The Accidental Daddy Read online

  Closing his mind to his doubts, because the one thing he knew right now was that Joey needed support, he made his way out into the night-dark streets, crossing the river on the pedestrian bridge, striding swiftly through the parklands, reaching the hospital a little after one.

  He collected a cup of coffee from a machine, knowing it would probably taste terrible, and headed for the nursery.

  Harry was still in the special care unit, but there was no sign of Joey.

  Pleased that she must be getting some much-needed rest, he sank into the comfortable armchair beside Harry’s crib and watched the baby sleep.

  It took him at least three seconds to realise this was not a good idea. Not if he didn’t intend staying involved with the child.

  He knew it was totally ridiculous but he felt a connection to the baby, as if invisible strings stretched between them.

  This was his child!

  He reached out and let his hand rest against the warm skin of Harry’s arm, and sat, content to be there, not thinking, just accepting, knowing a multitude of huge decisions and difficult arrangements lay ahead, but right now not caring about the future.

  This was now and he was here, with his son—the only place on earth he wanted to be.

  * * *

  Joey woke with a start, unable to believe she’d slept through most of the night. She’d returned to her room to have a shower, eat some dinner, and talk to Meryl, but she’d had every intention of returning to spend the night dozing in the big chair by Harry’s crib.

  Now dawn was lightening the sky beyond her windows.

  She stripped off the crumpled clothes she’d slept in, showered again, pulled on her tracksuit trousers and a clean shirt, and walked through the quiet corridors to the nursery.

  Max was asleep in the chair beside Harry’s crib, and the sight of the sleeping man caused so much chaos in Joey’s still podgy belly, she crept away, needing to think.

  Though how to think when she didn’t know what Max was thinking?

  She crept in again and checked on Harry, reading his notes to assure herself all was well. But there were no notes on Max, nothing to reassure her or give her a clue about the accidental father of her baby.

  They had to talk.

  He’d said he would be around for the operation, suggested taking things an hour, a day at a time—baby steps.

  Could she, whose life was organised to the nth degree—apart from the nappies, of course—handle that?

  ‘He’s fine.’ Her eyes had been on Harry, so she was startled to hear Max’s voice. ‘The nurse was here not long ago—I must have nodded off after she left.’

  She looked down at the face of the man she didn’t know and shook her head.

  ‘I fell asleep,’ she muttered, embarrassed now that he’d obviously sat there through the night.

  ‘And a good thing too,’ Max replied, standing up so he was very close to her. ‘Now, while I think we both feel happier—more settled—when we’re either here with him or close by, we also both know that we don’t need to be here twenty-four hours a day, so unless this hospital is different from every other I’ve ever been in, there’s an all-hours café somewhere close. Let’s go and get some breakfast.’

  Joey looked from the man, to the baby, and back to the man.

  He was right. They didn’t need to be there every moment of every day. Harry was being very well looked after without help from either of them.

  And they did need to talk.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, and found herself smiling. Surely not because she was going to breakfast with this sleep-dishevelled man.

  But walking out of the hospital with him, along the footpath in the early morning stillness of the street, her blood hummed in her veins, and her nerves thrummed with a pleasure she hadn’t felt for a very long time.

  ‘Let’s have the special big breakfast,’ he said, as they entered the café. ‘Sausages, eggs, bacon, hash browns—anything else you’d fancy? Mushrooms? Tomato?’

  He was reading from the huge board above the counter, and although Joey had fully intended telling him she couldn’t eat that much for breakfast, she found herself agreeing, and even adding mushrooms to her order.

  ‘And toast,’ Max told the man behind the counter. ‘Lots of toast.’

  ‘I was silly, ordering that much, I’ll never eat it all,’ Joey told him as he guided her to a seat.

  ‘Not to worry, I’ll finish what you can’t.’

  He smiled—a smile that tilted up his lips and gleamed in his eyes—and Joey found her heart turning over in her chest.

  Hormones, her head reminded her, and she nodded her agreement to the unspoken word.

  ‘Talking to yourself?’ Max teased, and she found herself smiling back.

  ‘Always,’ she said. ‘Probably comes of being an only child. One of the nurses caught me at it last night.’

  Stupid thing to say because right on cue Max asked what she’d been saying then, and she realised any explanation would have had to include her confusion over his entrance into her life.

  ‘Who knows?’ She shrugged off the question and began to play with the salt and pepper grinders on the table, moving them this way and that.

  A large hand rested on hers, stopping their movement.

  ‘We’ll work it out,’ he said, his voice deep with sincerity. ‘Just because we can’t see the way ahead right now, it doesn’t mean it won’t become clear in time.’

  She lifted her head, saw the reassurance in his green eyes and felt her hands begin to tremble.

  ‘I really do know that,’ she said, moving her hands before he felt the movement. ‘It’s just that right now...’

  She had no idea how to continue.

  ‘You’re tired, you’re emotional, you’re confused and most of all deep down you must be worried sick about the op that’s ahead for little Harry. We doctors might pretend we can cope with anything, but when the patient’s very close to us we feel all the doubts and insecurities and fears that non-medical people feel. In fact, we probably suffer more because we understand the procedures and processes and risks, and that’s scary.’

  Breakfast arrived before Joey had to reply. She nodded, and attacked the meal in front of her, diverted by the aroma of the massive breakfast and hunger she hadn’t realised she was feeling.

  Stupid thing to say—the stuff about things becoming clear in time, Max thought as he watched Joey lift her egg onto a piece of toast and break the yolk. How on earth would the way ahead become clear in a mess like this? And what was he doing, sticking around, getting more involved every minute he was in either Joey’s or Harry’s company?

  Joey was right, Harry was her baby.

  His involvement was accidental.

  Getting all emotional on seeing her bump, then even more emotional actually being there for Harry’s birth, didn’t qualify him for fatherhood.

  He’d be as bad as his father. He’d be always pulling against the traces that tied him to his family until finally he’d snap, as his father had done, and take off. Even as a young child he had known there was something wrong—something that made his father remote, angered by the smallest misdemeanours—different from other kids’ fathers who kicked balls and joked with their sons.

  ‘Aren’t you eating?’

  Joey’s question brought him out of the past, but not before he’d been struck by a strong, inner and totally unexpected conviction that he could do better than his father.

  ‘Just thinking,’ he said, picking up his cutlery and attacking the now-cooling meal.

  ‘Not very happy thoughts, if your face was anything to go by,’ Joey said, and he shook his head—shaking off her comment and the gloom that delving into the past had momentarily cast upon him.

  Tiredness, that’s all it was.

/>   ‘So, Africa next.’ Joey looked up from the bacon she was dismembering, clear blue eyes studying his face. ‘I’m pretty sure you said you’d been before, although not all of our conversations from the other night are crystal clear.’

  He smiled at the way she made light of her labour.

  ‘I’ve been there many times,’ he told her. ‘It’s a big place, and there’s always a crisis of some kind somewhere over there so medical services are in constant demand. This time, though, it’s to a peaceful place, and I’m looking forward to being just a small part of something that could see the end of AIDS/HIV.’

  ‘Preventative inoculation?’ she asked, and he could see her struggling to remember more of what he’d told her as he’d held her hand and supported her during her labour.

  ‘It’s too soon for that yet, though it’s well on its way. It’s what I do. But my job isn’t in a lab, perfecting vaccines. It’s working on methods to get people to take vaccines when they’re available. It’s working with drug companies to make vaccines affordable. Even something like measles can still decimate populations. If you like, I’m the link between the boffins and the people. I go where I’m needed.’

  ‘So, you’re off when?’

  Two days’ time, originally, but he couldn’t tell her that, or that he’d already changed the bookings for his flight.

  ‘I’m not due to start work for a few weeks,’ he told her, not mentioning the extensive travel plans he’d made to fill that time.

  He was about to add, ‘So I’m here for you until then,’ when he remembered the things the sensible part of his brain had been telling him earlier. Think before you speak, Max, it told him now, right on cue.

  He looked at the woman sitting opposite him. He’d hit her with the worst possible news and probably brought on her premature labour. Could he walk away, knowing she faced not only Harry’s operation but the psychological adjustment to knowing it wasn’t her dead husband’s baby?

  ‘I’m yours till then,’ he heard himself saying, and knew it was the only decision he could have made.

  For himself, as well as for her, apparently, as tension he hadn’t known he’d been feeling eased from his body, and he returned to his breakfast with renewed enthusiasm.

  Food. They both needed food.

  And time—time always helped sort things out.

  Was she pleased he’d made this commitment? She seemed more relaxed—talking about a visit the previous evening from her receptionist, Meryl.

  He was thinking how lovely she was, a slight smile playing across her lips as she described Meryl’s reaction to him being with her during her labour, when a mobile rang somewhere.

  Joey’s apparently, for she stopped talking immediately and began searching in her handbag.

  ‘It might be the surgeon,’ she muttered, and he could see her hands shaking slightly as she lifted out the mobile.

  So it was natural for him to cover her free hand with his as she answered.

  Wasn’t it?

  ‘He’ll operate tomorrow morning, nine o’clock, and we can be there if we want.’

  ‘Do you want?’ Max asked, and Joey, who was still taking in the surgeon’s words, looked at him blankly.

  ‘Maybe I’ve got permanent pregnancy brain,’ she said, knowing she must sound pathetic, ‘but I can’t seem to think.’

  Max squeezed her fingers in his big, warm hand, and she wondered how long he’d been holding them.

  ‘You don’t need to think right now,’ he told her very firmly. ‘Just eat your breakfast and we’ll decide later.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Of course we. If you decide you’d like to be there, I’ll be with you.’

  Joey ate a piece of bacon while she considered this, then had to ask.

  ‘Why? Why are you being so kind to me? To me, not Harry. The Harry part I can kind of understand, you probably feel it’s the right thing to do, but me?’

  Max smiled at her, and she wished she hadn’t asked the question—hadn’t done or said anything at all that might keep him anywhere in her vicinity because, postpartum hormones or not, she couldn’t help feeling a strong attraction to this man.

  ‘I have no idea,’ he said honestly, spreading his hands and smiling even more broadly now. ‘It’s a question I keep asking myself. I imagine it’s because you’re part and parcel of Harry and the unexpectedness of what’s happened, and on top of that you’re not exactly hard to be kind to.’

  He paused, then added, ‘Now finish your breakfast and we’ll go back to the hospital and decide what we want to do. Presumably, by “being there” the surgeon meant we could watch from afar—gowned and masked, of course, but out of the sterile area around the table.’

  Joey shuddered.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to be there. Being involved in neonatal operations when I was training almost put me off paediatrics. Once I’d assisted in a few of those, I began to wonder if I shouldn’t switch to some other specialty.’

  Remembering, she smiled.

  ‘Actually, it was Dr Prentice—the same surgeon who’s doing Harry—who pointed out to me that I didn’t need to get involved with newborns. He reminded me that neonatology was only one branch of paediatrics.’

  ‘What bothered you about it?’

  The question was so unexpected—why would he care?—Joey paused before answering.

  ‘I think it was the utter vulnerability of the babies. That sounds silly because anyone under anaesthetic on an operating table is totally vulnerable, but somehow, when it’s a tiny baby, it just seems worse. And then there’s the size thing—the delicate balance of anaesthesia and all the surgery being microsurgery because they’re just so darned small.’

  Max was smiling again, and although it was a kind and understanding smile, Joey really wished he wouldn’t. His smile—in fact, his presence—was causing her disturbances she didn’t want to consider, let alone think about enough to understand.

  ‘I’m happy to watch,’ he said cheerfully. ‘In fact, I’d like to—so if you feel Harry needs a parent somewhere nearby, then surely I would do.’

  ‘While I wimp out?’ Joey shook her head. ‘No way!’

  She concentrated on finishing her breakfast, partly so she wouldn’t have to think about what lay ahead for Harry, but also so she didn’t have to look at Max, leaning back in his chair across the table from her, watching her over the rim of his coffee cup.

  Although eating while someone watched wasn’t much fun, with the constant worry that a bit of egg might have escaped and be decorating her chin.

  She set down her cutlery and pushed the plate away.

  ‘I didn’t leave much for you, but it’s there if you want it.’

  He set down his cup and smiled.

  ‘Half a congealed sausage and a very cold bit of egg.’

  He prodded the offerings with his fork then looked up and, of course, he had to go and smile again. Her bones melted completely.

  What was wrong with her?

  Hadn’t she had plenty of men smiling at her over the years?

  Hadn’t she even considered some of them seriously, one seriously enough to think about marriage?

  It wasn’t as if she’d led a totally man-free existence since David had died!

  So why was she going into bone meltdown over this man, especially when all he’d done had been to smile at her?

  She stood up, knowing she had to get away from him for a while so she could sort herself out. She’d go back to the hospital and sit by Harry’s crib and get her head together.

  ‘Let’s go back and sit by Harry’s crib,’ the man she had to get sorted in her head said, and she had to laugh.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, when she finally pulled herself together. ‘It’s just that I’d had that exact thought myself
at that exact moment.’

  It wasn’t quite true; her thought had been of her, singular, sitting by the crib, not both of them, but still...

  Max didn’t reply, still struck by the reaction he’d had to her carefree burst of laughter. How long since he’d heard a woman laugh out loud like that? Laugh at something as simple as a shared thought?

  And since when did a woman’s laughter send blood racing south in his body?

  Lack of sleep—it had to be that.

  He walked beside her back to the hospital, surreptitiously studying her. Not a small woman, well built, although a lot of that would be pregnancy weight.

  Did it worry her, carrying extra weight?

  Was she a weight-obsessive like two of his sisters, forever on diets and spending hours a week in the gym?

  Considering the workload she must have, he doubted the gym part.

  Harry was asleep when they reached the special care unit.

  ‘I wonder why he’ll have to spend fourteen days in hospital after the op?’ she asked, startling Max out of his preoccupation with her lifestyle.

  ‘Hey, you’re the paed specialist,’ he reminded her. ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘I don’t do neonates, remember.’

  She flashed him a grin.

  ‘I do know it’s to do with how soon he can take food through his mended intestine, but two weeks seems like overkill. And if my experience of expressing milk last evening was anything to go by, the sooner I can start feeding him myself the better.’

  ‘We’ll ask the surgeon—or Bob,’ Max suggested. ‘But in the meantime, could you tell me what you do know about duodenal atresia? Could there be complications?’

  She was bending over the crib and turned to look at him, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Stupid question—all operations carry a degree of risk,’ he muttered.

  ‘Not that stupid,’ she said, smiling again and waving her hand towards the chair. ‘You sit and I’ll perch on the arm this time.’

  He sat, a little warily because whichever way they shared the chair, proximity was inevitable and all his senses would be on Joey alert, feeling her warmth, smelling her woman’s body, even hearing her breathe—though why that should be sexy, he couldn’t imagine.