City Surgeon, Small Town Miracle

with courage and honour. It had left its mark.

Like Maggie, sobbing her heart out on his chest. Life’s tragedies were something that affected both them deeply.

‘Spike,’ Maggie said joyfully as she reached him, and she hugged him before he knew what had hit him.

‘I’m C-Colin,’ the kid managed, trying to sound defiant. ‘Not Spike.’

Maggie grinned and turned to Max. ‘He’s Colin,’ she said happily. ‘Our hero’s Colin.’

‘Hero?’ the woman beside Spike said faintly.

‘Hero,’ Maggie said definitely. ‘Is Colin your son?’

‘I…Yes,’ the woman said. ‘And this is his father.’

‘I’m really pleased to meet you,’ Maggie said warmly. ‘We helped at the accident, with your wonderful son.’

‘The hospital called us,’ the man told them, glancing at Spike as if the thought of Colin as wonderful was clearly ludicrous. ‘They said Colin had been in an accident.’

‘We were so scared,’ the woman added. ‘Only then we found out he wasn’t actually in the accident. He’d just seen it and fainted.’

Someone needed to explain, but even as Max thought it, Maggie was on the case. She was like a lioness with a cub, he thought, bemused. Maggie, fierce and loyal and true. He watched the indignation on her face and he thought this was a woman who, once she gave her heart, would give it for ever. Spike had earned her loyalty and she’d repay it a thousand times over.

And he wondered suddenly-out of left field-whether he could find the courage to ask for that commitment to himself.

‘Is that what Colin told you?’ she was demanding, indignation personified. ‘That he’d seen an accident and fainted?’

‘What else is there?’ his father asked.

‘Did he tell you he saved a lady’s life?’

The couple stared. ‘He just said he saw an accident,’ Spike’s mother said. ‘He said he had to give his T-shirt to the doctor and the ambulance guy said he fainted.’

‘Not until he wasn’t needed any more,’ Maggie retorted. ‘Tell them, Max. This is Dr Ashton, by the way. Dr Ashton, tell them about how Colin was just plain wonderful.’

So Max told them, while Spike’s parents looked bemused, and then disbelieving, and finally awed. Spike flushed and looked like he didn’t know where to put himself, but he didn’t have a choice. Like it or not, Maggie hugged him again, and then his mother was lining up for her share.

And suddenly, fiercely, Max was wishing he was somewhere in the middle of that hugging. It was dumb but there it was. Things were shifting inside. A huge hunger he’d ignored for years was suddenly refusing to be ignored.

The abyss of emotional connection seemed suddenly no abyss but something wonderful. Something that if he dared move forward could be his again.

If he dared.

Maybe…maybe that abyss was simply a blockade that had to be battered down. It was a blockade built from fear and loneliness but on the other side…

‘You must be so proud,’ Maggie declared, as Max’s world shifted, while Spike’s mum took over hugging duty.

‘An’ the doctor said they’ll live,’ Colin said, muffled by the closeness of his mother. ‘I asked. But I can’t believe I fainted. Bloody sook.’

‘You didn’t faint until the drama was over,’ Max said firmly, putting his arm round Maggie and holding her against him. Finally taking a hug for himself. The hug felt good. No, it felt excellent. It felt right.

But somehow he had to keep talking to Spike and his parents. Maggie expected it of him, he knew. This was a lady who’d expect a lot of her man.

‘Colin, I fainted for the first time when I was a medical student,’ he told him. ‘It was during the first Caesarean birth I ever attended. The mother was conscious-she told the nurse she thought I was going to faint. She even told her to help me. Colin, you did better than the average medical student. You did what had to be done, and you kept your personal, emotional reaction until afterwards. That took guts.’

And beside him Maggie nestled closer and beamed up at him. He had her approval, he thought, and maybe what he was feeling was corny and cliched and soppy, but corny or not it felt right.

‘Did he really do that?’ Spike’s father demanded, staring at his son like he’d never seen him before.

‘He was the only one in the crowd with the courage to help,’ Maggie declared, and Max could feel her wanting to hug Spike again. He was doing Spike a favour by holding onto her, but that certainly wasn’t the reason he was holding on. He was holding on for himself alone. ‘Maggie and I are trained medical professionals, ’ he said, hugging her tighter to solidify the ‘Maggie and I’ connection. ‘Colin came in cold and did brilliantly.’

‘Hey,’ Spike’s dad said, and his eyes were filling. ‘Hey.’

‘Weren’t nuthin’,’ Spike said.

‘It was everything,’ Max said.

And then, as Spike’s parents showed every sign of bursting into tears, he said farewells for both of them and dragged a reluctant Maggie away. He held onto her all the way to the other side of the car park. He’d drag her further if he could, he thought. There were far too many people around for what he wanted to do; for what he wanted to say.

But it’d have to wait. Maggie wanted to see how Grace and Judith were faring and something told him nothing would ever get in the way of Maggie’s intentions.

But then he paused as he heard her sniff. ‘Maggie?’ He took her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. She sniffed again and glared.

‘I don’t cry,’ she managed. ‘I never cry.’

‘I know that,’ he said, managing to keep a straight face. ‘So why are you not crying now?’

‘I just thought…’ She swiped her eyes angrily with the back of her hand and sniffed again. ‘I watched their faces. His mum and dad’s.’

‘They were very proud.’

‘It’s what I want,’ she said, and she put her hands under the bump that was her baby and tried to smile. ‘You know, I was at the pictures last year. Life was grey. I was just working, just living, for me, for me, for me. William had said if ever I wanted his baby I should go ahead but there was no way I could. How could I ever have a child on my own? Only then I went to the pictures and this mum came out, arguing with her son. It was a silly, soppy picture-a romance-and she’d obviously dragged her kid there against his will. He was giving her such a hard time and she was saying leave it alone, you loved it as much as I did, and he was rolling his eyes at her, and she was saying if he didn’t say something nice about it she’d make him broccoli sandwiches for a week. And he rolled his eyes again-and then he grinned. Then he looked around to make sure no one was noticing that he’d grinned, and I thought, That’s what I want.’

‘You want a teenager?’ he said faintly.

‘Like Spike,’ she said. ‘All contradictions and prickles and lovely underneath.’ She patted her bump with pride. ‘I’m going to refuse to let her get her ears pierced. That’ll be such a fight. My best friend Rachel and I pierced our ears with ice and needles when we were thirteen.’

‘You didn’t!’

‘My mum didn’t even notice,’ she said, with a touch of sadness. ‘She wouldn’t. I didn’t have that kind of a family. But Rachel’s did and she swabbed us with so much disinfectant the sides of our faces were yellow for a week. Then she marched us both off to her family doctor. She and Rachel yelled at each other all the time and I loved it. I so wanted someone to yell at me.’

‘You’re looking forward to yelling?’

‘I am,’ she said, sniffing again but finally managing a watery smile. ‘I’m going to be the yellingest mother.’

‘Maggie…’ Someone pushed past them on the path. If he didn’t get her to himself right now he’d go nuts.

But she wasn’t thinking about him. ‘Let’s go,’ she said, and suddenly, unaccountably, she seemed happy. She tucked her arm into his and tugged him forward. ‘Let’s go find Judith and Grace and make sure what Spike said is