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==========miracle babies hindi novel translated one url, username and other details all are here hided due to few causes = jallianwalabagh series novels team from INdia
Miracle Babies at Paddington's Children's Hospital
Written by Annie O'Neil================
The last time pregnant nurse Isla saw army doc Zach, they shared an unforgettable night. Now he’s back, and suddenly their lives are about to change forever when she suddenly goes into labor with his twins!
Chapter One
From the moment he laid eyes on her Zach knew he’d made a mistake. There wasn’t a chance in hell, let alone London, she’d want him. He tore his eyes away from her—not that he’d even seen all of her, but he would’ve known that gold-and-flame-coloured hair from a mile away. Her beautiful face was half-hidden by a ridiculously huge bouquet of tulips and there was so much traffic in and out of the busy hospital entrance his view was constantly obstructed.
He stared at his cane. His duff leg. The bouquet of roses (roses! What a cliché!) that wasn’t half the size of the one she was all but burying her face in now.
His gut instinct was to leave. Abandon mission and hightail it back to the rehab hospital. Well… He’d take the long walk back—because come hell or high water he would walk. That and it would give him plenty of time to dream up a fiction about the non-reunion. This could’ve been the happiest day of his life. Instead? He shook his head and turned away. Precisely the reason he hadn’t come back sooner.
*
‘Easy love, mind how you go.’
Isla slipped a protective hand underneath her full belly as she let herself be steadied by the florist delivering yet another amazing bouquet to another lucky nurse or doctor. It was always easy to tell the floral deliveries meant for the young patients at Paddington Children’s Hospital and there wasn’t a stuffed toy or neon-coloured gerbera in sight. No. This bouquet was definitely for a staffer. One with some romance in their lives.
Unlike her.
She winced at another tiny little pinch in her back and gave her extended belly another protective rub as the babies shifted inside of her. Every day it seemed her belly button was getting further and further away. And the closer she came to her due date, the more she needed to come out here to the forecourt to get some air. Stretch her back. Remind herself everything was going to be okay.
Because it would be. One way or another. It would be.
Isla wasn’t yet at full term but she was close. Just a handful of weeks—maybe less—and she’d have a baby in each arm. Two little boys. Two little Zach’s who would never know their father.
Chapter Two
It seemed like it was just yesterday Isla had stared wide-eyed at the pregnancy test and now she was struggling to keep her balance. Literally and figuratively.
Tears prickled at the top of her nose as the all too vivid reminder that she was going to be doing this on her own filled her vision.
‘You sure you’re alright, darlin’?’ The delivery man kept his hand on her elbow until she nodded, though her eyes remained glued to the hugest bouquet of tulips she thought she’d ever seen.
Countless bouquets passed through ‘The Castle’s’ grand Victorian front doors each day—whisked up curved stairwells gracing window ledges from turret to turret. Not to mention the parades of cute-as-can-be baskets and gift boxes overflowing with teddy bears, biscuits, swirly-topped cupcakes, pillows, balloons. Valentine’s Day had near enough sent her running for the hills. But with the early arrival of spring in London, it seemed the green shoots of blossoming romances were popping up all over the place.
Pffffft.
Suckers.
Isla made herself suck in a deep breath of fresh air then heaved out a sigh.
Never before had she expected a bouquet. Never before had she even hoped.
Now that she was approaching her due date?
A split-second image of a six-foot-something, black-haired, azure-eyed doctor in full combat gear blinded her to anything else.
Ugh. She shook her head. Zach was long gone. She’d been stupid to cling to the idea he might come back. Even sillier to imagine him being here to see the birth of the baby boys he didn’t even know he’d fathered.
Trust her to become the victim of a condom malfunction.
No.
Not victim.
She’d never let herself be treated as a victim again. Nor would her children.
She made her own choices. Her own decisions. She’d made that silent vow the day she’d left…well, no one would have called the place she grew up home, but…from the day she’d left Scotland and come down to train as a paediatric nurse, she made a daily promise to the children she cared for here at Paddington’s to ensure no child felt as lonely and unwanted as she had.
A fresh sheen of tears threatened to cloud her eyes when she glimpsed the card nestled amongst the abundant bouquet. It was addressed to ‘London’s Naughtiest and Nicest Nurse.’
It was just the sort of comment Zach would’ve made each time they’d snuck off into the further reaches of the 150-year-old hospital she near enough called home. Three. Perfect. Days.
A rapid-fire set of images lit up her mind so vividly Isla could almost feel his touch.
Strong, capable hands.
Laugh lines crinkling round his blue-as-the-ocean eyes.
His stubbly cheek rubbing against her own soft one.
The rich, full-bodied guffaw of his that made everything and everyone around him smile.
Royal Army Medical Corps Surgeon Major Zachery Keating.
The most vibrant, intelligent, passionate, committed—absent, long-gone—dreamboat a girl could have ever imagined meeting. It would’ve been absolutely perfect if the protection they’d used had worked.
Chapter Three
Isla scrunched her eyes tight remembering the day she’d met him. Zach had been sent to Paddington’s for a three-day training course on ENT paediatric surgery. Part of the humanitarian work the military did when not engaged in saving soldiers’ lives.
Her boss, and the head of surgery, Dr. Robyn Kelly, had corralled her into assisting. As Robyn was just about the nicest boss in the universe, no one could say no to her and within, oh, about two seconds of laying eyes on Zach? There was no tearing Isla out of the intensive course. She was smitten from the get-go. The only reason she’d felt ‘safe’ having the affair was because she knew he’d be leaving. No chance of getting hurt, attached or otherwise engaged. Ha! Engaged. As if he would’ve proposed.
The only reason she couldn’t get it out of her head was because of the two babies she hadn’t planned on carrying.
It was far too late to wonder what her life would be like if she’d just said no.
A rush of goose pimples raced up her arms as her body remembered Zach’s fingers brushing along her cheek. His capable hands taking possessive hold of her waist, then slipping under her scrubs when she’d arched into his chest enjoying the contrast of hot skin and cold dog tags. His lips teasing, then delivering the most sensual kisses she had ever known in her entire life. She scrunched her eyes tight against the images then forced herself to open them again even though the sound of Zach’s Northern Irish accent sounded in her ears on a loop. ‘Wait for me. One more tour of duty and I’m hanging up my camos. Next time I see you, you better be all in white and wearing a veil.’
She’d never bitten the inside of her cheek harder in her life. People didn’t mean what they said. Her mother was proof enough of false promises.
That was then and this is now.
Not only was Zach gorgeous, smart, kind and a perfect gentleman…. He was gone. Just like everyone else she’d ever opened up her heart to. It would’ve been easier to believe he had simply been a figment of her imagination if she weren’t waddling round the hospital like a blue-scrub-wearing whale with two baby Zachs battling for primo location in her womb. She was going to have to shift up another size any day now if they kept growing the way they had. Her last antenatal appointment had showed two healthy and very active baby boys.
She sniffed and swiped at her eyes, hoping the gesture looked as if she had something in them other than tears.
Zach didn’t know he was going to be a daddy. And there was no way she was going to risk telling him.
Her gaze flicked from the bouquet to the florist’s eyes. Blue.
Not as blue as Zach’s.
No one’s eyes were as blue as Zachary Keating’s.
Nor was anyone’s jet-black hair near as nice as his. No one’s voice, picture-perfect abs, arms so strong they could pick her up as if she were light as a feather…
The sharp woop woop of an approaching ambulance kicked Isla back into reality mode.
She gave the delivery chap a tight smile of thanks and headed towards the ambulance bay. No point in comparing anyone to Zach except…well…the babies growing inside her. The ones their father would never know.
Chapter Four
‘Hey, Isla.’ Rosie Hobbes, a fellow nurse, appeared by her side as they waited for the ambulance to reverse into the non-emergency bay. ‘Are you on this one?’
She wasn’t, but Isla nodded anyway, not yet ready to trust there wouldn’t be a wobble to her voice if she spoke. And in desperate need of keeping herself preoccupied so she didn’t drown in self-pity. Another forbidden emotion.
‘Three cheers for the redhead brigade!’ Rosie threw a little punch into the air.
‘Strawberry-blonde if you don’t mind.’ Isla nudged her with her elbow, attention still focussed on the back of the ambulance.
‘Call it what you like, love. As far as the universe is concerned? We’re all flame-haired gingers!’
Isla laughed, relieved Rosie didn’t quiz her about the babies. Rosie had twins herself. And, if the rumour mill was anything to go by, was well and truly single after her now ex-husband turned out to be more Prince Smarmy than Charming.
‘You sick of vegetables and whole grains yet?’ Rosie asked, eyes also trained on the approaching ambulance.
‘Nope!’ Isla answered truthfully. Mercifully her pregnancy cravings had leaned in the direction of good nutrition unlike her mother’s penchant for chips and sweets. Or so she’d been told by her grandparents after her mother left her in their care. ‘Never met a carrot stick I didn’t like,’ she added, hoping to drown out the rush of dark memories.
‘How ‘bout the pelvics?’
Isla smirked. Sure she’d been doing them, but it wasn’t as if romance was on the horizon. Or anywhere for that matter.
Another kick in her belly made her gasp.
‘Strong one?’ Rosie asked, her brow cinching in concern.
Isla nodded, forcing a long, slow breath between her lips to ease the pain. ‘These babies are vying for infant boxing championships!’ She pressed her hands to her lower back and pushed her thumbs in hard.
‘When are you off?’ Rosie tipped her head back towards the hospital. ‘Doing the full maternity thing?’
Isla shook her head. ‘I’m working up to the bitter end.’ She needed every penny she could get. And then some. Doing this alone was going to be expensive and her babies would want for nothing.
Rosie gave her a sidelong look, opened her mouth as if to ask another question then closed her lips tight.
The expression on Rosie’s face was that of a woman who knew better than to ask more questions. Isla had made it more than clear at the nurses’ station that no one was getting any information beyond the fact she was pregnant. The father, the exact due date? Those were her secrets and she was holding them tight.
Chapter Five
Isla shot Rosie an apologetic look. She wasn’t trying to be difficult, but as the days went by, life was becoming more complicated, not less. There had been a swirl of rumours about what may or may not have happened but when the speculations tightened round the idea that she’d gone for a sperm donor via IVF she hadn’t said no. It was easier than saying the man she’d thought would marry her hadn’t so much as sent a text.
Jerk.
No. That wasn’t fair. She hadn’t expected anything. Hadn’t wanted anything. Expecting and wanting only led to disappointment. And the day she’d found out she was pregnant…after the shock had worn off…it was as if her body had been filled with sunshine. The purest sort of happy she had ever felt. Peaceful for the first time in her life. It was just the extra shifts that were making it harder. That was all.
If circumstances were different she would be off work now. Putting her swollen feet up. Preparing a nursery. Teaching herself how to knit.
She swallowed a humourless laugh. If circumstances were different she’d have a father for her babies.
But they weren’t. And she didn’t. So here she was at work, thirty-three weeks pregnant with twins, making the best of things.
A sigh whooshed out of her chest when the driver’s door to the ambulance opened and her long-term colleague Victoria threw her a wave before heading to the back of the vehicle. Victoria had all but grown up in the hospital and ‘haunted’ the corridors as much as she did. They’d shared enough cups of tea in the various nooks and crannies of ‘The Castle’ to know they each considered the hospital home more than the places where they went to sleep at night. The idea that the governors of the hospital were meeting to discuss the hospital’s future sent shivers along her spine. The place was an institution. A lifeline for so many London families and the children they cared for. Surely they would find some money from somewhere—like they always did—and keep providing the top-rate service they always did to any child who needed it.
‘You ready for our star patient of the day?’ Victoria asked the gathering handful of medical professionals, her hazel eyes crackling with her usual high-octane approach to life.
‘I’m always ready,’ came a rich, very male, very Scottish brogue from behind her. Isla turned at the sound of Dominic MacBride’s voice. His accent wasn’t as broad as hers. He was a recent transplant from Edinburgh and she’d lived about as far north in Scotland as you could get. Then again, her accent had a lot more time to soften “Down South” as her grandparents had called England. Exactly why she’d chosen it. As far away as possible.
The moment she’d turned sixteen her not-so-loving grandparents had made it more than clear it was time to seek support elsewhere. The same age her mother had been when she’d come home with a baby in her arms. It wasn’t but a week or two later that she’d up and left her for who knew what. She’d never come back and Isla would never be any the wiser.
Chapter Six
'Any chance you’re going to unload the patient?’
Isla narrowed her eyes at Dominic’s brusquely worded question, clearly aimed at Victoria. She thought she’d heard something wicked in his tone—the flirtatious kind of wicked—but by the time her eyes caught his, he was the picture of the intensely focussed paediatric trauma surgeon she’d come to know in the handful of days…or was it weeks now that he’d been at Paddington’s. When she turned back round she caught Victoria crinkling her nose as if Dominic smelled of cowpats.
‘So!’ Isla clapped her hands together and pasted on a smile. ‘How’s our favourite little heart candidate, Penelope?’
‘Penny’s already here.’ Dominic and Victoria snapped simultaneously. There was a terse moment’s silence as the pair glared at one another, bodies frozen as if in preparation to pounce wildcat-style if the other showed weakness first.
‘Ohhh-kay.’ Isla raised her hands in the surrender position. ‘My bad. Pregnancy brain.’
She shot Dominic an apologetic smile then arced it into an inquisitive one for Victoria.
It wasn’t like the vivacious paramedic to spar with the trauma docs. Especially if they were all ruggedly handsome, tousled short black hair and piercing blue eyes. He was no Zach, of course, and there was no replacing Zach, so…
Why are you being loyal to the man who never called you?
“You better be all in white and wearing a veil…”
Harumph. He probably had a bride-to-be waiting in every port. Or wherever it was military doctors left women whose hearts they stole then discarded like an old tissue. Not that she’d been so stupid as to let herself fall in love or anything.
‘Has anyone told Dr. Scott she’s here?’ Rosie asked no one in particular. Isla shook her head knowing her eyes looked blank. She’d been miles away.
‘I let her know when we were on approach,’ Victoria said.
‘How very diligent.’ Dominic remarked in a way that didn’t sound as if he thought being diligent was a good thing. Isla made a mental note: Dr. MacBride seems to have brought some baggage with him down from Edinburgh. The hard to unpack kind.
She tipped her head as if shaking out the judgemental thought. She was in a fine enough predicament herself so…judge not and all that.
Isla forced herself to tune in as Victoria rattled off the new patient’s details. Details she knew were already to hand if her brain would just function properly.
As the key words pinged out about the little girl’s condition—hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias, poor circulation, acute need for transplant—it was little wonder she’d confused the six-year-old the team was now unloading with Penelope. Almost identical symptoms. A heart that needed replacing. Pacemaker taking up the slack. Long-term transplant request. In and out of children’s hospitals throughout her life and now her family had moved to London they’d be seeing her at Paddington’s.
Isla took her spot on the side of the gurney as Victoria and her colleague snapped the back doors to the ambo shut. The streamlined gurney looked so big in contrast to the pale-faced little girl tucked beneath the bright red blanket. When Isla looked across to Rosie who was opposite her, she saw what she knew was burning in her own eyes. Hope. Hope that the poor, wee girl would get her new heart and have a full, rich life.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw yet another delivery man arrive with yet another enormous bouquet. Roses this time. Deep red. Scarlet almost. Her favourite.
The man was almost hesitant in his approach to the hospital as though the cadence of his gait had been short-circuited and he needed to remind himself how to walk. He had pitch-black hair, so dark it was almost blue and—there was something… Not just something. It was everything. It was Zach.
Chapter Seven
Everything inside Isla froze except her heart. An explosion of heat detonated inside her chest, shooting out in sharp-edged pins instead of sparkling fireworks. The thump of her heart pounded with such force against her ribcage she could hardly breathe.
Until this very moment she hadn’t been entirely sure if she’d fallen in love with Zach over those three perfect days and now she knew it in her very core.
Of course she had.
Why else would she be carrying these two perfect babies and vowing every single day to protect them against everything that had hurt her in her own childhood? Abandonment. Neglect. Disinterest.
Frozen, she watched as he scanned the map just outside the ambulance bay.
His hair was longer. It had been a clean-cut number two when she’d seen him last. Now it curled over the top of his shirt collar, covered his forehead. The kind of length his hair would’ve been if he’d come back from his tour at Christmas like he’d said.
A sour twist swept up her throat and it was all she could do not to gag.
He hadn’t been redeployed.
He’d been home all these months.
‘…all in white and wearing a veil…’
Isla swallowed hard, but the feeling of nausea was getting harder to fight.
A moment later Zach lowered the bouquet and turned to look at the group assembled around the gurney. His gaze glanced off hers then doubled back and cinched.
The only sound Isla could hear was the rush of blood.
He had a beard now. Not a long one. It looked nice. The short, dark facial hair accented the sharp lines of his cheekbones. More pronounced than when she’d seen him last. The straight line of his nose. The fullness of his lips. More spy than surgeon. Enigmatically mysterious.
Quite a change from the smiling, warm, cuddly bear of a man who’d swept her off her feet.
Thick lashes outlined the perfect pair of blue eyes that were all but branded onto her memory banks. They widened before he turned away.
Isla’s hands flew to her lips, hoping to mask the gasp of disbelief burning in her chest, then just as quickly she pressed them to her back as another cramp hit the base of her spine and spiderwebbed out to her belly.
He’d seen her.
Had he?
Of course he had seen her.
And he’d turned away.
He was bringing flowers to another woman. It was the only explanation she could think of. They certainly weren’t for a child. She knew her bouquets and there wasn’t a man on earth who brought a dozen red roses to a child.
For a moment Isla thought she could hear her colleagues exchanging information with the patient’s parents who had arrived in their own vehicle. Across the bay she saw Dr. Matthew McGrory heading out of the wide double doors Zach was heading for.
Dr. McGrory was Irish. But from south of the border unlike Zach who had grown up in Belfast. Almost idly, she wondered if they would get along. Even if they were both beginning to look fuzzy round the edges.
An acute, almost unbearable pain seized Isla’s midsection followed by a burst of liquid from just below her arc of baby belly.
Everything was blurry now. The nausea she had been trying to fight was winning.
Isla knew she was going to fall before she actually hit the hard cobbles but could do nothing to stop it.
Part of her was aware of her lips parting to tell someone, of her hands reaching out to grab the gurney, though she could see the team had already moved past her towards the hospital entrance, unaware that she’d been overcome. She tried her best to scream, whisper, anything…and then there was darkness.
Chapter Eight
Fight or flight kicked in in exactly the opposite way Zach had planned.
He’d chosen flight and just a few steps away from the hospital blinkin’ fight reared its head. Big time.
The mission was simple. Bring the flowers. Apologise. Go back to the rehab hospital and tell everyone he’d made peace with his past.
Boom.
He could’ve lied. Could’ve said anything.
But something deep in his chest was demanding the truth. No mystery what that was. His heart.
The second he’d locked eyes with Isla he knew walking away would be impossible. Every bit as painful as realising his leg was missing. Maybe more.
Again, it was hard to get a full glimpse of her as she was on the far side of a gurney surrounded by medical personnel and wasn’t the tallest of women—petite even—but he could’ve picked her out of a crowd of thousands.
She was glowing from the inside out. Beautiful. The same untameable curly hair trying its best to escape the clasp she’d bundled it into. The same dark brown eyes full of empathy and warmth. Capable. Assured. Just…the most perfect woman he’d ever met.
There was no way she’d want a man like him. Put through the war machine for one last tour only to come out as damaged goods.
He’d promised to come back for her. Promised to give her everything she’d ever wanted. A home. A family.
And that was the plan. From the moment he’d landed in Helmand Province it had been chaos. Local tribal clashes, families caught in the crossfire, horrific injuries keeping him and anyone else he could grab at the operating table as long as he could stay awake. Snatched hours of sleep were for survival and nothing more. There were no spare moments. No time to send addresses. Email links. Nothing at all.
And that hadn’t been the plan. Of course she’d laughed when he semi-proposed to her before he left, but he’d made a silent vow to himself that he would make good on that promise and just nine short days into his tour he knew he would fail.
He wasn’t the strong, able-bodied, vital man who’d pulled Isla Reid into his arms and kissed her as if she were the very thing that kept his heart beating.
The first two months in hospital he hadn’t mentioned her name. Couldn’t. It was only in one particularly painful rehab session it had come out. A painful wolf howl scoured raw with loss and the ache of knowing all he’d ever wanted for her was beyond his reach.
He couldn’t believe he’d let the PTSD shrink talk him into coming here. Make amends for leaving her hanging. The guilt had been near enough eating him alive but at least the gnawing, aching sensation of loss took his mind off the other things that were missing.
His leg.
His ability to have children.
He stared at the roses for a moment as if he was holding a fistful of weeds. What had possessed him to come and say sorry and goodbye with the symbol of love? Life might’ve been unnecessarily cruel to him but it was no reason to grind salt into Isla’s wounds. If she had any.
Who knew? A woman that beautiful could’ve more than easily moved on by now.
Chapter Nine
‘Is it all right if I just leave these here?’ Zach unceremoniously plonked the flowers down on the reception counter where a curly-blonde-haired woman was in deep discussion with a man who looked more suited to an ultra-elite business meeting in Europe than a children’s casualty ward. French, maybe. Or Italian? Whatever he was, the man had upper class written all over him. Maybe he was a donor receiving the grand tour.
Getting eye contact from anyone in the busy casualty ward was proving impossible so he turned to make his own discreet getaway before Isla could find him—coward that he was.
‘Robyn!’ The paramedic he’d seen in the courtyard came running in behind him. ‘Isla’s just fainted. Her waters broke. We’re thinking early contractions. Can you get a gurney out in the ambulance bay? Dominic’s bringing Penny up to Cardio for Dr. Scott and Alistair’s with Isla. We’re going to have to deliver here. No time to get her across to St. Mary’s.’
Zach felt like a bomb had just exploded in his head. Fragments of information were coming at him as he blindly followed the two doctors who’d instantly flown into action.
Fainted.
Contractions?
Waters breaking?
He was more used to confronting compound fractures than contractions but even a layman could paint a picture.
Isla was pregnant.
A child, a beautiful woman by his side—the two things he’d wanted most were within arm’s reach precisely at the moment he’d decided to walk away. He swept back across a mental calendar and tried to tally things up.
No. Unh-unh… They weren’t quite there. Didn’t quite match.
A father one second. A cuckold the next.
He knew more than most that life could be unkind. Right now it felt downright cruel.
As the doctors swept past him towards the ambulance bay something atavistic—near primeval—welled within him.
He’d come here to tell Isla face-to-face he wasn’t the man for her. To lay an explanation at her feet and let her do with it what she chose.
She deserved that much. More. A helluva a lot more. Things he couldn’t give her. Looked like someone had already beat him to it.
When he’d told her he expected to see her in a veil he’d meant it. And when she’d laughed at him he’d seen love in her eyes. Pure. Untethered. Love.
He’d left the hospital once. And something had made him turn around to fight. Well, now that he was back he may as well grind salt into his own wounds. Find out what not staying in touch had earned him.
Zach shored up strength he didn’t realise he’d possessed anymore and ran—actually ran—back out into the courtyard and pressed into the small group of doctors huddled around Isla.
It felt as though an invisible force were reaching into his chest and pulling his heart straight out of his ribcage when he saw Isla lying there, hair sprayed across the cobblestones like a small lake of gold arcing around her beautiful, far too pale face. Little freckles dabbled across her nose. Lips the colour of tea roses… Not that he was an expert or anything, but he could’ve given a description of Isla so detailed a blind man would’ve been able to picture her.
‘I’m sorry.’ The blonde doctor from Casualty gave him a solid look and pressed a hand out flat, indicating he needed to back up.
‘You’re going to have to step aside for the minute while we—’
Zach took a place on the side of the gurney as— Robyn, was it? Facts slipped into place. The Head of Surgery if memory served. She’d run one of the ENT modules in the course he’d been on with Isla. She and another doctor gently lifted and tipped a very pregnant Isla to the side, slipped a backboard under her, and on a three count lifted her onto a gurney.
Everything about this moment was wrong. He should be touching her. He should be helping her.
‘She’s my—’ he began, then stopped just as abruptly as all eyes turned expectantly towards him.
What exactly?
The love of his life?
Yes.
Girlfriend?
No.
Mother to the children he never thought he’d have?
Maybe.
And that was one helluva precious maybe.
Chapter Ten
‘Can you take a step back, please?’ Robyn’s tone was sharper now, protective.
‘I’m her—’ Zach’s mind raced for the right word. They’d never dated. Courted even. Just a man and a woman who’d taken the fastest, most adrenaline-laced, honesty-fuelled zip line ride to falling in love that had ever happened. They’d learnt more about each other in seventy-two hours than he knew anyone. Peas in a pod. Made for each other.
He’d had to stop himself from proposing the moment he’d laid eyes on her. He’d just… He’d known. The way he still knew now.
From the moment he’d left for his final tour he was already thinking of her as his wife. The house-hunting. The fights over which side of the sofa they’d sit on. All the things men were meant to hate, but those were the thoughts that got him through the days. Until the mortars began pounding down all around the hospital tent.
Zach knelt down, absorbing the full impact of Isla’s swollen belly, his fingers flexing with the instinctive urge to spread his fingers wide and possessively across what he was praying he had helped create. Half Irish. Half Scots. That baby would be a Celtic firebrand all right. He hoped his or her hair was as flame-and-gold-bright as their mother’s.
Zach’s doctor’s brain overrode his emotions. The timing wasn’t exactly right for her to be so pronounced. They’d met eight months ago. He hadn’t taken her for a girl who kept several men on the go....but from the size of her belly Isla had to be at term. So she was pregnant by another man…or… The air left his chest and he sucked in a sharp breath before locking eyes with Robyn and asking, ‘Is she carrying twins?’
‘Family only, I’m afraid. Now I’m really going to have to ask you to step back.’ Robyn’s lips tightened to a thin line and she tipped her chin up, indicating Zach needed to get up and move back so they could get Isla through the swinging doors and into the hospital. Just as quickly her amber eyes narrowed as if a memory had hit her.
‘I’m the father.’
‘You’re Zachary Keating.’
They’d spoken simultaneously and each leaned back on their heels, taking a moment to register what the other had said.
Robyn’s eyes widened and the other doctor—Zach’s eyes flicked to the stitching on his white lab coat—Alistair North stood up in tandem with Zach, looking as though he were about to throw a punch. The guy was tall and lean but Zach was taller and with the amount of weight he’d dropped since they’d had to take off his leg from the knee down… Well. Suffice it to say he was lean, too.
‘That’s impossible.’ Dr. North said in the even, clear tones of a man who’d gone to university where the buildings were covered in ivy. Even so, he threw a questioning glance at Robyn whose inscrutable gaze remained fixed on Zach.
Zach shrugged. He didn’t know what Isla had told her co-workers, but his gut was telling him he was the father and it was just about the only thing he trusted right now. If it wasn’t the case he’d have one helluva session with his counsellor this afternoon.
Chapter Eleven
The team began moving into the vast brick building. Near enough everyone’s body language was shutting Zach out save the odd backwards glance from Robyn.
This was it. The time to trust his gut or accept defeat.
Those could be your children. Are you going to abandon them, too?
Decision made.
One way or another, he had to know.
Ignoring Dr. North’s sharp ‘back off’ glances he followed the team in. Where Isla was going? So was he.
When they reached the lift, Dr. North put out a hand. ‘She doesn’t need you for this.’
Never before had Zach wanted to clobber a man. But getting arrested on top of finding out he wasn’t those children’s father wouldn’t paint much of a picture. Not one anyone would hang on their wall, anyway.
‘Why don’t we ask her?’ Zach pressed his heels into the ground, still struggling to connect the sensations of one real and one artificial foot holding the full bulk of his six-foot-four-inch frame. It was a bad time to play king of the jungle, but The School of Rising Above had already dealt him a full deck this year.
As if on cue, Isla began to shift on the hard board the team had lifted onto the gurney. Her hands moved to her stomach, her facial features pulling back into a tight wince with her eyes still shut tight.
‘It’s all right, babe,’ Zach said, cupping his hand over hers. ‘I’m here now.’
Isla’s eyes popped wide open, fingers flying to cover the wide O her mouth made where sound refused to come out. She blinked and stared. Then blinked again.
If Zach hadn’t believed a thousand thoughts could rearrange themselves within the space of a solitary second, he knew it now.
The only other time he’d experienced such clarity was when he had a patient on the operating table and they were under heavy mortar fire. Mortaritaville they’d called the posting. About as far a cry away from a holiday destination as you could get. A death-tination for far too many.
‘What are you doing here?’ Isla shrunk back from him, if such a thing was possible, and collectively the doctors around the gurney closed in.
‘I thought I’d come see my bride-to-be,’ he growled. Hadn’t meant to. But the woman he loved looked about as pleased to see him as a soldier was to face a long march in the pouring rain. Not one bit.
Her look said it all.
He was damaged goods. He shouldn’t have come.
Chapter Twelve
Zach found it as easy to transport himself to the day he’d lost his leg as the moment he’d set eyes on Isla Seven months ago. Six months, three weeks and four days to be precise. Zero-nine-thirty-seven. He’d just called a time of death for a local woman caught in some crossfire and had moved on to a soldier who’d taken some shrapnel in the chest. He’d heard the cries. The sirens. Knew his patient wouldn’t make it if he didn’t stay for just a few more precious seconds to make those crucial stitches.
Broad-blinking-daylight attack. They should’ve seen it coming. Didn’t matter now. Two epic fails in one blink of the eye.
The soldier had died. Zach had lost his leg and six long months of rehab had confirmed he was no longer a candidate for marriage. A poisonous pill to swallow when he woman he loved was lying in front of him about to give birth.
The world seemed determined to work in mysterious ways and today was no different. Just a whole lot harder to walk away from.
‘Zach—I thought you—’ Isla choked on her words as a sharp sob escaped her throat.
He forced himself to stay. See it through no matter how painful. He wanted to hear it from her. Hear her say the babies weren’t his and then tell him to go.
Then he could shut the door.
‘Shush now, petal. Looks like you need to conserve your energy.’
‘I’m—’ She laughed and sobbed again. ‘I’m a little different.’
‘I noticed.’ They both gazed at the healthy expanse of her pregnant belly.
Her face creased and the soft gaze she’d given her belly turned hard as her eyes flicked back to him. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Came to see a girl.’
He thought, by the look in his eyes, she’d know he meant her. Isla. The one single light in his life. If possible her dark eyes lost even more light. Brusquely, almost savagely she grabbed his hand.
‘Want to feel them?’
‘Them?’ A sharp hit of emotion blurred his vision.
She drew his hand across the thin cotton covering her stomach.
‘They’re your twins. Boys.’ A sharp sob escaped her chest as both his hands were drawn to her broad belly.
His babies.
His sons.
‘They’re a bit early.’ She spoke through a tight gasp, her eyes flicking away from his as she spoke, but he knew what she was really saying.
You don’t deserve to be in their lives.
The weeks and months he’d lain in hospital and then rehab seemed a distant memory now. He’d been a class-A fool to think staying away from Isla was the best thing to do. Just the sound of her sweet Highland voice was better than any of the medicines battling for space on his bedside table. Now they weren’t keeping it under lock and key. The first few weeks after the op had been tough. Pitch-black each time he’d tried to look into the future. Not calling Isla in his darkest moments had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.
Now, with her fingers curling round his own, the shift and kicks of his unborn children beneath his hand, he began to wonder: Had he been wrong not to let her in? Let her see his pain? Marriage was about for better and for worse. He shook off the thought. He’d seen one too many soldiers served divorce papers as they battled to make a new life for themselves once war had made its mark. He had been saving Isla the trouble.
Now, looking into that beautiful face of hers, he wasn’t so sure.
‘I—I thought you’d gone.’ Her voice had softened and his heart all but leapt out of his throat when he saw tears had begun to trickle along her cheeks.
‘I’m here now, Isla.’ He drew the backs of his fingers along the soft down of her cheek, her tears unwittingly acting as the salt in the invisible wounds he hadn’t been able to heal.
Out of his peripheral vision, Zach could see the doctors on either side of him stiffening.
Well let them.
He was here now. And he wasn’t going anywhere. Not unless she gave him his marching orders.
Isla’s knees shot up as another hit of pain gripped her.
‘Is there a maternity ward here?’ Zach looked to Robyn for an answer as Isla did her best to cut off the circulation in his hand. The other doctor, Alistair, still seemed to be on standby to bare-knuckle it for Isla’s honour if need be.
Hmm … He’d have to keep an eye on him. Not that he had any claim on Isla. He’d lost the right the day he’d cut himself off from the world. The same day the world had made him less of a man.
Robyn grimaced. ‘There would be if I could ever get the board to agree to sign off on it.’ She looked to Isla, her features softening into a gentle smile as she did. ‘C’mon, breathe through it, love.’ She jabbed at the lift button again. ‘We’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way if you’re as advanced as I think you are. We all know how budgets work don’t we, Isla?’
The two laughed and said simultaneously, ‘Not at all!’
Chapter Thirteen
Another searing shot of pain gripped Isla so hard she thought if she bore down she would have the babies right here and now.
‘I need an epidural!’ She finally cried out. ‘Now!’
‘Who’s making all that racket?’ Isla recognised the Southern Irish brogue before she opened her eyes. Matthew McGrory.
‘You’re going to have to do some reconstructive surgery on someone if I don’t get an epidural in me fast!’
‘Easy there, Isla. I’m just the messenger. Victoria’s demanding updates on how Paddington’s most expectant mother is getting along. She says everyone’s afraid to sit in your chair now in case they get pregnant.’
Isla tried her best to smile, but could only manage to roll out a stream of owowowowoweeeeees as she clamped her eyes tight against the pain. Too bad there wasn’t a wedding chair. Or even a boyfriend chair. Now that the babies were well and truly on their way, fear began to replace all of the soft-focus hopes and dreams she’d had.
Zach’s arrival may seem heaven-sent, but it was more like a stark reminder that he was just like her mother. Dropping in and out of her life as it suited him. The full bouquet of roses filled up her mind’s eye. Proof he had moved on. The fact he was here acting all gentle and gallant was just a fluke. He’d leave. It was only a matter of time.
Maybe if she just kept her eyes closed he would go away.
‘Is there anything you can give her?’
Zach.
His fingertips. His scent. She’d know that scent anywhere. Fresh apples and newly cut grass with the tiniest hit of toast.
Against everything she’d trained herself to believe, Isla could feel her heart begin to melt.
If Zach really didn’t want to be with her, he’d be gone now. She tuned in, listening to him talk through the options, the rose petals fading behind her eyelids and being replaced by her big, tall, strong soldier and doctor who from the sounds of things was going to battle for her. He’d said he’d come back for her. Months and months ago. And not a peep.
Her heart cinched, then tightened as another round of pain took hold.
‘We’re going to get you to an operating theatre, love.’
Robyn.
‘Wouldn’t she be better off in Maternity?’
An accented voice. Was that the Italian duke Robyn had been promising to interview? The paediatrician?
‘We’re waiting on budgets’ came the tight answer.
Robyn again.
Someone was making clicking jabs at the aging lift buttons.
Easy! You had to treat those things with care. This was an old hospital.
‘If it’s all right, I’m just going to take a look to see how far along you are, Isla.’
Zach again.
‘No.’ She slammed her knees tight, a sudden rush of fear taking hold of her weakened will.
She hadn’t seen or heard from the man in months. A formidable maternal need to protect what she and she alone had cared for took hold. She knew first-hand what it was like to have someone say they loved her and then all but leave her for the wolves when the idea of eighteen years of childcare wore thin. That…and the whole turning up at Paddington’s with roses for someone else.
Another contraction took hold of all her senses until she could just make out the ping of the lift, the rolling of the wheels of her gurney, Zach’s hand stroking her forehead again and again as he whispered things he didn’t have the right to whisper… ’You’ll be okay, darlin’. Everything’s going to be all right.’
Chapter Fourteen
The lift pinged again. More movement. Urgent whispers crossing back and forth across her that Isla couldn’t quite make out. Dilation. Blood pressure. Monitors. C-sections. She tried to cry out that no, she wanted to do this naturally. In truth? She’d do anything to make sure her babies came out healthy. It wasn’t as if there’d be anyone to hide the scar from.
She chanced opening her eyes for a teensy glimpse of Zach.
He was a picture of pure concentration. More perfect than she’d remembered. Every part of her that wasn’t glad to be lying down itched to crawl into his arms and have him rock the pain away. He’d lost some of the solid bulk he’d carried when she’d met him last. As if he’d been sick. Gone through some sort of bereavement. Or maybe he’d just reinvented himself. Started over with someone new, their brief affair but a distant, faded memory.
This was meant to have been perfect. The moment she’d dreamt of as a girl. Having a child of her own. Children of her own. A family. To care for and protect and love with all of her heart to make up for all of the loneliness and pain she’d known through those dark, isolated years in the box room at her couldn’t-care-less grandparents’.
‘Isla, love? We’re about to enter the theatre, all right? You need to make a decision about who you’d like with you.’
Robyn.
Part of her wanted to call for her mother. The mother she’d never known. The other part wanted to reach out and feel her small hands be enveloped by the one man in the world who had made her feel safe. Loved.
More footsteps. More jostling for pole position round the gurney. She squeezed her eyes even tighter.
‘Woo! It’s all hands on deck here, isn’t it? Need another set of hands?’
An Australian voice. The new trainee neurosurgeon…what was her name…c’mon, c’mon…think!
Isla heard Alistair’s smooth-as-silk voice introducing Claire—Claire!—to the group. A trainee in from down under. He asked her to find some stirrups but didn’t sound too friendly about it.
Weird. He always sounded great with the patients whenever they’d worked together. Whatever. She had babies to deliver. Sorting out the hospital’s ever-changing social dynamics would have to wait.
The next shot of pain to hit her was like being gripped in a vice and then having her insides magnetically pulled towards her toes. The sensations radiated from the centre of her back, out and around the arc of her belly, which tightened hard as a rock. Everything shifted southward.
Isla finally managed to open her eyes, take in the sea of expectant faces. Some of them new. All of them hopeful. One of them too heartbreaking to tear her eyes away from. And then it hit her. She knew why he was staying:
He wanted to take her babies away.
Chapter Fifteen
A pain so sharp she could hardly see took hold of Isla, but she forced herself to maintain eye contact.
‘Noooooooo!’ She glued her eyes to Zach’s, trying her best to feel as though monsters hadn’t invaded her belly and weren’t trying to rip her hips apart. But it was tough. ‘I! Want! Them! Out!’
Isla could barely recognise her own voice. It sounded raw. Primitive.
‘Major Keating, I’m really going to need you to leave now.’
She heard Robyn but couldn’t see her.
‘I’m staying whether you like it or not.’ Zach spoke directly to Isla, not even bothering to glance at Robyn.
‘Let him stay,’ Isla managed through deep, fully charged exhales from the very base of her lungs. ‘He may as well see what he’s going to be missing.’
*
Isla’s words struck Zach like a flick knife. Sharp and decisive. Just as he imagined she’d intended. The words were in direct conflict with her ring-free hand, which was holding on to his as if her life depended on it, but pain did strange things to a person. So did love.
He didn’t deserve the latter and heaven knew he’d endured his fair share of the former. Either way, he owed it to Isla to be here if that was what she wanted.
He’d see it through. And then he’d walk away.
‘You’re going to have to gown up.’ Robyn’s tone had changed. The look in her eyes told him all he needed to know. Don’t mess with our girl. She’s got a team behind her. And you’re on your own, pal.
As if they’d planned it, the handful of doctors who’d help usher Isla up to the operating theatre turned to him as one and gave him nods of agreement. They’d let him stay. But one false move…
His instinct was to bridle. Fight back. They didn’t know Isla was the first person he thought of when he woke up in the morning and the last spun-gold-haloed woman he pictured at night. The reason he fought for his life. The reason he’d decided to stay away so she could have more. If he’d known she was pregnant—
If. Could’ve. Would’ve. Should’ve. None of those mattered now. The love of his life was having his children and if he had been trained to do anything in the military it was to step up regardless of how it made him feel. Torn in two came close. Devastated near enough hit the target.
Isla’s grip tightened on his hand and it was all he could do not to reach out and stroke that beautiful, full belly of hers…
‘She’s crowning!’ Alistair twirled his index finger in a let’s-get-this-show-on-the-road move and as one they moved into the operating theatre.
Gowns were donned. Surgical caps. A couple of raised eyebrows at his ease with the room and accompanying ‘medical speak’ compelled him to explain, ‘Royal Army Medical Corps.’
Alistair, the protective one, gave him a solid nod—as if a light bulb had just gone on.
A moment’s hush filled the room as Isla placed her legs in the stirrups and all of the appropriate cloths and tables were wheeled into place around the makeshift delivery table. When Isla nodded that she was ready, Zach was by her side in an instant, wordlessly lifting her up and onto the table.
Chapter Sixteen
There was no mistaking the wince of pain as Zach crossed the room to stand beside her.
Like a fog clearing, Isla realised she’d been wrong. He wasn’t here to take her babies. Something dark had befallen Zach. Something that had changed his life forever.
‘What is it?’ she asked, all the other people and whirr of activity blurring into white noise. ‘What happened over there?’
His clear blue eyes widened and she watched as he went through a series of silent decisions. To tell or not to tell.
She gripped his hand tightly in her own. ‘Zachary Keating. I am about to have your sons. I do not expect a single thing from you except the truth. You owe me that much.’
He shook his head. ‘Maybe we should get this over and done with first.’
She knew it hadn’t come out the way he’d meant it to. He’d sounded curt. Cool even. Distant. And it hurt her to the quick. She hadn’t asked him for a single thing. Not loyalty. Not commitment. Not a single solitary penny towards raising the children they had unwittingly created. No trying to hunt him down. Naming and shaming. Not a single soul at the hospital had known who he was until now. She’d let people think what they wanted. Most of them knew she had more ‘family’ at the hospital than real family and had just presumed she’d gone for an IVF donor.
Trying her best to retain as much dignity as a woman could when her legs were slung wide open and doctors she’d worked side by side with were inspecting her birth canal, she lowered her voice and all but growled, ‘Did you just say I should get giving birth to your children ‘over and done with’?
‘Can we just add that to the list of mistakes I’ve been making?’ Zach replied, almost sheepishly. Almost.
‘What?’ Isla shot back. ‘Like showing up at the hospital with flowers for another woman?’
‘Another woman?’ Zach let out a low whistle and laughed at the crossed wires. ‘Those flowers were for—’
Zach stopped. This was his chance to come clean. Tell her the truth. That he was less of a man in more ways than the loss of his leg. That there would be no more children after this. At least not from him. ‘Those flowers were for you.’
Chapter Seventeen
Anything else Zach had meant to say was drowned out in a sea of howls and cries of ‘I want to push!’ He shot a glance at Robyn who had taken pole position.
‘You go ahead, love—these babies want to come out and meet their mother and father.’
Father.
Ingesting the word felt like being filled with helium. The lightest he’d felt in months. Years even.
‘C’mon, babe. You can do this. We can do this.’ He swept a hand across her brow, wishing he had a cool cloth to clear the beads of sweat adding yet another layer of glow to the woman who had captured his heart.
‘We?’ Isla asked, knowing there was more hope in her eyes than she’d wanted to betray.
‘We.’
‘How do I know you won’t go away again?’
‘I wanted you to know everything that happened. Let you make the choice to let me go.’
‘Let you go? You weren’t here to keep!’
‘Easy there, firecracker.’ Claire, the Australian appeared on her other side and drew a mercifully cooling cloth across her forehead. ‘Your blood pressure is shooting way up. Any problems during pregnancy we should know about?’
‘No.’ She shook her head before returning her full attention to Zach. ‘I thought you’d decided what we’d had was a fling.’
‘Oh, my sweet love.’ Zach bent and pressed a kiss on her forehead, his scent filling her like a healing tonic. ‘What we had…what we had was one of a kind.’
‘Was?’ Isla heard the crack in her voice. Felt the hint of tears predicting a full-on meltdown depending upon what he said next.
‘Maybe this conversation should wait until after the babies are born.’ Dominic appeared by Claire’s side with an oxygen mask. ‘We’re going to have to get you some of this if your breathing doesn’t steady up, Isla. Do you want him to go?’ Dominic flicked his chin towards Zach.
‘No!’ She replied vehemently. ‘I want him to tell me where I stand.’ This time there was heat in her words. She was going to be a mother. There was no room for wishy-washy wavering in her life. ‘You need to decide right now if you want to be part of these boys’ lives. My life.’
She watched his Adam’s apple dip and rise as he swallowed, lips pressed together as if holding in everything he’d planned to say until he put the sentences in the right order.
‘Nothing about how I feel about you has changed,’ Zach finally said with the certainty of a judge laying down the law. ‘You’re the only woman I have ever loved. The only one I will love, but—’ He held up a hand, not wanting her to interrupt. ‘It’s you who has the choice to make. You who needs to decide if you want me to be in your life.’
‘I—can’t—’
Chapter Eighteen
BP is 160 over 98,’ Claire cut in. ‘Let’s roll her on her side.’
‘Isla, are you absolutely sure you want Zach in here?’ Robyn stepped back from the table after lowering the stirrups as Dominic and Claire deftly moved Isla onto her side so that she was face-to-face with Zach.
‘Of course I want him in here. He’s the father of my children!’ Isla insisted, her eyes solidly linked to Zach’s.
‘165 over 106.’ The warning note in Claire’s voice was pitched. ‘We need a check on the babies’ heart rates!’
Isla forced a steadying breath between her lips. She couldn’t compromise her babies’ health. Not for any reason. But she had to know before they came out into the world whether or not they were going to have a father. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to picture the Zach she’d fallen in love with. Strong, warm-hearted, loving. Oh, so loving.
‘BP’s coming down’ came the relieved update from Claire as the cadence of the heart monitor’s beeps became less frantic.
‘The babies are all right,’ Robyn added. ‘And they’re both positioned beautifully.’
Isla closed her eyes and took another steadying breath. Three. Two. One. When she opened them Zach was still there.
‘BP is 145 over 91.’
‘Whatever you’re doing, love, keep on doing it,’ Robyn said encouragingly, helping Isla to reposition her feet into the stirrups.
Isla grabbed Zach’s hand and pulled it to her chest, compelling him to come closer to her. ‘Please tell me what’s going on.’ If she was going to have to say goodbye she may as well do it while the physical pain could drown out the emotional pain.
‘Would you rather just wait?’ He threw an anxious look at the monitors, her full belly.
‘If the man I love is going to leave me right after he’s told me he loves me, I need to know why,’ she said with greater clarity than she’d realised she possessed.
‘I’m not leaving you, my wee treasure.’ Zach pressed his free hand to his chest then arched his fingers as if trying to draw the explanation straight from his heart.
‘I’m hardly wee,’ Isla countered warily, bracing herself for the worst.
‘Course you are. You’re a wee little poppet. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.’
Blinking back tears of frustration, Isla forced herself to put a voice to her worst fear. ‘But you’re not staying.’
‘I think it’s what you’ll want, my darling Isla. I’m not the man who you met nine months ago. Not even close.’ He swept a few tendrils of her hair away from her damp forehead.
‘Then whooooooooooOOOOWWWWWWareYouuuuuuuuoooooowwwww?’
Despite the gravity of the situation, Zach laughed good-naturedly as Isla pressed hard onto his shoulders and screamed her way through another push to a chorus of cheers and encouraging words from her colleagues.
‘I can’t give you everything we talked about before I left.’
‘What. Do. You. Mean?’ Isla panted. Having a heart-to-heart in the throes of bringing babies into the world seemed strangely perfect.
‘I lost my leg.’
Chapter Nineteen
Isla’s brow furrowed in confusion. Still holding her hand, Zach stepped back from the table and pulled up his trouser leg to reveal a prosthetic ankle joint.
If Isla had thought her heart couldn’t have loved Zach more than she had when she’d given him her thousandth farewell kiss all those months ago…she knew now there was room for more. So much more.
‘That’s going to make chasing after toddlers interesting.’
His eyes widened, burned the brightest blue she’d ever seen, then went hazy under a film of tears.
‘I won’t be able to have any more children.’ Zach’s words were rammed together—said so quickly she had to pause a minute to tease them apart and extract the meaning.
‘I don’t care about that.’
Zach shook his head in disbelief. ‘You said you wanted a big family.’
‘Isn’t twins and a six-foot-four husband big enough?’
‘You’d still—’ Zach’s hands balled into fists and he pressed them to his chest as if he were trying to hold his heart in his ribcage.
‘Of course I would. Especially if you’ll let me call you Captain Peg.’
Zach threw back his head and laughed, throwing in a whoop and a powerful victory punch into the air.
Just as quickly his expression sobered. ‘I need you to be sure. Absolutely, one hundred per cent sure this is what you want.’
‘What kind of an eejit do you think I am?’ She borrowed his Irish phrase to press her point. ‘Who else—’
Whatever Isla’s brain had formulated to say disappeared as a sensation akin to being hit by lightning took ahold. Through the lioness roar of will over matter, she heard Robyn updating her with her baby’s progress: the head was out…the little shoulders…then whoosh. All of a sudden she was looking at her little baby boy.
Victoria appeared behind Robyn, a grin larger than the Cheshire cat’s on her face as she tugged on her surgical gown. ‘May I?’
Isla nodded, knowing Victoria was asking if she could take the baby away for a quick clean, make sure his throat and nose were clear of any liquids that might harm his little lungs.
A sob of pure, unadulterated joy flew out of her throat when Robyn pronounced the umbilical clipped and the other baby already visible.
Isla reached out her hand to find Zach. Touch the father of her firstborn son.
Shards of pain lacerated her heart when she saw he wasn’t there. Disappeared as deftly as he had when he’d gone on tour.
She knew she’d find a way to forgive him one day—one day.
Chapter Twenty
What do you think we should call him?’
Isla turned to look at the opposite side of her bed where Dominic and Claire had been monitoring her stats, her eyes filling with tears. There, standing before her with the proudest look she’d seen on any man’s face, was Zach cradling their baby boy in his arms. He was tiny. So small. His eyes were closed tight, his little fists just visible above the blue swaddling, a thick swatch of pitch-black hair making a clear statement as to who his father was.
A warm heat filled Isla’s chest.
Zach had stayed. He had chosen to stay.
‘Got anything in mind, love?’ Zach ran a thumb against his son’s cheek, bringing another rush of tears to Isla’s eyes.
Another, more pointed wash of sensation rushed to her belly.
‘I don’t know, but I think we’re going to have two choices on our hands in a minute!’
‘Less than a minute,’ Robyn riposted. ‘I’m already seeing a curly-strawberry-blonde boy on his way.’
Isla’s eyes flicked between her newborn son and Zach as she bore down, teeth clenched, knowing she had the strength to do anything in the world now that they were a family.
‘…aaaaand here’s little Isla in male form!’ Robyn beamed, holding up a son already in full voice. ‘Let’s get this little guy cleaned up and then…’ she paused, eyes connecting with Isla’s ’…perhaps some alone time for the happy parents?’
She threw Isla and Zach an apologetic look. ‘We’ll give you a few minutes, but because the boys are preemies, we might need to keep them in for a few days of observation.’
‘But they’re okay?’ Isla could barely mouth the words as Zach just looked between his son and the one Robyn now held in her hands.
‘They both look like little fighters. But let’s make sure they’ve got every advantage, shall we?’
As one the new parents nodded before the room, once again, swept into action.
*
A handful of minutes later it was almost impossible to believe how there had been even the tiniest bit of chaos in the room. Zach had made himself into a ‘bed rest’ for Isla, his long legs flanking hers as, their arms full with babies, they held one another as if their lives depended upon it. A family.
All the sounds in the room were melding and separating. Coos of delight. Murmurs and soft sleepy noises from the boys. They were little soldiers, that was for sure. Just like their father.
‘I can’t believe they were just inside of me,’ Isla finally said.
‘They look so…so complete.’ Isla felt Zach’s head nodding along in agreement, his soft beard shifting alongside her hairline.
She turned so she could look him square in the eye. ‘Would you really have left us?’
‘If I thought it was what you wanted, I would have done anything. Although…’ He reached out a finger, stroking it along the tops of each of his sons’ tiny heads. ‘Now that these little guys are in the picture, you’d have to fight tooth and nail to get me to leave.’
‘What about kissing you until the end of time instead?’ Isla teased, a cheeky grin forming on her lips. She was exhausted, but there was one thing she had been aching for for eight long months.
‘Something like this?’ Zach tipped his head towards hers as one of his index fingers drew her chin closer towards him. He paused a moment. Their eyelashes were so close she thought she felt a butterfly kiss against her cheek before he fully lowered his lips and gave her the most tender kiss she had ever known.
‘You promise you’ll never leave again?’ Isla asked when at long last they came up for air.
‘Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.’ Zach smiled softly, dropping another kiss on his true love’s forehead, knowing he’d spend the rest of his life by Isla’s side. ‘Wild horses.’
THE END
