The Doctors’ Baby Bond Read online

  ‘This evening I’m going to take you out, just the two of us, to say thank you.’

  She blinked. ‘What for?’

  ‘Being there for Jonathan…and me. You’ve cared for my precious nephew, filled the empty slot in the practice and brought some light into my life.’

  ‘It’s you that’s brought light into my life,’ she protested.

  He was laughing as he held her close. ‘We’ll not argue about it. Sufficient to say we’ve both benefited.’ And, bending his head, he kissed her lightly on the brow.

  Andrina became still. There had been little physical contact between them until now, but at the touch of his lips she was so aware of him that she barely heard Jonathan start to remind them that he wanted his breakfast.

  She was drowning in Drew’s blue gaze, longing for him to kiss her on the mouth. As if he read her mind she saw warmth kindle in the eyes looking into hers and held her breath.

  Abigail Gordon loves to write about the fascinating combination of medicine and romance from her home in a Cheshire village. She is active in local affairs and is even called upon to write the script for the annual village pantomime!

  Her eldest son is a hospital manager and helps with all her medical research. As part of a closeknit family, she treasures having two of her sons living close by and the third one not too far away. This also gives her the added pleasure of being able to watch her delightful grandchildren growing up.

  Recent titles by the same author:

  THE SURGEON’S FAMILY WISH

  THE POLICE SURGEON’S RESCUE

  THE GP’S SECRET

  IN-FLIGHT EMERGENCY

  THE PREGNANT POLICE SURGEON

  THE NURSE’S CHILD

  FIRE RESCUE

  THE DOCTORS’ BABY BOND

  BY

  ABIGAIL GORDON

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  AT LAST golden lashes were drooping onto tiny cheeks and Andrina gave a sigh of relief. Just as she’d thought she was getting her act together after a month of sleepless nights, interminable feeds and domestic chaos, the little one in her arms had reminded her that complacency was not on the agenda in their present circumstances.

  He’d had a digestive upset that had made him fretful and restless and only now did the discomfort seem to be subsiding. She’d sent for the doctor, feeling that another opinion besides her own was needed, and had been reassured when told that it should clear up satisfactorily if the baby was given just water for a few hours. But during that time there had been hungry protests from the small patient and she’d cuddled him constantly through the night until sleep had come.

  As she laid him in his cot Andrina was conscious of the mess around her. The sink was full of dirty pots, her own bed was unmade and a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror said that her appearance fitted in with the general state of chaos in the apartment.

  A white, tired face looked back at her from beneath tousled brown hair and she could see the panic that the baby’s sudden illness had brought still present in red-rimmed hazel eyes.

  He was such a helpless little scrap she couldn’t bear to see him in pain, but hopefully sleep would help to calm down the digestive upset and he might be more peaceful when he woke up.

  As she continued to stare at the face in the mirror, tears welled up in the tired eyes looking back at her. During the last few days she’d been congratulating herself that she was finally on top of everything. That after the terrible shock on that hot and airless night in July she was coping. She had been, until the previous evening when it had all gone haywire.

  She would have a cup of tea and then start the big tidy-up, she told herself, brushing away the tears. It was no use crying. There was no one to know or care about what was happening to her. She just had to get on with it for the baby’s sake.

  She was drooping over the sink, waiting for the kettle to fill, when the doorbell rang, and as the health visitor was the only person likely to be calling on her she opened the door expecting it to be her, but it wasn’t.

  A tall man with golden hair and eyes as blue as delphiniums was standing on the mat outside her high-rise apartment. He looked clean, fresh and smart, and Andrina thought that whatever it was he was selling she wished she didn’t look such a mess. But was she in the mood for pleasantries? No.

  ‘Yes?’ she questioned, thinking longingly of the pot of tea she’d been about to make.

  He smiled and she thought irritably that this man looked as if he hadn’t a care in the world, while she was bogged down with responsibilities.

  ‘I’m looking for Andrina Bell,’ he said with the smile still in place. ‘Would you happen to be her?’

  ‘I might be,’ she said warily, hiding her surprise. ‘What is it that you want?’

  ‘My name is Drew Curtis. I’m a doctor in general practice and am trying to trace an ex-employee of mine, Jodie Stewart. I believe that you are her next of kin. At least, that is what it says on her records at the surgery.’

  Andrina was goggling at him in amazement.

  ‘You’re looking for J-Jodie,’ she stuttered. This was bizarre!

  ‘Yes. I have a responsibility towards her. I need to know if she is all right. I’ve got ID and here’s proof that I know her.’ He showed her an identity card and then took a small photograph from his inside pocket. It was of himself and another similar-looking man, both with their arms around a smiling Jodie.

  She stepped back.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ she said woodenly, ‘and, please, don’t make a noise.’

  ‘Er, right, thank you,’ he said, lowering his voice and looking puzzled at the same time. ‘I hope I’m not intruding.’

  Oh, he was intruding all right, she thought, and whether it was a good omen or bad she wasn’t sure. Someone who’d actually known her stepsister had appeared out of the blue and he was in for a shock. Her heart was thudding in her chest. He had the same colouring as the baby. Was he the father?

  He was looking around him, the stranger who had come to her door, and she thought that he couldn’t help but notice what a mess the place was and that her face was blotched with the tears she’d just shed.

  ‘Jodie was pregnant when she left the practice where we were employing her as a receptionist,’ he said. ‘She left us to go and live in London and I visited her a couple of times there as I was concerned about her welfare. But when I went there recently, knowing that she was soon to give birth, I found that all the flats in the building were empty, scheduled for demolition, and no one could tell me where she’d gone. That is why I’ve come to you.’

  ‘Are you the father of her child?’ Andrina asked through lips that had gone dry as desert dust.

  She could see where this was leading. When this Dr Curtis person heard what she had to say he would stake his claim and break her heart at the same time.

  She watched his jaw sag at the question.

  ‘Why do you ask? Hasn’t she told you what happened?’ he said flatly.

  ‘When I last saw Jodie we hadn’t spoken in a long time,’ Andrina told him, ‘and by that time it was too late to talk. She was dead.’

  ‘Dead!’ he echoed. ‘Jodie dead!’ His face was bleached with horror. ‘How? Why? And what about the baby?’

  ‘He was delivered by Caesarean section just before she died. If you want to see him, he’s asleep in the next room. But, please, don’t disturb him. He’s been unwell and I’ve only just
got him to sleep after a long weary night.’

  * * *

  It had been nearing the end of a hot, airless day in July when the phone call that had changed her life had come through. Thunder had been rumbling in the distance and as it had come closer Andrina had thrown off the bed covers and padded across to the window to watch the lightning flash across the sky.

  She’d been tired when she’d got in, ready to fall into bed and sleep the night away, but it had seemed as if there had been no air and oblivion had been hard to come by.

  When the phone had rung she’d groaned. She was not going back to the hospital for anything or anyone, she’d thought as she’d picked up the receiver. Not even for the head of the trust himself. She’d put in more than her share of hours and now needed the rest if she was to perform tomorrow as well as she’d done today.

  It was well known in hospital circles that if Andrina Bell, or ‘Ding Dong’ as she was known to some of the less reverent amongst them, didn’t get a good night’s sleep, woe betide those who didn’t please her the next day. But the phone call was to change all that.

  It was a hospital on the line, but not the one where she was employed. A woman’s voice with all the right inflexions required of the bearer of bad news said in her ear, ‘This is the accident and emergency department of a hospital in London. I need to speak to Andrina Bell.’

  ‘Speaking,’ she said in terse surprise.

  She’d been applying for jobs recently, stacks of them, but couldn’t remember anything in the London area, and in any case they’d been vacancies in general practice as she was ready for a change of direction and had recently been training towards that end, with short stints in some local practices.

  ‘I have your name as next of kin to a Jodie Stewart. Is that correct?’ the voice had said in the same careful tones.

  If she’d been wilting with the heat before, now her legs were turning to jelly because of what the woman was saying.

  ‘Yes. I am the next of kin to Jodie Stewart,’ she told her. ‘She’s my stepsister. What’s wrong?’

  ‘She was in a road accident earlier this evening. Lost control of her car and ran into a tree. Jodie is in a critical condition. She managed to give us some details when she was first brought in here, but since then her condition has worsened and that is why I’m contacting you.’

  ‘How critical?’ she’d asked hoarsely.

  ‘Very. I would suggest that you come immediately if you want to see her…er…’

  ‘Alive? I’m a doctor,’ she’d told the woman. ‘So you don’t need to pull your punches. Just give me the address and I’ll be on my way within minutes.’

  ‘You’re Gloucester-based, aren’t you?’ the unwelcome caller had said. ‘So you should be with us in two or three hours. I’ll have someone be on the lookout for you, Dr Bell.’

  As she’d driven through the humid night, her exhaustion forgotten, Andrina’s thoughts had gone back to their childhood, and they weren’t happy thoughts. Her mother, a hitherto sensible widow, had married again when Andrina had been in her early teens.

  She’d met Morgan Stewart, a Shakespearean actor type, himself a widower with a small daughter, and had been infatuated from the start, resulting in Andrina having been constantly in charge of little Jodie while the lovebirds had played at being Romeo and Juliet.

  Wherever she’d gone, the little one had tagged along, demanding, cajoling, taking up all her free time, and she’d often thought dismally that her new stepfather hadn’t just gained himself a wife, he’d acquired a childminder, too.

  Andrina had escaped when she’d left home to go to medical school and some years later Jodie had done the same, but not to take up a career. She’d flitted from job to job, and as the two girls had never been close in their adult lives, Andrina hadn’t known half the time what her stepsister had been up to.

  Their parents, now elderly, lived in Spain, where her mother was devotedly looking after Morgan after a serious stroke. There was no way they could offer any help or support, hence the fact that Jodie had given Andrina’s name as next of kin instead of her father’s.

  When Andrina arrived at the intensive care section of the hospital where her stepsister had been taken, a nurse greeted her, and Andrina knew from her expression that she was too late.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘Jodie died half an hour ago. We did our best but her injuries were too severe for there to be any hope of recovery. If you’ll come this way, I’ll take you to see her. That is, if you feel up to it. You look exhausted. Maybe a cup of tea first would be a good idea.’

  Andrina shook her head.

  ‘No, take me to her, please. I need to say my goodbyes.’

  She sat for a long time beside Jodie’s still figure, filled with regret that they hadn’t even been able to say their farewells after all the wasted years. She thought sadly that they were spending more time together in death than they’d done in life for many a long year, and now all that lay ahead was a long and final silence.

  When at last she left Jodie’s side, the nurse was hovering and she said gently, ‘You haven’t mentioned the baby, so I take it that when they phoned you weren’t told that we were able to save it.’

  ‘Baby!’ Andrina choked as her legs gave way beneath her.

  ‘I’m right, then,’ the other woman said sympathetically as she helped Andrina to a chair. ‘You weren’t aware that your sister was pregnant, were you?’

  Dazed and incredulous, she shook her head. It would seem that this night of horrors wasn’t over.

  ‘The person who phoned to tell you about the accident must have thought that you would have enough to think about, driving all that way, without being told there was a newborn baby awaiting your arrival. Your sister gave birth to a beautiful little boy just before she died,’ the nurse said in a voice that sounded to Andrina as if it was coming from far away. ‘We had to do a Caesarean but he’s fine. I’ll take you to see him.’

  ‘No! Yes!’ she groaned. ‘I can’t take it in. Jodie is dead and she’s left a baby. You’re right. I didn’t know she was pregnant. What am I going to do? I’m a busy doctor living in a high-rise apartment.’

  The nurse took her hand and as Andrina got slowly to her feet she said, ‘Just come and look at him and you’ll be grateful that you’ve got something to remember her by. Jodie has left a new generation to care for.’

  ‘How can I do it?’ she’d sobbed. ‘I can’t! I just can’t!’

  But when she saw him, with the redness and wrinkles of the newly born, lying defenceless in the bassinet where they’d placed him, there hadn’t really been any decision to make. Her heart had made it for her. Whether she wanted to or not, and even though she was under no legal obligation, she had to take care of Jodie’s child.

  * * *

  ‘Of course I want to see him,’ Drew Curtis said raggedly, and she knew with a sinking feeling that either he was a very caring employer or he had some sort of claim on the little one that she had committed herself to caring for on that dreadful night.

  As he stood looking down at Jodie’s child, she could see a resemblance not only in their colouring but in their features, too. Her unease was increasing. What was he here for?

  Her eyes widened. The tears coursing down his face indicated that he was more than a caring employer…and he hadn’t answered her question.

  ‘Are you the baby’s father?’ she repeated.

  ‘No,’ he choked. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Then what is your connection with my stepsister?’ Andrina asked, as her unease began to subside.

  ‘This baby is my brother’s child.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The feeling of impending doom was back.

  ‘And so where is he? Why wasn’t he there to support her? Where is this surgery where you employed Jodie?’

  ‘The answer to your first two questions is that Jonathan is dead. He died from leukaemia when she was six months pregnant. He was my junior partner in the practice. The two o
f them were madly in love, and when the illness, which progressed rapidly, took him, she couldn’t bear to stay in the place where they’d been so happy.

  ‘She went to live in London. I begged her not to go as I was concerned about both her physical and mental state, but she wouldn’t listen. Just packed her bags and went, leaving me with the address of a flat that she’d found. So you can imagine how I felt when I went to her place last time and found the whole complex empty. I wanted to be there for her. To make up in part for Jonathan not being around. Didn’t you wonder who the father of her child might be?’

  ‘Yes, of course I did,’ Andrina told him, motioning for them to go back into the other room so they didn’t wake the baby up. ‘But since the night she was killed in a road accident, my life has been turned upside down. I’ve had to take leave from my job and seem to do nothing but make feeds, keep up with his laundry and try to get some sleep.

  ‘This is nothing like I had my life planned,’ she told him wearily, ‘but I had no choice. Jodie and I were never close, due to reasons that I won’t bore you with, but when I knew about the baby my responsibilities were clear-cut, and ever since I brought her child home with me I’ve lived from one day to the next. Trying to cope as best I can, both physically and financially, as I’ve had to take extended leave from my job.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  She smiled for the first time since she’d opened the door to him, and he thought that under less pressure she would be an attractive woman with her slenderness and the brown hair and hazel eyes.

  ‘It would seem that we have two things in common,’ Andrina told him. ‘The baby and our occupations. At the present time I’m employed as a registrar in a hospital not far from here. Although that was about to change as I’ve been doing some general practice training, with the intention of becoming a GP.’

  There was surprise in the eyes meeting hers, and she thought grimly that, looking around this place, he must be thinking heaven help her patients if this was how she lived.