Baby for the Midwife. Fiona McArthur
and your uncle trusted me enough to marry his only daughter off to me.’
That part sounded acceptable.
Then she saw Max’s big square, ostentatious, boy’s toy shiny black Hummer parked outside the door and she shook her head. ‘You’re just a kid with your ego.’
Max patted the bonnet of the huge all-terrain vehicle. ‘Cool, isn’t it? At least I get my baby dirty when I go offroad.’
‘Where’s your chauffeur?’
‘He has other jobs. I don’t use that car often. It belongs to my mother.’
She sniffed and looked again at the vehicle. ‘Does your baby have an infant capsule?’
He smirked. ‘Now she does.’
She looked at him. ‘When did you get the time to organise that?’
‘The capsule belongs to Maternity and I promised I’d have it back tomorrow.’
‘You have connections.’
‘I’m one big connection, but to answer your question…’ He paused and looked her full in the face. ‘You trust me with Elsa, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then you can trust me with you as well.’
She had no answer for that.
MAX and Georgia’s wedding was simple, at the registry office, and the only guests were Max’s housekeeper and Harry.
It was done two days later, as soon as the licence came through, and Georgia didn’t wear feathers.
As she stood beside her new husband and watched him sign the marriage certificate, she realised how little she knew about this man. And yet even in the last forty-eight hours he had shown a kindness and sensitivity that brought tears to her eyes. Hormones again, of course, but nonetheless Max was a darling and even Elsa liked him.
Goodness knew what he had told Harry, but her uncle had nothing good to say about Sol and kept patting her on the shoulder. What could have been horribly awkward as they arranged their hurried wedding and transfer north proved an amusing and relaxed time, thanks to Max.
They moved north to Coffs Harbour straight after the ceremony.
Living with Max was an experience. Where Sol had been obsessive about cleanliness and order, Max was oblivious and gloriously extravagant.
He thought nothing of dropping towels by the pool, having his St Bernard in the house, and arriving with an enormous bunch of bananas to hang on the veranda.
Thankfully he had an eccentric housekeeper, Mrs White, who adored him and didn’t mind.
For the first six weeks of Elsa’s life, Max ensured that Georgia had little to do except be there for her baby, eat well-cooked meals provided by the amazing Mrs White, and sleep in between attending to Elsa’s needs.
Thank goodness, because Elsa roared and screamed and barely slept with colic for most of that time, and Georgia shuddered when she thought of how it would have been if she’d had to manage a household as well.
The first night Elsa had screamed, Max had just come in from an emergency Caesarean at two a.m. and Georgia had been down in the kitchen to try Elsa with some boiled water in a bottle.
Max had found Georgia nightie-clad and barefoot, her thick hair pushed distractedly behind her ears, and every time Elsa had emitted a tiny broken sob he’d seen it had torn at her mother’s heart.
‘Give her to me.’ He held out his hands and he saw the way she hesitated. It was amazing how much that hurt. ‘I do know about babies, you know.’
‘Of course you do.’ She passed Elsa over and he hated her hesitation to trust him.
Distraught and exhausted, Georgia looked at her wits’ end and Max just wanted to hug her.
Georgia ran her fingers through her hair. ‘But so do I! I know more about babies than you,’ she said, and there was a break in her voice. ‘But it’s not working!’
Baby Elsa felt tense and coiled with pain in his arms, and he saw why being unable to comfort her daughter would upset Georgia so badly.
She watched him like a hawk as he cupped her baby’s head in his hands and rested her body on his forearms. Then he propped her bottom against his stomach so that she was folded with her legs up his chest. He’d seen the midwives carry babies this way at night when they had pain. When Elsa stopped crying, Georgia rolled her eyes.
‘Typical,’ she said, and he couldn’t help the smirk.
‘See.’
‘Hmmm.’ She crossed to the sink and filled a glass with water. ‘You can hold her while I have two headache tablets for the damage caused by the last two hours.’
‘Have a hot chocolate. I’ll join you. Little missy here looks like she wants to sleep.’
Georgia sniffed. ‘She inherited it from her mother, who also wants to sleep.’ Georgia literally drooped in front of him and his need to comfort her returned. Normally she was so efficient, he actually admired her more for being human.
‘Forget the chocolate. Why don’t you grab a couple of hours’ rest? I imagine you’ve not long fed her so she’ll probably sleep until morning if the pain leaves her alone. I can bring her back to you when she wakes up.’
‘You’ve been up all night and you have to work tomorrow.’ he saw the struggle with the concept of leaving her baby with him.
‘Tomorrow is Saturday and I’m only on call.’ He watched her rub her forehead as she tried to concentrate.
‘Saturday. So it is.’ She smiled wearily and he felt his gut contract at her vulnerability.
The more he saw of her the more he just wanted to pull her into his arms and protect her from her own stubborn, independent self. And a few other things crossed his mind like freight trains, but he wasn’t going there.
The last things she needed from him were pressure and lust, and he’d promised himself he would leave her to heal the deep wounds left by her former husband for at least the year.
He didn’t know if he’d last that long but he was going to damn well try, if it killed him.
By the time Elsa was smiling and cooing at two months Georgia felt as if she’d lived in Max’s wonderful house for ever—but it wasn’t the real world.
She saw very little of Max, though, except when he appeared in the early hours to give her a break if Elsa was having a bad night. Even at those times she was usually so exhausted she just handed Elsa over and crashed into her bed so she felt that she knew less about him than she had when they’d first met.
He was unfailingly polite, wonderful with Elsa considering he had no real experience of babies apart from helping them into the world, and provided the safest haven a woman in need could wish for.
The disconcerting thing about Max for Georgia was the speed with which he seemed to disappear. She knew he was busy at work but she wondered if that, in fact, accounted for his hurry to get away. She really would have liked to have seen more of him.
In the tenth week Georgia had had enough of being the lady of leisure and Max’s avoidance techniques had begun to irk her.
On the day it all changed, she wandered into the kitchen in search of Mrs White while Max was away at work. She found another potato peeler to help with the vegetables and prepared her assault. ‘What time will Max be home tonight, Mrs White?’
Mrs White, who would not be diverted from calling Georgia Mrs Beresford, or allow Georgia to call her Miriam, was a little round woman who, despite