The Midwife and the Millionaire

And too attractive, and Sophie needed to talk about something new because she had the feeling anything else she learnt about him wouldn’t help her forget.

‘So when’s your baby due, Odette?’

‘A month.’

Sophie fought to keep her jaw from dropping but she had another look. Surely too small. Maybe Odette had it all tucked away. ‘I’d say your brother was right and you shouldn’t be flying. Where’s your mother?’

‘She died when I was a kid.’ Oops, Sophie thought. Another foot-in-mouth question.

Luckily Odette didn’t seem worried. ‘Levi brought me up. Our father ran off with another woman when I was young. That’s why Levi’s serious. He’s been the man of the house for a lot of years.’

Too much information. Not hearing this. ‘OK.’ Sophie pushed open the door and they went into the small exam room. ‘How about I check your blood pressure, feel your tummy and have a listen to your baby’s heart rate? If it’s OK with you I’ll photocopy your antenatal card. Then if you have any worries I can talk you through most of it on the phone.’

Odette grinned. ‘This is like booking into a spare hospital.’

Sophie smiled back. ‘Except we don’t deliver babies here, only the unexpected ones.’ She gestured to the chair beside her desk. ‘Have a seat.’

Odette settled herself and held out her arm. ‘That’s OK. We’ll probably be back in Sydney in a few days anyway.’

Maybe that justifies as passing through and he didn’t technically lie. Though what the heck was he doing bringing someone this pregnant away from home?

Sophie wrapped the cuff around Odette’s arm and pumped it up, then let it down. She unhooked the stethoscope from her ears and smiled. ‘Blood pressure’s perfect. One ten on sixty.’ She indicated the footstool beside the examination table. ‘If you can climb up there we’ll see where this baby of yours is hiding.’

Odette chuckled. ‘Everyone says I’m small but I was only five pounds when I was born. The ultrasound said it’s a boy.’

Sophie draped a thin sheet over the lower half of Odette’s body and Odette lifted her shirt. ‘A boy. Wow. Nice tummy.’ Sophie was serious. Odette’s abdomen curved up in a perfect small hill, brown and smooth, and the baby shifted a body part into a small point as Sophie laughed. ‘He’s waving.’

Odette slid her hand over the point and the baby subsided as if trained. ‘My baby’s no sloth. Moves heaps, especially at night.’

‘Women tend to feel their babies at night because they’re not busy like they are in the daytime. They say the baby already has a rhythm so if he’s awake a lot at night you might be in for some sleep deprivation.’

‘I don’t mind.’ Odette smiled dreamily. ‘I can’t wait.’

I hope you do, Sophie thought, as she measured the mound of Odette’s belly and, taking into account the petite mother, the measurements confirmed Odette’s estimated due date.

She slid the hand-held Doppler over the area she’d palpated as the baby’s shoulder and the sound of the baby’s heart rate filled the room. They both listened and their eyes met in mutual acknowledgement of the wonder of childbearing. ‘There you go,’ Sophie said, as she turned off the Doppler. ‘One hundred and forty beats a minute and just as perfect as his mother.’

She helped Odette sit up. ‘Everything looks great.’

‘Thanks, Sophie. I feel better just talking to you.’ Odette climbed down and smoothed her clothes. ‘How much do I owe you?’

Sophie shook her head. ‘I didn’t do anything. Free service. Anyone can walk in and get the same.’

‘You and Smiley should come over to Xanadu on the weekend and have dinner with my brother and me. Our treat. As a thank-you for this.’ She gestured to the examination couch. ‘I could come and get you in the chopper. Or Levi could.’

Lord, no. And she thought they were going in a day or two? It was only Monday. She walked her to the door. ‘Thanks, Odette, but the weather’s still too unsettled for me to fly—I’m a chicken in the air—and I don’t know what Smiley’s planned. I’ve only just moved back from Perth.’

‘Sure. I’ll ring later in the week.’ Odette stopped and turned back with a new idea. ‘If you’re not keen on flying, you could stay overnight and drive back the next day. In fact, that sounds more fun anyway.’

Sophie felt she was being directed by a small determined whirly wind, like the one that was lifting leaves outside her window and the one inside her chest when she thought of staying anywhere near Odette’s brother. ‘I’ll mention it to Smiley.’ Not.

Odette pulled a gold compact from her bag, flicked open the mirror and touched up her lipstick. Not something Sophie did regularly out here in the bush and the thought made her smile to herself.

Odette snapped shut the compact. ‘What’s your brother’s real name?’

Sophie had to think for a moment. ‘William.’

Odette nodded as if she liked it. ‘I think I’ll call him William.’

‘It’s been a while since anybody has.’ Now where was this going? Nowhere, she hoped. ‘He may not even remember it.’

‘Even more reason to,’ Odette said cryptically.

That afternoon, Levi poured his sister a chilled juice and himself a cold beer before he moved to look over the veranda at the gorge below. Then her words sank in. He turned back to her. ‘You what?’

‘I invited William and Sophie to stay over for a night on the weekend. The midwife and her brother. To have dinner and drive home the next day.’

He’d strangle her. ‘Did I mention we didn’t want to draw attention until I find out if anyone around here hated our father enough to push him into that river?’

Odette crossed her arms and lent them over her large tummy. ‘Hated him more than you?’

Levi shook his head. ‘I didn’t hate him. I didn’t respect him. That’s all.’

He fully intended to sign the ownership he’d unexpectedly inherited back over to his sister, another baffling development his estranged father had left for him, when they’d all expected Odette to benefit by the resort automatically.

Odette rolled her eyes. ‘Because you’ve just found out he’s had another son to another woman. Humph.’ She returned to topic. ‘Besides, they wouldn’t know anything about Father’s accident. Sophie’s only just moved back from Perth and William is—’ she paused and her mouth curved ‘—just William. He hasn’t a mean bone in his body.’

He flung his hand out towards the view. ‘We don’t know that. Your new best friends. You’ve met them, what, once?’

‘You’ve met her too.’ Odette sat forward as he frowned.

He’d done his part. He’d avoided meeting anyone. Not likely. ‘When?’

‘She said she’d met you by the river—’ Odette didn’t quite poke out her tongue but he knew that look ‘—this afternoon.’ A winning point.

The little honey in the car? The last person he needed to be exposed to, as she seemed lodged like an annoying bindii from the grass in his memory bank. ‘Blonde ponytail? Nice, um, features?’

Odette coughed and he couldn’t help the curve of his own lips. He really didn’t have socialising on his agenda on this trip. He needed to go home; he’d already been away past his expectations, and his theatre list would be a mile long.

His sister would be the death of him. He sighed. Too late now. ‘So why can’t we fly them in and out? That way they don’t have to stay.’

Odette shrugged. ‘Sophie doesn’t fancy the chopper.’

Chicken, eh? Good. Though she hadn’t seemed a shrinking violet. ‘Maybe she wouldn’t mind so much if the pilot didn’t look like she was going to break her waters any moment?’

Odette flapped her hand at him. ‘You’re too used to your own way. Let me worry about me.’

CHAPTER TWO