He’d called her sweetheart only minutes ago.
Before helping her deliver her baby. Before he’d saved her life. Before he’d even properly begun to start saving the life of that baby.
And then something filtered into her brain. An echo of her own voice...
‘But he’s not my baby... And now nobody wants him...’
Oh, God...had she really said that?
No wonder he thought she was crazy. Or some kind of monster.
But Sue was beside her now and everybody else in this room and whatever tasks they were attending to ceased to exist as far as Ellie was concerned. Sue was unwrapping the tiny body of her baby, and another nurse was helping to remove the oversized tee shirt Ellie had been wearing. And her bra.
And there he was. In her arms and snuggled against her bare chest, while Sue arranged some soft, fluffy blankets around them both for warmth and as much privacy as was possible, given the surroundings.
Ellie couldn’t even lift her head to smile her thanks. Her baby’s eyes were open and he was staring up at her and nothing could have induced her to break that astonishing eye contact.
‘Hullo, you...’ she whispered. ‘I’m Mummy.’
The wash of emotion was like nothing Ellie had ever experienced. Something was changing in her body at a cellular level and she would never be the same person she’d been only minutes ago.
Who knew that love could be this powerful? So huge...and every bit of it was for this tiny little human.
Had she really believed she could have given him to someone else?
This baby was a part of herself and she would fight to the death if necessary to protect him.
It was the baby who finally broke that intense eye contact. His head bobbed against the arm it was cradled by and his tiny mouth opened and closed against the skin of Ellie’s breast. Instinctively, she adjusted her position, which brought her nipple within range of the baby’s mouth. And then she watched, in astonishment, as the baby found what it was seeking and latched on to her nipple as though he’d done it many times before.
Ellie’s jaw dropped. ‘He did that all by himself.’
‘He’s a genius.’ Sue smiled. ‘Oh...where’s my phone? We’ve got to get a photo of this.’
But Ellie had closed her eyes by the time Sue had fished her phone from the pocket of her scrub pants and she could feel a tear escape and roll down the side of her nose. And then another.
This feeling—the silky new born skin against her own, the shape of those tiny limbs within her arms and, most of all, the tug of that tiny mouth against her breast—was too much.
It felt like pure joy...
* * *
Luke had rather a lot of paperwork to do to document this emergency delivery that had happened on his watch. Someone had given him the forms on a clipboard and he had a pen in his hand but he hadn’t written a word, yet.
He kept looking sideways. From where he was standing, beside the trolley they’d used to resuscitate this baby, he could see the back of the baby’s head nestled in the crook of Ellie’s arms.
And he could see Ellie’s face.
She had no idea he was watching her. Luke doubted that she was aware of anything other than the baby she was holding.
They seemed to be staring at each other. Locked in a conversation that was so utterly private that Luke felt uncomfortable observing it.
So he looked away.
Eleanor Thomas, someone had filled in under the personal details on the form. Thirty-two years old. Thirty-six weeks pregnant.
He had to look back. It was none of his business that there was something weird going on. A surrogate pregnancy?
Who for?
Why?
And what had gone so wrong that she’d claimed that nobody wanted this child now?
It certainly didn’t look as if nobody wanted him.
Ellie looked, for all the world, as if she was in the middle of a personal miracle. Mesmerised by the face of her child. As though this baby was being bathed in as much love as it was possible for any person to bestow.
It was weird, all right. And disturbing on a level that Luke hadn’t expected. Maybe it was because this was happening so soon after he’d been standing in the home it had taken so many years for him to find.
Had his own mother looked at him like that in the minutes after he’d been born?
No. He’d always known the answer to that.
This time it was easier to look away. To try and focus on the paperwork.
Surely no mother could ever look at her child like that and then simply hand him to strangers when life got tough and never even try to see him again? Had it even occurred to his mother that the scars of being abandoned and finding himself unwanted would be there for the rest of his life?
The paediatrician arrived and Luke gave him a verbal handover. He still had the notes to write up on the baby’s early resuscitation as well.
The new arrival looked at Ellie, who was now breastfeeding the infant, and he was smiling.
‘I think we can get them up to the ward before we examine baby properly. He’s looking pretty happy.’
Anne, the O&G registrar, had joined them. She was nodding. ‘I’ll leave the repair of the episiotomy until then, too. I’ll see what rooms we have available and order a transfer.’
Within minutes, the transfer had been arranged. The bed, with the baby still cradled in Ellie’s arms, was being wheeled out of the resuscitation room and staff members were already busy cleaning up. Luke heard the metallic clang as the forceps and other instruments he had used were dropped into a container to be sent for sterilisation. Blood stained towels and drapes were going into the contaminated linen bag and a cleaner began mopping the floor. A new bed was outside, waiting to take centre stage in a room that would have no evidence of the life and death drama that had just occurred.
Another one would probably take its place very soon but this one was over. Any odd personal connection he might have felt needed to be dismissed. He had done his job and whatever lay ahead for Ellie and her baby was none of his business.
Well, it wasn’t quite over yet. With a sigh, Luke picked up the clipboard. He could finish this paperwork in the office and, if he was lucky, it would be done before he was needed elsewhere. He didn’t want to be here, tying up loose ends like this, when his shift finished late in the evening.
* * *
A visitor was the last thing Ellie was expecting at this time of night.
It was after ten p.m. and she was propped up on her pillows, in the soft glow of the night light in her private room, and she was doing nothing more than being in the moment. Listening to the soft snuffles and squeaks coming from the tiny bundle in the plastic bassinet that was within touching distance of her bed. Trying to absorb this momentous change in her life.
She thought the soft tap on her door would be one of the nursing staff, coming to check that everything was okay and that she was ready to try and get some sleep. When Luke Gilmore stepped into her room, she was too astonished to even say hullo.
‘Is this a bad time? They told me on the desk that you’d just finished a feed and would probably still be awake.’
Ellie was still staring at him. It was obvious she was still awake so there didn’t seem to be anything that needed to be said. She could feel a puzzled frown creasing her brow.
Why was he here? Most emergency