‘Thanks, I’ll do that.’ Jen smiled and turned gingerly with her hand holding her stomach. ‘I’m looking forward to that wheat pack. Ken’s so disappointed he wasn’t home for the birth. And I have to ring his mother and sister as well.’
‘Since when do babies wait for truck-driving daddies? Ken will just be glad you’re both well. Off you go. I’ll be in soon.’ She narrowed her gaze as the other woman hobbled out. Tammy wished Ken could have made it too. She wanted every mother’s birth to be perfect for them but sometimes babies just didn’t wait.
When Ben brought Leon in to see the unit Tammy had just towelled Felix’s hair dry. She was laughing down at him as she tried to capture the wriggling limbs and they’d moved to the sunny side of the room as she began to dress him. The early-afternoon sunlight dusted her dark hair with shafts of dancing light and her skin glowed.
For Leon, suddenly the day was brighter and even more interesting, although his tour of the facilities had captured his attention until now. Strangely all thoughts of bed numbers, ward structure and layout seemed lower in his priorities than watching the expressions cross this woman’s face. And brought back the delightful memory of a kiss that had haunted him long into the night in his lonely bed.
‘Hi, there, Tam,’ Ben said as he crossed the room. Tammy looked up at her father and smiled. Then she looked at Leon and the smile fell away. He watched it fall and inexplicably the room dimmed.
‘Hi, Dad. Leon.’ She looked at her father. Or perhaps she was avoiding looking at him, Leon surmised, and began another mind waltz of piqued interest that this woman seemed to kick off in him. ‘What are you men up to?’
‘I’m showing Leon the facilities. His board’s been thinking of adding maternity wards to their children’s hospitals and I thought you might like to hint him towards a more woman-friendly concept.’
Leon watched the ignition of sharper concentration and the flare of captured interest. She couldn’t hide the blue intensity in her eyes and silently he thanked Ben for knowing his daughter so well. So, Leon mulled to himself, he’d suddenly become a much more interesting person?
‘Really?’ She tossed it over her shoulder, as if only a little involved, but she couldn’t fool him—he was learning to read her like a conspiracy plot in a movie, one fragmented clue at a time.
She dressed the baby with an absentminded deft-ness that reassured the infant so much he lay compliant under her hands. Mentally Leon nodded with approval. To handle infants a rapport was essential and he was pleased she had the knack, though it was ridiculous that such a thing should matter to him.
When the newborn was fully clothed she nestled him across her breasts and Leon had a sudden unbidden picture of her with her own child, a Madonnalike expression on her face, and a soft smile that quickened his heart. More foolishness and he shook his head at the distraction the fleeting vision had caused.
Tammy tilted her determined chin his way and Madonna faded away with a pop. ‘I’ll just take this little bundle into his mother and come back.’
He watched her leave the room, the boyish yet confident walk of an athletic woman, not a hint of the shrinking violet or diffident underling, and he was still watching the door when she returned. That confidence he’d first seen was there in spades. She owned the room. It seemed he activated her assertiveness mechanism. He couldn’t help the smile when she returned.
She saw it and blushed. Just a little but enough to give him the satisfaction of discomfiting her and he felt a tinge of his awareness that he’d felt the need to do so.
She looked away to her father and then back at him. ‘What sort of unit were you looking at?’
Enough games. ‘Small. One floor of the building. Midwife run and similar to what your father has explained happens here, though with an obstetrician and paediatrician on call because we have that luxury in the city.’
He went on when her interest continued. ‘It would be situated in a wing of the private children’s hospital we run now. The medical personnel cover is available already, as are consulting rooms and theatres.’
She nodded as if satisfied with his motives and he felt ridiculously pleased. ‘We promote natural birth here and caseload midwifery. Do the women in your demographic want that sort of service? What’s your caesarean rate, because ours is the lowest in Australia.’ She was defiant this morning. Raising barriers that hardened the delicate planes of her face and kept her eyes from his. He began to wonder why she, too, felt the need. Molto curioso.
‘I’m not sure of the caesarean rate—obstetrics is not my area—but in my country most of our maternity units are more in the medical model and busy. Often so understaffed and underfinanced that the families provide most of the care for the women after birth.’
Tammy nodded and spoke to her father. ‘I’d heard that. One of my friends had a baby in Rome. She said the nurses were lovely but very busy.’
He wanted her to look back at him. ‘That is true of a lot of hospitals. This model would be more midwifery led for low-risk women.’ He paused, deliberately, before he went on, and she did bring her gaze back his way. Satisfied, he continued. ‘Of course, my new sister-in-law, Emma, is also interested and I believe there is a small chance you and your son could come to Italy in a few weeks?’ He lifted the end of the sentence in a question. ‘Perhaps the two of you could discuss what is needed and what would work in my country that is similar to what you have here.’
Tammy intercepted the sudden interest from her father and she shook her head at Ben. ‘I haven’t even thought much about the chance of travelling in Italy.’ Liar. The idea had circled in her head for most of the night. ‘I won’t say your idea of setting up midwife-led units isn’t exciting.’ But that’s all that’s exciting and you’re the main drawback. She repeated the last part of the sentence to herself. ‘But thanks for thinking of me.’
He shrugged those amazing shoulders of his, the memory of which she’d felt under her hands more than once through the night despite her attempts to banish the weakness, and she frowned at him more heavily.
‘It is for my own benefit after all,’ he said.
She remembered Jack’s disclosure, and the idea she’d had to apologise if she saw him, but it wasn’t that easy. All the time they talked, at the back of her mind, she wanted to ask about Paulo, about the truth in Jack’s revelation, and to admit she hadn’t understood his reserve and his protectiveness. But it didn’t seem right with her father there just in case Leon didn’t wish to discuss it. Or she could just let it go.
She owed him an apology. ‘Maybe we could meet for lunch and talk more about your idea,’ she offered, though so reluctantly it seemed as if the words were teased out of her like chewing gum stuck on a shoe. He must have thought so because there was amusement in his voice as he declined.
‘Lunch, no. I’m away with your father for the rest of the day but perhaps tonight, for dinner?’ His amusement was clearer. ‘If I pick you up? My brother and I share a taste in fast cars and we could go for a drive somewhere to eat out.’
She did not want to drive somewhere with this guy. A car. Close confines. Him in control. ‘No, thank you.’ Besides. It was her invitation and her place to say where they met. ‘You could come to my house, it’s easier. Bring Paulo if he’d like to come and he can play with Jack.’
She had a sudden vision of her empty pantry and mentally shrugged. ‘At six-thirty? I’m afraid Jack and I eat early or I can’t get him to bed before nine.’
He shook his head. ‘That does not suit.’
Tammy opened her eyes slow and wide at his arrogance and his inability to accept she wanted to set the pace and choose a place that would be safe.
But he went on either oblivious or determined to have his own way. ‘I will come after nine. When Paulo, too, is in bed. I am away all day tomorrow and we will be able to discuss things without small ears around