the baby.
She didn’t want to startle herself.
‘Someone’s obviously made a mistake,’ he told her. ‘You’re the local midwife. I assume they’ve dumped the baby here to leave it with you.’
‘Who dumped it?’ She folded back the blanket and looked down into the baby’s face. Wide eyes gazed back at her. Gorgeous.
She loved babies. She shouldn’t—heaven knew, she’d had enough babies to last her a lifetime—but she had the perfect job now. She could love babies and hand them back.
‘I don’t know who dumped it,’ he said, with exaggerated patience. ‘Didn’t you hear the car? It came, the baby was dumped, it left.’
She stared up at him, incredulous. He met her gaze, and didn’t flinch.
An abandoned baby.
The stuff of fairy-tales. Or nightmares.
She switched her gaze to the little one in her arms.
‘Who are you?’ she whispered, but of course there was no answer. Instead it wrinkled its small nose, and opened its mouth—and wailed.
Only it wasn’t a wail a baby this age should make. It was totally despairing, as if this baby had wailed before and nothing had been forthcoming. It was a wail that was desperation all by itself—a wail that went straight to the heart and stayed there. Maggie had heard hungry babies before, but none like this. Unbearable. Unimaginable that a little one could be so needful.
She looked down at the sunken fontanel, the dry, slightly wrinkled skin. These were classic signs of dehydration. IV? Fast?
But if the little one could still cry …
It could indeed still cry. It could scream.
‘Can you grab the bag from the back of my car?’ she snapped, and whirled and grabbed her car keys and tossed them to him. ‘This little one’s in trouble.’
‘Trouble?’
She wheeled away, back to the settee. The fire was still glowing in the hearth. She could unwrap the baby without fear of losing warmth. ‘Basket,’ she snapped at the dogs, and they headed obediently for their baskets at each side of the fire. Then, as Blake hesitated, she fixed him with a look that had made lesser men quail. ‘Bag. Now. Go.’
He headed for the car, feeling a bit … stunned. And also awed.
The only times he’d seen Maggie Tilden she’d seemed brisk, efficient and … plain? She dressed simply for work and she’d been working the whole time he’d been here. Plain black pants. White blouse with ‘Corella Valley Medical Services’ emblazoned on the pocket. She wore minimal make-up, and her soft brown curls were tied back in a bouncy ponytail. She was about five feet four or five, she had freckles, brown eyes and a snub nose, and until tonight he would have described her as nondescript.
What he’d just seen wasn’t nondescript. It was something far from it.
What?
Cute, he thought, but then he thought no. It was something … deeper.
She’d been wearing faded pink pyjamas, fluffy slippers and an ancient powder-blue bathrobe. Her brown hair, once let loose, showed an auburn burnish. Her curls tumbled about her shoulders and she looked like she’d just woken from sleep. Standing with her dogs by her sides, the fire crackling in the background, she looked …
Adorable?
She looked everything the women in his life weren’t. Cosy. Domestic. Welcoming.
And also strong. That glare said he’d better move his butt and get her bag back inside, stat.
She wouldn’t know he was a doctor, he thought. When the baby had wailed he’d recognised, as she had, that the little creature was in trouble. The light-bulb over his door had blown long since, but once he’d been under the light of her porch he’d seen the tell-tale signs of dehydration, a baby who looked underweight; malnourished. He’d reached to find a pulse but her movement to defend the child was right. Until she knew what was wrong, the less handling the better.
She was reacting like a midwife at her best, he thought with something of relief. Even if she needed his help right now, this baby wasn’t his problem. She was more than capable of taking responsibility.
She was a professional. She could get on with her job and he could move away.
Get the lady her bag. Now.
The bag was a huge case-cum-portable bureau, wedged into the back of an ancient family wagon. He grabbed it and grunted as he pulled it free—it weighed a ton. What was it—medical supplies for the entire valley? How on earth did a diminutive parcel like Maggie handle such a thing?
He was a week out from an appendectomy. He felt internal stitches pull and thought of consequences—and headed for the back door and grabbed the wheelbarrow.
Medical priorities.
If he broke his stitches he’d be no use to anyone. Worse, he’d need help himself.
One bag coming up. By barrow.
He pushed his way back into the living room and Maggie’s eyes widened.
She’d expected landlord with a bag.
What she got was landlord, looking a bit sheepish, with her firewood-carting wheelbarrow, plus bag.
‘Appendectomy,’ he said before she could say a word. ‘Stitches. You don’t want two patients.’
Oh, heck. She hadn’t thought. He’d told her he was here recovering from an appendectomy. She should have …
‘It’s fine,’ he said, quickly, obviously seeing her remorse. ‘As long as you don’t mind tyre tracks on your rugs.’
‘With my family I’m not used to house-proud. Thanks for getting it. Are you okay?’
‘Yes.’
She cast him a sharp, assessing look, and he thought she was working out the truth for herself, and she figured he was telling it.
‘If I tell you how, can you make up some formula? This little one’s badly dehydrated.’
‘Can I see?’ he said, over the baby’s cries.
The baby was still wailing, desperation personified.
He stooped beside her. He didn’t try and touch the baby, just pushed back the coverings further from its face.
Maggie had obviously done a fast check and then re-wrapped the infant, leaving the nappy on, tugging open the stained grow suit to the nappy but leaving it on, rewrapping the baby in the same blanket but adding her own, a cashmere throw he’d seen at the end of the sofa.
With the blankets pulled aside and the grow suit unfastened, he could see signs of neglect. This was no rosy, bouncing baby. He could see the tell-tale signs of severe nappy
