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A loud pounding on the front door gave her the opportunity to escape while she collected her thoughts. A small man was on the bottom step, hoping from one foot to the other. ‘Lady, you ambulance person?’
‘Yes, I am. What’s wrong?’
She knew the moment Michael come up beside her, felt his warmth.
‘My wife. She very sick. Come quick.’
‘I’m coming too,’ Michael muttered. ‘Don’t go inside until I’m there. I’ll get the first aid kit.’
The one that rated right up there with those they used on the ambulance.
‘Good idea,’ Steph agreed as she followed the stranger down the path. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Over road. White house. We underneath.’
‘Underneath’ turned out to be a pokey flat, damp and cold, with mildew the main colour on the walls. Steph shivered.
‘Here my wife.’
A small woman lay on a narrow bed, huddled under a dirty blanket. Her breathing sounds were erratic. The face peering up at her was covered in a red rash.
‘How long has your wife been like this?’
‘Hour.’
Bleeding heck. Why had he taken so long to knock on Michael’s door?
‘Hello, I’m Steph—a paramedic. Can you hear me?’ Lifting the blanket, she gasped at the small but very pregnant belly. ‘How far along are you? How long have you been pregnant?’
The man held up six fingers.
‘Six months?’
He nodded.
Steph found a wrist, took a pulse reading. Slightly fast. The woman was gasping for air, taking short inhalations. Her eyes opened whenever one of them spoke, but her response to touch was sluggish.
‘Thought I said to wait outside...’ Michael handed her the BP cuff. ‘Need an ambulance?’
‘Yes. Rash...shortness of breath. Query anaphylactic shock. GCS four.’
Steph wound the cuff around the woman’s arm and pressed the button on the machine. Michael handed her his phone. 111 was already showing on the screen.
‘I’ve got an allergy pen in my kit.’
Phew. ‘She’s six months pregnant.’ That baby had to be saved, no matter what.
‘What emergency service do you require?’ intoned the woman at the call centre.
‘Ambulance.’
Steph was put through and rattled off the details and the address, not taking her eyes off the woman and that baby bump. Please be all right. Hang in there baby, we’re getting help. There’s no way we’re losing you. Her eyes watered. It seemed saving babies was her thing.
‘BP’s low.’ Michael backed up the shock theory. ‘Is your wife allergic to anything? Is there any food she can’t eat? Do insect bites make her sick?’ Michael asked as he tore the cover off the allergy pen.
The man standing over them looked as if his world was imploding. ‘No, she good with all food. Never happen before.’
‘What’s that?’ Steph pointed to a red swollen spot on the woman’s arm. ‘Looks like a bite to me.’
A quick look and Michael agreed. ‘Whitetail spider?’ He jammed the needle into muscle and pressed down. ‘Now we watch and wait and keep the baby safe.’
A man after her own heart. ‘Yes, we do,’ she whispered.
Waiting sucked. But there was nothing else to do. Except...
She wrapped her hand around the woman’s tiny one. ‘Is this your first baby?’
The woman nodded. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I worried about baby.’
Michael had a stethoscope pressed against the woman’s bump. ‘Seems all right in there,’ he told the anxious parents.
Steph was as relieved as they were. Looking around the dimly lit room she wondered if a whitetail spider was the culprit. Where there was one of those there’d be more.
‘Thank you for coming,’ the man said. ‘We having a girl. What’s your name?’ he asked Steph. When she told him he smiled. ‘We name baby Steph.’
Tears sprang up, and she didn’t bother stopping them. ‘That’s lovely, but you don’t have to.’
In her hand the woman’s fingers squeezed. ‘We do. You came fast. I’m glad you live close.’
No point in explaining. Steph rubbed the back of her free hand over her face. Where was that ambulance? It was taking for ever to get here.
Then there was the sound of a siren, coming nearer up the road, getting louder by the second, and Steph relaxed. Michael threw her a warm glance and continued to keep an eye on the woman, checking her pulse and temperature again.
She didn’t know what to make of his warmth, but she guessed it had something to do with their interrupted conversation.
Once they’d handed over to the paramedics, both of whom she’d met before at the station, Michael slung his kit over his shoulder and wrapped an arm around her waist.
‘You all right?’
‘Yes, I am now we’ve handed over. That baby will be okay, won’t it?’
‘Yes, Steph, that’s one you don’t have to worry about.’
‘But what if it gets bitten once it’s born when it’s living there?’
‘Don’t go there.’ Michael took her hand in his. ‘I’ll talk to them about getting the place sprayed for all spiders. Or maybe you should. They’ve fallen for you.’
If only he’d do that too.
As soon as they were inside his house he put down the kit and laid his hands on her shoulders. ‘Go and have that shower you were wanting.’
‘All right.’
‘Your wine will keep a bit longer. So will I.’
His smile hit her in the heart.
Did this mean they’d return to the conversation they’d been stumbling around before his neighbour had banged on the door?
* * *
As they sat down in the lounge again, all scrubbed and in clean clothes, Michael had to sit on his hands, figura
tively, or else he was going to leap up and scoop Stephanie into his arms and hug her until that sadness was banished for ever.
He wanted to do it. To promise her that she’d one day be a mum, to make her feel better, to obliterate her pain.
In other words he wanted to be able to wave a magic wand and make everything better in her world. But he was all out of wands, magic or not. And that wasn’t what tonight was about. Suddenly he couldn’t just sit here and talk about his feelings. He had to show her.
Back on his feet, he reached for her. ‘Come with me.’
In the dining room he stopped, and Steph gasped as she saw the table set with silver cutlery and a floral decoration in the middle.
‘What’s going on?’ Troubled eyes turned to him. ‘Michael?’
‘Dinner will be delivered any minute.’
‘Pizza or Thai?’ Her voice was barely there.
‘Neither.’
He led her across the room and held out a chair. His hands were shaking, his heart thumping. What if he’d got this wrong? He’d die if she laughed at him.
‘I rang the seafood restaurant down on the waterfront—asked for their dish of the day.’
‘Since when do they do deliveries?’
‘Since I begged them.’
‘You’re scaring me.’
I’m scaring myself.
‘Don’t be worried. I only want to make you happy. I told you this morning I don’t want to hurt you and I meant that. Trust me?’
He held his breath and watched every expression imaginable scud across her face. When she didn’t answer his heart died a little bit. He was messing this up.
‘I’m wooing you.’
Fast. But hopefully not so quickly that it sent her running for the hills. He’d taken too long all ready.
She choked on the wine she’d sipped. ‘You’re what?’
‘I am going to prove to you I can be the man you deserve.’
He might be making the biggest idiot of himself. Stephanie might not care enough about him—might not love him at all. But last night she’d shared her body as if it was a gift to him. He’d lost himself in her generosity, had felt he’d come home. And when he’d woken with her in his arms he’d been afraid. Afraid of winning and then losing her. Afraid of not trying hard enough.
