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It didn’t take long for Emma to realise she was really enjoying herself. Many of the staff from the hospital were there, and she was whirled from one country dance to another.
To her delight, she saw her father was also enjoying himself, sometimes dancing but more often deep in conversation with men and women his age—no doubt old school friends.
‘This was the best decision we’ve ever made, me and Dad,’ she said to Marty when he appeared from nowhere and claimed a dance. ‘Just look at him, he’s having the time of his life.’
Marty looked over to where Ned was engaged in a spirited dance with Gladys from the milk bar, talking and laughing at the same time.
‘How he’s got enough breath to talk beats me,’ Emma said.
‘Does it matter?’ Marty asked, teasing blue eyes looking down into hers.
‘Of course not,’ Emma managed, although she knew her face had grown hot and her whole body had reacted to that look.
Marty pulled her closer.
‘I’d like to whisk you away behind a deserted hay bale,’ he murmured in her ear.
Emma recovered enough sense to retort, ‘If you could find one—deserted, I mean.’
But her mind wasn’t completely on the conversation. Some distance away, sitting quietly on a rug-covered straw bale, Izzy was looking far from well.
Emma looked around, and saw Mac dancing on the other side of the barn.
‘Let’s go see Izzy,’ she said to Marty, who’d been slowly drawing her closer and closer in his arms.
He began to protest, but Emma was already moving away, wending her way through the revellers to where she’d seen Izzy.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked, when she reached the flushed and slightly shaky woman.
‘I think so,’ Izzy replied. ‘Just suddenly didn’t feel well. I probably shouldn’t have been rollicking around so much on the dance floor and it’s made me a bit dizzy, as if my head’s still whirling.’
But Emma was already checking her out. Some swelling of the feet and ankles—fairly normal in pregnancy—but as she took Izzy’s hand she saw it was also swollen, her wedding ring biting into her finger.
She slid her fingers up the swollen wrist to feel for a pulse—definitely high—and turned to Marty, who had appeared beside her.
‘Get Mac to come over, take his car keys and get his car as close to the door as you can, then ask Dad if he’ll drive your car and Carrie back to Braxton. It could be pre-eclampsia and we should get Izzy to the hospital in Braxton as soon as possible just in case.’
Memories threatened. Memories of shock and fear, but she pushed them away. Izzy needed her to be at her best.
To Izzy she said, ‘You’ll be fine. It’s a precaution, but you have enough medical experience to know if it is pre-eclampsia you need treatment right away.’
She hoped she sounded calm and efficient but inwardly she was a mess. Had she made a promise she couldn’t keep; would all be well for Izzy and the baby? And what had she been doing, fiddling around with a pigtail hat when she should have been putting an emergency bag of drugs in the car?
Mac arrived, his face tense and strained, although he was so gentle and loving with Izzy, Emma felt like crying.
‘Possible pre-eclampsia?’ he asked, touching his wife’s face where fluid had collected.
Emma nodded.
‘I’ll get Marty to drive your car, you can sit in the front, and I’ll sit in the back with Izzy and do whatever I can to make her comfortable.’
‘I could do that,’ Mac protested. ‘I’m a doctor, too.’
‘And she’s your wife—that’s enough pressure for you. And Marty knows these roads better than anyone, but you’ll still have your car in Braxton when you need it.’
As she could see Marty beckoning from the door, she got the party moving, Mac lifting Izzy into his arms as though she were a featherweight and striding urgently towards the door.
The music had stopped and people were stepping back—leaving room for him to carry her swiftly to the car. Ned caught up with Emma.
‘You okay?’ he asked, and she smiled and gave him a quick hug, aware he, too, was remembering what had happened to her.
‘Right as rain,’ she told him. ‘You’ll take Marty’s car back to town—and Carrie?’
Her father nodded.
‘Get going, and good luck,’ he said, pacing beside her as far as the door.
Mac had settled Izzy into the rear seat, her feet up and a pillow collected from somewhere placed behind her back.
Emma scrambled into the footwell, where she would be close to Izzy and able to keep an eye on her condition. She had to focus on Izzy now—to the exclusion of all else. The past was the past.
