centimetre an hour. To get to ten centimetres was ten hours. Right? Or maybe she was already six centimetres then it would be four hours. Or less if she’d got there this quickly. His mind was spinning faster than the wheels of the new Christmas pushbike some happy, oblivious-to-the-drama-inside kid was pedalling past too late to be out.

      He forced himself to take another breath. Yesterday he would not have believed all this was going to happen. Yesterday he had been wondering if she would see him. Today she was his responsibility.

      Well, he’d been in at the beginning so he had to stay for the hard part.

      ‘Rayne?’ He spun round and Maeve was leaning on the door to the front veranda. She looked like she’d just stepped off a plane from Fiji, with a hibiscus sarong wrapped around her and not much else. He could see her cleavage from here.

      ‘Why are you staring at the manger?’

      He wasn’t looking at the manger now. Cleavage. ‘Umm. Looking for Tara and Simon.’

      She leant her head on the doorframe. ‘They’re on the side veranda outside their rooms, watching the stars come out.’

      He strode back across the lawn and up the steps to her side. ‘Okay. You okay?’

      ‘I’m fine. But I’d sort of like you to stay with me.’

      ‘Yep. Of course.’ He was obviously really bad at this support-person caper. Where was the midwife? ‘So did you tell Tara?’

      ‘I wanted to find you first.’

      Not the choice he would have made. ‘Fine. Let’s do it now.’

      ‘You said fine …’

      She leant against his arm and smiled up at him and as if she’d pressed a button he leant down and kissed her lips in an automatic response. Just one day and they had an automatic response?

      He stepped back. Must have picked up on some of her endorphins because he could feel his panic settle a little. Fine. Yep, he had been feeling freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional.

      His voice softened, lowered, and he gently turned her back towards the house. ‘How can you be so calm?’

      ‘I’ve had nine months to think about this happening. You’ve had twelve hours.’

      Had it only been twelve hours? It felt like twelve days. But, then, that’s how things seemed to happen around Maeve and him. Acceleration with the pedal pressed and they were driving off into the future at a hundred miles an hour.

      ‘Do you do anything slowly?’ he said as they walked down the hall. He grinned at her. ‘Apart from the way you’re walking up the hallway now.’

      ‘I put my make-up on slowly.’

      ‘Does that mean if I took you out I’d be one of those guys hanging around waiting for his woman to get ready?’

      ‘I might speed up for you.’ Then her face changed and she stopped, closed her eyes as she leant against him. He lifted his hand and rested it on her arm and her shoulder dropped its tension beneath his fingers as if he’d told her to relax, and it startled him.

      She sighed out, ‘Boy,

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