The Doctors’ Baby

‘You’ve fallen for him, too,’ Em said, watching his face, and he gave a reluctant nod.

‘Yes. I guess I have. He’s a brave little kid. So if by marrying you I could get him a home…’

‘That’s some sacrifice!’

He smiled at that, a wry, half-mocking smile. ‘Hey, you’re not that bad.’

But I’m not that good, Em thought desperately, and waited.

‘Would we live together?’ she asked curiously.

He raked his hair and thought about that for a bit. ‘I guess we’d need to if we were to formally adopt Robby, but I can’t see it as a problem. I’d be in Sydney a bit, and this house is plenty big enough for all of us. And if we had a trainee doctor living here as well, it wouldn’t get too personal.’

Not too personal!

Personal! A fate worse than death, obviously!

‘But this would be a long-term thing,’ Em said wildly. ‘You’d have to tell Tom you’d be prepared to be Robby’s father. If we…we, Jonas. Not me. If we were to adopt him then you’d need to be involved.’

‘I don’t see that. Not if he has you.’

She took a deep breath, fighting back the emotions surging around her so fast she felt her head was about to spin off her shoulders. ‘Jonas, I want Robby so badly it hurts,’ she told him. ‘But Robby needs a family.’

She closed her eyes, trying desperately to stay calm. To think clearly. Because what Jonas was offering was almost unbelievably tempting.

But she knew she couldn’t take it.

She had one small problem. And she had to tell him. The only way forward here was honestly, no matter how much pride was at stake.

‘Jonas, I think you should know that I’ve fallen in love with you,’ she said bluntly, and her eyes didn’t leave his face. ‘I think you should factor that into any equation you make. You see, I don’t think I could live in the same house as you-as your wife-and stay…impersonal.’

His face froze. He stared at her like she’d just uttered an obscenity.

‘You what?’

But the time for prevarication was over. There was only room for the truth.

‘I’ve fallen for you in a big way, Jonas Lunn,’ she told him, tilting her chin and meeting his look head on. With dignity and with courage. ‘So if you’re asking me to marry you-for keeps-then I’d say thank you very much, I’d love to, because I’d like nothing better than to be your wife. But I would be your wife, Jonas. In every sense of the word.’

‘Em!’ He was clearly flabbergasted.

‘Stupid, isn’t it?’ she said cordially. ‘Unprofessional. Self-destructive even. For me and for Robby. Because if I didn’t…love you…maybe I could accept what you’re offering.’

‘What I’m offering makes sense,’ he said explosively. ‘Whereas what you’re saying…’

‘Doesn’t make sense at all,’ she agreed.

‘So forget you said it. You don’t mean it.’

She closed her eyes again. How could he be so blind?

‘I do mean it,’ she said at last. ‘I mean it more than anything I’ve ever said in my life. I didn’t mean to fall in love. I never intended it. It just sort of happened. So…so it wouldn’t work. Having half the cake but not the half I want most. I’d have a child and a husband-but a husband who treats me as a professional colleague.’

‘What more do you want, for heaven’s sake? How can you need more?’ He sounded angry, and suddenly so was she. He was so damned insensitive. So…

So Jonas.

‘I want it all,’ she told him simply, and her chin was still tilted at that dangerous angle that said she was taking on the world. Or she was giving it up. ‘I knew when I came here that my chances of having a husband and children were about nil. I accepted that. But now you’re offering half of what I want most in life, and I find…I find that I’d rather not have anything at all than constantly living-seeing-the other half. The half that’s out of my reach.’

Silence.

He looked baffled, she thought. He so totally didn’t understand.

‘You want Robby,’ he said.

‘I do.’ She was close to tears. ‘But you don’t want us.’ She bit her lip. ‘Oh, sure, you say you don’t want Robby to have to stay in an orphanage. So you’ll sacrifice yourself for us. Marry me. But I’m not prepared to carry that load of sacrifice. Not marriage, Jonas. Not…not without love.’

‘We don’t…love,’ he said slowly. His anger was fading as he saw the distress on her face. ‘Not my sister and I. We can’t. Em, I’m sorry, but we’ve had love knocked out of us from an early age.’

‘And you can’t get it back?’

‘I don’t want to,’ he said honestly. ‘It hurts too damned much.’

‘It takes courage.’

‘No. It takes courage to be independent. If you knew how much I wanted…’ He caught himself, and almost perceptibly drew back. ‘No! I’m sorry, Em, but that’s the offer.’

‘And is it all or nothing?’ she said bleakly. ‘Either I marry you on your terms or you’ll ride off into the sunset without a backward glance?’

He glanced down at Robby. ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. You really won’t marry me?’

There was only the one answer possible. ‘No.’

‘I still need a base.’

‘Not with me.’

He thought about that, and then slowly nodded, readjusting his thinking. ‘OK. OK, I’ll accept that. I think it’s stupid, but maybe if I stayed anyway we could work things out. If I told Anna I was staying here so you could adopt Robby, she’d accept that. She wouldn’t think I was just doing it for her.’

‘Are you doing it just for her?’ Em asked curiously, and then watched Jonas’s face change. He didn’t know himself, she thought. He was trying so darn hard to be independent, but he wasn’t independent at all.

He’d told himself he was making this offer for Anna, but a part of him wanted Robby-and a part of him wanted the sense of community he’d found in Bay Beach.

If only a part of him wanted her…

But he wasn’t admitting to that! Concentrate on Robby.

He was thinking that, too. He could persuade her by thinking of Robby. ‘You might still be able to adopt Robby, if I was here to help,’ he told her, thinking it through as he spoke. ‘If I could arrange the medical needs of the community so you had free time, then Tom might be swayed to let you keep him.’

He might. That was something at least. Em’s heart gave a tiny lift, but she looked across at Jonas and the spurt of joy faded. Jonas was so near. So close.

And she had to drive him away.

‘It’d be so much easier if you married me,’ he said, and waited.

This was her second chance.

But she couldn’t do it. Not for Robby.

And not for herself. Marriage without love was the way of madness.

‘No, Jonas, it’d be much harder,’ she told him gently. ‘For all of us.’

CHAPTER NINE

‘YOU are out of your mind!’

‘Sorry?’

‘You have turned down Jonas Lunn? Emily Mainwaring, you are nutty about the man. I have eyes in my head. You’re head over heels in love with him and you’ve turned down a proposal of marriage!’

Lori’s voice rose so high it was practically a squeak.

She plonked herself down on the chair beside Em’s desk and gazed at her friend in stupefaction.