Midwives On-Call. Alison Roberts

and get all the boxes ticked so you can hopefully forget about things for another couple of years.’

      ‘You don’t have time.’

      ‘I just made time.’ Darcie smiled. She was a thorough doctor and refused to be rushed by anyone, especially her patients, and a little while later as she looked at the pregnancy card on the desk before her, a patient Isla suddenly was.

      ‘Isla,’ Darcie said, and Isla watched as she pushed the card over to her.

      Isla stared at it for a long moment. There were possibly a thousand thoughts in her head but not a single one of them did she show on her face. She just looked up at Darcie.

      ‘Can we leave the Pap for another time?’ Isla said, her voice completely clear, her expression unreadable.

      ‘Of course, but, Isla—’

      ‘Can we not discuss this, please?’ Isla stood. ‘Just …’ She turned as she got to the door. ‘You won’t tell anyone …’

      ‘You don’t have to ask me that, Isla,’ Darcie said, and Isla nodded. ‘But if you want to talk any time, you can.’

      Isla muttered brief thanks and headed out to her department, and for the first time ever she left early.

      She lay on her bed and just stared at the ceiling and all she felt was stupid, naïve and embarrassed at having got pregnant her first time.

      It was all she could manage to feel as she lay there.

      When the phone bleeped to indicate a text, she knew it was from Alessi but she didn’t even look at it.

      She simply could not bear to think of telling him or even attempt to fathom his reaction.

      Far worse than his anger would be duty.

      Isla lay there, recalling his words—how he’d done the right thing by Talia, how he’d offered to marry her as soon as he’d found out.

      She didn’t want that for either of them.

      They’d been going out for a couple of weeks, which surely meant, given his track record, that they had just about run their course.

      Isla tried to comfort herself, reminded herself that the reason she’d been going on the Pill in the first place was that Alessi himself had wanted to move things forward, to lose the condoms.

      On the proviso that she was on the Pill, though.

      Isla felt a tear slide out and she screwed her eyes shut.

      She heard the door open and Darcie come home and Isla wanted to call out to her, she wanted to sob, hell, she wanted to break down and cry.

      But she didn’t know how to, scared that if she let out a part of her fear then the rest would come gushing out.

      Secrets she had sworn never to reveal.

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      ISLA DIDN’T HAVE to try too hard to avoid Alessi.

      That night he was too wrecked to even drive home so he sent a text to Isla to say he was crashing at the hospital. About two seconds after hitting ‘send’ he did just that in the on-call room on the unit.

      He dived back into work at eight the next day when he was on call again. He finally saw Isla on Tuesday but it wasn’t a social visit—a newborn was rapidly deteriorating and all Alessi wanted from Isla was her cool efficiency, which he got.

      In fact, Isla was doing her very best to keep calm.

      Wrestling with her own news, trying to fathom that she herself would, in a matter of months, be a mum, she had been checking on a newborn when she found a baby looking dusky at her mother’s breast. Isla moved the infant, hoping her breathing had just been obstructed temporarily but was silently alarmed by her colour and tone.

      ‘I’m just going to take her to the nursery,’ Isla said to Karina, the mother. ‘She’s looking a bit pale and the light is better there …’ She would have loved to speak with the mother some more but the little girl was causing Isla too much concern and she moved swiftly through the unit, glad when she saw Emily there, who instantly saw Isla’s concern.

      ‘I’ll page Alessi,’ Emily said as Isla suctioned the infant and started to deliver oxygen.

      Yes, Isla was calm and did everything right but there was this horrible new urgency there as Karina arrived in the nursery, tears streaming down her face.

      ‘She was fine!’ Karina was saying, and Isla could hear the fear, the love, the helplessness in her voice. ‘Please, help her,’ she begged as Alessi dashed in and took over.

      ‘She’s going to be fine …’

      Alessi’s calm voice caught even Isla by surprise. ‘Just a little milk that’s gone down the wrong way …’ He was rubbing the baby’s back and gently suctioning her, and thankfully she was pinking up.

      He dealt with it all very calmly, even though there was some marked concern, which he explained in more detail a little while later after some tests had been done.

      ‘As I said …’ Alessi pulled up the X-ray on his computer and went through it with the mum. ‘She has inhaled some milk and we’re going to be looking for infection, which is why I’m going to have her moved to NICU to keep a closer eye on her for a few days …’

      It had all been dealt with well yet it left Isla more shaken than it would usually, not that she showed it.

      ‘Thanks for that.’ Isla gave him a tight smile as his team went off to NICU with their latest recruit and she headed into her office, just wanting to be alone, but Alessi followed.

      ‘Shouldn’t you be with the baby?’

      ‘She’s fine,’ Alessi said. ‘Are you?’

      ‘I just got a fright,’ Isla admitted. ‘I’d just popped in to chat with Karina …’

      ‘It happens. I want to take a closer look at her palate when I’m up there. I think she might have a small cleft that’s been missed.’

      Isla just looked at him and tried to fathom that in a few months she’d be on this roller-coaster. ‘I’ll try and call you tonight,’ Alessi said, and gave her a light kiss on her lips. Isla wanted to grab his shoulders and cling to him; she wanted some of his ease and strength to somehow transfer to her, but instead she stood there and watched him leave.

      She knew she had to tell him.

      Just not yet.

      She wouldn’t say anything until she could tell him without breaking down, till she’d somehow got her head around the fact that she’d soon be a first-time mother herself.

      It was just all too much to take in, let alone share with Alessi, when she didn’t know how he’d react.

      Which meant that at nine on Friday evening, after a hellish week at work, as Alessi drove home he called Isla and got her cool voice when he needed warmth.

      He got distance when he needed to be closer.

      ‘Is it too late to come over?’ he asked.

      ‘Well, it is a bit,’ she said. ‘I’m pretty tired.’

      ‘Sure.’ Alessi forced down his irritation. He could sleep for a whole week yet he still wanted to see her. ‘Isla, I was thinking about tomorrow …’ He was just so glad the weekend was finally here.

      He had it planned.

      He was way past the flowers and dinner stage already.

      ‘How about I pick you up around six—’

      ‘I actually wanted to talk about that,’ Isla broke in. ‘I’ve just