THE STUDENT GROUP, and Alex in particular, begged her to come out to the SAR base with them, but she pleaded work and hurried back to the ED. She knew, given time, she’d get over the heart lurches and galloping pulse every time she saw Marty, but until that happened, avoidance was definitely the answer.
Sylvie greeted her with relief.
‘We’re having one of those days when it’s dead quiet for an hour, then everyone comes at once. Could you see a lass in cubicle one who’s complaining of stomach cramps?’
Emma was only too glad to be occupied, and she made her way to the cubicle where a very young woman, a teenager, in fact, was crying copiously into a handful of paper tissues the nurse on duty had given her.
The lass was very overweight and was probably bullied mercilessly at school.
The nurse introduced Ebony to Emma, then muttered something about work to do and departed, so Emma helped the still-crying patient onto the examination table.
Even under layers of clothing unsuited to the warm weather, once Ebony was lying supine, a possible cause of the stomach cramps became obvious.
Not wanting to cause further distress, Emma checked Ebony’s blood pressure—good—pulse, a bit rapid but no cause for concern, and took some blood for testing—and typing, although she didn’t say that out loud.
She was feeling Ebony’s swollen stomach when the girl yowled in pain.
Emma held her hand, noted the time, then said gently, ‘Did you know you were pregnant?’
Colour drained from Ebony’s face, leaving it as white as the pillow case.
‘Dad’ll kill me,’ she said, and Emma closed her eyes momentarily in a silent Please don’t let it be Dad prayer.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
A miserable nod of the head.
‘Once I did but then he was just like the others and laughed and called me Fatty.’
‘But you had sex with him?’ Emma was watching the clock as she spoke—the contractions, for that was surely what they had been, were still widely spaced.
‘Only a couple of times.’ The defensive reply must have brought unwanted memories for Ebony began to cry again.
She felt Ebony’s abdomen, finding the shape of the foetus, then, speaking quietly, she explained she’d have to examine her.
The nurse had reappeared, and together they removed Ebony’s jeans and knickers.
Even a quick glance showed the cervix had begun to dilate. This baby was coming.
‘The cramps are telling us the baby is on the way. It will be a while yet—’ please let it not be too long, her head whispered ‘—so is there someone you’d like to have with you. What about your mum?’
Hope battled the tears in Ebony’s eyes.
‘Do you think she’d come?’ she asked. ‘She’ll be mad at me, you see. She mightn’t want to come.’
‘Would you like me to phone her and explain?’ Emma asked, then watched the emotions play across Ebony’s face.
Mum would be mad, but she did want Mum, but then Mum would tell Dad, although Mum could usually fix Dad when he was angry. They were as easy to read as the pages of a book.
Finally, Ebony nodded, and Emma took the file with the name and address on it so she could phone the mother, leaving Ebony with the nurse.
‘The cramps?’ Sylvie asked. ‘Is she pregnant?’
Emma nodded. ‘Could you arrange to have her taken up to Maternity, while I phone her mother? Poor woman, although maybe she’s had her suspicions.’
Sylvie was already on the house phone, arranging the transfer, so Emma made the call from the privacy of her office.
Mrs Challoner, Ebony’s mum, was not nearly as surprised as her daughter.
‘I kept thinking maybe that was it,’ she said, ‘but at that age they hate you asking questions and with all the sex education they get at school I thought she’d know if she was—or even suspected it—and she’d talk to me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Emma said. ‘But perhaps she didn’t know. If she’s usually a bit irregular she probably put it down to that then forgot all about it.’
‘Or was so terrified she shut it right out of her mind,’ Mrs Challoner said, a break in her voice telling Emma how upset she was—not, Emma thought, about the pregnancy, but about Ebony not talking to her.
‘I’ll be right up,’ the anxious mother said. ‘Where will I find her?’
‘Come to the emergency department. We’re transferring her to Maternity but it sometimes takes time and if she’s still here, she’ll be happier going up there with you than on her own.’
‘Bless you,’ Mrs Challoner said. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
Bless you.
What a lovely thing for someone to have said, Emma thought as she made her way back to Ebony to assure her that her mother was on the way.
Two words—but enough to reassure Emma too. This mother would stand by her child and probably bring up her grandchild.
And for a moment she wondered what it would have been like to grow up with a mother.
She shook the thought away. Dad had done his best to be both mother and father to her, and as far as she was concerned he’d done a damned good job.
But would her boys grow up and wonder what it might have been like to have had a father?
Should she get serious about finding a father for them?
Somehow that task seemed slightly distasteful now.
It was all Marty’s fault…
* * *
Marty had finished with the students and was back in Ken’s shack, flying out in his own chopper on what should have been time off. The old man had prided himself on keeping it clean, but he’d probably been failing for some time, and Marty wanted to make sure it was as spruce as Ken would have had it in the early days.
Yet walking in brought memories of Emma—of her closeness as they’d sat waiting for the old man to die, of her softness later when they’d found relief from the trauma that came with any death, back at his house…
He cleared and cleaned almost maniacally, aware his burst of energy was a way of not remembering. And when he was finally happy that Ken’s little home looked as it had when the old man had been younger, he went out into the bush, picking red gum tips and yellow bottlebrush, dark green fig leaves and some trailing creeper.
He arranged them all in a big old coffee can, just as Ken had done, and set them in the empty fireplace. They’d dry out there, and still look good—a dried arrangement, Hallie had told him they were called.
He checked the cleared area around the shack for rubbish and loaded it all into the chopper.
Then he walked towards the little creek that gurgled and splashed its way down the mountain, and sat on the log where he had sat at least a dozen times with Ken, listening to his stories of the bush, picking up a lot of the older man’s ideas about life and how to live it—about being true to oneself, and owing nothing to any man.
And love?
Thinking back, he couldn’t remember discussing love with Ken, although he’d been there often as a teenager when love—or more probably lust—had never been far from his thoughts.
‘What would you have said, Ken?’ he asked of the man who was no longer there.
But try as he might, Marty couldn’t imagine what Ken’s response would have been, and as the creek had nothing to tell him either, he walked back to shut the door of the shack and took himself, reluctantly, back to Braxton.
Reluctantly because he was off duty and being off duty gave him more time to think, and while he might now be out of the shack and his memories of Ken’s life, the fact remained that he’d had unprotected sex with the one woman in the world he would hate to hurt.
Maybe it would be okay…
She was looking for a father for her boys, so she was probably on the Pill…
Surely she was on the Pill?
Yet, somehow, he was pretty sure she wasn’t.
Emma was too organised, too methodical, to look beyond going out with any possible candidates in her quest. She was conservative, would take it slowly, not rush into anything—
Which meant she’d go on the Pill when she was ready to commit to a man, not take it all the time just in case.
Concentrate on flying, he told himself, but he knew he could fly this little toy in his sleep.
Nevertheless, he did concentrate, more to block out the other thoughts, and he landed at the base, carried the rubbish bags to the skip, cleaned out and refuelled the chopper, and even gave it a wash.
‘Too much time on your hands?’ Dave called to him. ‘You can help me do a stocktake, then while I clean out the chopper you can take the list to the hospital and bring back the stock.’
No way! He was avoiding the hospital.
Only surely Emma wouldn’t be there—not after pulling an all-nighter.
And he did need something to do.
* * *
Emma had sent her patient up to Maternity, put staples into the split head of a teenager, and dug a bead from the nose of a kindergarten kid.
Deciding, as she wasn’t supposed to be on duty that day, she could have a cup of tea, she escaped to the tea-room, desperate to have a think.
Why hadn’t it occurred to her earlier?
Why did she have to wait until a pregnant teenager came in before she considered her own situation, and the fact that she’d had unprotected sex with the one man in the world she shouldn’t have?
But her mind grew cloudy so thinking of the possible consequences got muddled up with the remembered warmth—no, heat—the act had brought with it.
She made a mug of tea, grabbed a couple of biscuits from the never-empty tin, and sat down to muse.
Well, to think really, mostly about consequences of actions, but there was more musing than thinking going on.
Marty’s arrival put paid to both. Her mind went blank and she could only stare at him.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said, and she recovered enough to point out, ‘Neither should you.’
Then he was sitting on the sofa beside her, close but not too close—annoyingly not too close, but she wouldn’t think about that either.
‘Oh, Em,’ he said, and even the shortening of her name made her feel warm. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t think, I didn’t ask—Hell, what if—?’
She put her hand on his knee, wishing he was closer, knowing the wish was stupid.
‘It’s as much my fault as yours, and it’s highly unlikely that there’ll be any fallout so don’t worry about it.’
‘Not worry about it?’
His voice had risen and she touched her finger to his lips to hush him, then grew hot and breathless as he slid his tongue along it and closed his lips against the tip, sucking it gently.
It took a mammoth effort but she finally removed it.
‘We can’t do this,’ she said, and if she sounded desperate, well, that was just how she felt.
He shifted, nodded, shrugged, stood up, then reached down to touch her cheek.
‘You will tell me if you’re pregnant,’ he said, his voice harsh with an emotion she couldn’t read.
She nodded, not at all sure she would.
If it happened, and that was one huge if, she’d think about it then—think about what was to be done, what would be the best way forward. But not today. It would be like when Simon had been dying and she would only let herself think of one day at a time.
Although that had been totally different—back then it had been death she’d been desperately trying to hold off.
But life?
A new life?
She had no idea how she’d feel about that.