St Piran's: Tiny Miracle Twins. Maggie Kingsley

doesn’t explain why you’re here, so I suggest you go and audit something. OK, I wants sats, a ventilator, an umbilical line and a cardio-respiratory monitor,’ Josh told his staff. ‘And a face mask—the tiniest we’ve got.’

      ‘BP low, heart rate too high,’ one of the A and E nurses declared. ‘This baby is going to go into shock if we’re not careful.’

      ‘Not on my watch, he won’t,’ Josh said grimly. ‘Where’s that umbilical line?’

      ‘Josh, can’t you hurry up and stabilise him?’ Brianna said, her eyes fixed anxiously on the baby boy. ‘He needs the resources we have in NICU.’

      ‘Agreed, my beautiful colleen,’ Josh replied as he began to insert the umbilical line, ‘but, as you know very well, stabilising can’t be rushed. Poor little mite,’ he continued as he checked the cardio-respiratory monitor. ‘He can’t be more than a couple of days old, which means his mother must need medical attention, too.’

      ‘Yes—yes—whatever,’ Brianna said quickly, ‘but hurry, Josh, please, hurry.’

      ‘This respiratory distress thing,’ Connor said, ‘can it be cured?’

      Josh looked round at him with irritation.

      ‘Why the hell are you still here? Run out of departments to audit already?’

      ‘I asked a question, and I’d like an answer,’ Connor declared, his voice every bit as hard as Josh’s, and a small smile curved the A and E consultant’s lips.

      ‘Are you quite sure you’re not the baby’s father? OK—OK,’ Josh continued as Brianna threw him an impatient look. ‘Yes, Mr Monahan, RDS can be cured. Premature, and very underweight, babies often don’t produce enough surfactant in their lungs to help them breathe, but we can give it to them artificially through a breathing tube.’

      ‘But only in NICU,’ Megan declared as she swept into A and E, pushing an incubator, ‘so can we have a little less chat and a lot more action?’

      ‘I’m simply answering Mr Monahan’s question, Megan,’ Josh answered mildly, but the paediatric specialist registrar was clearly not about to be placated.

      ‘A question we don’t have time for,’ she retorted.

      ‘Oh, I always have time for questions,’ he countered. ‘I don’t always give the right answers—’

      ‘Now, there’s a surprise—not,’ Megan replied, her voice cold. ‘Perhaps if you spent less time—’

      ‘Look, could the two of you park whatever problem you have with one another and concentrate on this baby?’ Brianna exclaimed, then flushed scarlet when she saw Megan’s hurt expression and Josh’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said that—I’m just…’

      ‘Worried.’ Josh nodded. ‘Understood. OK,’ he added as he carefully lifted the baby boy and placed him gently into the incubator, ‘this tiny tot is good to go.’

      Brianna instantly began pushing the incubator out of A and E towards NICU but it didn’t make her feel any better. She’d hurt Megan, she knew she had, and it wasn’t as though she hadn’t known Megan and Josh had some sort of history so to say what she had.

      ‘Megan, I’m sorry,’ she murmured when they reached the unit and Chris began hooking the baby to their monitors. ‘What I said—’

      ‘Forget it,’ Megan interrupted tightly. ‘OK, I want an ultrasound scan, more X-rays and the ophthalmologist.’

      ‘Do you want me to check the sats again?’ Brianna said uncertainly. ‘Josh’s staff did them in A and E, but…’

      ‘Double-check them. Josh’s staff aren’t specialists, we are.’

      ‘He is going to be all right, isn’t he?’ Connor asked as he hovered beside them. ‘That doctor in A and E—the one who was flirting with Brianna—seemed to think he would be.’

      ‘The doctor’s name is Josh O’Hara, and he wasn’t flirting with me,’ Brianna said swiftly, seeing Megan’s head snap up. ‘He was just being pleasant.’

      ‘Was he indeed,’ Connor murmured dryly, and Brianna could have kicked him for the dark shadow that suddenly appeared in Megan’s eyes.

      ‘Look, Connor, why don’t you wait outside?’ she said abruptly. ‘All you’re doing is getting in the way.’

      ‘I’ll stay,’ he said firmly, and, when she turned back to the baby with a shrug, he took a shallow breath.

      He couldn’t leave, and it wasn’t just because he was genuinely concerned about the baby Brianna had found. When she’d almost collided with him outside the hospital he’d been unable to believe what she’d been carrying. The little form so motionless, the shock of thick black hair…For a moment it was as though the last two years had never happened, and then he’d blinked, had seen Brianna’s blue uniform, and the two years had rolled back again, bringing with them all the old pain and heartbreak.

      He’d told himself that all he wanted from her was answers. He’d told himself she deserved to be punished for what she’d put him through, but he’d seen the pain in her eyes when that A and E consultant had been examining the baby. She was still in her own private hell, just as he was, and lashing out at her wasn’t the solution, not if he wanted her back. And he did want her back, he realised, feeling his heart twist inside him as he saw her gently touch the little boy’s cheek, because without her…Without her he had nothing.

      ‘Shouldn’t the police be alerted?’ he said. ‘If this baby is only days old, won’t his mother need help, too?’

      ‘Good point,’ Megan declared. ‘Did you see anyone hanging about the car park, Brianna?’

      ‘To be honest, I wasn’t looking,’ she replied.

      In fact, Brianna thought with dawning horror, if Jess hadn’t turned up when she had, she would probably have been halfway up the motorway by now, and God knows when this baby would have been found.

      ‘Damn,’ Megan muttered. ‘Chris, could you try paging Mr Brooke again, see if we can track him down?’

      ‘There’s something wrong?’ Brianna said, her eyes flying to the baby in the incubator, and Megan shook her head.

      ‘“Wrong” is too strong a word. I’d just be a lot happier if this little chap wasn’t quite so inactive. Jess said he was crying when you found him, and yet now…’

      ‘Maybe he’s just cold? ‘ Brianna suggested hopefully, and Megan frowned.

      ‘Maybe, but I’d really like Mr Brooke to take a look at this little one. Which reminds me,’ she continued, ‘we can’t keep calling him “little chap” or “little one”, until his mother comes forward.’

      ‘How about Patrick?’ Chris suggested. ‘It’s March the seventeenth soon, St Patrick’s Day, and you’re Irish, Brianna, so I vote we call him Patrick.’

      Brianna stared down at the baby boy in the incubator. He was so small, so very small, scarcely 5 pounds in weight, and, gently, she adjusted the pulse oximeter taped to his little foot.

      ‘Harry,’ she said softly. ‘I’d like…I want to call him Harry.’

      She heard Connor’s sharp intake of breath, knew what he was thinking, but she didn’t turn round, didn’t acknowledge him, and Chris shrugged.

      ‘Personally, I still like Patrick, but, as you found him, Brianna, if you want to call him Harry, then Harry he is.’

      Just until his mother comes forward, Brianna told herself as she carefully slipped a hat over the baby’s head to make sure he didn’t lose any more heat. He would only be Harry until his mother claimed him, she knew that, and the mother would come