Dr Bennett's Babies Read online

  Dr Bennett’s Babies

  Sweet and Medical

  Fiona McArthur

  About the Author

  Fiona McArthur has written more than fifty books and shares her medical knowledge and her love of working with women, families and emergency services in her stories.

  In her compassionate, pacy fiction, her love of the travel and the Australian landscape meshes beautifully with warm, funny, multigenerational characters as she highlights challenges for rural and remote families, overseas adventures, big city hospitals and the strength shared between women.

  There will be medical drama. And there will be romance. Fiona means to make that gorgeous heroic man earn the right to win his beautiful and strong-willed heroine’s heart because absolutely, happy endings are a must.

  Fiona is the author of the non-fiction book Aussie Midwives, and lives on a farm with her husband in northern New South Wales. She was awarded the NSW Excellence in Midwifery Award in 2015. The NZ Koru Award in 2019 for short romantic fiction and the Australian RUBY Award for Contemporary Romantic Fiction 2020. Find her at FionaMcArthurAuthor.com

  Dedicated to my dear aunt, Maurine London, the gorgeous and brilliant coloratura soprano.

  Copyright © 2021 by Fiona McArthur

  This book is revised and reviewed from the original publication of Falling For the Sheikh She Shouldn’t 2012

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author at www.fionamcarthurauthor.com except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  While every care has been taken in researching and compiling the medical information in this book, it is not intended to replace or supersede professional medical advice. The author may not be held responsible for any action or any claim howsoever resulting from the use of information in this book or anything contained in it. Medical knowledge improves globally all the time. Readers must obtain their own professional medical advice before relying or otherwise making use of the medical information in this book.

  Cover by GlenHolman.com

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Reviews help authors.

  Also by Fiona McArthur

  Excerpt - Her Doctor Prince

  Midwife On The Orient Express

  Midwife In The Jungle

  Chapter 1

  Tilly loved Fridays. A leisurely walk down the hill from the hospital after her last shift before days off, that first salty sniff of the ocean at the end of Hill Street, and the bonus of Mrs Bennett, immaculately made up on her front porch as she waited for her girlfriends to arrive for Friday afternoon tea.

  Tilly adored Mrs Bennett and her friends. These sprightly retired sopranos in colourful hats, bright buckled shoes and lovely smiles made Tilly believe in life getting better and better.

  And they never mentioned men. She really liked that.

  She couldn’t wait to lift her window at the back of the house because the soaring notes of Verdi and Puccini from the porch at the back of Mrs Bennett’s house on Fridays made her smile.

  Tilly wondered if Mrs Bennett pulled her window shut when Tilly and her friends blasted Ed Sheeran raw and soulful into the street.

  Maybe she was strange to prefer the company of older ladies to young men her own age, but risking your heart to a fickle man in the scramble to find “the one” seemed much more insane to Tilly. Of course, she’d been a slow learner with two bad experiences in twelve months until Rosie had pointed out her “pattern of disaster”.

  Older men. She’d always been attracted by the big boys in senior school while she’d been a junior, then those in university while she’d been a senior, and now those who were out of their twenties when she’d just reached them. Searching for approval from the father she’d never known perhaps? That’s what Rosie, her best friend, and the most opinionated of her housemates said.

  The problem being young men closer to her age seemed a little... insubstantial? Tilly sighed. She was staying away from them.

  The waft of real scones and Mrs B’s Sydney Royal Easter Show winning marble cake dissipated the tendrils of regret and Tilly shook herself. It was Friday. Yay.

  ‘Afternoon, Mrs B,’ Tilly called as she approached.

  ‘Matilda. Lovely to see you.’

  ‘Is that window sticking again?’

  Tilly drew level and Mrs Bennett smiled down at her from her straight-backed white Morticia Adams chair. ‘No. I think you’ve cured it this time, dear. There’s another one just starting to squeak and I’ll let you know when it gets bad.’

  More practice. Excellent. Tilly’s last infatuation had been with a mature carpenter who’d turned out to be a secretly engaged control freak who liked to keep several women dancing off the end of his workman’s belt. She was determined to never need his skills again. Just like the interior decorator who’d had so many rules and preferences on her behaviour and then turned out to be married.

  ‘No problem.’ Tilly glanced up at the two bay windows each side of the veranda and noted the one only a quarter pushed up. ‘Girls coming soon?’

  Mrs Bennett glanced at her watch. ‘Anytime, now. I’ll save you a scone.’

  ‘Yum. Say hello for me.’ Tilly swung open her gate and mounted the tiled steps. Home. And not a man in sight. Good.

  Seventy-one Hill Street stood tall and thin with a decrepit Gothic air in need of even more TLC than Mrs Bennett’s house. Those tall eves, all four bedrooms at the back upstairs and the main bedroom downstairs that belonged to the absent owner, could do with a good strip and paint. Tilly decided she might have a go in her holidays.

  It was such a party house. The three other girls were the sisters Tilly never had. She couldn’t imagine life without their chaos and warmth and the fun they brought to out of work hours.

  Tilly smiled to herself. Though things had settled down somewhat since Rosie had found Costa, a consultant from the hospital they all worked at.

  Tilly’s need to provide a willing ear, and the occasional emergency alcohol, had decreased exponentially the longer Rosie and Costa were together.

  Orphaned Emily, ironically sterile most of the week in operating theatres, fell in and out of love searching for Mr Right to be the father of her longed-for family.

  While Julia, a children’s nurse at Eastern Beaches, broke her heart every time Rosie’s gorgeous brother, and incidentally their landlord, flew in from Operation New Faces with a willowy brunette or blonde on his arm.

  Funny how her flatmates gave her plenty of scope for that thwarted older sister tendency she could finally admit to.

  Then there was her job. Tilly ran up the stairs and threw her bag on the purple quilt cover on her bed. Tilly loved being a midwife. Women were incredible, babies so instinctually amazing, and she could mother the mothers to her heart’s content while they mothered their babies.

  That’s what she told Mrs Bennett later in the afternoon. They were clearing up after the girls had gone. Tilly’s singing lessons by osmosis seemed to be working and she and Mrs Bennett were trilling away in the kitchen when the conversation came around to men.

  ‘To sing that aria you need to be able to sing the love.’ Mrs Bennett never joked about her music.

  ‘Then I’ll probably never be good at it.’

  ‘Of course
you will.’ Mrs Bennett’s finger pointed skywards to the future. ‘One day you’ll find your man. You can’t go on forever being single.’

  Tilly laughed. ‘You are. And you’re happy.’

  ‘I’m certainly content,’ Mrs Bennett twinkled, ‘but in a different way from when I was married to the love of my life. You can’t miss out on that.’

  Tilly shrugged. ‘I always seem to go for the wrong guys. Seriously, I’ve nothing against men as friends but after the last two I guess I’m not really geared to be answerable to a man.’

  Mrs Bennett fixed her with a stern look. ‘They were too old for you, dear. And they lied.’

  ‘You’re right. That’s what Rosie said. But look what falling for men does to my girlfriends. Even my mother was another casualty. I’m going to stay the sensible one cruising as a single woman for a few years. Travel the world. There’s a lot I want to do and it’s much less stressful.’

  ‘Very wise,’ said Mrs Bennett, and she smiled.

  * * *

  On Sunday morning when Tilly caught a glimpse over the fence of a tall, black-haired stranger lurking around Mrs B’s back window, her heart jumped at the recognition of danger. She glanced back at her own house but the other girls were out and not due back for a while.

  Her hand slid up to rest on her chest in case he heard her heartbeat, but for the moment it was up to her. Someone had to protect Mrs Bennett.

  Dry mouthed she glanced around for a weapon – something, anything for protection – and then she saw it. Tilly’s fingers closed around the pointed red beanie of the small but stalwart garden gnome at her feet and she eased him out from the damp earth under the hydrangea. The cold concrete sat heavily in her hand.

  She chewed her lip. She really didn’t want to maim the man, just slow him down a bit, so he couldn’t get away before the police arrived. She didn’t want him to come back another time. With her other hand she pulled her phone from her pocket and dialled emergency. At least she had a back-up plan.

  Mrs B’s ground floor window screeched in protest and the material of the man’s T-shirt stretched across his broad back as he tried to ease the window up quietly. A tall, well-built man should be throwing bricks on a truck for a living not trying to rob defenceless old ladies. Tilly refused to be distracted by the tug of nervous suggestion that flight might be a better option than fight judging by the ripple of musculature under the thin material.

  He was getting in and Mrs Bennett was in there. Tilly felt the swell of pure rage surge with a helpful dose of adrenalin and she heaved the gnome with a straight-arm throw over the fence towards the back of his legs. The gnome flew horizontally like an avenging angel and took out the backs of both knees in one blow.

  Because the burglar had stretched up, his legs were locked and just like kids did at school, the muscles contracted with the blow. Tilly stifled a nervous laugh when Goliath sat awkwardly back on the wet grass on top of the gnome and swore loudly.

  Great job, Tilly congratulated the gnome and backed back around the side of her house out of sight as she flicked the damp earth off her hand. She couldn’t help the big grin on her face and the flight hormones rushed around her body until she fanned her face with her phone for relief.

  The police call centre chattered and her hand froze as she remembered. She brought the phone to her lips and murmured quietly. ‘Yes, I’d like to report a burglar. I’m Matilda McPherson, but at 73 Hill Street, Coogee. Mrs Bennett’s back yard.’

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? I’m fixing the window not breaking in.’ Like an avenging archangel the man strode towards her, his dark blue eyes blazing. ‘I’m her nephew.’

  He reached his long arm out, snatched the phone, threw it on the ground and for one horrible moment Tilly thought he was going to stamp on it. Instead he drew an enormous breath, which incidentally did amazing things to the muscles under the front of his T-Shirt, and looked at her from below black brows with the most virulent disgust. Possibly even loathing.

  Shame that, a tiny, impressed voice whispered, although Tilly quaked just a little at his ferocity.

  Now she could see his face, she knew this wasn’t the face of a dangerous criminal. He was plenty mad but he wasn’t going to assault her physically. She didn’t know how she knew this, she simply did.

  Before she could think of anything to say, he ground out, ‘I should sue you for assault.’

  Yep. Daunting up close, especially with steam coming out of his ears, and Tilly blinked as she rallied. Maybe it would be sensible to leave. Despite Tilly’s brain chanting “good time to leave” in an insistent whisper, and despite the thumping in her chest that agreed in rhythmic beat to her brain, she couldn’t allow him the satisfaction of thinking he intimidated her.

  ‘Assault? A little woman like me? With a gnome?’ She tossed her hair to disguise the tensing of her muscles as she prepared to fly. ‘Should look good on social media. Maybe I could take your picture with the weapon?’

  She watched with interest as his mouth thinned. Might have been a better idea to keep her smart mouth closed and to take the opportunity to run, but the moment was lost when Mrs Bennett poked her head over the low fence. ‘Ah. Children. I see you’ve met.’

  Mrs B. smiled beatifically as she came around the corner through Tilly’ front gate. She carried the gnome close to her chest and handed it gently like a wee baby to Tilly.

  ‘Look who came to visit at my house,’ she said just as a siren began to wail in the distance.

  Tilly glanced at his face. Apparently the siren just topped off his day.

  * * *

  By the time the police sergeant had laughed his way back to his patrol car, Marcus was considering climbing back upstairs to his bed and pulling the lavender scented sheets over his head to start the day again.

  Instead he closed his eyes. Mainly because it removed the smart-mouthed redhead from his sight before he strangled her, and from the fond look on his aunt’s face she was a “favourite person”. To be fair he supposed it was a good thing she looked out for Maurine.

  ‘I am sorry.’ That woman stood beside him on his aunt’s veranda to see the policeman off. Didn’t she have a home to go to?

  He almost groaned. That’s right. She did. And it was far too close to his at the moment.

  To add insult to injury, she asked, ‘Do your legs hurt?’

  His lashes lifted only slightly as he glared at her. He forced the words past his teeth. ‘I’m fine, thanks. If you’ll excuse me.’

  Marcus closed his eyes and sighed. If the rented flat fiasco hadn’t happened, if the closest hotel hadn’t been solidly booked for a weeklong conference, if he didn’t start work on Monday. If, if, if...

  He ground his teeth and then decided it indicated a lack of control. Marcus liked control – relished it – and had seen what could happen when it was lost and he needed control to breathe.

  He wasn’t sure how he and his aunt would rub together until he sorted accommodation, but if he remembered correctly from that one Christmas after his sister had died Aunt Maurine had been a safe haven in a sad world.

  It would only be a week or two until he found a new flat. He’d buy one if he had to. Control. He rubbed his chin. Hmm. In fact, he liked that idea. Nobody could interfere with his plans then.

  * * *

  Tilly watched him go. Limping. Oops. She’d say that was a fair case of alienation there. Mentally she shrugged. Shame. He’d have made a gorgeous gene pool for Emily’s future children. Tall, good bone structure, great body and even related to a delightful old lady. But he had no sense of humour. And that was the most important trait as far as Tilly was concerned.

  Not that she was concerned, she frowned at herself. It had nothing to do with her how cleverly amusing Emily’s children could turn out to be.

  Tilly went back inside her own house just as her flatmate Rosie arrived behind her, drifting up the stairs with a serene smile and a filmy scarf floating behind her.

  ‘Hi the
re, Tilly.’ Rosie looked her up and down. ‘You not ready? Sunday brunch at the pub?’

  ‘I’d forgotten.’ She glanced at the old grandfather clock in the corner. ‘Give me ten.’

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later the girls were perched on stools looking out the Stat Bar window at the park full of soccer ball-kicking young bloods and the sea beyond. Another glorious blue-sky day in paradise.

  Tilly weighed the words in her mind before she said them. She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to curb her usual method of blurting stuff out. ‘Mrs B. has a nephew.’

  ‘Next door? Oh, my goodness, Tilly. That’s so exciting.’ Emily sat blonde and beautiful and suddenly buoyant on the neighbouring stool. ‘Is he gorgeous? Does he like you? Would he like me?’

  Tilly glanced at Emily. Blonde, petite, beautiful. Who wouldn’t? ‘Not sure about you but he can’t stand me. I took him out with a garden gnome.’

  Three pairs of eyes swivelled to full interest. She certainly had their attention now, Tilly thought ruefully. ‘I had the notion he was breaking into one of the windows at the back of Mrs B’s. He was actually fixing it.’ Tilly listened to herself, surprised at the glum note she hadn’t expected, and injected more bravado. ‘It was a good throw, though, sideways to the back of the legs.’

  There was a stunned silence followed by a howl of amusement from the girls.

  ‘What did he say?’ From Rosie.

  ‘Was he hurt?’ From Emily.

  ‘What did Mrs Bennett say?’ From Julia who liked the older lady next door as much as Tilly did.

  Tilly pulled the slice of lime out of the neck of her bottle of light beer and sucked it. ‘He swore, he’s got a limp, and Mrs B got the giggles. So did the police officer who arrived.’