‘How long do you intend holding up that wall?’ came the deep, sexy voice of the man who would be propping up the wall himself if he knew.
The test would come back negative. She’d take some iron tablets and be back to normal in no time at all. It came down to the fact she’d worked throughout her pregnancy and gone back to work only days after the birth. She aimed for casual and confident, even though she must look like someone who’d camped out all week under a bridge. ‘As long as it needs me.’
A firm hand on her elbow lifted her away from that helpful wall. ‘You’re starting to worry me.’
I’m worrying myself.
‘Should have the answers to the tests within an hour.’ Click, click. One vertebra at a time she drew herself up as tall as possible, but still short beside this man. That was one of the things she adored about him. He made her feel tiny and safe against his length and strength.
‘We need to talk. If you’re seriously unwell I’d like to know. No, damn it, I need to know. No argument.’ Nixon looking out for her was awesome, and heartening. Make that heart-stopping.
Don’t let me be pregnant.
That’d knock him back into I-am-only-a-friend-with-no-involvement. Even though he seemed different, that attitude still lurked on the periphery, ready to pounce. ‘Let’s get back to patients.’ The focus on her was disturbing. What if they’d made a baby?
*
They had.
Emma sank to her haunches and stared at the phone in her hand as though it were a monster. Her head swirled with the connotations of her predicament. A baby. How careless was that? She’d started thinking another child would be wonderful, but that picture had a father for the baby in it, a caring parent for Rosie, a loving partner for her.
Careful what you wish for.
Now she got that message in black and white. No grey areas. Nixon would put his hand up, yes. Be a responsible man, yes. Give her his heart, doubtful. A grey area. Her head hurt.
It was New Year’s Eve, the night she was taking Nixon home to her family as a partner, as someone she loved and wanted them to get to know a whole lot better.
‘Em? What’s wrong?’
Her worst nightmare had found her in the drugs room. No, that was unfair. Nixon was not a nightmare. He was a loving man she’d given her heart to and now she had to drop a bomb in his hand. She took the hand he held out to her and dragged herself upright.
Tell him. Not now. We’re at work. Coward. Nothing’s going to change the longer you leave telling him. You’ll only make it harder on yourself.
But keeping Nixon in oblivion for a little while longer would give him a few more hours’ peace.
Then she looked at him, found his worried gaze searching her face for answers, and knew she was being selfish. ‘I’m pregnant.’
‘We are?’ Shock and disbelief warred across his face.
We are. That gave her hope. He hadn’t disappeared down the corridor and locked himself in his office. Yet. She nodded, incapable of forming words.
‘That’s why you’re so tired. I should’ve guessed.’ He shoved a hand through his hair. ‘Your iron and haemoglobin all normal?’
Again she nodded.
‘I think I knew they would be. I feel as though a cloud has lifted from something I’ve been denying.’ When she stared at him he rattled her with, ‘I think I might’ve known deep down.’
Finally her larynx started working. ‘We were always careful.’
One dark eyebrow rose in irony. ‘Must’ve got a dud. Doesn’t matter how it happened, the fact is it did. How are you feeling about this?’
How are you feeling? ‘It’s still sinking in.’ Cop out, but true. ‘I know I’ll have it and keep it. Even if that makes me look like a careless slut.’
‘Don’t insult yourself. Or me.’ His fingers brushed her cheek, took her chin gently and lifted her head so she had to look into his eyes. ‘We need time to absorb what this means to all of us.’
He still wasn’t running. It felt too good to be true. This man didn’t get involved. Emma shivered and stepped away from those gentle fingers. She needed answers now, not tomorrow or in the new year. She wasn’t going to get them. Nixon needed space. She needed reassurance. The only person in this picture who was going to give her that right now was herself. ‘Here’s the thing. I already know what it means. Been here before, remember?’ She didn’t give him time to reply. ‘Only this time it’s different. This time I want the father in the picture. I want a family: you, me, Rosie and the baby.’
He took a step back, cracking her heart in the process. No surprise there.
‘I’ve fallen in love with you, Nixon. I didn’t mean to, I knew you’d probably never feel the same way about me, but it’s happened and I can’t undo it.’ The truth sucked big time, but if she didn’t put it out there she wasn’t going in to bat for her baby. Or herself.
Nixon took another backward step, and the cracks widened.
‘I love you.’ It was surprising how easy it was to say. It was true, and right, and, hell, it was killing her on the inside. She stared at him, willing him to answer, to put her heart at ease. The silence was laden, heavy and chilly. Finally, she said, ‘Time I got back to work.’ She needed to get a grip or she’d be a danger to any patient who came near her.
‘Take the rest of the day off, Emma.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘No, it’s not. You’ve had a shock.’ He was ignoring the love factor. Wouldn’t know how to digest that news. ‘Go home, put your feet up.’
‘You want me out of the way. Out of sight, off the radar, so I’m not reminding you every minute about the problem lying between us.’
‘We need space while we get our heads around this. Don’t you agree?’
‘Not for a moment. I’m not skulking off when we’re busy so you can avoid me.’
‘Give me time, Emma. That’s all I ask.’
‘Yeah, and there lies the problem. You want time, not a baby or me or involvement.’ Crikey, she had grown a backbone after all. Or was she being harsh? ‘Sorry.’ A yawn followed.
‘Go home, Em. For your sake, not mine.’
Her bed beckoned, the quiet, the solitude; Abbie banging down the door to ask why she was home. ‘No can do. I have a job to do and I’m going to do it. I don’t run at the first sign of trouble.’
His nod was curt. ‘I think I’ll take a rain check on tonight with your family though.’
She might’ve seen that coming but it still hurt like stink. ‘Avoid me as much as you like but we are involved now. There’s nothing you can do to change that.’
Pain filled his gaze, tightened his face, then was gone, leaving—despair. He turned away.
Her heart thumped hard, for him, for her. ‘Nixon?’
He turned slowly, one eyebrow elevated. ‘Emma.’
The chill in her name froze her to the spot. Backbone remember? Swallow. ‘I could’ve gift-wrapped the news, but we both believe in plain truth. I am pregnant, and I do love you. There’s no hidden catch.’
‘I didn’t think there was.’ He stalked away, disappeared into Resus, leaving her alone and frightened.
She’d fallen for a man who couldn’t find it in him to admit to love. They were having a baby and he had no idea how to deal with it. Which left her stranded, in need of him, of his love.
‘Emma, can you take the fractured femur arriving in two?’ Steph stepped into her line of vision. ‘Are you all right? You’re not coming down with the stomach virus too?’
Suck it up, get on with life as you knew it before Nixon stole your heart. ‘I’m good. Who’s our patient? Local or tourist?’ She got busy, burying herself in other people’s problems and pain, ignoring her own, barely coming up for air, ignoring Nixon, until shift ended. At four o’clock she drove up her parents’ driveway, walked inside and burst into tears the moment her mother looked at her.
Happy new year.
*
Nixon pedalled as if his life depe
nded on it. Arrowtown had never appeared on the horizon so quickly, and he hadn’t finished thinking through what he was going to do. He’d barely started. Focusing entirely on riding hard and safe was easier than the fear and trepidation kicking up a storm in his belly.
A baby. He was going to be a father. Nightmares did come true.
The township was quiet, the tourists gone for the day. Nixon wheeled along the streets, barely noticing his surrounds. Emma was pregnant with his baby. He got that in spades. But knowing, and then knowing what to do—different pages, different books.
A cat streaked across the road in front of him. Braking hard, he fought to remain upright and on the tarmac. Blasted animal. A broken collarbone wouldn’t help anything. Heading for the park at the end of the main street, Nixon dropped his bike on the grass and sank his butt onto a picnic table.
The sun was dropping behind the hills but that wasn’t why he was shivering.
Emma was carrying his baby. He was going to be a dad. Like it or not. Too late for choosing whether to chance becoming a parent. Too late to heed the warning from his nightmare. It was a done deal. Not that he wished the baby away. No, excitement stirred his blood, then reality kicked in and fear engulfed him. He knew little about loving someone. He wanted Emma. In his life. In his heart. Everywhere, all the time. If only he knew how. It should be as easy as sitting down and talking with her, explaining himself—if laying his heart on the line were his way. It wasn’t.