Midwives On-Call. Alison Roberts

I will.’

      ‘But I can’t.’ He’d said it gently but inexorably, a truth he’d learned by fire.

       ‘You’re saying I need to do it alone?’

      ‘Em, think about it,’ he’d said fiercely. ‘We love each other. We’ve gone through so much …’

       ‘I want a family.’

       ‘Then I can’t give it to you. If this is the route you’re determined to take, then you’ll need to find someone who can.’

      He’d walked away, sure that when she’d settled she’d agree with him. After all, their love was absolute. But she’d never contacted him. She hadn’t answered his calls.

      Adrianna had spoken to him. ‘Oliver, she’s gutted. She knows your position. Please, leave her be to work things out for herself.’

      It had gutted him, too, that she’d walked away from their marriage without a backward glance. And here was evidence that she’d moved on. She’d found herself the life she wanted—without him.

      He reached the door, lifted his hand to the bell but as he did the door swung inwards.

      The guy opening the door was about the same age as Oliver. Oliver was tall, but this guy was taller and he was big in every sense of the word. He was wearing jeans, a ripped T-shirt and big working boots. His hands were clean but there was grease on his forearms. And on his tatts.

      He was holding a child, a little boy of about two. The child was African, Oliver guessed, Somalian maybe, as dark as night, with huge eyes. One side of his face was badly scarred. He was cradled in the guy’s arms, but he was looking outwards, brightly interested in this new arrival into his world.

      Another kid came flying through the gate behind Oliver, hurtling up the path towards them. Another little boy. Four? Ginger-haired. He looked like the guy in front of him.

      ‘Daddy, Daddy, it’s my turn on the swing,’ he yelled. ‘Come and make them give me a turn.’

      The guy scooped him up, as well, then stood, a kid tucked under each arm. He looked Oliver up and down, like a pit bull, bristling, assessing whether to attack.

      ‘Life insurance?’ he drawled. ‘Funeral-home plans? Not interested, mate.’

      ‘I’m here to see Emily.’

      ‘She’s not interested, either.’

      He was still wearing his suit. Maybe he should have changed. Maybe a tatt or two was necessary to get into this new version of his mother-in-law’s home.

      ‘I’m a friend of Em’s from the hospital.’ Who was this guy? ‘Can you tell her I’m here, please?’

      ‘She’s stuffed. She doesn’t need visitors.’ He was blocking the doorway, a great, belligerent bull of a man.

      ‘Can you ask her?’

      ‘She only has an hour at most with Gretta before the kid goes to sleep. You want to intrude on that?’

      Who was Gretta? Who was this guy?

      ‘Mike?’ Thankfully it was Em, calling from inside the house. ‘Who is it?’

      ‘Guy who says he’s a friend of yours.’ Mike didn’t take his eyes off Oliver. His meaning was clear—he didn’t trust him an inch. ‘Says he’s from the hospital. Looks like an undertaker.’

      ‘Mike?’

      ‘Yeah?’

      ‘It’ll be Oliver,’ she called, and Mike might be right about the ‘stuffed’ adjective, Oliver conceded. Her voice sounded past weariness.

      ‘Oliver?’

      ‘He’s the guy I was married to.’ Was?

      ‘Your ex is an undertaker? Sheesh, Em …’

      ‘He’s not an undertaker. He’s a surgeon.’

      ‘That’s one step before the undertaker.’

      ‘Mike?’

      ‘Yeah?’

      ‘Let him in.’

      Why didn’t Em come to the door? But Mike gave him a last long stare and stepped aside.

      ‘Right,’ he called back to Em. ‘But we’re on the swings. One yell and I’ll be here in seconds. Watch it, mate,’ he growled at Oliver, as he pushed past him and headed down the veranda with his load of kids. ‘You upset Em and you upset me—and you wouldn’t want to do that. You upset Em and you’ll be very, very sorry.’

      He knew this house. He’d been here often with Em. He’d stayed here for weeks on end when, just after they were married, Em’s dad had been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer.

      It had taken the combined skill of all of them—his medical input, Em’s nursing skill and Adrianna’s unfailing devotion—to keep Kev comfortable until the end, but at the funeral, as well as sadness there had also been a feeling that it had been the best death Kev could have asked for. Surrounded by his family, no pain, knowing he was loved …

      ‘This is how I want us to go out when we have to,’ Em had whispered to him at the graveside. ‘Thank you for being here.’

      Yeah, well, that was years ago and he hadn’t been with her for a long time now. She was a different woman.

      He walked into the kitchen and stopped dead.

      Different woman? What an understatement.

      She was sitting by Adrianna’s old kitchen range, settled in a faded rocker. Her hair was once more loose, her curls cascading to her shoulders. She had on that baggy windcheater and jeans and her feet were bare.

      She was cuddling a child. A three- or four-year-old?

      A sick child. There was an oxygen concentrator humming on the floor beside them. The child’s face was buried in Em’s shoulder, but Oliver could see the thin tube connected to the nasal cannula.

      A child this small, needing oxygen … His heart lurched. This was no ordinary domestic scene. A child this sick …

      The expression on Em’s face …

      Already he was focusing forward. Already he was feeling gutted for Em. She gave her heart …

      Once upon a time she’d given it to him, and he’d hurt her. That she be hurt again …

      This surely couldn’t be her child.

      And who was Mike?

      He’d paused in the doorway and for some reason it took courage to step forward. He had no place in this tableau. He’d walked away five years ago so this woman could have the life she wanted, and he had no right to walk back into her life now.

      But he wasn’t walking into her life. He was here to talk to her about paying for the crash.

      Right. His head could tell him that all it liked, but his gut was telling him something else entirely. Em … He’d loved her with all his heart.

      He looked at her now, tired, vulnerable, holding a child who must be desperately ill, and all he wanted was to pick her up and carry her away from hurt.

      From loving a child who wasn’t hers?

      Maybe she was hers. Maybe the in-vitro procedures had finally produced a successful outcome. But if this was her child …

      His gut was still churning, and when she turned and gave him a tiny half-smile, a tired acknowledgement that he was there, a sort of welcome, the lurch became almost sickening.

      ‘Ollie.’

      No one had called him Ollie for five years. No one dared. He’d hated the diminutive—Brett, his sort