medical question.
Although why was he questioning the decision?
Refusing to think about the implications of that one, Marty explained.
‘Actually, in the absence of any relative that we could contact, the hospital ethics committee made the decision. They went on the advice of the neonatologist—Sophie was the one consulted at the time—and my judgement of the stage of the pregnancy. It was deemed advisable, for the baby’s sake—’
‘What was that judgement?’
Marty was prepared to accept his interruption—after all, the man had stuff he wanted to know—but the cold, hard voice in which he interrupted—she didn’t like that one little bit.
‘My judgement of the stage of pregnancy?’ she queried, her voice as cold and hard as his—all compassion gone. Two could play this game. ‘I measured fundal height, and used ultrasound to estimate the length of the baby and head circumference. But although these measurements are fairly close in the first and second trimester, by the third, beginning at twenty-eight weeks—’
Too much information now—he’d know all this medical detail—but he didn’t interrupt so she kept going.
‘They can be out by as much as three weeks, and that’s plus or minus. The man who was in the car gave no help apart to say she was pregnant when she moved in with him so the closest we could get was twenty-eight to thirty-one weeks. Natalie was tall and slim so it was also possible the pregnancy could have been further along than that—a possibility that became a probability when Em—the baby—was delivered.’
‘Dios! Call the baby Emmaline if you wish. Anything is better than this stumbling every time she’s mentioned.’ He glared at Marty, as if defying her to disobey his order, then demanded, ‘So, if anything, Natalie was further into her pregnancy than your initial assessment—that is what you’re saying?’
Marty nodded, feeling sorry now for Emmaline who had this disagreeable man for a father.
‘And the man said she was pregnant when she returned to him?’
‘I don’t know about “returned”. He said she was already pregnant when she came and that’s all he’d say.’
‘Oh, she returned, for sure,’ Carlos told her, enough ice in his voice to make Marty shiver.
There was a long silence, then he added, ‘So this Emmaline, she is mine!’
He ground out the words with such evident regret—distaste almost—Marty let fly.
‘You make it sound as if she’s an albatross hung around your neck by some malign fate. She’s a baby—she’s not to blame for being born. You’re a doctor—you of all people know how conception happens. Actually, ten-year-old kids know how it happens these days. But it was up to you. If you didn’t want a child, you should have done something to prevent it.’
She was glaring directly at him so caught the flash of something that might be humour in his eyes, then he smiled as he said, ‘And do you always think of the possibility of conception when you make love with your partner? Or is the easing of the urgent need the priority of both mind and body?’
The smile, though as coolly cynical as the words, confused her to the extent she forgot to breathe, then, angry at her reaction, she snapped at him.
‘I don’t have a partner!’
Oh, hell! Mortification all over again because that wasn’t the issue—her personal life was none of Carlos Quintero’s business.
Fine, dark eyebrows rose again and the jet-black eyes seemed to penetrate her scrub suit to scan the body hidden beneath it.
Infuriated beyond reason, Marty stood up, grabbed the empty cups off the table and carried them across the room. This man wasn’t interested in his wife, or how she’d died. His only concern—hope?—had been that maybe the baby wasn’t his.
Callous, arrogant wretch, with his insinuating remarks and come-to-bed eyes scanning her body!
‘It is not for myself I regret Emmaline,’ he said, and Marty’s wrath, which had been building up nicely, dissipated instantly. He’d used her name! ‘It is she I am thinking of. The life I lead—it is no life for a baby, yet it is work to which I am committed. This is hard, you see, for me now to have a baby and to know what best to do with it.’
‘Her,’ Marty corrected automatically.
‘Her!’ he repeated obediently.
Carlos watched the woman’s shoulders slump and knew he’d won a reprieve. He, who hated above all things to be dependent on another person, needed help—help to understand what had happened, and where things stood—help to work out what to do next. And one thing was clear—this woman had the baby’s—Emmaline’s—interest at heart and for that reason, he guessed, she might be willing to help a stranger.
She returned to her chair, though he could read her reluctance in the way she moved and her distrust in the way she held her body. One of those women to whom their job is their life, he guessed, though her attachment to the baby was strange—professional detachment usually went hand in hand with such dedication.
‘Do you know any details of the accident?’ he asked, steering the conversation away from the baby in the hope she might relax a little.
‘Only that it was single vehicle—apparently the car careened off the road on a curve and struck a tree—and Natalie was breathing on her own when the ambulance arrived. She stopped breathing when she was moved and they revived her twice at the site then put her on life support to bring her to the hospital. Foetal heart rate was stable throughout the examinations, and tests at the hospital showed no damage to the amniotic sac or the placenta and, as far as we could tell, no damage to the foetus.’
‘And the man?’
He saw the woman’s quick glance—clear, almond-shaped, hazel eyes sweeping across his face—before she replied.
‘Multiple fractures to both legs, some contusions and concussion, I think a ruptured spleen but nothing life-threatening.’
A shame, Carlos thought, then dismissed the thought as petty and unworthy. It wasn’t Peter Richards’s fault Natalie had loved him. Although, if he’d not broken off their engagement, sending her scurrying to Europe to forget him, the beautiful blonde would never have crossed Carlos’s path and this entire, unsatisfactory mess could have been avoided.
Though he wouldn’t use the words ‘unsatisfactory mess’ to this fiery little obstetrician!
Marty—as strange a name as Emmaline!
‘So he was hospitalised here?’
Marty nodded, though the look on her face suggested she was no more fond of Peter Richards than he was.
‘You didn’t like him?’
‘I didn’t know him, but I do know, once he was mobile, he never visited her, to sit with her and talk to her. I know she’d been ruled brain-dead but no one knows if on some deep level such people might feel comfort or support. He should have done it for his own sake if nothing else—having
