Sue MacKay - Heart Of Courage

‘No problem. Just thought I could help, take some of the strain away from you.’

What strain? Babies were delivered every day and no one suffered badly. A yawn ripped through her. She was exhausted, and Cooper wasn’t helping by adding pressure to her already mounting worries. But he was here, had given her a place to stay, and helped organise furniture delivery. Tears spilled down her cheeks. What a mess she was. At sixes and sevens over everything. Another yawn dragged at her. A tired mess.

Yet the moment she walked inside Cooper’s house the tension plaguing her instantly fell away.

Yes, this house was a haven. A home. The kind of place she’d love to come back to at the end of a busy day, or stay put in on days her baby was grizzly.

Her hands splayed across her belly. This had to stop. It was imperative she move into her own place—fast. Turn the apartment into something as comforting as Cooper’s home, without him there. Of course she’d delayed. She didn’t know where to start, how to create a home that she and baby would be safe and secure in. She’d never known that for herself. Growing up, home had been the place where she’d slept and eaten and done her homework and listened to her parents arguing. Her bedroom the sanctuary she’d hidden in when the arguing had escalated into a full-scale war. Not once had she ever walked in the front door and sighed with contentment. As she did here. Talk about being in big trouble.

‘Sophie? Are you all right? You’re not having pains, are you?’ Cooper hovered over her, anxiety replacing the cool demeanour he’d shown since they’d talked about her supposed PTSD.

‘I’m fine. No pains.’ Just a crazy revelation that she had to deal with. She was not staying here permanently. Like to or not, she had to move on, set up her own life. Just as she’d planned since learning she was pregnant.

So get on with it.

‘You’d tell me?’ The anxiety hung between them.

‘Yes.’ Locking eyes with Cooper, she said with all the force she could muster, ‘I will let you know the moment I think I’m in labour.’ She couldn’t keep him out of the picture on that score. When she’d gone into meltdown over the lack of movement from the baby Cooper had given her strength when she’d needed someone to cling to. She couldn’t push him away over this.

‘Good.’ He tossed his car keys up in the air, snatched them and repeated the action. ‘So tomorrow we’ll find you a suitable car.’ He wasn’t easily diverted.

Something she’d be wise to remember. ‘I’ll do that in the morning.’ While he was at the hospital.

He shook his head. ‘Uh-uh. I’ll do some research on the net while you tell me why you want an SUV instead of a car.’

‘You can stop looking so smug. It doesn’t suit you,’ she growled, trying hard not to smile at him. He’d won and yet she couldn’t find it in her to be cross. Not really. He had a way about him that made her feel more and more at ease. When he wasn’t reminding her that there were lots more problems to add to her list than she had to tick off. Lawyers, a midwife, and now a psychologist had to be dealt with.

In the meantime, Cooper merely laughed and booted up his laptop.

* * *

‘Three more ticks on my list,’ Sophie sighed late the next afternoon. Things were starting to come together nicely. ‘I like my new midwife. She’s so enthusiastic.’ When Cooper’s eyebrows rose, she added, ‘And professional, and competent.’

‘What else is on that list?’ Cooper asked as he drove through the rush-hour traffic in Newmarket on their way home from a car dealer. ‘Apart from a vehicle, which it looks like we’ve got sorted now.’

‘Dinner. Can we swing by the supermarket? I feel like pasta tonight.’

‘What’s with all this pasta? Seems you’re always eating it. You’re not of Italian extraction, are you?’

‘Irish. Except I’m not fussed about spuds.’ She smacked her lips, her stomach sitting up in anticipation. ‘Can’t go past the sauces that go with linguine, and then there’s ravioli and the delicious fillings.’

‘You been to Italy?’

Nodding, she explained, ‘I spent four months there after completing my internship in London. I didn’t want to leave.’ Not only was the food divine, the men were just as mouth-watering. Though not as delectable as the man in the driver’s seat beside her. Only the car’s seat? Or was he driving her life now? He definitely played havoc with her focus, which should be entirely on preparing for the baby, not on kisses. Hot kisses that swamped her mind with memories of his body against her, diverting pictures that had her longing for more.

‘Why didn’t you stay on in Italy?’

‘I couldn’t get a work permit so I returned home and saved up for the next adventure, which was in Chile.’

‘We’re not going to eat Chilean food, then?’

‘They eat a lot of potatoes. But having said that, I did enjoy most things. Lots of seafood and meat. Pastel do chocio was my all-time favourite, sort of like a shepherd’s pie. Haven’t seen that in the supermarkets here.’

Cooper turned into the supermarket parking building. ‘You might have to go back to Chile for that. From things you’ve said, it sounds as though you’ve done a lot of travelling. You got a thing against staying at home?’

More like a thing about staying still. ‘My travelling days are on hold for a few years.’

‘I suppose they are. But that’s not what I asked.’

As a diversion she’d missed the gate. ‘Travel’s exciting and opens your eyes to so much more than we’ve grown up with here.’ And it had kept her from spending time wondering if she’d ever be able to settle down in one place for long. Every time she thought about finding a place of her own she’d think about how uncomfortable her parents’ home had been and known she’d had no idea how to make hers any different. Except that had bitten her on the backside this year. Settling down was her current goal.

As they walked inside Cooper mused, ‘I haven’t seen much of the world. Only the out-of-the-way and often inhospitable places the army sent me to.’

Sophie shivered. ‘I’m over those. Not going back to dangerous areas again.’

‘Cuts out quite a lot of the world at the moment. Hideous.’ Cooper swung a shopping basket between them.

‘There are definitely places to stay away from. I can’t believe some of the things going on at the moment.’ She paused, listening hard. Had she heard a cry? But nothing untoward reached her. Must’ve been imagining it. Snapping off a plastic bag, she began selecting tomatoes. ‘Need some mushrooms too.’

‘I’ll get them.’

There it was again. A low cry, almost a groan. ‘Something’s not right.’ Dropping the tomatoes in the basket, she headed for the next aisle.

‘What have you heard?’ Cooper was right with her, the empty mushroom bag still in his hand.

‘Like someone’s in pain.’ She stared down the next aisle. Nothing out of the ordinary. Was her imagination overacting? No. There it was again. ‘Hear that?’ She headed for the next aisle and raced down it. Sitting the floor was a heavily pregnant girl, her face contorted with pain. Sophie reached for her hand. ‘Hi. My name’s Sophie. I’m a doctor. What’s happening?’

‘I think my baby’s coming.’ The young face scrunched up tight as a contraction gripped her.

The cry of pain that accompanied it cut through Sophie. ‘Breathe deep, go with the pain, don’t fight it.’ She tried to remember everything she’d heard in antenatal classes in Darwin.

‘Easy for you to say,’ grunted the girl.

Cooper knelt on the other side of the distressed girl. ‘Has anyone called an ambulance?’ he asked the gathering onlookers.