thing in the world to do.
‘It was my pleasure,’ he said. ‘The best job I’ve had since I came back.’
So had they been just a ‘job’ to him? Just another case and one that would be remembered for snatching success from imminent disaster? Oddly, the disappointment felt crushing.
‘Back?’ Ellie was relieved to achieve a casual tone.
‘I’ve been working in Australia pretty much since I graduated from medical school. I’ve taken a three month locum here because I needed some time to sort my parents’ estate. And I was ready for a change so it’s a good time to take a break and reassess my future.’
So he was a locum. And he was only here for three months.
‘I’ve heard about a couple of great positions already,’ he continued. ‘I’m tossing up whether I want to apply for the one in London or Boston right now. Both of them are in major trauma centres that deal with things you’d be lucky to ever see in Auckland.’
The disappointment was still there, ready to roll in on another wave. How weird was that? Was it because he represented a link to the past? They’d been to the same school. They would know a lot of the same people in the area Ellie had grown up in. She’d already lost so many links to that happy part of her early life and it had seemed as if the last one had gone with Ava’s disappearance.
She swallowed hard. ‘Yeah...I guess that’s exactly what I have to do now. Reassess my future.’
A whimper from the baby prompted Luke to move. This time he transferred the bundle into Ellie’s arms. And then he caught her gaze. He didn’t have to say anything.
She was holding her future.
‘Are you going to manage?’ he asked quietly. ‘Have you got family and friends to support you?’
‘No family,’ Ellie said. ‘But I’ve got some good friends. You’ve met Sue, in ED? Well, she’s organising an emergency baby shower. I don’t have anything. Not even a nappy...’
She had to look away from that steady gaze. She didn’t want him to know how terrifying it was. In a day or two, she had to take this brand new little person back to a totally inappropriate inner city apartment where there was barely enough room for herself, let alone a baby and all the gear she was going to need, like a cot and a pram and stacks of nappies.
She didn’t even know how she was going to pay the rent on that apartment...
Luke was pulling a pen from the top pocket of his scrubs. He fished out a small notebook and ripped out a page.
‘This is my phone number,’ he told her. ‘If you ever need help, ring me.’
Ellie’s eyes widened.
Luke grinned. ‘No, I don’t usually do this for my patients. But you’re special. You’re an old bus buddy so we go way back, even if my memory’s a bit hazy.’
Ellie pressed her lips together. Her memory was getting less hazy by the minute. She had noticed Luke every time he’d sauntered down the bus aisle past her seat. The bad boy who’d been expelled from every school he’d been to until he got to Kauri Valley. The angry kid who’d somehow morphed into the coolest one. The one that every girl had been desperate to be with...
He put the scrap of paper on the top of her locker.
‘Want me to get someone for you? Do you need help with Jamie? Or some pain relief or anything?’
‘I think I’m ready to sleep,’ Ellie told him. ‘Jamie seems to be settled again. Could you put him back in the bassinet for me, please?’
She watched as he carefully positioned the baby on his side and then tucked the sheet securely around him. There was nothing more he needed to do but he paused for a long moment—that big, artistic looking hand cupping the baby’s head so gently that the spikes of dark hair barely moved. Ellie could feel that touch herself and it felt as if it were cupping her heart.
He was quite something now, this grown up bad boy.
‘Sweet dreams, little guy,’ Luke murmured.
And then, with a smile, he was gone, letting himself out of Ellie’s room as quietly as he’d come in. He left the door slightly ajar and she could hear the muted sounds of a maternity ward on night shift. The distant cry of another baby. Soft-soled shoes going past in the corridor.
Her baby was asleep and she needed to rest herself. It was the only opportunity she was going to get to heal and gather her strength for what lay ahead.
Adjusting her body to find a more comfortable position, Ellie could see the top of her locker where that scrap of paper lay beside her water glass.
He’d said they were ‘bus buddies’, she remembered.
He’d said that she was special...
He’d given her his phone number to use if she needed help.
Not that she would, but having it there somehow made her immediate future look a little less terrifying.
Ellie drifted into much-needed sleep unaware of the curve of her lips.
She was special...
THE BABY WAS about six weeks old.
A little girl, called Grace, but that didn’t stop Luke Gilmore being instantly reminded of Jamie Thomas.
It had been more than two weeks since he’d delivered Ellie’s baby in such a dramatic fashion. It felt like a long time since he’d shared what seemed like a surprisingly intimate conversation, late that night in her room.
He would never have recognised Ellie from that time in his past. What he had been prompted to remember was a girl with long blonde braids who had been too timid to interest him. The girl who wore the hats—Ava—used to stare at him but Ellie was also memorable for the way she avoided eye contact.
She hadn’t been avoiding it the other night. Quite the opposite. When she had been telling him about the surrogacy arrangement that had gone so wrong and particularly when she’d explained how hearing the baby’s first cry had changed her for ever, she’d held his gaze with an intensity that had made him feel as if he was glimpsing a part of her soul.
A courageous soul, he had realised. And a generous one.
She’d been prepared to do something for a friend that went way beyond the normal boundaries of friendship. And she hadn’t been planning to raise a child on her own but was facing what could be a difficult future with such determination—and such obvious love for the baby she had now claimed as purely her own.
He had to admire that.
To admire Ellie.
And, man...as he’d kept going back to that time together in his head—more often than he was comfortable with, to be honest—he realised that Ellie had matured into
