and the knowledge that you’ve come home,’ Maggie said thoughtfully. ‘If your sister knows you’re here, and thinks you’re in a position to care for her, then she might see you as a way out.’
‘She’s not my sister.’
‘Your father is her father.’
‘I don’t even know her surname.’
‘No, but I do,’ she said smoothly. ‘She’s Wendy Runt-land, twenty-nine years old, and she lives on a farm-let six miles on the far side of the base hospital. Ruby was born on the twenty-first of last month. Wendy only stayed overnight and refused further assistance. The staff were worried. They’d organised a paediatrician to see the baby to assess her feet but Wendy discharged herself—and Ruby—before he got there.’
‘How the—?’
‘I’m a midwife employed by the Valley Health Service,’ she told him. ‘If I’m worried about babies, I can access files. I rang the hospital last night and asked for a search for a local baby born with talipes. Ruby’s the only fit. The file’s scanty. No antenatal care. First baby. Fast, hard labour with a partner present for some of the time. They were both visibly upset by the baby’s feet and there’s a note in the file that the guy was angry and abusive.
‘The next morning Wendy discharged herself and the baby against medical advice. There were no grounds to involve the police but staff did notify Social Services. The maternal health nurse has tried to make home visits but each time she’s found gates locked and dogs that didn’t allow her to go further. There’s a phone number but the phone’s been slammed down each time she’s rung. You might have more luck. You want to try while I check the bridge?’
‘What’s to check?’
He looked almost dumbfounded, she thought. Man left with abandoned baby. Surgeon way out of his comfort zone.
‘I’ve been listening to the radio and it’s still raining up north,’ she said evenly. ‘There’s a vast mass of water coming down. If the water keeps rising it might be a while before you can get her to Social Services.’
‘Social Services?’
‘Unless we can get her back to her mother—or unless you want her—I assume that’s where she’ll be placed. Either way, the decision has to be made soon. Those feet need attention now, although I assume you know that.’
‘I know it,’ he growled, and then he fell silent.
He stared down at the baby in his arms and she thought … there was something there, some link.
Family.
He’d said he didn’t have a sister. He’d said he didn’t even know her full name.
This was a guy who was an intelligent, skilled surgeon, she thought, a guy who’d know how to keep his emotions under control. But his recent surgery would have weakened him, and a sleepless night would have weakened him still more.
She had a feeling this guy didn’t let his defences down often, but they were down now. He was gazing at the child in his arms and his face said he didn’t know where to go with this.
Evacuate her? Hand her over to Social Welfare? Keep her until the river went down?
Risk attachment?
She couldn’t help him. It was his decision.
‘I’ll try and phone Wendy,’ he said at last, and she nodded and got to her feet and collected her eggs.
‘Excellent. I’ll leave some of these in your kitchen. Tell me how you go.’
‘Maggie?’
She paused. Met his gaze. Saw desperation.
‘Stay here while I ring,’ he said, and she thought maybe she could at least do that.
But as he handed back the now fed, sleeping Ruby, and she gathered her into her arms and watched Blake head for the phone, she thought … she thought …
She thought this was as far as she should go.
Babies did things to her. Her mother had used that, played on it, trapped her with it. And now …
The sight of Blake was doing things to her as well.
He was all male, one gorgeous hunk of testosterone, but it wasn’t that that was messing with her head.
It was the way he’d looked at Ruby—and the way he’d looked at her when he’d asked her to stay.
Under that strength was pure vulnerability.
Maggie had lived most of her life in this valley and she’d heard stories about this family; this man. His mother had been glamorous and aloof and cold, and she’d walked out—justifiably—when Blake had been six. His father had been a womanising brute.
Blake may come from the richest family in the district but the locals had felt sorry for him when he’d been six, and that sympathy hadn’t been lessened by anything anyone had heard since.
What sort of man was he now? Like his mother? Like his father?
She couldn’t tell. She was seeing him at his most vulnerable. He was wounded, shocked, tired and burdened by a baby he didn’t know.
Don’t judge now, she told herself. Don’t get any more involved than you already are.
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