City Surgeon, Small Town Miracle

happened with the traffic lights.’

Maggie was no longer listening. She was simply limp.

What was wrong with her? She’d done her share of stints in emergency rooms. She was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. What was she doing, collapsing like a sodden rag?

But collapse she had. She couldn’t stop shaking. If Max hadn’t been holding her up she’d simply have sat where she was and not moved until morning.

Her tears had stopped-finally-but the numbness was ongoing. She made no protest as Max propelled her into her apartment, into the bathroom and straight into the shower. Then, as she stood limply under the warm water, sagging against the far wall, he swore, pulled his shoes off and came into the shower with her. He tugged her close and held her while the water ran and ran, and the red slowly turned to pink and then slowly turned clear.

Max had ripped off the remains of his ruined shirt along with his shoes. He was wearing chinos and nothing else. She was wearing her sarong. It might be clean but it still felt bloody. Ugh. She didn’t want it on. She hauled it free and the water turned red again with the movement.

There was a crimson smear on her bikini top. She tugged at the strap and Max hesitated, then helped her unfasten it.

Then, as the shaking continued, as her bikini top fell to the floor, he swore and tugged her in hard against him.

What was she doing? She didn’t care. She didn’t have the energy to care. She let herself be pressed to Max’s bare chest, skin against skin.

She needed the contact so much. She needed him.

And something else.

She wanted to be beautiful for him, she thought through a haze of shock and tears. It was a silly, dumb thing to think but think it she did.

She wanted him.

‘Maggie…’

His voice was unsteady.

‘S-sorry,’ she whispered, trying to get her voice under control. Trying to figure out what on earth she was thinking. ‘I’m sorry. I…It’s just…It must be being nine months pregnant. Hormones or something. I’m not…It’s not exactly medical treatment you’re giving me here.’

‘I’m trying hard to feel like your treating doctor,’ he said, and she felt a fierce stab of denial. No.

‘You don’t feel like my treating doctor,’ she whispered.

The warm water was running over them. There was no light apart from the filtered daylight from the window in the bedroom beyond. She felt like she was in a warm, sheltering cave, held by her man.

She was so close…

Closer than she’d felt to William?

That was an impossible question, and the truth was she didn’t know. But it didn’t seem to matter.

Up until now, grief had been with her every time she thought of him. Now, shocked out of any trace of a comfort zone, thrown into such intimacy with this new man in her life, it seemed that William had become a memory that couldn’t be betrayed, a gentle ghost taking his rightful place in her life, watching her move on.

And with the thought-move on-came knowledge of where her heart was taking her, and the surge of self- knowledge made her gasp.

She made to pull away but Max was holding her against his chest. Against his heart.

Her bump was in the way. Apart from her tiny bikini bottom she was totally naked, but she was still huge. But Max was holding her as if he loved her; as if this child she was carrying was his.

No. He didn’t want this. How could he?

‘You don’t want this,’ she whispered.

‘Want what, Maggie?’

What did she want?

She knew exactly what she wanted. The unsayable. But she had to figure another answer.

‘You don’t want a pregnant woman stark naked against you.’

‘I don’t believe you’re quite stark naked.’

‘I might as well be. And I’m so…so…’

‘Beautiful,’ he said softly. And then as she looked up at him in confusion, he added, almost ruefully, ‘Pregnancy’s beautiful. I’ve seen this before, Maggie. I’m a doctor, remember.’

That got to her. No way was she going down that route. She pulled back from him, swiped water out of her eyes, tried to look up at him with determination. ‘You’re not my doctor.’

‘You needed someone. You sobbed.’

‘I didn’t need a doctor,’ she managed. ‘I needed someone who knew what I was feeling. Didn’t you feel like sobbing, too?’

He wasn’t answering. He was fighting to act as if this was professional care.

She didn’t want to be treated with professional care.

Why had she let herself sob on him? What sort of a baby was she?

Enough. She hauled open the shower and grabbed a towel. It was big but not big enough. Beautiful? Ha! Winding the towel round her as best she could, she backed into the bedroom, leaving Max looking after her.

Still not answering.

She’d fallen in love, she admitted as she towelled herself dry with grim intensity. With someone who saw her as a patient.

So get dressed. Get this finished with. Fast.

How had that happened?

Maggie had been covered with blood and she’d been distressed. She’d needed to get her clothes off. It was natural that he’d help her.

So? He was a doctor helping a heavily pregnant woman in distress. He should feel professionally detached.

He felt no such thing.

She’d asked him if he felt like sobbing. The answer to that was easy. The way he’d felt…sobbing didn’t come close.

But what he was feeling was nuts. To look at a nine-months-pregnant woman and ache to take her to him…

It was inappropriate. It was mixed up with his memories of Alice.

If she wasn’t pregnant, would he still feel this desire?

He needed to get away, he thought, until after Maggie’s baby was born. Until he could see how much he wanted Maggie for herself.

He suspected it was a lot.

So don’t rush it, he told himself harshly. Leave her until you can see the whole picture. Get the emotion of pregnancy out of it.

Meanwhile, she didn’t need him.

But, damn it, he wanted her to need him.

There wasn’t even a light in this apartment. There’d been a couple of weeks of rolling power cuts-apparently there was a major problem with the city grid. If he wasn’t here she’d be by herself in the dark.

Maybe she had enough resourcefulness to buy herself a candle?

Of course she did, he thought, hauling off his soaking chinos and wrapping himself in a towel. It might be seductive to think of himself as a white knight on a charger, but she didn’t want that.

And maybe playing the protector now might mess with things later.

How much later?

Later she’d have a baby and a farm and friends. She still wouldn’t need him.

He came out of the bathroom and she was at the apartment door. Thanking the concierge. Not being needy at all.

‘They’ll get him home. Great.’