Their Special-Care Baby

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MILLS & BOON

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This book is dedicated in memory to my mother,

Catherine, whose beautiful smile and

“Hello Darling” will always warm my heart.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

STEWART KRAMER leant on the over-track bridge and waited for the Brisbane train to come into view. He contemplated the fierce Australian sun as it shimmered off the entwined silver rails on the track and tried not to think about other things he should have been doing instead of cleaning up after his late brother.

As a child he’d imagined he might work on the railway, anywhere away from Sean. Stewart was distracted by a commuter train that pulled in and then headed back into Sydney.

A swarm of passengers flowed around him as they crossed the coathanger-shaped pedestrian bridge then surged down the stairs to road level.

Desiree’s train had been delayed, luckily, because a tiny set of twins had put his own arrival back an hour while his team had worked to stabilise them in the unit. He had a gut feeling about the larger twin that he’d follow up if his registrar hadn’t already, but his thoughts were interrupted by the loudspeaker warning of the Brisbane train’s impending arrival.

Desiree’s latest mobile text message had suggested his newly acquired sister-in-law and baby niece were travelling in the second carriage from the driver’s and he began to think of moving down to help her with the pram. No doubt she would be as helpless and fashion-brained as all his brother’s women had seemed in the past.

No matter. He would look after them, and the new baby on the way. Even in death his older brother had left wreckage for Stewart to clean up.

He still couldn’t believe that Sean was dead, despite the fact that his brother had danced with danger for so many years on the darker side of life and had then suddenly left a widow and children. Sean could have been so much more.

He wondered briefly if Desiree was her real name or the stage name she’d chosen before she’d married Sean.

The blue inter-city express suddenly appeared around the bend and Stewart straightened. The train seemed to be making up for its tardiness with an extra burst of speed as it passed the departing commuter train. The flyer resembled a blue ribbon in the wind as it streamed towards him and Stewart pushed himself off the rail and forced some enthusiasm for his new family.

Stewart glanced again at Desiree’s train, and at the edge of his vision a silver freighter continued to ease smoothly onto the track in front of the oncoming express as if it had all the time in the world.

Seconds slowed and the initial scream of brakes from the express did nothing but pierce the air with fruitless warning before the trains collided.

The explosion of two great forces meeting with a scream of metal on metal shrieked into the morning routine like an invasion from hell. Smoke and debris shot skywards confirming the sight his brain had dismissed as impossible.

Instinctively Stewart closed his eyes as the horrific scene grew to a pile-up of carriages he’d only imagined seeing as a child on his father’s miniature line. This was no young boy’s accidental manoeuvrings—this was adult folly of criminal proportions.

Stewart’s mind recoiled at the thought of the damage such twisted metal would make on frail human flesh as he turned and scanned the bridge to gauge the fastest way to the tracks.

Adrenalin surged as his heart pounded in his chest and he took the stairs three at a time down to the platform. Somewhere in the wreckage his sister-in-law and niece would be lying, along with many others.

Stunned commuters stared without comprehension up the track at the jumble of carriages. A black pall of smoke hung in the morning sunlight and slowly, piercingly, a lone woman facing the catastrophe began to scream as Stewart vaulted down onto the track and began to sprint up towards the wreckage.

More bystanders must have joined him from the platform because he could hear the echo of running feet on the track behind him or maybe it was his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. Then everything seemed to slow as he came abreast of the devastation.

The engine on the freighter lay buried beneath the smashed driver’s cab of the express and there was no way of sighting either driver. Stewart barely paused as he hurdled over debris and made his way to the first of the passenger carriages.

Common decency and the doctor in him forced him to stop and render what assistance he could, despite his brain knowing what he would find.

He peered through a rent in the side of the carriage and the scene inside would haunt him for ever.

Instinctively he narrowed his line of sight from the grand scale of destruction to find the nearest body, but without equipment the twisted metal didn’t allow his entry and he scanned the faces he could see for any sign of life. Nobody moved, not even a twitch, so he eased back to try the next carriage as a young man appeared at his shoulder.

‘This carriage will have to be left for the rescue workers. We can’t get in and we’ll be more useful to those we can reach.’ The young man swallowed and nodded.

A group of half a dozen commuters had arrived and Stewart directed them to the end carriages. ‘Just help the walking wounded. Don’t move anyone until the emergency workers arrive. Watch for power lines.’

Stewart closed his eyes and sent a prayer of thanks as a wail of sirens filled the air, assuring him that he wouldn’t be in charge of this horror.

He saw tragic events and terrified parents in his paediatric consultancy work but to face this shocking reality made him wish for a nice simple premature twin birth and his team.

He dreaded what he would find in carriage two as he skirted hot metal and clambered towards the opening between the carriages. What he inhaled was smoke, and a fire was the last thing they needed. Given the blasting heat of the day, he should have expected it.

A paramedic, the first of a strong contingent alighting beside the tracks, sprang from his vehicle and touched Stewart’s arm. ‘I’ll take over, sir.’

Stewart glanced at the man in mid-stride but didn’t falter. ‘I’m a doctor. I’ve a relative on this train. I’d like to stay.’

When she woke, she could hear the weak cry of a baby as the acrid tendrils of smoke began to fill the carriage.

The infant cried again. A baby? A sudden jolt from her rounded tummy and then a pain squeezed her abdomen rock hard beneath her searching fingers, but she couldn’t connect the thoughts. There was something about a baby.

The pain eased and instinctively she looked for the crying infant, but when she tried to move she realised her arm was caught.

She lay on her side under several pieces of luggage and a broken seat with her cheek against the cold glass of the window.

It took a few moments to realise the window lay where the floor had been. The carriage—she must be in a train—resembled a stacked bonfire and something was burning.

Even then fogginess about the sequence of events distanced her from the horror. All her instincts focussed on the baby’s cry despite the smoke and the noise of people shouting and the creaking of hot metal.

The woman tried to move her arm but her whole system seemed sluggish. Or maybe she was faint because, apart from a pounding pain in the side of her head, blood squirted impressively under her broken watch. By the size of the increasing pool beside her arm she knew that wasn’t normal.

Fuzzily she watched the puddle grow until her thoughts sharpened and slowly she dislodged the broken seat rail where it pinned her wrist. Strangely, it didn’t hurt at all. She felt for the deep gash and slid her fingers over the site, wincing at the return of feeling. The urge to lie down, to invite the blackness that hovered at the edge of her mind to settle over her and fall asleep, ached like a suppressed yawn inside her.

With more pressure from her fingers, the rhythmic pulse of blood slowed to a trickle and somewhere in the fog of her brain she became conscious that if she let go there was a strong chance she would bleed to death. The thickening smoke made her cough and other fears crowded her mind.

Lost for the moment, from time, place of origin or destination, the woman knew she didn’t want to die.

There was another reason she had to live but right at that moment she couldn’t pin the incentive, just concentrated on the fact that live she would.

The baby cried weakly again and she turned her head. There was someone else who needed her but she had to stop the bleeding from her wrist or she wouldn’t be any use.

She threaded the thin pink pashmina from around her neck and thought fuzzily what a pretty colour it was. She wadded one end of the soft fabric and wrapped the other end awkwardly around her wrist and tucked it in as tightly as she could. The blood seeped through but not as fast as she’d expected.

Then she pushed herself upright so she could crawl forward over the wreckage. She winced at the lance of pain from her damaged arm as she began to search for the crying baby.

Low moans and weak cries began to drift from beyond the door of her carriage and a few strong shouts suggested help was on the way.

Her carriage seemed ominously silent but she couldn’t remember how many people had been seated. She hoped the silence was due to the lack of passengers.

‘Come on, baby, cry again,’ she muttered, glancing around, then almost toppled off a seat that wasn’t as balanced as she’d thought it was.

The baby cried weakly again and the woman’s arm caught on a small leather backpack with a for mula bottle spilling from a rip. She knew the bag belonged to the baby, she couldn’t remember why, but it seemed important so she slid the pack over her shoulders and continued her search.

Then she saw her. The baby lay pinned in her pram, seat belt fastened and her frightened little face screwed up. She looked about a year old.

‘Well, hello, there, little one. It looks like you had the best seat in the house.’ Her voice cracked as the chill of deep coldness encased her.

The baby whimpered and blinked. Her bright blue eyes were damply lashed and the woman smiled when the infant gave a wobbly grin and held out her hands.

The resilience of children, she thought longingly, as she dug for more strength. There was no way she’d be able to lift the carriage seat that trapped the pram but maybe she could ease the baby from the restraint and drag her out.

The difficulty would be to juggle a baby with one arm while she crawled.

She sat back on her heels and fumbled to undo the top two buttons on her shirt. She lifted the hem of her stretchy knitted shirt and struggled to inch the baby inside next to her skin until the infant was tucked tummy to tummy against her body with her little face popping out under the neckline of her shirt. The woman’s neck and shoulders ached with the weight but the baby seemed to like it.

When she began to crawl again each movement seemed harder than the last and the weight hanging under her enticed her to lie down and sleep. The infant clung like a small limpet with her frightened whimpers goading her rescuer on.

She crawled clumsily towards the crazily angled steps of the carriage but the smoke became so acrid the steps seemed much further than she’d anticipated. Her strength ebbed as she coughed.

An old lady lay crumpled, eyes open, staring sightlessly past the window. She didn’t blink. Her purple hair looked incongruous at an awkward angle. With sudden clarity, she realised the woman was dead.

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled to the woman as she crawled past and the fog thickened inside her head. Blood pulsed from her wrist again and when a man’s face appeared above her he seemed to fade in and out of focus.

His eyes were incredibly blue and incredibly kind as he reached towards her with strong arms, and she prayed the baby would be safe now. As she lifted her face to his, she knew she could go to sleep now. He wouldn’t let them die.

Relief blossomed until a huge ripping pain burst from low down in her stomach and the fear of what else could be happening made her lift her face to his.

‘Save my baby,’ she whispered, and then she felt herself lifted from the carriage as if she were a feather.

Stewart had never seen such willpower to live before and he saw plenty of life-and-death struggles in his work.

In that first moment, when she’d hovered on the edge of losing consciousness, the woman’s eyes had glowed, fierce with determination as she’d dragged herself across the wreckage of the carriage through the smoke. How she had navigated the carriage while weighed down with a dangling infant and her life seeping away through the blood-soaked material around her wrist, he could only guess. But she had and had still saved enough energy to demand that he save them.

He knew he would be able to recall her expression any time he closed his eyes. Stewart couldn’t believe she had survived the carnage. ‘Desiree?’

He lifted her in his arms when she collapsed against him and turned to place her gently on the ground behind him.

Her pulse was thready and far too fast from loss of blood. ‘She’s critical. I need to find her injuries. We’ll triage the baby so I can get to the mother.’

He eased the shocked baby from Desiree’s shirt and tried not to see the family resemblance as he placed the baby gently beside her mother for assessment.

Time was important and he needed to do this without emotion—and do it quickly.

The infant had no external bleeding, no obvious limb deformity or head injury. Possibly some abdominal tenderness and tautness, he thought as he ran his fingers lightly over the baby’s stomach, but nothing immediately life-threatening—unlike the mother.

He passed his niece to a paramedic, who passed her into another waiting pair of hands, then moved to crouch over the unconscious woman.

Stewart rested his fingers on Desiree’s throat to feel her carotid pulse. Her heartbeats fluttered frantically beneath his fingers and his own pulse leapt. ‘She needs fluids then blood, urgently, or we’ll lose her.’

The paramedic had already opened his kit to assemble the equipment while Stewart briefly ran his hands over Desiree’s temple and scalp, then quickly down her body, grimacing at the small but unmistakable bulge of her stomach, before clamping his hand around the blood-soaked scarf on her wrist.

Heaven knew what condition the unborn baby would be in.

‘This seems to be the only bleeder, but it’s arterial, plus a lump on the side of her head.’ The paramedic shone a small torch, and with his free hand Stewart lifted heavily lashed eyelids one at a time to allow the man to shine the light into her pupils.

‘The reaction is sluggish but present on both sides,’ the paramedic said as he taped the intravenous cannula and line into place on Desiree’s arm.

‘We need to get her transported and transfused.’ Stewart reached down and gathered Desiree up in his arms. ‘She’s dragged herself across a carriage so I doubt I’ll do any more damage if I lift her onto the stretcher. Are you able to transport them together?’

‘No problem if you take the infant. I’ll keep the fluids going.’

As Desiree was transferred into the ambulance Stewart could see that haemorrhagic shock had set in. They hadn’t even been able to measure her blood pressure and wouldn’t know if she had sustained organ damage from the near exsanguination.

For the moment he just prayed that her heart wouldn’t stop with the loss of blood. He willed the rapid spike of her heartbeat to continue across the monitor screen as the sirens screamed and they hurtled towards the hospital.

The premature contractions had well and truly progressed by the time they realised she was in labour.

CHAPTER TWO

THE room swam and it was hard to focus. Distant throbbing in her arm forced her eyes open. A vaguely familiar backpack rested on the shelf opposite and she stared at it until the blurred lines firmed and stopped their dance.

There was something comforting about having that much control of her vision again.

Then she noticed the serene-faced older lady in the wheelchair. The lady knitted sedately with her bright blue eyes fixed like a white-feathered bird watching her young.

‘Hello, Desiree. You’re awake.’ She knitted with incredible speed without reference to the garment.

Desiree? She looked around but there were only two of them in the room. Desiree?

The lady smiled and allowed her words to sink in before explaining. ‘I’m Leanore, your mother-in-law. See, I remembered.’

She looked so pleased. ‘Stewart said I haven’t met you before, which is such a relief because I don’t remember you. It’s such a pain when your brain goes, dear.’

Desiree blinked at the word usage and then moistened dry lips and nodded weakly to Leanore. She cast around for a reason to be lying in a bed surrounded by flowers but couldn’t find one.

It seemed Leanore wasn’t the only one whose mind had gone. ‘Where am I?’ Fragments of memory and the crawl from the train crash came back. The man’s eyes. She remembered the baby’s cries.

‘Where’s the baby?’ Desiree’s voice cracked and she cleared her throat at the end of the sentence to calm the semi-hysterical note she could hear in her own voice.

Leanore concentrated and then recited as if she’d been coached. ‘You’re in St Somebody’s Hospital, in Sydney.’ The lady frowned and then shook her head. ‘No. Can’t remember the name of the place.’ She shrugged and moved on. ‘The little girl is fine, Stewart said. I remember that. I’m sure that’s what he said. He’s just ducked out for a minute and will be right back. Apparently it’s a miracle you both survived.’

A sad expression crossed the old woman’s face. ‘Your little girl is my granddaughter and she looks just like my darling Sean. I remember he is dead. Now, that’s one of those things I’d gladly forget.’

A flutter of panic, like a child’s balloon caught by the wind, rose in a bubble in Desiree’s chest.

‘She’s a little girl, not my little girl.’ Desiree began to cast more frantically around in her memory. ‘I’m sure she’s not my child. I don’t think. I don’t remember…’ Then it struck her. ‘Anything!’

The woman’s eyes darkened with compassion. ‘I know. Horrible, isn’t it? My son said you mightn’t. Don’t worry. At least your mind will all come back. I’m getting dottier by the day.’ Leanore chewed her lip, upset at causing distress. ‘I’ll call my son, shall I?’

The old lady felt for the bulky necklace around her neck and pressed the centre. She tilted her head at Desiree and winked. ‘He makes me wear this and I’m not to stand up unless he’s here. He’s a good son.’

Desiree had no idea what the lady was talking about but she felt as if she’d woken in a farce. Who was her wheelchair companion and what kind of place was this?

A train crash? She remembered the baby but surely it wasn’t her baby? She didn’t have a baby. Or did she? Perhaps somewhere in the past she may have been pregnant.

Frantically her eyes darted around the room as she tried to force memories that wouldn’t come. Who was she? How could she have had a baby if she didn’t remember? How long had she been here?

The blankness of the past rose like nausea in her throat and crowded her already crowded mind until it was all too much. The room swirled as her eyes closed and with relief she allowed the room to fade away until she floated like a balloon again.

‘The lady was awake but she didn’t know me.’ The voices were distant but she couldn’t respond.

‘She will remember, Mother. You’ll have to wait a little longer to be a mother-in-law. Desiree lost a lot of blood.’ The man’s voice was gentle, as if he found the whole scenario disturbing, and there was something about his compassionate tone that cut through the airiness in her brain and grounded her again.

She opened her eyes reluctantly. The owner of the voice was tall and dark-haired with kind eyes. She registered that his eyes were as blue as his mother’s and there was something reassuringly familiar about his strong face.

The brightness of his doctor’s white coat made her blink.

Stewart Kramer stared intently at the ghostly pale woman lying back on the pillows. It was a miracle she had lived, he thought. Dark smudges lay under her eyes and her bruised cheek was swollen and purple from the accident.

She confused him. Desiree didn’t have that flashy racehorse quality about her that had consistently seemed Sean’s type and her obviously fierce will would not have sat comfortably with Sean’s need to dominate.

This woman had curves in abundance and her dark waves of hair lay softly against her cheek. Maybe Sean had acquired a more genuine taste in women because there was a lot about Desiree that made Stewart think more of wholesome warmth and strength of character than fashion magazines and the fast lane.

Desiree’s grey eyes glistened with tears but she blinked them away as he watched her grapple with her situation. Inexplicably Stewart had to fight against the urge to scoop her up and cradle her head on his shoulder.

No doubt the urge would be to do with the horror of when he’d first seen her surrounded by those who had died and the gritty hold she’d maintained on her life despite her massive blood loss.

Desiree eased higher in the bed and closed her eyes briefly, and Stewart presumed she felt light-headed.

‘You seem vaguely familiar,’ she said in a soft voice. ‘Maybe you know the answers to some of my questions?’

Stewart tried to imagine what it would feel like to wake up after such an event.

His mother, with her illness, lived in confusion every day to some degree, and he thanked God for her unfailing good humour. He didn’t fancy the idea for himself. ‘I’ll try, but I’m a paediatrician here, not your doctor.’

She looked at him with those big silver-grey eyes, eyes shadowed with pain and bewilderment, and a sudden twist of jealous rage against his careless brother stunned him with the raw emotion. It wasn’t Sean’s fault the train had crashed so his sentiment didn’t make sense.

It was just that she seemed so different to what he’d imagined Sean’s wife would be like. Sean had never cared for real people. What the hell had she been doing with Sean? He wanted to throttle the truth out of his brother but it was too late now. So too was being unexpectedly affected by meeting Desiree.

He ground his teeth and forced the useless emotions back into a deep cave in his chest and sealed the door. When he spoke his voice sounded coldly clinical, even to his own ears. ‘You have amnesia, probably retrograde, involving memory from the time prior to the blow to your head.’