‘It wasn’t a stunt. I figured I was going to be at a disadvantage. You know each other already but I’m going to be working with you all and the quicker I get everyone straight in my head the faster I’ll settle in. I like to be prepared.’
‘Dr Simpson?’ Ellen, one of the more experienced midwives, interrupted them. She had answered the phone and she covered the mouthpiece with her hand as she spoke to Annie. ‘I have one of your patients on the phone, Kylie Jones. She says her waters have broken. Do you need me to pull up her file?’
Annie shook her head. ‘No, that’s all right.’ She knew Kylie. ‘Is her husband home?’
‘I’ll check,’ Ellen replied, but within a few seconds she was shaking her head. ‘He’s not due back until next week.’
Annie knew that Paul Jones worked in mining, which meant he worked away for two weeks before coming home for two. ‘Tell her we’ll send an ambulance for her. She needs to be in here. If she’s up to it she can contact Paul while she’s waiting so he can organise to get home as soon as possible.’
Annie turned to Caspar. She couldn’t believe she was about to ask this of him.
‘Kylie is thirty-three weeks pregnant with twins. I’m going to need your help.’
‘Of course.’ He grinned at her and the sparkle returned to his eyes. Annie felt that funny warmth rush through her, as though his smile was the match and her belly was full of dry tinder. ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he said as he pulled his phone from his pocket.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Calling the camera crew.’
‘What? No!’ she protested.
‘What do you mean, “no”? This is what we’re here for.’
Annie disagreed. ‘Why do you want to film Kylie? What’s the point? You have no back story, no history with her.’ And I don’t want a camera crew in my delivery suite.
But Caspar wasn’t going to back down easily.
‘We can do all that afterwards,’ he said, unperturbed. ‘We can follow her story and follow the babies’ progress.’
Somehow she’d known he wouldn’t give in. ‘These babies are premature,’ she argued. ‘They have to survive first.’
As she debated the situation she realised that from the television perspective it probably didn’t matter if the babies survived or not. Either way it would be high drama. But to his credit Caspar didn’t point that depressing fact out to her. In fact, he seemed to try to make an effort to reassure her.
‘I am a paediatrician, this is what I do. You have to trust me, I am very good at my job and just like you I swore an oath to do no harm.’ His brooding expression was back, his green eyes darker now, his jaw set. ‘This is a perfect story for the show—a premature delivery of twins with the father not able to make it for the birth. It’s in my best interests to make sure it has a happy ending and then we’ll be able to film an emotional reunion scene as well.’
‘You’re forgetting something,’ Annie argued. ‘I’ll be in the delivery suite and I haven’t given my permission to be filmed.’
Caspar shrugged. ‘We’ll keep you out of the shot. It’s Kylie and the babies we want. We can use voiceovers, music, whatever we need to eliminate anything you say as well if you prefer. The wonders of modern technology.’
‘Are you telling me you’ll film without my permission?’
‘Are you always this argumentative?’ he asked as a broad grin broke across his face and his eyes sparkled again.
Was he smiling at her? Did he find her amusing? Did he think she didn’t mean business?
She didn’t know where to look as she tried to ignore the funny tumbling sensation in her stomach. All she knew was that he was responsible for the feeling and that frightened her. She didn’t want to be attracted to him. She couldn’t imagine dealing with that on top of working with him. The stress made her belligerent. ‘Only when I think people are wrong,’ she snapped.
‘But I’m not wrong. We can edit you out but you can’t stop us from filming. I have the hospital’s permission and all I need is Kylie’s. If you like, I promise to show you the edited version before it goes to air.’
By God, the man was irritating. ‘I have no idea whether I can trust you to keep your promises, though, do I?’ Annie had learned through bitter experience that some people lied, cheated, made promises they had no intention of keeping and let others down on a regular basis. And to trust someone she barely knew didn’t sit comfortably with her.
‘This discussion could well be moot anyway,’ Caspar said. ‘It all depends on Kylie now.’
He pressed a button on his phone and made the call while Annie stood by, fuming silently. If he thought he could win every time by being stubborn she had news for him, but she knew that his chances of getting his own way were better than hers. Kylie’s babies would need Caspar St Claire. Annie couldn’t do this without him.
She could hope that Kylie would choose not to invite the cameras into the delivery suite but if that didn’t happen Annie knew she’d have to relent. She hated feeling powerless. She had sworn an oath to herself to take charge of her life, not to let other people dictate things to her, but ever since Caspar had walked into the hospital she could feel control being wrested from her.
She’d thought she would be able to avoid him and his cameras but she realised now that it wasn’t going to be her decision and, what was even worse, she realised that there would be times when she’d need him and she’d have to acquiesce.
‘Now, why don’t we agree to put our differences aside and you can tell me about Kylie,’ Caspar said as he ended his phone call. ‘Regardless of whether or not we film this delivery, I will be taking care of the babies, so is there anything I need to know? Has she had any medical complications? Have there been any issues with the pregnancy?’
Before Annie could answer any of his questions they were interrupted by Ellen. ‘The ambulance is nearly here.’
‘I want to meet the paramedics,’ Annie told him as she resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to work with him. ‘If you come with me I’ll fill you in on the way, but her pregnancy has been pretty straightforward. She’s young, twenty-three, first pregnancy, fraternal twins. I’m not expecting any problems aside from the usual premmie issues.’
They arrived at the ambulance bay as the paramedics were opening the ambulance doors. Caspar was on the phone again and Annie could hear him instructing the crew to meet them in Emergency. She hoped Caspar was able to focus on more than one thing at a time. He needed to. Time would tell.
‘You know this patient?’ the paramedic checked as Annie introduced herself, and when she nodded, he continued. ‘Her waters have broken for at least one twin. Her blood pressure is elevated, one-sixty-five over ninety-five, and foetal heart rates are both around one-forty.’
‘Any contractions?’
‘A couple of mild ones. Several minutes apart.’
Annie spoke to one of the nurses who had followed them out to the ambulance. ‘Can you page Dr Williams and get her down here?’ she asked. Kylie’s blood pressure was much higher than she’d like and an epidural might help, but she’d let Tori decide.
The paramedics retrieved the stretcher with her patient and Annie bent over her, talking quietly. ‘Kylie, welcome. I wasn’t expecting you quite so soon. We’re going to take you into the emergency department and see what your babies are up to.’ Annie needed to determine how far along Kylie was. She didn’t need her wanting to push as they were on their way to Maternity.
She was aware