Pregnant With Her Best Friend's Baby

This was more than a purely professional satisfaction, however. Maybe there was an echo of that ache of longing. Of the emptiness. Not in her arms that were still full of this new life but somewhere further down in Maggie’s body—in the space where a baby of her own might grow one day.

Her smile was definitely a bit wobbly as she helped Kathy move her clothing and gather her baby onto her chest.

‘He’s just gorgeous,’ Maggie murmured, stepping back to let Darren get close to his wife and baby for a few precious minutes of family bonding time as she and Joe got packed up and ready for the transfer to hospital.

Darren sounded a lot closer to tears than Maggie was. ‘Looks just like his daddy, I reckon,’ he said. ‘How ’bout that?’

Maggie checked her watch as she rapidly assessed the baby again before turning away to give this brand-new family just a moment of relative privacy. ‘Apgar score eight at five minutes,’ she told Joe.

He nodded, grinning, and then stripped off his gloves and unclipped his radio. ‘Andy? We’ll be ready to go inside ten minutes. Crank up the central heating in the cabin, we’ve got a baby to keep warm on the way home.’

Darren overheard him. ‘Will there be room for a dad in the helicopter as well?’

‘Sorry, mate.’ Joe shook his head. ‘It’s going to be a bit crowded. You’ll need to follow us by road.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Maggie added, to soften the blow. ‘We’re going to take very good care of both Kathy and the baby.’

* * *

A medical team, including Fizz Wilson, was waiting on one side of the Royal’s rooftop helipad to take over Kathy’s care as soon as they landed and lifted out the stretcher.

‘Third stage happened en route,’ Maggie told Fizz. ‘Oxytocin was administered on scene after the birth but I would estimate blood loss with the delivery of the placenta was still around three hundred mils with ongoing but slower loss now. She’s on her second litre of normal saline. Blood pressure’s one hundred and five over fifty.’

‘I feel fine,’ Kathy said. ‘Just a bit tired, that’s all.’

But Fizz took note of the low blood pressure and the urgent need to control any ongoing bleeding.

‘Let’s get moving,’ she instructed the ED staff with her. ‘Maggie, can you bring the baby, please? We’ve got a paediatric team waiting for him downstairs.’

Maggie followed Kathy’s stretcher with Joe walking beside her. ‘I could get used to this,’ she said.

‘What? Having full-on cases with successful outcomes? That’s two today.’ Joe was smiling. ‘I could get used to it, too.’

‘No... I mean this...’ Maggie looked down at the tiny sleeping face visible amongst the folds of blanket in her arms. ‘Carrying a baby around. I think I want one.’

Joe made a shuddering sound. ‘Rather you than me, mate. Hey...’ He increased his pace as the stretcher was slotted into the rooftop elevator. ‘Is there room for us in there, too?’

They squeezed in.

Fizz was right beside Maggie. She had her gaze fixed on monitor screen of the life pack, taking in as much information about Kathy’s condition as she could, but she slid a quick sideways glance at the baby a moment later.

‘Any problems?’

‘Not at all. He was a bit flat to start with but he picked up quickly. Apgar score was ten at ten minutes.’

Fizz was smiling as she turned back to her patient. ‘He’s so cute,’ she told Kathy. ‘Have you decided on a name yet?’

‘I like Aiden,’ Kathy said. ‘But Darren wants him to be Patrick, after his dad. We decided we’d wait and see what suited him more.’ She twisted her head, trying to see her baby’s face. ‘I think he looks like an Aiden, don’t you?’

Maggie smiled. ‘Aiden’s a great name.’ But so was Patrick, she thought. One of her favourite boy’s names, in fact. She wondered if Fizz and Cooper had already started discussing possible names for their baby or if they knew whether it was a girl or a boy.

The elevator doors opened again as they reached the ground floor and Fizz stayed by the head of the stretcher as it was swiftly rolled towards a resuscitation area in the emergency department. Kathy would have no idea that her doctor was pregnant, Maggie thought. And here she was, with baby Aiden or Patrick still in her arms. It was baby overload today, that was for sure.

Her head was still full of it when she and Joe finally got to take a break and sat down in the staffroom of the Aratika Rescue Base.

‘I haven’t finished the paperwork for the post-cardiac arrest case yet, let alone for the birth,’ Maggie sighed.

‘It won’t take too long,’ Joe said. ‘I’ll do the cardiac one.’

‘Because it’s half-done already?’

‘No. Because you’re the one who wants a baby. This way, you get to enjoy the case all over again.’

‘Hmm...’ Maggie shook her head. ‘It could have turned out to be not very enjoyable at all. I was so relieved the moment I felt that shoulder start to move.’

‘I’ll bet.’ Joe pulled the folder of paperwork towards him and took a pen from the pocket of his overalls. ‘Keep it in mind when you choose the father of your baby. You’re so short, it might be wise not to marry a solid, over six foot tall farmer like Kathy did.’

‘Five foot four is not short. I’m average,’ Maggie countered. ‘And I don’t even know any farmers. Or any potential baby daddies at all, in fact.’

‘They’re out there. In droves. You just haven’t been looking.’

‘That’s because I got fed up with relationships that were going nowhere fast.’

Including the one she’d been in with Richard, years ago, when Maggie had first started working at the rescue base. One that had had a promising start but had ebbed into being nothing more than flatmates. Friends. And it hadn’t been enough for either of them.

‘Maybe that’s because you go into them expecting them to be going somewhere. That can scare guys off, you know. It would scare the hell out of me, that’s for sure. In fact, it’s precisely why I’m currently single again.’

Maggie snorted. ‘It’s a baby I want. A partner would be a bonus, of course, but I’m running out of time to jump through all those hoops.’ She was only half joking. It really did feel like she was running out of time, given how many dead ends she had already come up against in the search to find someone to share her life with. ‘And who says you have to marry someone to have a baby, anyway? You might marry someone and end up being a single mother anyway—like Laura.’ Her flatmate had escaped what she suspected might have been an abusive relationship years ago when her son, Harrison, was only a tiny baby.

‘So you’re going to do the independent professional woman thing and go to a sperm bank or something?’

Maggie blinked. ‘D’you know, I hadn’t actually thought of that.’

‘Why not? You read about people doing it all the time. Especially older, professional women who choose not to get married or realise they’re running out of time. People just like you. And it seems like a great way to get a designer baby. You could practically choose its hair colour and how smart it’ll be.’ But Joe was frowning now. ‘Of course, you’re going to provide the other half of the genes so it might just come out with blonde hair and blue eyes and to be not very...’ His lips twitched.

Maggie threw her pen at him. ‘Are you trying to tell me that I’m not very smart?’

Joe had already caught the pen. ‘I was only going to say you’re not very tall.’

Maggie narrowed her eyes. ‘Not sure I believe that. And what did you mean by “something”?’

‘Huh?’

‘You said a sperm bank “or something”.’

‘Oh...’ Joe picked up his coffee cup and took a swallow. ‘You could just pick someone you liked the look of, I guess, lay on the charm and lure them home and hope that he’s not too careful about birth control.’

‘Joe... How irresponsible would that be?’

‘Irresponsible on the part of the guy, that’s true.’ Joe shook his head. ‘I’d never relinquish that responsibility.’

‘I couldn’t get pregnant and not tell someone that they were going to be a father. That’s just not right.’

‘I guess.’ Joe was focussing on the paperwork in front of him now. ‘Do what I read about a gay couple doing recently, then. The women asked one of their good friends and he agreed to be the donor. He said he wanted them to have their family and he was happy to be a kind of uncle but never wanted to be a father.’

They both concentrated on the paperwork for a while but, even as Maggie filled in the precise details relating to the obstetric case that was clearly going to be the last job for their shift today, another line of thought was ticking along somewhere in the background of her brain.

Thoughts about sperm banks. How easy was it to get accepted for treatment and how expensive it might be. And how it worked. Did you have a wish list of things to tick off, like physical characteristics of height and hair colour or evidence of intelligence such as a university qualification? What about more important attributes like whether someone could make you laugh or how kind he was?

Thoughts about the other things Joe had suggested circled in her mind, too. Randomly picking some guy with the intention of seducing him and possibly lying about being on birth control was not an acceptable option but...but the idea of using a co-operative friend, now that was interesting...

* * *

So interesting that it was the only thing Maggie was thinking about as she kicked her bike into life and threaded her way through the city traffic not long after her conversation with Joe.

By the time she was getting into bed that night, it had started to feel like it was her own idea.

And, out of all the men she knew, there was only one that stood out as a perfect possibility.

Joe Wallace.

The thought of broaching the subject was a bit nerve-racking. Enough so to keep Maggie awake for quite some time. On the positive side, he’d had a half-smile on his face when he’d said ‘rather you than me’ when she’d been holding Kathy’s baby, and had said she wanted one as well, so maybe he was on the same page as that co-operative friend he’d told her about—who didn’t want to become a father but was happy to be a kind of uncle.

On the other side of that coin, however, was the fact that she’d be stepping into a realm that had never been there with Joe and that was why their friendship was so solid. They’d both been in long-term relationships when they’d first met as colleagues. By the time they were single, they were already good friends and Maggie had learned the hard way that friendship was not enough to base a long-term relationship on. Joe was off limits and he clearly felt exactly the same way and that had never been a problem. But baby-making, no matter how you ended up actually doing it, had everything to do with sex and even the thought of opening that conversation with Joe was enough to make Maggie blush.

But it wasn’t enough to make her dismiss what seemed to be a perfect plan. As she drifted off to sleep Maggie’s thoughts were tumbling, interwoven with memories that went back so far they were no more than misty glimpses. She’d had an old-fashioned child-sized pram when she was very little and she would cram every doll and teddy bear she owned into that pram and wheel it everywhere.

My babies, she would tell everyone.

When she was older she had her fashion dolls that gave her a mother and father figure and she would add smaller dolls as their children. Lots and lots of children because that was what made a ‘real’ family. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been happy and loved as an only child, it was just that she knew it was a case of the more the merrier. Her parents had desperately wanted more children and had been sad that it hadn’t happened but it hadn’t dented the rock-solid love they shared. They would be the best grandparents ever.

That was something else that Maggie wanted, of course. A relationship that was as perfect a match as her parents’ one was. The ‘love at first sight’ whirlwind romance like the one they’d told her about so many times and starting a life together that would get better and better as they got older. It wasn’t that Maggie hadn’t found the ‘love at first sight’ type of thing, it was just that any whirlwind romance eventually crashed and burned and she’d been let down so many times that, for the moment at least, she was giving up.

That desire for a family of her own had never vanished, though. In the last moments before sleep claimed Maggie, she could feel the intensity of that longing that morphed from a pram full of beloved toys to the feeling of holding a real, live baby in her arms, as she’d done today.

* * *

There was something a bit weird happening.

Joe couldn’t put his finger on it but, as the day wore on, he wondered if it was because Maggie seemed even bouncier than normal. More enthusiastic. More...smiley...

Several times, he caught her opening her mouth as if she was about to say something and then snapping it shut and throwing herself into whatever task she was doing on their downtime, like reading a journal article or washing up some dishes. It wasn’t until they were in the locker room, when their shift had finished, that Joe finally gave up. The way Maggie was looking at him felt like the heat of a laser in the middle of his back as he pulled what he needed from his locker.

He turned his head. ‘You’ve been staring at me all day. What’s going on?’

‘Sorry...’ Maggie smiled brightly at him. ‘There’s something I wanted to ask you, that’s all. I was...um...waiting for the best moment.’

‘Now’s good.’ Joe smiled back. If Maggie wanted a favour, then he was her man. Always. ‘Shoot.’

‘Um...’ She was fishing in her locker, putting things into a shoulder bag. Her voice sounded as if she was trying hard to keep it casual. ‘It’s about what you said. Yesterday. When I was talking about wanting a baby?’

‘What did I say?’ Joe tried to think back. ‘Oh...you mean about sperm banks?’

‘No...’ Maggie’s hands stilled. ‘About asking a friend.’

‘Oh...’ He liked that she’d liked his idea. It was always great to find a solution to a mate’s problem. ‘Glad I could help.’ He unhooked his jacket from the back of his locker. ‘So who’s the lucky guy, then?’ He raised an eyebrow in Maggie’s direction when she didn’t answer. ‘Your potential baby daddy? Is it Jack?’

‘Jack’s my flatmate. How awkward would that be?’

‘Don?’

‘Shh...’ Maggie threw a glance over her shoulder, checking that they were still alone in the locker room. Her cheeks had reddened even at the idea of their boss being involved.

‘Who, then?’

He could see the way Maggie swallowed hard, as if what she was about to say was terribly important. He could see how wide her eyes were as well. Shining with something that looked very like hope. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as they rose.

‘You, Joe,’ she whispered. ‘You’re the person I’d choose out of everybody I’ve ever known.’

He should have seen it coming, perhaps, but he hadn’t and it hit him like a steam train. The blast of remembering what it was like to be a child that hadn’t been wanted. The absolute determination to never, ever be on the other side of that coin—the father who hadn’t wanted that child.

Joe could feel the colour draining out of his face. He could see the reflection of his own horror in Maggie’s eyes. She knew she’d made a terrible mistake but she had no idea how to go about fixing it. He could solve this problem. Just make a joke and brush it off.

Except he couldn’t. The words had been said and couldn’t be unsaid and they had touched such a very deep chord within him. The idea of him casually—deliberately—fathering a child was hanging in the air between them. Totally abhorrent. Totally unacceptable. Joe couldn’t begin to find any words to let Maggie know just how shocked he was but maybe he didn’t need to. She was looking rather pale herself.

Embarrassed. Mortified, even.

For once, Joe had no inclination to make her feel any better. He shook his head, slammed his locker door shut and was walking out as if it was simply an ordinary end to their run of days working together.

‘See ya,’ he muttered, without meeting her gaze. ‘Enjoy your days off.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘WOW...CHECK YOU OUT, Maggie. You’re wearing a dress...’

‘Hi, Jack... Yeah, I know... I’m just trying to decide if I want to keep it.’

Maggie had spent half her afternoon off today shopping for something suitable to wear to a wedding but it felt very odd having all this loose fabric brushing against her lower legs. Just how long had it been since she’d tapped into her feminine side and worn a dress instead of her uniform or jeans or the leather pants she wore for protection when she rode her beloved Harley-Davidson sportster motorbike with its sky-blue fuel tank and mudguards?

She turned back to where their other flatmate, Laura, was sitting on the couch, Harrison snuggled up beside her. They were both staring at her thoughtfully so she did a bit of a twirl, one way and then the other. That was enough to make her wonder how long it had been since she’d been anywhere near a dance floor. At least a year, she decided. About when her last relationship had faded into oblivion after a few months had made it obvious it should never have got going in the first place. That ‘love at first sight’ wasn’t to be trusted. Maggie stifled a sigh.

‘So...what do you think?’

‘It’s perfect,’ Laura pronounced. ‘That blue is exactly the same colour as your eyes and I love the little daisy print. Very summery.’ She ruffled her son’s hair. ‘What do you think, Harry? Doesn’t Maggie look pretty? Isn’t it fun that we’re all going to get dressed up for the wedding tomorrow?’

Harry wrinkled his nose. ‘I don’t want to get dressed up.’

‘You don’t have to get really dressed up. It’s not a fancy wedding where you might have to wear a suit, but you have got an important job to do. You get to carry the rings.’

‘I’d get dressed up,’ Jack told him, ‘if I could go. I’d wear my very best jeans and a shirt.’

‘A T-shirt?’

‘No, a real shirt. With buttons. Maybe even a tie.’

‘Why can’t you go?’

‘I wish I could but I have to work, buddy. Someone has to be ready to go up in a helicopter or off on a bike and look after the people who get sick or injured.’

And Jack probably hadn’t even tried to juggle his roster to take time off. He’d only recently succeeded in winning one of the hotly contested paramedic jobs on the rescue base and his excitement was still palpable.

‘Who were you crewed with today?’ Laura asked. ‘I didn’t see anyone from Aratika come into Emergency during my shift.’

‘It was a really quiet day. Joe and I got a bit bored, to be honest. And we ate far too many of Shirley’s cookies. I’m meeting him at the gym as soon as I’ve collected my gear to try and burn some that sugar load off.’

‘How come Joe was working?’ Maggie asked. ‘He’s on the same roster as me.’

‘He was covering for Adam, who called in sick. Food poisoning or some kind of gastro bug. I hope he’s back on deck tomorrow. Joe said he could come in again but he wouldn’t want to miss the wedding.’

‘No...’ But Maggie could hear the doubtful note in her own voice.

Maybe Joe had a reason that meant he wouldn’t be too upset to miss the wedding. Or rather, to miss having to spend any time with Maggie.

She hadn’t seen him since the last shift they had worked together. Since that awful moment when she’d made the cringeworthy mistake of telling him that she wanted him to father a baby for her.

‘I reckon if Cooper had decided to have a best man, it would have been Joe,’ Jack added.

‘Yes,’ Laura agreed. ‘And then Maggie would have been a bridesmaid for Fizz.’

Thank goodness their friends weren’t going down such a traditional format for their wedding. How awkward could that have been, with everyone they worked with watching them? Someone would have picked up on the odd vibe between the best man and the bridesmaid and maybe asked what the problem was, which would have only ramped up this odd tension.

There hadn’t been any chance to try and convince Joe that the notion of him being a sperm donor had only been a joke because the night shift crew had been outside chatting to their pilot as Maggie had followed behind Joe, who had got into his car and simply driven past, with a casual wave. Maggie had texted him later with what seemed a slightly awkward attempt to tell him he had nothing to worry about but the response had been a terse ‘Forget about it, I already have’, which didn’t quite ring true.

It was probably unfortunate that their days off had meant they hadn’t had to work together the following day. It would have been so much easier to brush off and genuinely forget about it if they hadn’t both had a couple of days to think about it.

Because Maggie was quite sure that Joe would have been thinking about it, even if it wasn’t filling his mind to quite the same extent as it was hers. Who wouldn’t have to give it some thought, when confronted by something you would never have expected your friend to come out with? Something that had clearly shocked him. She couldn’t text him again, either, because that would be making it into a bigger thing than it actually was. All they needed was to be in the same space, an opportunity to make a joke about it and then they could go back to the way things had always been—a friendship that made it possible to work and socialise together and to always feel perfectly safe.

‘Anyway...’ Maggie pasted a bright smile on her face. ‘Even though I’m not a bridesmaid, I think I will wear a dress. This dress.’

‘Good choice.’ Laura encouraged Harrison to slide off the couch but kept hold of his hand as she got up. ‘Want to help Mummy decide what she’s going to wear?’

‘I’m tired...’ Harrison was climbing back onto the couch. ‘Can I watch TV?’

‘I’ll help Mummy choose,’ Maggie offered. ‘Let’s both go girly with pretty dresses. How often do we get the chance to do that?’

‘Almost never,’ Laura said. She was smiling now, too. ‘It’s going to be a great day,’ she added. ‘I can’t wait.’

Maggie had to stop herself crossing her fingers, the way she used to when she was a kid and believed that the gesture excused you if you were about to tell an outright lie.

‘Me, too.’

* * *

‘You’re a brave man, Cooper Sinclair.’

‘Why is that, Joe?’ His colleague was grinning. ‘Because I’m taking the plunge and getting married?’

‘Nah... You’re on a hilltop in famously windy Wellington and you’re wearing a skirt.’

It was more than a hilltop. They were actually standing on the top of a cliff, with a spectacular view of the sea and islands through the archway that would frame the ceremony due to begin shortly. And, yes, while it was a gloriously sunny day, the currents of air were enough to be stirring the hemline of the kilt Cooper was wearing.

Cooper snorted. ‘What else would a Scotsman wear for the happiest day of his life?’ He wasn’t looking at Joe, however. His gaze was fixed on the Castle Cliff resort buildings and he obviously couldn’t wait to catch the first glimpse of his bride coming to meet him. He glanced at his watch then—a nervous gesture that was completely out of character.

‘It’s time...’

‘I’d better find a seat, then.’ Joe left his friend standing alone and headed for the far side of the last row of white seats that had been arranged in a semi-circle facing the archway. He wasn’t at all bothered that the first rows were already full of settled guests. He was happy to be attending this celebration but he didn’t want to be too close to the action. Weddings made him a little nervous, too. Didn’t Cooper and Fizz realise what a huge risk they were taking? How high the chances were that it wasn’t going to turn out to be happy-ever-after? And they had decided to get married because there was a baby on the way. Not that he was going to say anything but it felt a bit close to a death knell to Joe.