CAROL MARINELLI - Special Deliveries - Her Gift, His Baby - Secrets of a Career Girl / For the Baby's Sake / A Very Special Delivery

Her lips twitched into a smile as she pictured Ethan’s reaction—that would soon silence him.

Walking towards Emergency, Penny saw a dark blue car pull up in the entrance bay, where the ambulances did, and she watched as a security guard walked towards it to warn the occupants that they couldn’t park there.

Except the woman wasn’t parking her car.

Instead, she was dropping Ethan Lewis off.

Penny tried not to look as they shared a brief embrace and then a thoroughly seedy-looking Ethan climbed out. He was unshaven and unkempt, dressed in yesterday’s rumpled scrubs. She tried to turn her attention away from him, but her gaze went straight to the car he had just come from. And it was then that Penny felt it—the red-hot poker that jabbed into her stomach as she glanced at the woman, a red-hot poker that temporarily nudged aside her loudly ticking biological clock. And at six minutes past eight and a few months later than most women at Peninsula Hospital, Penny realised that Ethan Lewis really was an incredibly sexy man and it wasn’t a hot flash that was causing her to blush as they walked into the department together.

‘Ethan.’ She tried to keep to the script she had planned. ‘I was wondering if I could speak to you about yesterday. I realise that I—’

‘Just leave it.’ He completely dismissed her, so much so that he strode ahead of her and into the male changing rooms.

Charming!

Ethan ignored her all day and Penny decided that she wasn’t about to try apologising again.

She took her lunch break in her office, waiting for the IVF nurse to ring, which she did right on time. Penny took a deep breath as she found out that, as expected, she was to start her injections that evening, which meant she needed to call Jasmine.

‘I’m on till six,’ Penny said. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to get away early.’

‘Penny, when do you ever get away early? It’s not a problem, I’ll come and give it to you at work, but Jed won’t be home so I’ll have to bring Simon in.’

Penny grimaced. She did not want to make a fool of herself in front of her nephew as it would terrify him. Simon, like his mother, was very sensitive. Still, there was no choice.

There really wasn’t time to worry about her upcoming jab. The department was busy enough to keep her mind off it and she smiled when she saw her next patient, an eight-week-old named Daniel.

‘He’s had a bit of a cold,’ Laura, the mother, explained. ‘I took him to my doctor yesterday and he said that he didn’t have a temperature and his chest sounded fine. I’ve been putting drops up his nose to help with feeding,’ Laura continued. ‘But this afternoon I came in from putting out the washing and went to check on him and he was pale, really pale, and he’d been sick. I know he’s fine now …’

He seemed fine and Penny examined Daniel thoroughly, but apart from a cold and a low-grade temperature there was nothing remarkable to find.

‘Has he been coughing?’

‘A bit,’ Laura said, as Penny listened carefully to his chest, but apart from a couple of crackles it was clear.

Still, Penny was concerned and it did sound as if he might have had an apnoeic episode so she decided to ring the paediatricians, who were very busy on the ward.

‘They’re going to be a while,’ Penny explained to the mum. ‘I’m going to take some bloods and do some swabs, so hopefully we’ll have some results back by the time they get down here. And I’ll order a chest X-ray.’

To show that she wasn’t, in fact, too up herself to value Ethan’s opinion, late in the afternoon when she was concerned about the baby and the paediatricians weren’t anywhere around, instead of speaking with Mr Dean, Penny decided that she would ask Ethan.

He barely looked up from the form he was filling out when Penny asked if she could have a word.

‘Sure.’

‘I’ve got an eight-week-old I’m concerned about.’ He glanced up. ‘Mum found him very pale in his cot after his nap and he’d vomited, but he picked up well. He’s had a cold, struggling to feed, he’s a bit sniffly, just …’ She moved her hand to show she was wavering. ‘His chest is clear, and he’s got a small cough, which is unremarkable. I’ve done some swabs and some bloods.’

‘What did paeds say?’ Ethan asked.

‘They’ll come down when they can, but they’re busy and they’re going to be ages,’ Penny said. ‘Mum just wants to take him home now that he’s had the tests and wait to get the results, but I’m not sure.’

Ethan came and though he had been scowling at Penny, he was lovely with the mum. He carefully checked the infant, who was bright and alert and just hungry. Penny put some saline drops in his nose and they watched as the baby latched on and started to feed happily, but just as Ethan was about to go, Daniel spluttered and broke into a coughing fit. As he came off the breast Ethan took him and held him and Penny watched, the diagnosis becoming more and more evident as he broke into a prolonged paroxysmal cough and then struggled to inhale and then cough again. Ethan was holding him up and tapping his back as Penny turned on the suction, but thankfully it wasn’t needed.

‘He wasn’t doing that.’ Laura was beside herself, watching her son. ‘He’s just had a little cough.’

‘That might have been what happened this afternoon,’ Penny said, ‘when you found him in his cot.’ She had to explain to the mother that it would seem her baby had whooping cough.

‘He’s not making any noises, though.’

‘People, especially babies, don’t always, but he’s struggling to get air in during the coughing attack,’ Penny explained. ‘It’s not evident straight away but he’s moved into the coughing stage now.’ She looked at the baby Ethan was holding—he had stopped coughing and was again desperate to be fed. ‘I’m going to call the paediatricians …’

‘Can I feed him?’

‘I’ll watch him feed while you go and call Paeds,’ Ethan said to Penny, handing the crying baby back to his mum. ‘Wait one moment before you feed him.’ He stepped out with Penny. ‘He’s to be transferred. I know he seems fine at the moment but, given his age, he needs to be somewhere with PICU.’

‘I know.’ Penny nodded.

‘Can you get Lisa to come in and watch him feed? I’ll stay in for now.’

Penny nodded. The coughing episodes were scary at best and someone calm and experienced needed to be in with the mum to help deal with them. ‘I’ve never actually seen whooping cough,’ Penny said to Lisa.

‘I’ve had it,’ Lisa said. ‘Hundred-day cough they call it and I know why. Poor baby and poor mum having to watch him. I’ll go and relieve Ethan.’

Penny spoke again to the paediatrician and started the baby on antibiotics, but really there was no treatment that could stop the coughing attacks and, as Ethan had said, given his tender age, he really did need to be somewhere with paediatric intensive care facilities in case he suddenly deteriorated.

‘They’re going to come down and see him just as soon as they can,’ Penny said when Ethan came out. ‘I’ll go and let mum know.’

‘She’s in for a tough time,’ Ethan said. ‘Are you immunised?’

‘All up to date,’ Penny said, because though she was terrified of injections, before embarking on IVF she had made herself get all her immunisations up to date and poor Jasmine had been the one who’d had to do them. Still, it was worth it, Penny realised, for days such as this.

‘Right.’ Ethan glanced at his watch. ‘I’m going home.’

‘See you tomorrow,’ Penny said, but Ethan shook his head.

‘I’m on days off now.’

‘Enjoy them.’

He didn’t answer. In fact, since her attempt to apologise, unless it was about a patient, Ethan had said nothing at all to her and she felt like poking her tongue out at his back as he and his bad mood walked off together.