glad you’re here. My feet really hurt, and I can’t bend my fingers, my headache’s worse, and I can’t really see—there are flashing lights and it’s as if I’ve got worms wriggling about all over the inside of my eyes. I’m so scared.’
Retinal haemorrhages, Daisy thought, scanning the monitor and her test results and fluid balance. The ultrasound result showed that the baby hadn’t grown since the previous Thursday, and that meant it wasn’t getting enough nutrition. She perched on the bed and held her hand, feeling the difference in her fingers even in two short hours. Have more confidence, Ben had said, and he trusted her. Well, let’s hope I’m not overreacting now, she thought.
She rubbed her fingers soothingly. ‘Don’t be scared, Clare, we’re looking after you,’ she said, trying to inject some of that confidence into her voice, ‘but I’m afraid your blood pressure’s gone up again, and your blood results show your kidneys are struggling and the baby’s not growing. Let me call Mr Walker and ask him to come and look at you.’
‘Is this it?’ she asked, sniffing and looking even more worried. ‘Are you going to have to deliver me?’
‘I think so,’ Daisy told her honestly, and Clare swallowed.
‘But it’s so early—what about the baby?’ she asked, welling up again.
‘The baby should be all right, but if we leave it where it is it certainly won’t be, and nor will you. I’m sorry, Clare, we haven’t got any choice in this. I’ll get Mr Walker, and I’ll ring your husband and get him to come in. You might want him with you.’
She asked the midwife with them to prep her for Theatre, rang the antenatal clinic and then Clare’s husband, and two minutes later Ben was in with Clare examining her. To her relief he backed her without hesitation.
‘Dr Fuller’s absolutely right, Clare, we need to deliver your baby now. We’ll get the anaesthetist to do your epidural, and then we’ll take you into Theatre. You should start to feel better almost immediately, and we have lots of babies born at this stage without any problems. We’ll go and scrub, and we’ll see you in Theatre in a minute. And don’t worry. I know it feels scary, but it’s pretty routine for us, and we’ll look after you.’
His smile was kind, his manner firm and confident, and Daisy felt herself relaxing. He was right, it was routine, but Clare had every right to be scared, and he’d been good with her. Very good. It was the first time she’d seen Ben with a patient, and any reservations she might have had about their new man disappeared instantly.
‘Do you feel ready to lead?’ he asked Daisy as they scrubbed. ‘I want that baby out fast—I think she’s heading for a crisis so I don’t think we should hang about. Are you up to it, or would you rather I did it this time?’
‘Will you? Not because I don’t think I can, but because I know you can, and it’s not about pride, it’s about Clare and her baby.’
He gave a gentle, understanding laugh and turned the tap off with his elbow.
‘Wise words. Right, let’s go.’
He was slick, and Daisy was glad she’d opted to assist rather than lead. His hands were deft and confident, and within moments, it seemed, he had their baby cradled securely in his fingers, his tiny mewling cry music to their ears.
‘Hello, little one, welcome to the world,’ he said softly, and then met Clare’s eyes over the drapes. ‘You’ve got a son,’ he said, smiling, ‘and he’s looking good.’
He was—small but strong, and after a brief introduction to Clare and her flustered and emotional husband, he was whisked away to SCBU and they were able concentrate on Clare.
As much as Daisy was able to concentrate on anything except those strong, capable hands that worked so deftly, and the magnetic blue eyes that from time to time met and held her gaze over their masks for just a fraction of a second longer than necessary …
Ben made it back just in time for the plumber. He’d left Daisy settling Clare back onto the ward after he’d kept an eye on her in Recovery and then gone back to his antenatal clinic, and then she’d paged him with a message that she’d collected his suit and Clare was fine.
Brilliant.
He walked through the door, stripping off his tie and hanging his jacket on the end of the banister, and before he had time to do anything else there was a knock on the door behind him.
The man on the doorstep had a toolbox in his hand, and reassuringly grubby fingers. ‘Steve, the plumber? Daisy said you’d got problems.’
The temptation to laugh hysterically nearly overwhelmed him. ‘You might say that,’ he offered drily, and took Steve through to the kitchen.
Daisy let herself into the house, hung up his suit, kicked off her shoes and fed the cat. She could hear Ben moving around next door, and she sat down at the table and signed the card she’d got for him in the supermarket, propped it up against the bottle of bubbly she’d also bought and ran upstairs to shower. The bath was calling her, but she was too hungry to dawdle and she wanted to know how Ben had got on with Steve.
She rubbed herself briskly dry and went back into her bedroom. Jeans? Or sweats?
Jeans, she decided, running the hairdryer over her hair and brushing it through. Jeans and a pretty top, because a girl had her pride and he’d seen her in a dressing gown covered in tea, in her gardening clothes, in her professional ‘trust me, I’m a doctor’ clothes, and when she popped round with his housewarming present it would be the first time she could show him who she really was.
Which was ridiculous, because she was all of those things, and in any case, why the hell did it matter what he thought of what she was wearing? He was divorced, with no doubt all sorts of emotional baggage. And he was her neighbour, and her boss. Three very good reasons why she should keep him at arm’s length and have as little to do with him as possible, she reminded herself fiercely.
And washing her hair and leaving it down was all part of shedding the working day, she told herself. Shoes off, hair down, sweats on.
Except in this case it was jeans, and a pretty top, and the makeup she hadn’t had time to put on first thing, because a girl had her pride.
‘Oh!’
The knock on the door made her jump, and she swiped the blob of mascara off the side of her nose and ran downstairs, pulling the door open.
He was propped against the inside of her porch, one ankle crossed over the other, hands in his pockets and wearing a pair of jeans and a cotton shirt that looked incredibly soft. She really wanted to touch it.
He smiled at her and shrugged away from the wall, and she folded her arms and propped herself up on the door frame and tried not to grin like an idiot. ‘So how did you get on?’ she asked.
‘Fine. He was amazing. He fixed it in two minutes, he’s coming on Monday to fit a new suite and he’s getting me a plasterer. And an electrician’s already been and fitted a temporary light, so at least I can see in the kitchen, even if I can’t really use it.’
‘Told you he was good. Any idea why it happened?’
‘The bath trap had pulled apart. He thought the seal might have perished, but you’d think the previous owner would
