Midwife in the Family Way

‘Why are you here, Gianni?’

‘Why?’ He tried to understand her mood. The mixed signals she sent and the emotions in her blue eyes. He realised that reading unspoken sentiment from women was not something he was skilled at. ‘Because something is wrong. Why are you afraid of seeing me? Talking to me? Afraid of me?’

She lifted her hand and held her throat. ‘I’m not afraid of you, Gianni. At times when I’m with you I feel the safest I’ve ever felt.’

His breath eased out. He’d been unaware he held it as he waited. It was amazing how good that admission made him feel. Perhaps dangerously so. ‘Then what is the matter between us?’

He could read the struggle in her eyes and the indecision that crossed her face, but not the cause. Then she said it, baldly, and it was the last thing he’d expected.

‘I’m pregnant.’

A mother to five sons, FIONA MCARTHUR is an Australian midwife who loves to write. Medical™ Romance gives Fiona the scope to write about all the wonderful aspects of adventure, romance, medicine and midwifery that she feels so passionate about—as well as an excuse to travel! Now that her boys are older, Fiona and her husband Ian are off to meet new people, see new places, and have wonderful adventures. Fiona’s website is at www.fionamcarthur.com

Recent titles by the same author:

THE MIDWIFE AND THE MILLIONAIRE

MIDWIFE IN A MILLION

PREGNANT MIDWIFE: FATHER NEEDED*

THE MIDWIFE’S NEW-FOUND FAMILY*

* Lyrebird Lake Maternity

Mills & Boon® Medical™ Romance is proud to return to Lyrebird Lake!

Fiona McArthur brings you a fresh instalment from her fabulous mini-series…

LYREBIRD LAKE MATERNITY

Every day brings a miracle…

It’s time for these midwives to become mothers themselves!

Previously we met Montana, Misty and Mia

‘Thank you, Ms McArthur, for a thoroughly enjoyable time spent in your world of Lyrebird Lake, and I can’t wait to read of your many more delightful characters too.’

—Cataromance.com

Now it’s time to meet Emma.

You’ll love her as much as everyone else in Lyrebird Lake!

Dedicated to my dear friend Michelle. One of the coolest, bravest, most amazing people I know, and whose journey has been my inspiration. And, like all people with and without the gene, who have been affected by or known those affected by Huntington’s Disease, I pray for a cure.

Chapter One

GIANNI BONMARITO stood isolated and imperious at the edge of the garden and watched an extended family embrace life—at a funeral. While the upbeat emotion on display made his neck itch, he couldn’t help but envy the warmth of the mourners.

But, then, everything in this country was warm. Even the ridiculous Queensland sun beat into the darkness inside his head. He watched innocent toddlers wrestle like puppies in the grass, while older, lanky teenagers played back-yard cricket on the lawn with adults. And women laughed. At a funeral?

What place was this? This country outpost hours from Brisbane? A whole town nestled beside a mirrored lake ringed in trees. A small community so close that only first names were used.

The weatherboard doctor’s surgery opposite Lyrebird Lake Hospital hosted a wake unlike any he’d seen and the enthusiastic if discordant bagpipes being played by the man he’d come to support was another bizarre example of it.

‘Gianni, isn’t it?’ The blonde came only to his shoulder, trim and tiny, with a spring in her step that captured his attention and shamelessly proclaimed that this woman loved life.

He could barely remember himself like that. She had the most provocative smile he’d seen for a long time, and the most peculiar thing was that when she smiled at him, mysteriously she lifted the pall of darkness within him as if her fingers held daybreak.

As if she’d tied his troubles to one of those helium balloons the family had let go at the graveside earlier that afternoon. Whoosh. Gloominess soared away—but physical awareness settled like a hot bowl of liquid in his belly and reminded him what a fool his libido could make of him.

‘Si. Gianni.’

She smiled again, no doubt at his accent, so strange in this place of vowels. Incredible, Gianni thought, and struggled not to look at her delightful breasts and slim little waist he could have spanned with his fingers. Startled by the first genuine admiration of a woman since his faith in women had shattered for ever, that realisation sent the familiar wave of coldness through his consciousness. How could he trust that feeling?

He reefed his disobedient eyes away from her body to scan her face for a sign of deceit but there was none he could see. He had to stop expecting it.

The sun glinted off the iridescent pink lip gloss she wore, which shone with an exuberantly vibrant colour. Strange choice for a funeral, his clinical brain noted, and he had to be content with that, because nothing else remotely offended.

Mischievous blue eyes scanned his length as openly as he’d scanned hers, and he frowned as his neck heated. What was this? Tangled glances with women did not perturb him. The very idea made no sense.

‘I’m sorry.’ His voice came out less cordially than he’d intended and the vibration deep in his gut echoed in spirals of awareness he didn’t want—and denied adamantly. ‘I don’t believe we’ve met or I would have remembered.’

‘Emma Rose.’ She smiled. ‘I’m a friend of the family and one of the midwives at the birth centre.’

He looked from her to the child he only then realised stood beside her, almost as tall in height, hinting at future beauty but surely too young to have reached double figures. ‘Your daughter?’ The mother looked a child herself.

Emma cast a proud glance at the fair-haired poppy at her side. ‘Yes, my daughter. Grace. This is Dr Angus’s friend from Italy.’ Her voice lowered. ‘Dr…?’

‘Bonmarito.’

‘Hello, Dr Bon-mar-ito.’ Grace said carefully as she held out her small hand. She didn’t smile. ‘A doctor. That’s nice.’ Somehow Gianni felt a little boring as he took those tiny fingers in his big hand. Little girls were so fragile and made him aware of how much he didn’t know about children. Made him remember his wife had been pregnant when she’d died.

‘When I grow up I’ll be a midwife, like Mum,’ Grace stated in a small, determined voice.

Gianni blinked. Even with his limited exposure he could see she was incredibly assured for a young child. Like her mother.

At this child’s age Gianni had been interested in a rocket ship and moon walks, or Formula One racing. Life had been carefree then, before his father and mother had died, and unlike his brother he hadn’t been sure he would be a doctor. But then he hadn’t known about the realities of life, or near death, hadn’t even met Angus.

He shook Grace’s hand seriously and exerted himself to be less formal, less pompous around children, which he’d been accused of before. But when had he had the chance to learn? The nearest he’d been to fatherhood had been another man’s child that had died with his wife.

He swallowed the familiar bitterness and forced a smile. ‘Hello, Grace. You must call me Gianni, as everyone seems to be on first names here.’

As the little girl took her hand back he noted the she had the same vibrant lip gloss on as her mother. Perhaps a family make-up party? He tried not to grimace at the idea of frivolity in a time of grief. Not something he was used to but, then, everything seemed different here. Even himself.

‘Your lipstick matches your mother’s.’ He looked back at Emma and the thrum in his belly growled louder, like a sleeping beast he seemed unable to control.

Now her blue eyes had softened compassionately as she concentrated on his face and he found himself drawn into her gaze, unable to break the connection.

When she said, ‘Ned bought that lip gloss for my daughter for Christmas, and we wore it today to honour him,’ Gianni sighed internally. He’d been wrong there, too.

Still she drew him in like a siren. Such sympathy, such warmth and promise of healing as he’d never felt before, as if she recognised his pain and shared the ache. Like the peace inside a tiny church on an Italian hillside.

He dragged his eyes away from her to her daughter. Ridiculous feelings needed to be ignored. Especially ones that left him floundering for composure.

‘No school today, Grace?’

Grace looked suitably downcast for a second as the reason they were there returned to her. He watched, annoyed with himself for the obvious question and the distress it had caused. Children brought out the worst in him, and he wanted to walk away and save them from his gaucheness, but he couldn’t.

The little girl forced herself to smile and explain. ‘It’s Ned Day. The school shut for Dr Ned’s “happy” wake.’

Emma rested one elegant hand on her daughter’s shoulder. ‘We all loved Ned. It must feel different for someone from another country. Funerals can be celebrations as well as sad events in different cultures, Grace.’ She smiled again at Gianni. ‘Ned said we had to celebrate life, not be maudlin at its natural conclusion. Hence the children and the balloons.’ She gestured to the youngsters playing on the grass. ‘And the back-yard cricket.’

He glanced at Angus, Ned’s son and his friend, the man who had pulled him many years ago from the earthquake debris when all others had given up. The man who had turned Gianni from a thoughtless playboy bent on self-destruction into a dedicated medic.

To be honest, Angus perplexed him, too. Gianni didn’t understand why Angus smiled as he struggled with the bagpipes he hadn’t mastered fully before his father had died. But, then, surely the fact that Angus could smile was a thing to feel relieved about.

Apparently this place was not for gravity and ceremony. He wished he’d met the man who inspired such warmth and feeling of life even after he’d gone. Perhaps he, Gianni, had needed somewhere like this in his grief because it felt he’d been in the darkness for such a long time.

Emma too looked across at Ned’s son. ‘Angus told me you lost your wife.’ He winced at the memory of all that had happened that day but then she leaned forward and kissed his cheek in unselfconscious sympathy. ‘I am sorry to hear that.’

The scent of strawberries hung on his face where she’d brushed her lips and he could feel the breeze on the exact spot, fanning the heat from her mouth.

In all his life strawberries had never caused such upheaval! Why had she kissed him? Though, when her blue eyes softened even more with empathy, it was strangely acceptable.

‘And now,’ she went on, ‘you’ve come to be with Angus for his loss. That’s kind. He’ll miss Ned, sorely.’

He dragged his mind back to her words and couldn’t believe how disorientated his usually clinical mind had become since she’d arrived beside him. ‘Thank you. I regret I didn’t come in time to meet Dr Campbell.’

‘He was a kind man, too.’ Her hand lifted and with one gentle fingertip she wiped the trace of colour from his cheek. ‘Oops. Sorry.’

‘It smells very nice,’ he said, and allowed himself another slow glance at her mouth, unobtrusively. No law against that, and he imagined what her lips would taste like. Where was his brain going? To a place it hadn’t been for a long time. He needed to stop these fantasies. ‘Perhaps you would like to introduce me to your husband?’

She tilted her head and he saw the second she mentally stepped back. ‘No husband.’

‘A widow perhaps, or divorced?’ She shook her head with a mocking little smile that made him want to taste her even more.

He was too interested in the facts. Looking for a reason not to be drawn to her. She must have been very young when her daughter had been born. Too young to be a mother and not the child herself. Whose fault was it she was not protected?

‘None of those.’ She didn’t elaborate. He felt rather than saw the wall go up. Her expression remained friendly but there was a more assertive tilt to her delightful chin that dared him to judge. This woman had him far too intrigued for a man who would be leaving tomorrow.

He persisted. ‘Your parents are here?’

‘My parents don’t live in Lyrebird Lake any more.’ She lifted her chin higher. ‘Have you any children?’ Her turn to question.

Not of his own. And never would. ‘No.’

She lifted an ironic eyebrow and glanced down at Grace, and the subject spluttered out like a candle in the rain.

From the gate a dark-haired girl of about Grace’s age waved at them and Emma touched her daughter’s shoulder until she saw her friend. Emma nodded. ‘There’s Dawn. Off you go.’

She ignored his flat ‘no’. ‘Dawn is the daughter of Andy, the medical director at our hospital, and his wife Montana,’ she told Gianni. ‘Montana began the birth centre in Lyrebird Lake and now we have seven midwives and a great team. People drive long distances to give birth here.’

Emma was filling the silence. Not something she usually did. He probably wasn’t interested. She kept her eyes on her daughter as she skipped across the grass, but she was tempted to drink in one more close-up appraisal of the drop-dead gorgeous Gianni Bonmarito. Who for some reason she enjoyed teasing. There was something about the snippets told by Angus that captured her imagination. And confirmed the absolute tragedy and darkness she saw in his eyes.

She didn’t know why he affected her so deeply, so achingly that she wanted to draw his big swarthy head down on her breast and soothe his brow. Maybe kiss those heavy, lash-framed eyelids and comfort the inner demons she could see in his soul. Grace ran off with Dawn, and Emma turned back to the man beside her and glanced quickly one more time.

New heat that had nothing to do with an unexpectedly warm day tickled her skin. She’d known that final glance would ruin her. She looked away to the house instead. ‘I’d better see if I can entice Louisa, Angus’s stepmother, out to the group. She should be with us.’ And I need to get away from you.

‘I will come.’ Gianni fell into step beside her and though her brain said, Please don’t, she could feel the thrum of awareness between them like a tiny swarm of nuisance gnats that often dusted the lake in the late afternoon. All strange feelings she wasn’t usually disturbed with.

She went for lightness. ‘So you’re good in the kitchen, are you?’ It was easier to tease and the thought made her smile. He looked anything but the kind of man who would prepare a meal with his own hands.

‘I enjoy cooking. My parents had a wonderful house-keeper who humoured me in the kitchen. Especially my national dishes. I find the sensuality of food delightful.’ An unexpectedly wicked light shone in his eyes and as she intercepted the innuendo his words dusted her cheeks with pink. She promised herself she wouldn’t be caught alone with Gianni in a kitchen any time soon and dropped the topic like the hot gnocchi it was.

The silence lengthened and she tumbled into speech. ‘I tried to get Louisa to join us before,’ she said, ‘but she seemed happier focussed on the catering rather than being a part of the group in her loss.’

He didn’t answer, didn’t help the silence with his own attempt to lighten the awareness between them, until even the way they moved in perfect synchronisation towards the wide wooden steps that led onto the porch stretched her nerves. She’d never met anyone like him.

Politely, Gianni paused to allow her to precede him up the steps. He should say something but he could think of nothing except the way he was aware of her every movement and sway of her hips. Heat flowed between them as she slid past his body, and even though they didn’t touch his flesh prickled. His eyes were drawn again to the swing of her slim hips. Hips that enticed as easily as his breath eased in and out. It was the sun raising both their temperatures, he told himself sternly.

The house was a large, many-gabled country home with a stained-glass-edged front door that led to a central hallway. It was dim and cool inside, to his relief, and the scent of furniture oil and eucalyptus grounded him.

He glanced into high-ceilinged bedrooms that led off the hallway and the old-fashioned furniture looked warm and welcoming. Like everything in this town.

She must have seen his look. ‘The doctor’s surgery and clinic rooms are in the back of the house and have a separate entrance,’ Emma said. ‘Visiting medical and nursing staff can stay here and Louisa caters for them.’ Then they came to the back half of the house. ‘This is the heart of the home—Louisa’s kitchen.’

Louisa, a round dumpling of a woman with soft pillow breasts that many a tiny child had snuggled into, stood at the old stone sink and stared out the window, a dishcloth lying still in her hand against a cup.

She had the look on her face he’d seen too many times in his work, the grief for a loved one passing, Gianni thought with a rush of sympathy. The look he had seen so frequently in Samoa after the tsunami. Grief that stayed with him late in the night and never allowed his own demons to settle.

Emma crossed the room and rested one hand on the cup in case she startled Louisa into dropping it, and the other arm she slid around the little woman’s waist.

‘You okay?’ Emma’s voice was melodic, caring and made the twists in his belly ache harder. He watched her hug Louisa softly in sympathy and Louisa turned her lined face so she could rest her head against Emma’s shoulder for a moment.

He could almost taste the comfort the older woman gained. Who was this Emma Rose, compassionately maternal to a woman three times her age? He wondered what had happened in this young woman’s life to give her such wisdom beyond her years. It was better to think of this than his whimsy for a hug himself.

But the glimpses of Emma’s effect on him had been enough to warn him she was far too dangerous for hugging. Dangerous in a way he hadn’t been susceptible to for too many years. In ways he didn’t want to be susceptible to ever again.

‘I’ll be fine.’ Louisa sighed and Gianni saw the effort she made to smile. ‘I’m just thanking the Lord for the last five years, and the twenty years as his friend before that. He was a good man.’

Emma squeezed her shoulder one more time and then stepped away. ‘I know it. And he loved you dearly, as we all do. Is there something we can do for you?’ Gianni saw her glance back at him and even that brief acknowledgement was enough to make his belly tighten.

But this Emma was a woman from the other side of the world. A side of the world he was leaving tomorrow. He’d need to remember that.

‘Bless you both. No.’ The Yorkshire accent seemed broader as Louisa jollied herself back into efficiency. ‘I’ll come out and sit in the shade with you, though, and enjoy the company of Ned’s family and friends.’

‘Your family and friends,’ Emma corrected gently.

‘Aye, of course,’ she said, and sighed.

Together the three of them moved out to the lawn and Gianni walked on Louisa’s other side so that she was drawn into the group under the tree and settled in a comfortable chair.

Gianni watched as she was fussed over and one of the women handed her a baby to nurse. Instantly Louisa was diverted. He looked at Emma who unobtrusively nodded with satisfaction.

He liked it that she was pleased the older woman was comforted. The feel of these people made him think of the best times he’d had as a child. Times he and his brother had escaped to play with the happy-go-lucky village children where such a sense of support and warmth had been unburdened by the responsibility of being part of the most important family. Carefree. Like Emma made him feel. He needed to put distance between them. Even a little would help prevent his fingers from stroking her cheek because he could imagine the silk beneath his fingers too vividly. ‘Perhaps you’d like a glass of punch, Emma?’ Gianni indicated the clothcovered table under the tree.

‘I’ll come with you.’ Emma glanced down at Louisa, who had buried her nose in the baby’s hair. ‘Louisa is settled.’

‘Well done,’ he said quietly as they walked away. ‘The innocence of children is precious and a comfort even in terrible times.’

‘That’s true,’ Emma said, looking up at him. ‘Is that what you see often in your work?’

He had no idea why he would talk of something he never mentioned. He shrugged and ladled a glass of punch, watched her take a sip and found himself talking to distract himself from her mouth. ‘I have seen many families suffer great losses but the safe delivery of one child can restart hope and life like nothing else.’

‘Angus said you began working with the rescue forces not long after he did.’

‘If not for Angus, I wouldn’t be here. Did he tell you he pulled me from an earthquake’s landslide? I’d been buried two days and all others had given up.’ Did he tell you I had been on a road to wasting my life before that?

She smiled gently, her eyes intent on his face. ‘Yes, but very briefly. Did you think he would tell me much?’

Gianni laughed, but without relief. ‘No. I suppose not. We do tend not to speak of what we see. And he spoke of his work even less than I do now.’

‘Which comes at a cost as tragic memories accumulate,’ she said with great insight. She returned to the thing he wished she’d forgotten. ‘Two days buried would give a lot of time for thought.’

‘Hmm.’ A long time to regret things in the past. He’d almost come to peace with those memories but perhaps they were covered under the new ones he’d collected.

She tilted her head and he felt her concentration not as curiosity but like balm to his hurts. ‘I like to think good comes of everything. Even something that seems horrible at the time. What good came of that, Gianni?’

He was distracted by the way she said his name. Softly, rolling the vowels as if savouring the strangeness of them. He supposed his name was strange in this place of Jacks and Johns and Joes. But she was waiting and he needed to think of his answer.

Normally he would have ignored such a question, not that it had been asked before, but for this Emma, strangely he found he could answer honestly. ‘It was a long time ago but, yes, it changed my life and created a need to do something useful. Like Angus did. I had been given back my life and I would not waste it again.’

She smiled at him. ‘Had you been so useless before?’

He thought of the fast cars, the wild and thoughtless men and women he’d peopled his life with after Maria’s death, but that was in the past and another tragedy—though one without a good result. ‘I fear so.’ His voice lowered as the memories returned. Memories he had to banish every time he was confronted with a similar event. ‘Lying there, unable to move, barely able to breathe as I listened to those around me grow silent, made me swear that life was too precious to waste.’

He shook away the memories and forced himself to smile at her, ‘But enough of me. You say you are a midwife. Have you always wished that? Like your little Grace has told me she has?’

‘Some of the best people I know are midwives.’ She grinned at him. Daring him to dispute a fact he knew little about. He had not known any midwives well enough to judge but he knew he liked this one.