Maggie Kingsley - The Surgeon's Marriage

Jennifer had. At just eight weeks pregnant she’d been rushed into the department with vaginal bleeding, and as her pregnancy was the result of her fourth IVF treatment the signs weren’t good. Luckily the bleeding had stopped, but Jennifer still had a long way to go.

‘You’re fourteen weeks pregnant now, aren’t you?’ she murmured, watching the blood-pressure gauge.

‘Fourteen weeks gone, only another twenty-six to go.’ Jennifer laughed a little nervously. ‘Is it OK—my blood pressure?’

‘It’s up a little, but that might just be because you knew you were going to be examined today. Unless you’ve been doing something really silly, of course, like redecorating the whole house.’

‘Chance would be a fine thing. If I so much as look at a duster my husband’s down on me like a ton of bricks, saying I’m doing too much, putting the twins at risk.’

‘I’d enjoy the pampering while you can,’ Helen said with more of an edge than she’d intended. ‘Speaking as the mother of twins myself, you’re going to need all the energy you’ve got once they arrive. Twelve bottles a day to sterilise and prepare. Two dirty bottoms to change. Two little bodies that suddenly sprout six arms and legs when you’re trying to get them dressed to go out.’

Jennifer smiled. ‘But I bet you never regretted having them.’

‘On good days, no. On bad days…’ Helen rolled her eyes heavenwards, and Jennifer laughed. ‘OK, I see from your notes that you’ve already had your spina bifida scan, so I just need to take a blood sample and then we’ll do a quick scan to check on how your babies are doing.’

To Jennifer’s clear relief the scan revealed that the twins were the correct size and development for their gestation.

‘I hate having these scans,’ she admitted as she wiped the conductive gel off her tummy and pulled up her trousers. ‘I know they’re necessary, but I’m always terrified you’re going to tell me something’s wrong.’

‘It’s understandable to worry after all you’ve been through,’ Helen said gently. ‘Now, we’d like to see you again in a month’s time—’

‘Another scan?’

‘’Fraid so. Hey, look on the bright side,’ Helen continued as Jennifer groaned. ‘It will give you the chance to see how much your babies have grown, and we’ll be able to check on your blood pressure at the same time.’ She flicked through Tom’s diary. ‘How does the second of May sound?’

‘Fine by me. Brian and I aren’t exactly living a wild social life at the moment. Not that we were ever great party-goers even before I got pregnant,’ Jennifer said ruefully. ‘My husband’s the original stick-in-the-mud, stay-at-home bloke.’

Helen smiled, but when the woman got to her feet she suddenly said on impulse, ‘How long have you been married, Jennifer?’

‘Fifteen years. Cripes, that’s longer than the average sentence for murder, isn’t it? Not that I’ve ever felt like murdering him—at least, not often.’

‘Husbands do drive you mad sometimes, don’t they?’ Helen said with feeling.

‘And how.’ Jennifer nodded. ‘In fact, Brian and I went through a really sticky patch a couple of years ago. I thought he was taking me for granted, he thought our marriage was in a rut.’

Which has got absolutely nothing to do with Jennifer’s medical condition, Helen told herself firmly, so you can’t possibly ask how she solved the problem, but she did, and Jennifer laughed.

‘We talked.’

‘That’s it?’ Helen said in surprise.

‘The best answers are often the simplest.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Talking clears the air, stops things festering. So does accepting neither of you is perfect. If you don’t accept that, then you end up like one of these weird film stars, constantly flitting from relationship to relationship, in love with the idea of being in love.’

Jennifer was right. It was silly to be envious of Gideon and Annie. Stupid to let little things annoy her. She loved Tom, and he loved her, and at least he’d noticed something was wrong, which was more than could be said for a lot of men. OK, so his explanation might have been totally off the wall as far as accuracy was concerned, but at least he’d noticed.

Which meant she was going to have to apologise, she realised as she showed Jennifer out. Not for what she’d said—she wasn’t going to take a word of that back—but perhaps she could have phrased it better, picked a better time to raise the subject.

She glanced down at her watch and sighed. Time. It was the one thing she never seemed to have enough of, and she didn’t have any spare now. Lunch would be yet another quick sandwich in the staffroom, and then it was on to the ward round.

A ward round that did little to improve her spirits or her temper. She didn’t mind spending forty minutes with Mrs Alexander—heaven knew, the woman had just cause to be worried about her unborn baby after having suffered a deep-vein thrombosis—but she was in no mood for Mrs Foster’s complaint that her hysterectomy stitches wouldn’t have burst if they had been inserted properly.

‘Some days it just doesn’t pay to get up, does it?’ Liz Baker, the sister in charge of the Obs and Gynae ward, observed sympathetically when Helen strode towards her, her cheeks red with barely concealed anger.

‘Tell me about it,’ Helen began. ‘That Mrs Foster—’

‘Is a pain in the butt.’ Liz nodded. ‘I know, and I hate to have to add to your problems but Haematology’s just been on the phone. Apparently one of the blood samples you took this morning isn’t quite right. Look, why don’t you use the phone in the staffroom to call them back?’ Liz continued as Helen groaned. ‘Get yourself a cup of coffee at the same time.’

A cup of coffee sounded good. Something considerably stronger sounded even better, she decided when she left the ward and began walking towards the staffroom, only to see Tom coming towards her.

She came to an uncertain halt. He did, too.

‘I’m sorry.’

They’d spoken in unison, and Tom shook his head. ‘You have nothing to apologise for, but I obviously do. I hadn’t realised I wasn’t pulling my weight at home.’

‘No, but you get called out a lot more at night than I do,’ she replied, more than willing to meet him halfway. ‘And I don’t have all your departmental meetings.’

‘Yes, but I should have noticed you were doing it all. The trouble is I’ve been so busy, and…’ He shook his head. ‘No, that’s no excuse. Being busy is no excuse for not pulling my weight, and I’m sorry.’

‘Hey, we’re not heading for the divorce courts over this or anything,’ she said gently as he stared at her, his grey eyes troubled. ‘All I’m asking for is a little more help around the house and with the children.’

‘You’ve got it,’ he said. ‘Whatever you want, you’ve got.’

She chuckled. ‘That’s dangerous talk, Tom. What if I ask you for the moon?’

His grey eyes softened. ‘If you want the moon I’ll get you the moon. If you want…’ He paused and his face creased into a broad smile of welcome. ‘Mark, you old reprobate, you’ve finally got here.’

Helen glanced over her shoulder, and blinked.

Wow.

Wow, wow and triple wow.

Tom hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said his friend was handsome. In fact, Tom hadn’t been nearly fulsome enough, she thought, automatically tucking in her tummy and standing up straighter, only to feel slightly silly afterwards because this was Tom’s friend and she didn’t need or want to impress him.

But Mark Lorimer was impressive. Tall, and tanned, with thick black hair, and green eyes. Not a wishy-washy anaemic green, but green like sparkling emeralds, and fringed by quite indecently long black eyelashes.