Heart Of Courage. Sue MacKay

       CHAPTER SIX

      THE TEMPERATURES FINALLY EASED, for which Sophie was grateful. The heat had been all-consuming. By the time she boarded the air force plane bound for home she was almost sorry to be leaving.

      ‘Thanks for everything you’ve done for me,’ she told Alistair as she stepped up to kiss his cheek. ‘You’ve been a pal.’

      He wrapped her in a bear hug. ‘Keep me posted on junior, and take care of yourself. I want a photo as soon as she arrives.’

      ‘You’ll get one.’

      She was surprised to see his eyes glistening before he turned away to Cooper and said, ‘Hey, man.’

      Sophie watched them do the man hug and thump on the back thing, and almost laughed out loud. Guys. These two were close. She’d been a part of their camaraderie over the past few days, going with them to the pub for dinner twice. Theirs was an easy friendship grown out of hard times during active duty. She’d have liked that with someone. The closest friend she’d made in the army was Kelly, and she’d missed her every day since she’d been evacuated from Bamiyan.

      ‘Come on, let’s get on board the tin can.’ Cooper took her elbow.

      Sophie promptly pulled free. ‘I’m not an invalid,’ she said, but there was no annoyance in her words. She seemed to have run out of steam since her collapse on parade. Learning about the diabetes had knocked her sideways too, and made her ultra-careful about everything she ate.

      ‘But you are proud.’ Cooper grinned. ‘Don’t want anyone to see you being helped up that ramp, do you?’

      She glanced across the shimmering tarmac to the plane. ‘It’s not Everest.’ Not quite. When she got home she was not going to go for power walks ever again. Neither would she do press-ups or sit-ups or take up running once her baby was born. She was so over exercise. Though she did quite like her sculpted figure—if it was still there.

      The aircraft interior was stifling. Sweat prickled her back instantly. ‘Can you leave the ramp open on the flight?’ she asked the young girl overseeing the last crates being loaded.

      ‘No, Captain. That would be dangerous.’

      ‘Fair enough.’ She laughed and turned away from the serious face staring at her as though she was crazy.

      Cooper led the way to two empty bucket seats. ‘These’ll do. I’ll stow our rucksacks.’

      Kick. Laying her hand on the spot, she rubbed. Kick.

      We’re going home, sweetheart.

      Home. A foreign word in her vocabulary. Home was apparently where the heart was. So whatever flat or apartment she rented, her heart would be there for her baby. She hadn’t experienced making a home for herself, had usually rented a room in a house filled with colleagues and got on with working until the next trip. As for furniture and kitchen utensils, there was a lot of shopping coming up.

      It wasn’t easy lowering her butt all the way down to the seat almost on the floor.

      ‘Hey.’ Cooper was there, holding her elbow to prevent her from sprawling on her face.

      ‘Thanks.’ Kick, kick. ‘I think little miss is aware we’re off on an adventure. She’s not letting me forget her.’ As long as she didn’t decide to make her grand entrance in mid-air. Shoving aside that fear, she asked herself if that would make her daughter an Australian or a Kiwi.

      ‘What’s causing that confused look on your face?’ Cooper asked.

      ‘When did you last deliver a baby?’ Why had she asked? It wasn’t what she’d been thinking at all, and she didn’t really want to know the answer if Cooper hadn’t delivered for a long time.

      ‘A while ago.’ He still sounded confident, but he’d been a surgeon for four years and surgeons always sounded confident.

      ‘Define a while.’

      ‘Sophie, are you having pains? We can get off now, but you’ll have to be quick. We’re due to take off in five.’ He started to get out of his seat.

      ‘Easy,’ she gave back to him. ‘Just passing the time with inane conversation.’ But all her fingers were crossed. Having a baby on the plane, surrounded with air force personnel, was not her idea of fun. Probably wasn’t Cooper’s either, she realised as she shifted her butt to get comfortable.

      Behave, little one.

      * * *

      Cooper held his breath all the way across Australia and the Tasman Sea, not letting it out until the west coast of New Zealand came into sight. Even if the ridiculous happened and Sophie started labour now they’d be on the ground within a very short time and there’d an ambulance and midwives and a hospital in case their baby needed special attention.

      But even as those thoughts zipped through his head he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be there when his daughter was delivered. He crossed his fingers he wasn’t tempting fate. Sophie would hate to have her baby thirty thousand feet up in the air surrounded with people she’d never met before. She’d also intimated she wasn’t having him anywhere close during the birth. Somehow he had to persuade her to change her mind.

      Shock jerked him. Being at the birth would be very intimate. She’d told him a friend was planning on being there for her. That irked. He should be there. He’d got her pregnant, hadn’t denied his role, so surely he could see it through to the end? The more Cooper thought about it the more he knew he had to be at the birth. Would it make her more comfortable with his presence if he promised to stay at the top end of the bed? He’d hold her hands and give her water, wipe her brow. Yeah, right. He’d never make a good nurse. But this was Sophie. A woman he was beginning to treasure: to care for as a special friend.

      Friends didn’t have the kind of hot sex he’d been imagining with Sophie every night in his room at Darwin.

      ‘You’d finally relaxed, and now you’re all tense again. What’s up? Are we nearly home?’ Sophie mumbled against his chest, where she’d been sleeping for the last couple of hours.

      ‘There’s land beneath us.’ His arm had gone numb ages ago, but he hadn’t moved in case he woke her. Those grey smudges under her eyes had been a dead giveaway. She was exhausted. Which meant she was in no shape to take a taxi home to her parents’ and deal with explaining her situation. As far as he knew, they weren’t expecting her, which could add to her problems, given there wasn’t a strong bond between them all. Neither did they know they were about to become grandparents.

      Nor did his father. Cooper was saving that for when they got together over a beer and played catch up. The old man would be okay with it. Might even be ecstatic. Then again he might roar with laughter and ask what Cooper had been thinking to get a woman pregnant. The straight answer was there hadn’t been any thinking going on at the time.

      Sophie sat up and stretched her legs in