With each step, the young woman faded further from his mind, crowded out by an image of Molly that blanked his thoughts to anything else.
She hadn’t changed at all—well, not enough to notice. She’d got her pre-pregnancy figure back, of course, but apart from that she seemed no different. Her eyes were still that same warm, gentle shade of brown, her hair a few tones darker and shot through with gold, and her smile…
He felt choked, just thinking about her smile. She smiled with her whole face, not just that gorgeous, mobile mouth that was so amazingly expressive.
He growled under his breath. So she was an attractive woman. So what? So were lots of women. Hell, he worked with young, attractive women all day, both staff and patients, and he managed to cope. So why had he picked on Molly, of all people, to be so acutely aware of? She was the last woman in the world he could entertain those sorts of thoughts about.
His relationship with her was hugely complex because of Jack, and absolutely the last thing it needed was any further layers added to it!
‘Keep breathing, nice light breaths—that’s it, that’s lovely. You’re doing really well.’
Liz, her young patient, sobbed and shook her head. ‘I can’t do this…’
‘Yes, you can,’ Molly told her calmly, recognising her panic for what it was, a sign that she was moving into the transitional phase between the first and second stages of labour. ‘You’ll be fine.’
‘I bet you’ve never had any babies, midwives never have,’ she said with no real venom.
Molly gave a soft laugh. ‘Sorry—I’ve had three.’
‘You’re mad. I’m never having another,’ the girl moaned, leaning against her partner and biting her lip. ‘God, I hate you! How could you do this to me, you bastard? I never want to speak to you again.’
He met Molly’s eyes over her shoulder, panic flaring in them, and she squeezed his hand as it lay on the girl’s shoulder and smiled reassuringly at him.
‘She’s getting closer. Tempers often fray and it’s usually the father who gets it. She’ll be fine.’
‘Going to be sick,’ Liz said, and promptly was, all down his front.
To his credit he didn’t even wince, just led her back to the bed and wiped her mouth, then looked at Molly. ‘I could do with cleaning up,’ he said softly, and she nodded.
‘We’ll get you some theatre pyjamas to wear. Just sit with her for a second.’
She slipped out, grabbed the scrubs from the linen store and was about to mop up when Liz’s waters broke.
‘OK, let’s get you back on the bed and check you. I reckon it’ll soon be over now,’ she said encouragingly. When she examined her patient, though, she found that the cord had prolapsed down beside the baby’s head, and when she checked the foetal heart rate, it was dipping alarmingly.
It would be over soon, but not for the reason she’d thought!
‘Liz, I want you to turn on your side for me,’ she said, pressing the crash button by the head of the bed and dropping the backrest simultaneously. ‘We’ve got a bit of a problem with the baby’s cord, and I want to get your head down and hips up a bit, to take the pressure off. It’s nothing to worry about, but we need to move fast, and I’m going to get some help.’
‘Need a hand here?’
Sam’s deep, reassuring voice was the most wonderful sound in Molly’s world at that moment.
‘Prolapsed cord,’ she said quietly. ‘Her waters went a moment ago, and she had quite a lot of fluid. Watch where you walk, by the way. Liz, this is Mr Gregory.’
‘Hello, Liz,’ he said, moving in beside her and throwing her a quick, reassuring smile before he lifted her hips effortlessly and slid a pillow under them. He met Molly’s eyes. ‘What’s the previous history?’
She shook her head. ‘None. First baby, full term—’
‘And the last,’ Liz groaned. ‘What’s happening?’
‘The cord’s got squashed between your cervix and the baby’s head,’ Sam told her calmly. ‘We’ve got a choice under these conditions. We can deliver the baby as quickly as possible the normal way, with the help of forceps, or give you a Caesarian section. I just need to take a quick look at you to help me decide which is the best option, OK? Gloves, Molly.’
She handed him the box, and he snapped them on and quickly checked the baby’s presentation and the extent of the prolapse of the cord. As he straightened, he met Molly’s eyes again, his own unreadable. ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Want to try?’
She shrugged, not wanting to argue with him on their first shared case, but deeply concerned because it was a first baby and it was still a little high for comfort. If she had problems…
‘We can try, I suppose, if you want to—but we haven’t got long.’
He nodded agreement, and approval flickered in his eyes. ‘I know. Let’s go for a section. Push that head back, Molly, until the cord’s pulsating again, and hold it there until she’s in Theatre. I don’t think we can get the cord back up, there’s too big a loop, so we just have to keep the pressure off. I’m going to scrub.’
The room had been filling up while they talked, people responding to the crash call, and he turned to his SHO. ‘Get a line in, please, and give her oxygen, and terbutaline to slow the contractions if we can. Cross-match for two units as well, please. I’ll see you in Theatre, Liz. Don’t worry, we’ll soon have your baby out.’
He squeezed her partner’s shoulder on the way out, and Molly thought how like him that was, sparing a thought for the shocked young man standing paralysed on the sidelines, even in such a chaotic moment. He’d always seemed to have time for things others often overlooked.
Within a very few minutes Liz was on her way to Theatre, Molly’s gloved hand firmly pushing the baby’s head back away from her cervix, keeping the pressure off the cord to prevent the baby dying from lack of oxygen.
They didn’t have much time, but as long as she could keep that cord pulsating, the baby stood a good chance of coming through this unharmed.
Sam was waiting, and he wasted no time in opening Liz up once she was under the anaesthetic. Her partner, David, was hovering outside Theatre and had looked scared to death, but Molly didn’t really have time to worry about him.
All her attention was on holding that baby’s head back, during the shift across to the operating table, positioning Liz ready for surgery with the head of the table tilted downwards, and trying desperately to ignore the cramp in her arm and back from the awkward position she was in.
Finally she felt the pressure ease, and looked up to meet Sam’s eyes as he lifted the baby clear and handed it to the waiting nurse.
‘It’s a boy,’ he told Molly, throwing a quick smile in her direction before returning his attention to Liz. ‘Time of birth fifteen twenty-seven. He’s all yours, Molly.’
She straightened and flexed her shoulders, then, after clamping and cutting the cord, she took the baby immediately over to the waiting crib and sucked out his airways. His cry, weak and intermittent until that point, changed pitch with indignation and turned into a full-blown bellow, and she felt the tension in the room ease.
‘Apgar score nine at one minute,’ she said, and glanced up at the clock on the wall. She’d check again at fifteen thirty-two, by which time she was sure the slight blueness of his skin would have gone and he would score a perfect ten.
Relief made her almost light-headed, and she smiled down at the