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She stood up so fast it would have been funny if he didn’t think she’d kill him for laughing. He maintained a poker face as she walked hurriedly away and then his smile couldn’t be restrained. He walked over to the pot plant, shifted it from the wall and saw the small green frog, almost a froglet, clinging by his tiny round pads to the wall.
Sam bent down and scooped the little creature into his palm carefully and felt the coldness of the clammy body flutter as he put his other hand over the top to keep it from jumping. A quick detour to the automatic door and he stepped out, tossing the invader into the garden.
Sam shook his head and walked back inside to the wall sink to wash his hands. A precipitous human baby jammed in a bikini bottom didn’t faze her but a tiny green frog did? It was a crazy world.
He heard her come back as he dried his hands.
‘Thank you,’ she said to his back. He turned. She looked as composed and competent as she had when he’d first met her. As if he’d imagined the wild-eyed woman of three minutes ago.
* * *
He probably thought she was mad but there wasn’t a lot she could do about that now. Ellie really just wanted him to go so she could put her head in her hands and scream with frustration. And then check every other blasted plant pot that she’d now ask to be removed.
Instead she said, ‘So you’ve seen the hospital and your rooms. Did they explain the doctor’s routine?’
He shook his head so she went on. ‘I have a welcome pack in my office. I’ll get it.’
She turned to get it but as she walked away something made her suspect he was staring after her. He probably wasn’t used to dealing with officious nursing staff or mad ones. They probably swarmed all over him in Brisbane—the big consultant. She glanced back. He was watching her and he was smiling. She narrowed her eyes.
Then she was back and diving in where she’d left off. ‘The plan is you come to the clinic two hours in the morning during the week, starting at eight after your ward round here at seven forty-five. Then you’re on call if we need you for emergencies, but most things we handle ourselves. It’s a window of access to a doctor for locals. We only call you out for emergencies.’
‘So do you do on-call when you’re off duty?’ He glanced at her. ‘You do have off-duty time?’
Ellie blinked, her train of thought interrupted. ‘I share the workload with the two other midwives, Trina and Faith. I do the days, Faith does the afternoons and Trina does the nights. We cover each other for on-call, and two midwives from the base hospital come in and relieve us for forty-eight hours on the weekends. We have a little flexibility between us for special occasions.’
‘And what do you do on your days off?’ She had the feeling he was trying to help her relax but asking about her private life wasn’t the way to do that.
She deliberately kept it brief. Hopefully he’d take the hint. ‘I enjoy my solitary life.’
She saw him accept the rebuke and fleetingly felt mean. He was just trying to be friendly. It wasn’t his fault she didn’t trust any man under sixty, but that was the way it was.
She saw his focus shift and his brows draw together, as if he’d just remembered something. ‘Syntocinon after birth—isn’t giving that normal practice in all hospitals?’
It was a conversation she had with most locums when they arrived—especially the obstetricians like him. ‘It’s not routine here. We’re low risk. Surprisingly, here we’re assuming the mother’s body has bleeding under control if we leave her well enough alone. Our haemorrhage rate per birth is less than two percent.’
His brows went up again. ‘One in fifty. Ours is one in fifteen with active management. Interesting.’ He nodded. ‘Before I go we’d better check this baby in case your patient wants to go home. I borrowed the computer in the emergency ward and read over the new-born baby check. Don’t worry. It all came back to me as I read it.’
He put his hand in his pocket and she heard keys jingle and wondered if it was a habit or he was keen to leave. Maybe he was one of those locums who tried to do as little as possible. It was disconcerting how disappointed she felt. Why would that be? Abruptly she wanted him to go. ‘I can do it if you like.’
‘No.’ He smiled brilliantly at her and she almost stumbled, certainly feeling like reaching for her sunnies. That was some wattage.
Then he said blithely, ‘We will practise together.’ He picked up a stethoscope and indicated she should get one too.
Ellie could do nothing but follow his brisk pace down the corridor to Renee’s room. So he was going to make her copy him. Served her right for telling him she’d done the course.
In Renee’s room when he lifted back the sheet, baby Jones lay like a plump, rosy-cheeked sleeping princess all dressed in pink down to her fluffy bloomers. Ellie suppressed a smile. ‘Mum’s first girl after four boys.’
‘What fun,’ he murmured.
He started with the baby’s chest, listening to both sides of her chest and then her heart. Ellie remembered the advice from the course to start there, because once your examination woke the baby up she might not lie so quietly.
Dr Southwell stepped back and indicated she do the same. Ellie listened to the lub-dub, lub-dub of a normal organ, the in-and-out breaths that were equal in both lungs, nodded and stood back.
He was right. She’d been putting off asking someone to sign her off on this. Before Wayne, she would have been gung-ho about adding neonatal checks to her repertoire. A silly lack of confidence meant she’d been waiting around for someone else to do it when she should really just have done this instead. After all, when she had the independent midwifery service this would be one of her roles.
By the time they’d run their hands over the little girl, checked her hips didn’t click or clunk when tested, that her hand creases, toes and ears were all fine, Ellie was quite pleased with herself.
As they walked away she had the feeling that Dr Southwell knew exactly what she was feeling.
‘Easy,’ he said and grinned at her, and she grinned back. He wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, he was delightful.
Then it hit her. It had been an action-packed two hours since he’d walked in the door. This physically attractive male had gone from being a stranger standing in her office, to coffee victim, to birth assistant, to frog remover, to midwife’s best friend in a couple of hours and she was grinning back at him like a smitten fool. As if she’d found a friend and was happy that he liked her.
Just as Wayne had bowled her over when they’d first met. She’d been a goner in less than an evening. He’d twisted her around his finger and she’d followed him blindly until he’d begun his campaign of breaking her. She’d never suspected the lies.
Oh, yes. Next came the friendly sharing of history, all the warm and fuzzy excitement of mutual attraction, pleasant sex and then bam! She’d be hooked. The smile fell off her face.
Not this little black duck.
Ellie dragged the stethoscope from around her neck and fiercely wiped it over with a disposable cleaning cloth. Without looking at Sam, she held out her hand for his stethoscope. She felt it land and glanced at him. ‘Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Dr Southwell.’
She watched his smile fade. Hers had completely disappeared as she’d looked up at him with the same expression she’d met him with this morning. Polite enquiry. He straightened his shoulders and jammed his hand back in his pocket to jingle his keys again.
‘Right,’ he said evenly. ‘I’ll go check into my guesthouse.’ Without another word, he strode away to the front door and she sagged with relief.
Lucky she’d noticed what she’d been doing before it had gone too far. But at this precise moment she didn’t feel lucky. She felt disheartened that she couldn’t just enjoy a smile from a good-looking man without getting all bitter, twisted and suspicious about it. Wayne had a lot to answer for.
She did what she always did when her thoughts turned to her horrific marriage that really hadn’t been a marriage—she needed to find work to do and maybe Josie or her baby could give it to her.
CHAPTER THREE
THREE NIGHTS LATER, alone in her big oak bed on top of the cliff, Ellie twisted the sheets under her fingers as the dream dragged her back in time. Dragged her all the way back to primary school.
Her respirations deepened with the beginning of panic. The older Ellie knew what the dream Ellie didn’t. Her skin dampened.
Then she was back.
To the last day of compulsory swimming lessons she’d used to love. Now school and swimming lessons made her heart hurt. Mummy had loved helping at swimming lessons, had even taught Ellie’s class the first two years, but now all they did was remind young Ellie how much she’d lost, because Mummy wasn’t there anymore. Daddy had said Mummy would be sad that Ellie didn’t like swimming now, but it made her heart ache.
And some of the big boys in primary school were mean to her. They laughed when she cried.
But today was the last day, the last afternoon she’d see the grey toilet block at the swimming pool for this year, and she pushed off her wet swimming costume with relief and it plopped to the floor. When she reached for her towel she thought for a minute that it moved. Silly. She shook her head and grabbed for it again so she could dry and get dressed quickly, or she’d be last in line again and those boys would tease her.
Something moved out of the corner of her eye and then she felt the cold shock as a big, green frog leaped towards her and landed on her bare chest. She screamed, grabbed the clammy bulk of it off her slimy skin and threw it off her chest in mindless revulsion, then fought with the lock on the change-room door to escape.
The lock jammed halfway. Ellie kept screaming, then somehow her fingers opened the catch and she ran out of the cubicle, through the washroom and outside through the door—into a long line of stunned primary school boys who stared and then laughed at the crying, naked young Ellie until she was swooped on by a scolding teacher and bundled into a towel.
She wanted her mummy. Why couldn’t she have her mummy? It should be her mummy holding her tight and soothing her sobs. She cried harder, and her racking sobs seemed to come from her belly, even silencing the laughing boys...
Ellie sat bolt upright in bed, the sob still caught in her throat, and shuddered. She didn’t know why frogs were so linked with her mother’s death. Maybe it was something she’d heard about her mother’s car accident, coupled with her childhood’s overwhelming sense of loss and grief—and of course that incident at the swimming baths hadn’t helped—but she couldn’t hear a frog without having that loneliness well back up in her again. It had become the spectre of grief. All through her childhood, whenever she’d been lonely and missed her mother, she’d had the frog nightmare. She’d eventually grown out of it. But, after Wayne, it had started again.
She hadn’t had the dream for a while. Not once since she’d moved here a year ago—and she hoped like heck she wasn’t going to start having it repeatedly again.
She glanced at the window. It was almost light. She’d have time for a quick walk on the beach before she’d have to come back and shower for work. Find inner peace before the day.
Then she remembered the new doctor. Sam. Day four. One more day and then she’d have the weekend off and wouldn’t have to see him. Was that why she’d had the dream? The problem was she liked him. And every day she liked him more. He was lovely to the women. Great with the staff. Sweet to her. And Myra thought the sun shone out of him.
Ellie didn’t want to like Sam. Because she’d liked the look of Wayne too, and look where that had ended up.
* * *
Of course when she went down to the beach the first person she saw was Dr Sam. Funny how she knew it was him—even from the spectacular rear. Thankfully he didn’t see her because he was doing what his father had done—watching the ocean. Sam’s broad back faced her as he watched the swells and decided on where to swim. Then he strode into the water.
She walked swiftly along the beach, her flip flops in her hand, waves washing over her toes while she tried not to look as his strong arms paddled out to catch the long run of waves into the shore that delighted the surfers.
She couldn’t even find peace on ‘her’ beach. She stomped up the curve of sand and back again faster than usual, deliberately staring directly in front of her. If she hadn’t been so stubborn she would have seen that he was coming in on a wave and would intercept her before she could escape.
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