Fiona McArthur - Baby for the Midwife

‘Logistically it’s a little easier for me to camp than you and Elsa. If you don’t fancy the coast there are fabulous mountain retreats in the Lamington National Park. We could slip across into Queensland and go up into the mountains and make log fires in the retreats at night when Elsa goes to bed.’

She sighed with relief. They could still go. ‘That would be wonderful, Max. Could we?’

‘Sure.’ He stood to collect their plates. ‘We can decide where we’ll go after dinner. I’ll go online later and check it all out. I do have friends up that way who own a lodge.’

She watched him head for the kitchen. She normally would have jumped up to help him. He was solicitous and she guessed he must have connected the hospitals, too.

She felt like someone had dropped a boulder on her smooth life when she wasn’t looking. To get away this weekend would at least give her time to get her thoughts together without jumping at every sound.

She hugged herself and the feel of her arms reminded her how it had felt when Max had first agreed to look after her. That first day that Sol had seen Elsa.

She stood up, walked to the window and gazed out into the inky blackness. Far away on the ocean a container ship rode the horizon. Alone and undefended it could still look after itself.

She wasn’t ready to do the same and she didn’t know what to do for the best.

What if Max was in danger, too?

Max entered the room and placed the dishes on the table, not trying to be quiet. He expected her to turn from the window but she didn’t seem to hear him return.

When he touched her on the shoulder she flinched so violently that his hand pulled back and his own pulse rate soared.

‘Hey.’ He stepped closer now that she knew he was there and slid his arm around her shoulder. When she didn’t pull away he turned her into his chest and encircled her. She was shaking and his chest tightened. He would protect them both with his last breath.

‘You only need to tell me how you feel and I’ll share it with you,’ he said and teased her gently. ‘You’re not alone and I’m deeply offended you think you are.’

‘I’m sorry, Max.’ She sniffed into his shirt and his hand slid up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. Her expression of deep foreboding twisted his stomach.

He wanted to snatch up Georgia and her daughter and carry them away from any chance of Sol finding them and that was when he began to realise she would never be free until the Sol issue was resolved.

‘Even if it is only for a year, I am your husband. Who better to protect you? I may seem a flipperty sort of fellow but I do have hidden strengths.’

‘You don’t seem flipperty at all. You’re wonderful.’ She glanced at his muscled arms and gave a twisted smile. ‘Your strength isn’t hidden and I don’t deserve your patience with my bogeyman.’

‘Cut it out, Georgia. If we are anything, we are friends.’ He lifted her chin. ‘Isn’t that right?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded and buried her face back into his shirt.

‘So friends trust each other and your worries are my worries. But we do need to communicate. It is very hard to help you when you shut me out.’

‘I know.’ She straightened and he hugged her one last time before he forced himself to let her go.

‘Come and eat. Then we’ll talk. Unless we feed all this food to the dog, Mrs White will find out we didn’t enjoy her hard labour.’

‘I couldn’t eat a thing.’

Max stared down at her and she looked so forlorn and lost that his heart ached to ease her pain.

He leant forward again and kissed her gently on the lips with all the tenderness she inspired in him. She sighed against him and didn’t pull away, and when he drew back she turned her face towards him and leaned up to kiss him back. He forced back the desire to pull her into his arms and really kiss her so she could forget the man that stood between them.

‘I’m scared, Max.’ Georgia leant her head on his chest again.

‘I know, darling.’ He had felt her tremble beneath his lips when their lips had met. He couldn’t see how one man could inspire such dread but Georgia obviously could.

‘Hold me,’ she whispered.

He’d imagined holding her in his arms many times, but not for this reason. Poor baby. ‘Any time you want, Georgia. You only have to give me a sign.’ He gathered her in and she rested her cheek against him. Then she turned to look up at him.

When she closed her eyes and invited another kiss, he could no more stem his response than stop the waves on the beach he could hear in the distance.

He cupped her chin and traced the pure lines of her face with his mouth as he’d longed to do since Monday night. Her skin felt like velvet and glowed like cream, and he wanted to taste both. He brushed her eyebrows with his lips and then the tip of her nose before settling on her lips in homecoming.

She tasted divine, as he’d known she would, and he searched deeper, always waiting in case she pulled away, but she responded with a hunger that smouldered like his own. Her response tore at him so strongly it was difficult to remember he had to hold back.

When he raised his lips from hers to stand back, she murmured in denial, still with her eyes closed, so he leaned forward and took her mouth again in a kiss that left them both breathless and stunned by the connection between them.

They stood, wrapped in each other’s arms, breathing as one, and for Max it was as if he were standing under the full brunt of a waterfall, and he could no more hold back the water than he could hold back the urge to carry Georgia to his bed and make her his.

‘I need you to take me, Max.’ Her words echoed his own desire, but the need in her voice inflamed him as nothing else could have. When he lifted her into his arms her head lay back to expose the soft column of her throat, and he brushed his face against the tender skin there to inhale the perfume of her skin before straightening.

She sighed into him with such softness and warmth he pulled her against his body and whisked her up the stairs before either of them came to their senses.

When he placed her gently on his bed she reached up for him without hesitation, but a brief moment of sanity stilled his hand before she tugged at him and he lowered himself down beside her.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Kiss me, Max.’

He’d dreamed many times that he would hold her in his arms and protect her from the world. Yet though he wanted to make her his, he needed to ensure her own feelings of self-belief were restored. That was more important than anything. For him this was right, but what of her?

For Georgia, all intrusion from Sol had vanished with the safety of Max around her. Somewhere in the distance her brain disagreed, but the last time Max had lowered his mouth she’d felt the leashed force of his need and that had made her forget. She wanted that again. She pulled him closer and answered the call without permission from any inner voice.

She slaked his hunger with her own and when, peripherally, she felt her clothing move and then his bare skin against hers, she could no more stop her response than she could stop her own heart beating.

His chest was rock hard against her and flattened her breasts gloriously against him. Her fingers skimmed the V of hair on his belly and she exulted in his caressing hands as she caressed him.

It wasn’t enough.

Suddenly there was no time for niceties, neither did she want them. She wanted Max.

She wanted Max over her, in her, joined to her, and she wanted him now. She’d never felt a need as strong and overpowering as this before, but the need was ancient and she demanded his response to wipe out all that had come before.

She could feel Max try to slow the pace but deep inside her a dark fear despaired that something would prevent their union, that some sinister force would tear them apart, and the very least she wanted was this consummation to make her whole again.