stepped out.
But she had no time to concentrate on him—despite the fact that some tired, exhausted part of her sex-starved brain still worked and had registered how attractive he was. The bossier part of her brain—the exhausted, sleep-deprived, worried-about-being-late part—overrode all other messages.
She unbuckled Morgan from the buggy and lifted her out. ‘She’s been up most of the night, I’m afraid, so she might be a little grumpy. There are bottles in the bag...’ she unhooked the baby bag from the handles of the buggy and handed it over ‘...with expressed milk. I’ve labelled them with her name, so you can give her the right ones. There’s a teddy in the bag, that’s her favourite—Mr Cuddles. She likes to sleep with it. You usually have to wind her twice before she’ll go to sleep, and if you sing her “Baa-Baa Black Sheep” she’ll cry, so please don’t do that. And...and...’
She couldn’t help it. The tears that had been stinging the backs of her eyes now readily began to fall. The moment of having to hand her daughter over was too much. Her little girl had been the one to keep her together these past few months. She was all she had, and now...
Morgan, sensing her mother’s distress, began to cry, and now Brooke was feeling worse about leaving her baby. She stood there clutching her daughter, hiccupping her way through her own tears, as if giving her up to the crèche meant certain death.
I can’t do this! I don’t need to work, do I? I could wait a little longer, take some more time off. I—
Daisy reached forward to take the crying Morgan. ‘We’ll be fine—don’t worry. Have you got the crèche app on your phone?’
The hospital crèche had developed its own app, so that parents could click in at any time during the day and receive updates about their child—whether they’d slept, when they’d eaten or had a bottle, what the child was playing with. There was even an option to access the crèche’s webcam.
Grateful for the fact that Daisy was ignoring Brooke’s embarrassing tears, she tried to breathe. Sucking in a breath and dragging a tissue from her pocket to wipe her nose, Brooke nodded. ‘Yes.’
Daisy was still smiling and bobbing up and down as she gently swayed Morgan, trying to soothe her. ‘You go off to work, then, Mummy. Don’t worry about us.’
Morgan looked sickeningly distressed to be in a stranger’s arms, which was disconcerting for her mother. ‘I’ve never left her before. You’ll call me if there’s any problem?’
‘Of course we will.’
‘Anything at all?’
Daisy nodded, but as Brooke opened her mouth to ask another question she felt a firm hand upon her arm. The man she’d seen before looked down at her with intense blue eyes and said, ‘It’s best to just walk away. Don’t look back.’
Brooke looked up at him hopefully, gratefully, with her ugly crying face still at full throttle, dabbing at her tears and trying to hold on to his words of wisdom. Had he done this, then? Did he know what he was talking about? He’d just come out of the Baby Room, so perhaps he’d just dropped off his own child?
‘Really?’
‘Really. Come on.’
He had a stern, no-nonsense tone to his voice. A voice that was used to issuing commands and having them obeyed without question. It was clear he expected the same from her. He gently draped his hands over hers, forcing her fingers to release the death grip she’d had on the buggy since letting go of her daughter, then took the buggy from her and parked it in the buggy bay. With a guiding hand in the small of her back, he purposefully escorted her to the exit.
Brooke was desperate to turn around and make sure Morgan was okay. She could still hear her baby wailing. Her daughter needed her. But the man blocked her view and ushered her out through the door and into the corridor like an expert collie dog herding a reluctant sheep.
‘But I need to—’
He held up his hand for silence. ‘No. You don’t.’
Brooke stepped away and looked him up and down, irritated that he thought he knew what she needed. Sniffing desperately and wiping her nose with the tissue, she wondered just who this man was, anyway. She’d never seen him before at the hospital. But, then again, she’d never had reason to come to the crèche before and the hospital was a big place. He might work anywhere. He might be a new employee.
Wiping away the last of her tears, she stared up at him. He was a good head taller than she. With very short dark blond hair, longer on top. Piercing blue eyes. Trim. Oozing strength and quiet, confident dominance. That was something that usually rubbed her up the wrong way. Eric had been overbearing. Had tried to control her. It was the kind of thing to send up the warning flags.
‘Look, I appreciate that you’re trying to help me, but—’
‘If they sense weakness it makes them more upset.’
She wiped her nose again for good measure, sure it was now probably as red as strawberry jelly. ‘The babies?’
He gave one curt nod.
‘She’s five months old. The only thing she senses is hunger, tiredness and whether she’s wet or not.’
‘You’d be surprised.’ He began to walk away.
Narrowing her eyes, Brooke followed after him. He was going in her direction anyway. She needed the lift again, to go down a couple of floors to A&E.
She pulled her mobile from her pocket to check the time.
Damn it!
The man got into the lift ahead of her. ‘Which floor?’
‘Ground level.’ She noticed he’d pressed the ‘G’ button, but no other. Frowning, she realised that he must work on her floor. He might work anywhere, though—A&E, the Medical Assessment Unit, Nuclear Medicine, Radiology...
He was looking at her. Looking her up and down. And, sickeningly, she noticed his gaze appeared to be centred on her chest. Men! Feeling her cheeks heat, she stared back at him, trying to make him lift his gaze a good few inches upwards, towards her face.
‘Is there a problem?’
‘You...er...might want to get out of those clothes.’
‘Excuse me?’ He had some front! He’d only just met her!
What is it with men? They do you one tiny favour and suddenly expect you to drop your—
‘You’ve got milk on your blouse, something questionable on your skirt, and you appear to be...’ he smiled and looked away, as if he was preserving her modesty ‘...leaking.’
Leaking? Brooke looked down at herself and instantly felt her cheeks flame with heat. She was indeed in a state. Her boobs had leaked milk—no doubt due to Morgan’s cries—she had a smear of what might possibly be poo at the top of her thigh from the earlier explosion, and there was indeed a smelly, sour milk stain, crusting away on her shoulder.
‘Oh, God...’
She reached into her handbag
