The Nurse's Pregnancy Wish, page 1
Every day she felt worse about her decision to end things with Alistair rather than better.
She had come the closest yet to caving and calling the station he was based at and asking him to contact her.
To say she was sorry, sorry, sorry and had made a ridiculous mistake.
But please, don’t take that job... Oh, and can you get rid of your bike, please? And, in the interest of full disclosure, before you change your life because I ask you to, you should know I’m going to be a mess any day soon if I find out I can’t get pregnant...
Their feelings couldn’t survive the real world, Libby decided.
And when she got home from the shopping trip she’d pretended to be on, her mother was pacing because her father hadn’t called her back.
Oh, heavens!
That would’ve been Libby’s future if she had stayed with Alistair.
The Nurse’s Pregnancy Wish
Carol Marinelli
Carol Marinelli recently filled in a form asking for her job title. Thrilled to be able to put down her answer, she put “writer.” Then it asked what Carol did for relaxation and she put down the truth—“writing.” The third question asked for her hobbies. Well, not wanting to look obsessed, she crossed her fingers and answered “swimming”—but, given that the chlorine in the pool does terrible things to her highlights, I’m sure you can guess the real answer!
Books by Carol Marinelli
Harlequin Medical Romance
Paddington Children’s Hospital
Their One Night Baby
Their Secret Royal Baby
The Midwife’s One-Night Fling
The Nurse’s Reunion Wish
Unlocking the Doctor’s Secrets
Harlequin Presents
Scandalous Sicilian Cinderellas
The Sicilian’s Defiant Maid
Innocent Until His Forbidden Touch
Cinderellas of Convenience
The Greek’s Cinderella Deal
Forbidden to the Powerful Greek
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
Praise for Carol Marinelli
“I really get sucked into this author’s medical romances! She has a unique writing style that can be almost breathless at times.”
—Goodreads on The Midwife’s One-Night Fling
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM HEALED BY THEIR DOLPHIN ISLAND BABY BY MARION LENNOX
CHAPTER ONE
PARAMEDIC ALISTAIR LLOYD knew exactly what everybody called him.
He even answered to the name at times.
For the most part it didn’t bother him.
Now and then it irked.
It was cold, wet and raining in London—slushy sleet that seeped down the back of a person’s neck and meant entering the very warm Accident and Emergency department caused his ears to sting just a little.
Alistair was working with Brendan today, and Brendan was extremely good-natured and very good at his job—though not quite as pedantic as Alistair.
That was the reason for his nickname: Perfect Peter.
Alistair never strayed from protocol.
Frankly, if it had been his call, Alistair would have alerted the Accident and Emergency department of London’s Primary Hospital prior to the arrival of this patient. Brendan, who had been treating while Alistair was driving, had chosen not to.
* * *
‘What now?’
Libby Bennett’s friend Dianne, who was working in Resus, looked up from the leg she was holding as a doctor applied traction. They both saw a patient arriving on a spinal board with his head strapped down.
‘I’ll go,’ Libby said, and then frowned. ‘Who’s that Brendan’s working with?’
She only asked because she’d thought Brendan was rostered on with Rory.
‘Perfect Peter.’ Dianne rolled her eyes and got back to the leg she was holding. ‘Good luck...’
Libby, who had only been working at The Primary for three weeks, was far too new to know what Dianne’s roll of the eyes and rather sardonic ‘good luck’ meant; she was just worried about her fridge! It was being dropped off at three—the only time the driver could do it. Rory had offered to move it up the two flights of stairs to her apartment, and had roped in the older, rather portly Brendan into helping him—and now Rory wasn’t here.
Still, it wasn’t the patient’s problem, so she made her way over and smiled down at the young man who lay on the spinal board. ‘Hello, I’m Libby.’
‘Marcus...’
Her new patient was a young gentleman with a clearly fractured wrist, though he was smiling and possibly appearing a little too happy, given his predicament.
‘Marcus is a twenty-seven-year-old male,’ Brendan said, ‘who fell from the first-floor window of his flat.’
‘It was an accident,’ Marcus elaborated. ‘We were just messing about...trying to get the best control.’
‘Gaming,’ Brendan further explained. ‘Marcus was standing on the bed and he says he fell backwards through the closed window behind it.’
‘Gaming?’ Libby blinked.
It wasn’t particularly relevant, but Libby wanted to engage the patient in conversation while she assessed him and decided where best he should be placed. She’d also heard the ‘he says he fell’ in Brendan’s handover, which raised flags as to whether the patient might have jumped or been pushed.
‘I never knew it could be so dangerous!’
‘Obvious right wrist fracture,’ Brendan continued, ‘but apart from that—’
‘I’m fine,’ Marcus said. ‘Can I get this thing off my neck?’
Marcus had been strapped to a spinal board and had on a cervical collar.
‘Not just yet,’ Libby said.
All precautions had been taken, Brendan told her, with a slight edge to his voice. And Libby listened as he explained the scene he had found on his arrival, and the distance the patient had fallen, and the fact that Marcus had been sitting up when they had arrived.
It really did sound like an accident that had happened while Marcus and his friend had wrestled for the gaming control, although Brendan informed her that the police had also been on scene, and they were currently speaking with the friend and would soon be coming in to interview Marcus.
There were certain standard operating procedures in place for falls, and this patient was borderline. While his fall had been broken by some bushes, the distance he had fallen was close to the cut-off that meant his injuries could be more serious than were obviously apparent. She was just coming to a decision when she glanced up at the other paramedic—the one who should have been Rory but wasn’t, and whom she thought Dianne had said was called Peter—and he silently mouthed two words: Long fall.
He did it so that neither Brendan nor the patient could see, letting Libby know that he was also concerned by the distance the patient had fallen. He had been on scene too, after all, and it was good to have all the information.
‘Straight through,’ Libby said, gesturing to Resus, but her patient started when he saw the red sign and realised where he was headed.
‘Why am I being taken in there?’
‘It’s just a precaution because of how far you’ve fallen,’ Libby explained. ‘Don’t be alarmed by all the equipment—it’s just until we know that you’re stable.’
‘I’ve only hurt my wrist, though.’
‘Even so,’ Libby said as they wheeled him in, ‘it’s better to be cautious and get you properly seen to.’
Still Marcus objected. ‘I told them I could walk...’
‘Well, it’s best you don’t,’ Libby said as she moved the stretcher alongside the flat Resus bed and tried to reassure him. ‘Marcus, it’s best we take all precautions. Let me worry about all that. Believe me, I’m very good at it.’ She made him smile as they set up to move him. ‘I’m a professional worrier, in fact...’
She wasn’t lying. Libby, even though she tried her best not to, worried about almost everything!
Because, if she didn’t worry enough, things tended to fall apart.
The fridge being a case in point!
Not that she was thinking about that now...
Dianne came in to assist with the move, as did a couple of others, but, glancing up, she saw Peter checking that the brakes had been secured on both beds and refusing to be rushed.
‘Come on, Alistair,’ Dianne chided, and Libby frowned. Hadn’t Dianne just told Libby that his name was Peter?
Whatever his name was, he nodded, seemingly more in affirmation to himself that all was well than for Dianne’s benefit, and then returned to the head of the stretcher. It was then that she discovered his eyes were the darkest brown.
A deep, chocolate-brown, with spiky black lashes and gorgeously arched brows. He was drenched—no doubt frozen—yet somehow Libby couldn’t help but notice he still managed to look incredible. His black hair was wet from the rain, his skin pale, and he was clean-shaven. She also noted that he stood a head above everyone else, bo
th in stature and presence.
Though their eyes met for less than a second, it was enough that Libby felt her cheeks redden.
She could blame it on many things—sliding the patient over, the heat in Resus, or the fact that she’d been racing around all morning—only it wasn’t just that.
She was suddenly aware that she must look an utter fright. She’d been in full PPE for most of the morning, so her blonde curls were dark with sweat. As well as that, her hair tie had snapped on her arrival at work, so her curls were now being held back with a crepe bandage.
The heat on her cheeks would not fade, and it was actually a relief that it was Brendan who was the treating paramedic and giving the handover, as she was about to turn into one burning blush.
‘What do we have?’ Huba, the emergency doctor, came in as Libby set about doing her patient’s observations.
‘A fractured wrist,’ Dianne responded a touch tartly, glancing over to Libby.
It was clear that Dianne thought she had overreacted.
In the end, there wasn’t actually a chance to have a word with Brendan about her fridge, because he was being summoned by his very good-looking partner. So Libby put all thoughts of fridges and stairs completely out of her head as she called X-Ray and then dealt with Marcus, who was concerned about his friend.
‘I’ve told the police it was an accident,’ he fretted. ‘Why are they questioning him?’
‘Marcus, I don’t know what the police are doing.’ Libby was honest but firm. ‘For now, let’s focus on you.’
‘But I’m fine. I could walk if you’d let me.’
‘Libby, go and have your break,’ Dianne cut in, clearly a bit miffed, because she was in charge of Resus today, and didn’t think the patient needed to be in there—though she’d had to accept the decision, and since there was a bed free for him she didn’t challenge it.
It was quiet for a Thursday morning.
Well, no one was allowed to say the Q-word, or comment on the fact that it was unusually Q for a Thursday, because the second they did the Bat Phone would buzz, the doors would fly open and everyone in the waiting room would simultaneously collapse—or something similar.
So for now Libby took her morning coffee break and headed to the kitchen beside the staffroom. She retrieved her cheese and biscuits from the fridge and then put her hand up to compare the height of the staffroom fridge to what she thought was the size of the gap in the wall of kitchen units at her new and exceedingly tiny studio flat.
Oh, God, even if she did somehow get it up the stairs, Libby wasn’t at all sure that the fridge she was having delivered was going to fit.
‘Libby!’
Brendan made her jump, and she stopped mentally measuring the fridge and watched as he speed-filled his mug with coffee—paramedics never got long between jobs.
‘You’re going to need to find someone else to help me with the fridge,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there as soon as we’re finished, but Rory’s off sick. I’ve got...’
He gestured to the dark hunk behind him, who was helping himself to some biscuits. A lot of biscuits! He had three in his hand and was munching his way through them as Brendan tried to rope his colleague in to assist Libby with her fridge.
‘I didn’t catch your name,’ Libby ventured, but instead of enlightening her he helped himself to more biscuits as Brendan explained her predicament.
‘Rory agreed to move Libby’s new fridge with me,’ Brendan said. ‘The driver’s dropping it off at three and she’s got no one to help her...’
‘I didn’t know that I was just paying for delivery,’ Libby explained.
She realised that without even trying she was blinking and batting her eyelashes—her green eyes, which on a normal day cheerfully greeted everyone, were flirting of their own accord!
‘But it turns out I have to arrange people to lift it. I thought the price was good value for money.’
‘She paid him up-front.’ Brendan laughed as he told his colleague. ‘How long have you lived in London now?’
‘Three weeks,’ Libby said.
‘It shows,’ Brendan said, then turned to his partner, who Libby hadn’t heard speak out loud yet. ‘The thing is, now Rory’s off sick and I need someone to help me lift it.’
But the man shook his head. ‘I’ve got a physical assessment tomorrow,’ he said, while dipping a biscuit in his coffee. ‘I’m not hauling a fridge.’
He didn’t so much as look at Libby, just denied his assistance in a deep, sexy voice, and Brendan gave Libby a helpless shrug of his shoulders, as if to show what he was up against.
‘I’ll find someone,’ Libby said, blinking her eyelashes with disappointment now.
She didn’t really know many people in London. And, given it was pouring with rain, who would want to drag a fridge up two flights of stairs?
A fridge that might not even fit when it got there.
‘I’ll ask around,’ Libby attempted in an upbeat tone, and smiled at Brendan. ‘What time do you think you’ll get to mine?’
‘All depends what time we get our last job. It could be quite late,’ Brendan warned. ‘Make sure you get someone to help me, Libby...’
‘Of course.’ She nodded and watched as the hungry paramedic, whose name she still didn’t know, took another handful of biscuits and completely ignored both her vivid green eyes and her plight.
‘We need to get going,’ he told Brendan as the radio on his shoulder summoned them.
‘We haven’t cleared yet.’
‘I have,’ he said, and walked off.
‘God...’ Brendan sighed, screwing the lid on his mug and following his partner out. ‘No rest for the wicked!’
Libby smothered a giggle as Brendan huffed off.
Whatever his name was, it was no wonder they called him Perfect Peter, Libby thought as she ate her cheese and crackers and drank a huge mug of tea.
He really was perfect.
Not just tall, dark and handsome, but all brooding and silent—and self-centred enough that he wouldn’t help with her fridge.
Libby tended to go for that type, but she was determined—determined—only to date nice, safe and sensible guys from now on.
The kind of caring and thoughtful guy who was strong enough to manage a fridge. One who would gallantly put his stupid physical assessment in jeopardy for her...
And who didn’t mind about her ovaries.
With a weary sigh she leant back on the chair.
Libby was, despite her bright smile and friendly nature, not having the best day. She had finally been contacted by her home GP regarding a gynae appointment, having been referred ages ago. Seriously, ages ago. In the weeks prior to the appointment she’d have to undergo blood tests, and a detailed ultrasound, but she should be able to fit the investigations in as she was going to be home in Norfolk for her mother’s sixtieth birthday at around the same time.
Libby needed to text her response, and confirm the appointment time for the tests, only she hadn’t yet done so.
The trouble was that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know why her periods had dropped to every two or three months—or the reason for a few other issues she’d been dealing with.
She was oddly tempted to call and tell them she’d moved, just so the investigations and appointments would be cancelled. But then she would have to start the process of finding a new GP in London, and go through all the waiting again to find out she might have fertility issues, as her GP back home had suggested.
She’d been upset by the possibility, and felt she had nowhere to turn.
That was partly due to the fact that her boyfriend at the time had been hurtful, rather than helpful, and although Libby had got rid of him quick-smart, now she felt even more alone. Her close friend Olivia hadn’t been as helpful as Libby had hoped either—although in fairness she’d been pregnant herself at the time, and busy with concerns of her own. And Libby didn’t want to confide in her mother, who made Libby’s low-grade anxiety look like a walk in the park.
It was something she didn’t want to face, but Libby knew she had to get answers.
It was just so very hard facing it alone.
Draining her cup, she put it in the sink.
