The Pregnant Midwife. Fiona McArthur
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the force of it left her so cold she shivered.
From an oasis of sharing and caring and joy in her relationship with Hunter, something she’d never planned on, she’d been evicted from his life with a shattering suddenness that had left her reeling in an emotional desert more barren than any sand outside the hospital compound. Hug a married man in sympathy a couple of times and lectures on morality was where she landed! She’d tried to make him see how ridiculous his accusations were but he’d doggedly avoided her. Then anger had come to her rescue and at least straightened her spine. Piously, he’d even warned her of the penalties of adultery in Arab countries before he’d left. She gritted her teeth at the memory.
The urge to just walk out of MIRA now and think about this before she got in too deep was tempting. Maggie was looking up at her, puzzled by something she heard in Kirsten’s voice, and Kirsten forced herself to smile.
It was too late already. She’d so looked forward to being part of the team again. Now this. There’d be no freedom from tension if she had to fly with that man.
In the control room, three other people were waiting and Kirsten tilted her chin with a determined smile.
Hunter Morgan dominated the room even with his back towards her and his concentration directed to a phone conversation. Her heart sank in a shivering mess. Kirsten knew the thick dark hair and square set of his shoulders intimately. Her eyes had drilled holes between those massive shoulders many a time in those last few weeks as he’d walked away from her. He swivelled slowly to face her, still talking into the phone, and Kirsten looked away to Jim.
‘Welcome back, my dear.’ Jim was the senior paediatric consultant, control room supervisor and occasional flight doctor. A short, round man, Jim had the kindest face in the world. His eyes crinkled with years of good humour and he bounced across the room when Maggie announced Kirsten’s arrival. He shook her hand so hard Kirsten could feel her head wobble and she suppressed a smile. The warmth in his face almost brought tears to Kirsten’s eyes as she suddenly longed for the safety and shelter of her own family.
He presented her to the other woman in the room as if she were a major prize. ‘Kirsten Wilson, Ellen! This is our senior flight nurse, Ellen Gardner, who I think started just after you left.’ The other nurse inclined her head in acknowledgement. She was three or four years younger than Kirsten’s twenty-eight and if she felt any anticipation at Kirsten’s arrival she hid it well beneath a smooth makeup mask.
They shook hands and Kirsten offered a friendly smile, and then, for Kirsten, the other woman’s presence faded away as Hunter replaced the telephone receiver and turned fully to face her.
‘Kirsten, meet Dr Hunter Morgan. Hunter comes to us fully qualified and plans to move into emergency paediatric care after his stint with us.’ Jim completed his sentence as if he had just given Kirsten a huge present.
Great, Kirsten thought. I’d rather have herpes. There was something in Hunter’s face that made Kirsten raise her chin even higher. The man had an aura that ensured women were aware of his presence, and few could resist falling at least a little under his spell. Kirsten vowed to be one of those few if it killed her.
His chiselled features matched the fierce intelligence behind his insolent grey eyes and that unexpected sensuality in the tilt of his lips still packed a punch that landed somewhere below Kirsten’s midriff.
She felt like stamping her foot. Hunter Morgan must be her nemesis. Just when things promised to go to plan, he intruded into her carefully ordered world and threw her into chaos.
Hunter met Kirsten’s glare and memories of their last battles hung between them. Neither blinked and the moment froze for an extended few seconds until they both looked away.
Oblivious to the tension between his two newest staff members, Jim rubbed his hands together. ‘Well, let’s hope you two don’t run off to get married, like the last lot.’ The older man laughed with a slow, deep resonance that seemed to reverberate in his rounded stomach. Jim’s idea was bitterly humorous and his rolling laugh helped. Kirsten’s usual good humour asserted itself. Dr Rumble, indeed.
‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that,’ she said, and hung onto her calm smile as if meeting the man who had caused the only professional problem in her career wasn’t in front of her. So what was she going to do?
MIRA was her vocation and an environment in which she knew she could make a difference. And only Hunter stood in her way. She’d gone to Dubai to set herself up financially and gain more experience to be better at this job. How ironic that a man she’d met there could ruin it for her when she came back.
But he could only ruin it for her if she allowed herself to be brought down by his negative attitude. The good news had to be that most doctors only stayed at MIRA for a six-month term. With luck she’d have just a few months of discomfort. She began to feel better.
Kirsten held out her hand with resolve. ‘Hello again, Dr Morgan.’
Hunter couldn’t believe her bare-faced gall after what had passed between them. While he’d been devastated at seeing her in the arms of another man, she’d thrown herself into dangerous pursuits as if nothing had been between them. Desert skiing, ballooning, four-wheel-drive safaris—she’d been in the thick of it everywhere he’d looked until he’d stopped watching in those last few weeks. Working with her in the unit had been so icily professional the other staff had avoided the pair of them when they’d had to be together.
He took her slender fingers in his and although the tension was slight, he was aware how she stiffened beneath his touch. Unintentionally, his grip tightened.
Her fingers were warm under his and he remembered when he’d finally accepted he’d been drawn to her as a woman. Her red hair flying straight out behind her head as she’d revelled in the danger of the race. She loved danger all right, he thought cynically. Life of the party, and always on the lookout for some mad new adventure or life experience, Kirsten had been the sun that less exuberant staff had gravitated around yet she had never seemed to favour one person—until him.
Initially, Hunter had blocked that attraction because he’d thought, mistakenly, he’d sensed a core of innocence beneath her bravado that he’d had no right to taint with his cynical distrust of women. But the joy she seemed to find in the everyday had worn his resistance down and he’d finally allowed himself to accept the idea that he’d found the woman he could plan his future with.
Until that morning!
He’d thought the tearoom was empty when he rounded the corner but then he saw them. Cosgrove twisted to protect the woman from his eyes and at first he only realised it wasn’t Jack’s wife cradled so passionately in the man’s arms. And then Kirsten stepped out of the man’s embrace to face him. He knew his face mirrored his devastation.
‘It’s not what you think,’ Kirsten whispered. The same words Portia, his wife, had said when he’d confronted her with her lover five years before. It felt as if a stiletto was still lodged under his ribs after all this time and Kirsten was twisting it deeper.
Foolishly, in the last few months at MIRA, he began to believe he was over his shock at Kirsten’s behaviour. What a fool he was.
Aware at first hand of the devastation that could be caused by infidelity, both as a child and as a husband, Hunter did the right thing when he ruthlessly severed their relationship. Afterwards, the gap left by Kirsten’s friendship in his life warned him how close he’d come to repeating the mistake of his first marriage.
Here she was, threatening his peace of mind again. Typical. Jim’s promise of the perfect candidate for the job had been too good to be true. He lifted his own chin, staring down at the top of her colourful red head and not into her magical if devious eyes.
‘Kirsten, how nice to see you. Settled back into Australia?’ He could feel the tug of her arm as she tried unobtrusively to free her hand. He chose to let her go and she snatched her hand back so fast he smiled.
Interesting. He looked down to see her eyes narrow as she probed behind his smile, and Hunter