Special Deliveries: Her Gift, His Baby: Secrets of a Career Girl / For the Baby's Sake / A Very Special Delivery. Carol Marinelli

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       CHAPTER TWELVE

      ‘YOU DIDN’T SAY that?’ Kate grimaced. ‘God, Ethan.’

      ‘I can’t believe I said it.’ The once laid-back Ethan had his head in his hands as Kate grilled him further.

      ‘What did she do?’

      His look said it all because Penny had said the F word again, quite a few times, as she’d kicked him out.

      ‘I’m not saying you have to tiptoe around her, but honestly, Ethan, it is the most awful time. Carl and I never row, but we have every time I’ve been on IVF, and if he’d said that …’ Kate let out a long, angry sigh that told Ethan her reaction would have perhaps been as volatile as Penny’s.

      ‘I can understand you’d be upset if Carl said it, but I didn’t mean it like that,’ Ethan said. ‘I meant …’ He stopped talking then.

      ‘What?’ his sister pushed.

      ‘That I can barely get my head around a long-term relationship and having kids of my own, let alone going out with someone who was pregnant with someone else’s child. When I said it was for the best I just meant that at least now we had a chance.’

      ‘You need to tell her that.’

      ‘You’ve met her,’ Ethan told his twin. ‘She’s the most difficult, complicated …’ And there it was, she was everything he wanted, the one woman who could possibly hold his attention. And she was still holding it fully on her first day back at work.

      Penny was wearing a grey skirt with her cream sleeveless blouse but she’d lost weight around her hips and maybe he was a bit of a caveman because he wanted to insist she take some proper time off and haul her to his bed, and feed her and have sex with her and then watch late-night shows in his dark bedroom while she slept, while she healed. He wanted to take care of her. Instead, he had to stand and watch as she nitpicked her way through the department, upsetting everyone. Any minute soon he was going to have to step in.

      ‘Why hasn’t his blood pressure been done?’ Her voice carried over the resuscitation room. Penny was checking the obs chart on her patient. She had ordered observations to be taken every fifteen minutes and when she saw that they hadn’t been done for half an hour she called out to Vanessa.

      ‘It has been done,’ Vanessa said, taking the chart. ‘Sorry, Penny, I just didn’t write it down. It was one-eighty over ninety.’

      ‘Which means nothing if it isn’t written down.’ Penny held her breath and told herself to calm down, but she’d told Vanessa about this a few times. ‘You have to document.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘Then why don’t you do it?’ Penny said, and as she walked off, she was aware that Ethan was behind her. He tapped her smartly on the shoulder but she ignored him.

      ‘Stop taking it out on the nurses.’

      ‘I’m not,’ Penny said. ‘What’s the point of Vanessa knowing the patient is hypertensive and not telling me or even writing it down? If he strokes out—’

      ‘Penny.’ He knew all that, knew that she was right, but he could see the dark shadows under her eyes and could feel her tense and too thin under his hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry for what I said.’

      ‘I don’t want to discuss that.’

      ‘Tough.’ She had marched to her office and Ethan had followed and stood with his back to the door. ‘I said the wrong thing. I say the wrong thing a lot apparently.’

      ‘You said how you felt.’

      ‘How could I have when I don’t even know how I feel?’ Ethan couldn’t contain it any longer and to hell with lousy timing, it had been lousy timing for him as well. ‘I’m sorry that I didn’t arrive in your life with a fully packed nappy bag, ready to be a father to another man’s child.’ Penny closed her eyes. ‘Instead, I walked in on the end of a huge life decision you’d made.’

      ‘I didn’t make it lightly.’

      ‘But I was supposed to,’ Ethan said. ‘I was supposed to be fine with it, delighted that you were pregnant, and for you I was, just not for us!’

      And she was just so bruised and raw and angry and lost she didn’t know how to respond anymore.

      ‘Just leave it.’

      ‘How can I leave it?’ Ethan demanded. ‘Because I’m trying to sort the two of us out and you’re talking about going for it again.’

      ‘No, I’m not.’

      Today, Ethan wanted to add, but just stood there, trying to hold on to his temper, because only a low-life would have a row with a woman going through this. ‘Okay, let’s just leave it,’ Ethan said, ‘but I will not have you taking it out on the nurses. СКАЧАТЬ