Midwives On-Call. Alison Roberts

her pregnancy. ‘I’ve never had a sexual relationship with anyone. Till you.’

      ‘You’re telling me that our night together was your first?’ He shook his head, not so much in disbelief but that night he had felt her burn in his arms, the sex between them had been so good, so natural. ‘You should have told me,’ he said. ‘You must have been so nervous …’

      ‘No,’ she refuted. ‘I was always scared before, I wasn’t that night.’

      ‘Scared of what, Isla?’

      ‘I don’t really know,’ she admitted. ‘I thought I was scared of getting pregnant but I don’t feel scared. Something happened when I was twelve … She closed her eyes. ‘I can’t tell you.’

      ‘I think you have to.’

      ‘I can’t tell you because it’s not my secret to share, it didn’t happen to me.’

      ‘Whatever happened affected you, though,’ Alessi said. ‘What would you tell one of your patients?’

      ‘To talk to someone.’

      ‘So talk to me.’

      ‘My sister.’ Isla gulped in a breath as panic hit. ‘Please, never say …’

      ‘I would never do that.’

      That much she knew.

      ‘When I was twelve I heard her …’ Isla let out a breath. ‘She had a baby, I think it was about eighteen weeks …’

      ‘You think?’

      ‘I didn’t know at the time,’ Isla said. ‘I delivered him. Isabel begged me not to say anything but I got our housekeeper, Evie. She took us to a hospital … It was all dealt with, our parents never found out … I promised never to tell.’

      ‘You’re not telling me about Isabel,’ Alessi said. ‘I don’t need the details about her, I need to know what happened to you and what you went through.’

      And so she told him, and Alessi watched as the supremely confident, always cool Isla simply collapsed in tears as she released the weight of her secret.

      He held her as she spoke and then, as the tears subsided, Isla lay there and looked up at him and found out how it felt not to be alone.

      ‘No more secrets,’ Alessi said.

      ‘I know.’

      ‘You could have told me … And then he stopped. ‘I guess you had to trust me.’

      ‘I should have told you that night,’ Isla said, ‘because I trusted you then, Alessi, or I wouldn’t have slept with you …’ She looked at the smile on his face and frowned. ‘What’s funny?’

      ‘Not funny,’ Alessi said. ‘I guess that means that the baby’s mine.’

      ‘Of course—’ Isla started, and then halted. Of course he would have had doubts, he would have been doing the frantic maths. Not once had it entered her head that he might wonder if the baby was his, but of course it must have been there for him. ‘You loved me, even when you didn’t know that the baby was yours …’

      ‘Isla, I love you, full stop. We’d have worked it out, whoever the father was.’

      He loved her. Isla accepted it then.

      ‘Marry me?’ Alessi said.

      ‘Try and stop me.’ Isla smiled. ‘Can we not tell anyone about the baby yet, though? I want to keep it to ourselves for a little while.’

      ‘And me,’ Alessi said.

      ‘We’ve only being going out for a few weeks …’

      ‘Oh, no,’ Alessi said, and took her in his arms. ‘I’ve been crazy about you since the night I first met you and I was right that night …’ He gave her a slightly wicked smile of triumph. ‘You did want me.’

      ‘I did,’ Isla said, blushing at the memory. ‘God, I’ve wasted so much time.’

      ‘I wouldn’t change a thing about us, Isla. You know there is another saying, Isla, “Ki’taxa vathia’ mes sta ma’tia sou ke i’da to me’llon mas”.’

      ‘What does it mean?’

      ‘It means I looked deep into your eyes and I saw our future. That was what happened on the night we first met and that is what is happening now. You are my future, Isla.’

      ‘And you are mine.’

      They had a past, they had the future and, Isla knew as Alessi kissed her, they were for ever together now.

      ******

Meant-To-Be Family

       Dear Reader,

      For me, there’s no more powerful emotion than witnessing the miracle of birth. As a kid on a farm, birth never ceased to leave me amazed and awed, and that feeling’s stayed with me all my life. So when I was asked to contribute to the Midwives On-Call anthology I jumped at the chance.

      But my heroine has fertility issues, and as I wrote, these questions drifted through my writing—what makes a parent? What makes love? Five years ago grief drove my hero and heroine apart. How much love does it take to bring them back together?

      The midwives of Melbourne Victoria Hospital are a tight-knit team, facing the complexities of birth and love—and sometimes grief and loss—as part of their working day world. Life and death, love and joy—they’re what matters. In the Melbourne Maternity Unit we see those emotions every time our midwives walk through the door, so it’s only fitting that my lovers can finally find the power to love again.

      Families take many forms. I hope you love the crazy, mixed-up bunch of loving that my Oliver and my Emily end up with.

      Enjoy!

       Marion

      With thanks to my fellow authors who’ve helped make this Midwives On-Call series fabulous. A special thank-you to Alison Roberts, for her friendship, her knowledge and her generosity in sharing, and to Fiona McArthur, whose midwife skills leave me awed.

       CHAPTER ONE

      LATE. LATE, LATE, LATE. This was the third morning this week. Her boss would have kittens.

      Not that Isla was in the mood to be angry, Em thought, as she swiped her pass at the car-park entry. The head midwife for Melbourne’s Victoria Hospital had hardly stopped smiling since becoming engaged. She and her fiancé had been wafting around the hospital in a rosy glow that made Em wince.

      Marriage. ‘Who needs it?’ she demanded out loud, as she swung her family wagon through the boom gates and headed for her parking spot on the fifth floor. She should apply for a lower spot—she always seemed to be running late—but her family wagon needed more space than the normal bays. One of the Victoria’s obstetricians rode a bike. He was happy to park his Harley to one side of his bay, so this was the perfect arrangement.

      Except it was on the fifth floor—and she was late again.

      The car in front of her was slow going up the ramp. Come on … She should have been on the wards fifteen minutes ago. But Gretta had been sick. Again.

      Things were moving too fast. She needed to take the little girl back to the cardiologist, but the last time she’d taken her, he’d said