A Proposal to Remember

‘Yes. Sorry, sister.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I was miles away.’

Zan frowned, puzzled. It was as if he hadn’t heard his own name. Was she really that distracting?

Kim beamed at him. ‘I just came to say that you’re very welcome, and if there’s anything at all you need while you’re working here, you can ask one of us. We’re very informal here. Do call me Kim. And this is Suzannah Wilde, but we call her Zan. She’ll be working in the room next door so that you can see patients together when the need arises.’

‘Well, that’s good to know.’ Carlo’s eyes gleamed slightly and Zan turned away so that Kim wouldn’t see her blushing.

Kim was chattering away to both of them, oblivious to the tension between the two of them. ‘We’ve got Mrs Hughes in the waiting room; she’s expecting twins. We try not to keep her waiting too long for obvious reasons.’ Kim handed Carlo the notes. ‘Have you had much experience with multiple pregnancies, Mr Bennett?’

‘Call me Carlo, and the answer to your question is, yes, plenty.’ Carlo stretched out a lean brown hand and took the notes from her. ‘One of my special interests is infertility, and I’m afraid one of the consequences of infertility treatment is an increase in multiple pregnancies, even though we do try to avoid that happening. I delivered several sets of twins and two sets of triplets last year.’

‘Mrs Hughes is thirty-seven weeks pregnant and has two more children at home, both under five,’ Zan told him, trying to keep her tone professional. ‘It’s pretty hard for her to get enough rest. Her blood pressure was borderline last time.’

Carlo nodded and flicked his eyes over the notes. ‘Let’s get her in. Do Zan and I see her together or separately?’

‘Together. Zan is her midwife,’ Kim said immediately. ‘Has she explained how we work here?’

Carlo shook his head and looked at Zan expectantly.

‘We try and give continuity of care whenever we can,’ Zan explained, ‘so, instead of working in one place, we all rotate. One day I might be in clinic and the next I might be on the labour ward. Basically we try and follow the patient, at least up until they have their baby. After that I’m afraid they get whoever is on the ward.’

Carlo listened carefully. ‘So you see them in clinic and you deliver them?’

‘That’s the idea. We divide the midwives into teams, so the woman should at least be familiar with someone from the team. It means that they don’t go into labour and find themselves being delivered by someone they’ve never met before,’ Zan explained, and then gave a gasp and turned to Kim. ‘I forgot to tell you—I saw Kelly Turner last night.’

Kim sighed. ‘I hardly dare ask. And?’

‘Well, she wasn’t great,’ Zan confessed, deciding not to mention that Carlo had been there, too. ‘She’s thirty-four weeks pregnant now, she looks tired and her uterus isn’t the size it should be. I tried to get her to come in for a scan but Mike wasn’t having it.’

‘If we’re not careful there’s going to be a tragedy there,’ Kim muttered. ‘I’ll have a word with the bosses and let them know what’s going on and I’ll speak to Social Services again. Any luck with the housing?’

‘Not yet.’ Zan’s eyes twinkled. ‘But I’m working on it.’

Kim grinned. ‘They have my sympathies. What I want to know is how did you find time to see Kelly and meet a man?’ She glanced at Carlo and winked. ‘You’d better watch her concentration this morning. She met someone last night and now she’s in love.’

Oh, thank you, Kim!

Zan closed her eyes and stifled a groan. Why, oh, why had she been so stupid as to tell her friend?

Carlo cleared his throat. ‘Well, that’s nice.’

Even without looking at him Zan could sense his amusement, and she backed towards the door.

‘I’ll go and tell Mrs Hughes she can come in, if you’re ready.’

‘Oh, I’ll do that,’ Kim said immediately. ‘You and Carlo had better have a quick chat before you start seeing patients. By the way, what happened to your eye?’

Carlo lifted a hand to his cheek. ‘Oh. I, er, had an accident.’

‘Right.’ Kim grinned and as soon as she’d left the room Carlo lifted his eyes to Zan’s, the laughter in them unmistakable.

‘A very interesting accident. So, who’s this man you’re in love with?’

‘I never said I was in love,’ she said hastily. ‘Kim has a vivid imagination, that’s all.’

‘So you’re not in love?’

She knew he was teasing her and her face flamed. ‘I don’t fall in love with men I’ve only just met.’