Dr. Zinetti's Snowkissed Bride (11 page)

Dino tucked blankets around her. ‘Keep the doors closed.
I'm just going to help Mike secure your car then we're going.'

‘I don't think there'll be time.' Groaning in pain, Sue doubled over and Dino slid out of the way and let Meg take his place. He saw her reach for the Doppler probe, ready to listen to the foetal heart.

He heard her say, ‘When exactly is this baby due?' and then the only sound was the angry squeal of the wind as it buffeted his body.

He helped Mike clear their belongings out of the car. Piles of brightly wrapped Christmas presents, two suitcases and a hamper of food all needed to be transported to the mountain rescue vehicle and then finally they were ready to leave.

‘Baby's heart is one-forty. We all feel better for having heard that. There's a car park just down there on that bend.' Meg leaned forward to talk to him. ‘It means going further down the road, but you can turn safely there. There's no way you can turn here, the road just isn't wide enough. You'll go over the edge.'

Sue gave a whimper of fear and Mike's knuckles were white on the seat.

By contrast, Meg's eyes sparkled with the challenge. She was in her element here and Dino suddenly wished they didn't have company in the back of the vehicle.

‘You need to be careful when you turn,' she told him, ‘otherwise your tyres will spin out and you don't want to lose traction this high up on the pass.'

‘All right—tell me where the turning place is.'

It was the most difficult drive of his life and he was relieved Meg knew the road so well.

‘Breathe, Sue.' She was in the back with the labouring woman, encouraging her and keeping her warm.

Dino was just cresting the hill and making the final descent
down towards the end of the mountain pass when Sue gave a sharp scream.

‘Oh—that's so painful…' She started to sob and Dino pushed his speed as much as he dared.

‘I suspect you're in transition, Sue.' He spoke the words over his shoulder, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. ‘Meg, you can give her gas and air.'

‘One step ahead of you on that one, Dr Zinetti. You just concentrate on the driving. Can you go any faster?'

Not without killing them all.
Dino shifted gear and coaxed the vehicle down the final two bends in the road. An ambulance and a police car were waiting.

‘Dino.' Meg leaned forward to speak to him. ‘There is no way Sue is going to be able to change ambulances.'

‘We'll drive her straight to the hospital. With a police escort we can make it in about five minutes.' Dino rolled down his window, had a succinct conversation with the police officer and moments later they were roaring through town behind the police car, sirens blaring and lights flashing.

‘It's coming, Meg.' Sue was panting. ‘I can feel the head.'

‘You have to get her to hospital,' Mike bellowed, his face scarlet as he flapped around in a total panic. ‘You have to get her there right now! Aren't you listening to what she's saying? It's coming!'

‘I'm listening, Mike, and we don't have to get her to hospital.' Meg's voice was calm. ‘If necessary I can deliver a baby here, in the back of our ambulance. No worries. Don't push, Sue. I want you to pant like this…' She demonstrated and Dino smiled to himself.

No worries?
Who was she kidding?

Fortunately her confidence seemed to reassure Sue and she was able to relax slightly and control her breathing.

He could hear Meg tearing open a delivery pack and talking
quietly to Sue, encouraging her all the time. Somehow she'd managed to block out Mike's pointless ranting and focus on the problem in hand.

Dino pulled up outside the emergency department as close to the entrance as possible. Leaving the engine running for the warmth, he vaulted into the back of the ambulance to help Meg.

‘Sterile gloves to your left.' She gestured with her head. ‘You're doing so well, Sue. Everything is fine.'

By the time he'd snapped on the sterile gloves the head was crowning. Dino used his left hand to control the escape of the head, murmuring encouragement to the labouring mother.

As the head was delivered, Mike made a strangled noise in his throat and crumpled to the floor of the vehicle with a dull thud.

Sue made a distressed sound and Meg grinned.

‘We'll never let him forget that one. He'll be fine, Sue. He's better off staying there until we're done. If we sit him up, he'll just faint again, and at the moment you are our priority. What a fantastic Christmas present—a new baby. You're doing brilliantly. Nearly there. Dino, tell me when to give syntometrine.' She had a syringe in her hand and Dino delivered the anterior shoulder and glanced at her briefly, surprised to see tears in her eyes.

‘What? What are you staring at? I like babies. What's wrong with that?' Meg blinked furiously and glared at him, clearly angry that he'd witnessed her emotional response to the situation. ‘Do I give this stuff now?'

‘
Sì
, now.'

She gave the injection and with a shocked cry Sue delivered the baby into Dino's waiting arms. ‘You have a daughter, Sue. Congratulations.' The baby gave a thin wail and he quickly lifted her into Sue's arms. ‘Hold her against you. We're going
to transfer you to a wheelchair and get you inside because it's too cold out here.'

‘A daughter?' The tears started to fall. Tears of relief. Tears of gratitude. Tears of joy. ‘I'm going to call her Mary because she was born at Christmas.'

Opening the door of the ambulance, he found a crowd of staff from the obstetric unit waiting to help him and moments later Sue and the baby were inside in the warmth.

Having handed over to his colleagues, Dino returned to the ambulance to find Meg sitting with her arm around a white-faced Mike.

‘Actually, I've known several,' she was saying, and she looked up and smiled as Dino approached. ‘Just telling Mike he isn't the first father to fall over and bang his head when a baby is born. Everything all right with mother and daughter?'

‘The paediatricians are examining Mary, but everything seems fine. In a moment they'll take her up to the postnatal ward.' Dino cleared up the remains of the delivery pack and Mike rubbed a shaky hand over his forehead.

‘I can't believe I missed it. It's a little girl?'

‘That's right.' Meg jumped down from the vehicle and glanced at her watch. ‘I'll take you up there now. Come on. What do you want us to do with all these Christmas presents?'

Mike looked at them blankly, clearly in shock. ‘I—I have no idea. Sue's parents are on their way to the hospital now.'

‘In which case we can leave the lot just inside the doors with the girls on Reception and you can transfer it all to the car when you're ready.'

Meg closed the door and Mike grabbed her arm. ‘Listen—'

‘It's OK.' Meg smiled. ‘You're welcome.'

Mike looked at her intently. ‘You always did have more balls than most men.'

Meg's smile faltered. ‘Right. Well—thanks. Have a good Christmas, Mike.'

Looking at her tense shoulders, Dino frowned and was about to ask her what was wrong when Ellie appeared in the entrance.

‘Meg? Can you come? I've just spoken to Ambulance Control and they're bringing in a nasty RTA.'

‘Why are people still driving their cars in this weather?' Meg slithered across the icy ground and into the warmth of the emergency department. ‘Everyone should just stay at home and watch Christmas TV instead of dicing with death on the roads.'

Ellie looked harassed. ‘We're incredibly busy. Dino, can you go straight to Resus? At this rate we're going to be lucky if any of us make it to the ball tonight.'

 

The rest of the shift was so hectic that Meg didn't even have time to grab a drink. By eight o'clock the emergency department had calmed down a little and it was decided that the staff attending the ball could leave.

Dino glanced at his watch. ‘Good job we planned to change at the hospital because there's no time to go home. You have twenty minutes to get ready before the cab arrives. It's never going to be enough, is it?'

Twenty minutes? How long did he think it took a girl to pull on a dress? Meg opened her mouth to tell him that there was no way it would take her anywhere near that long, and then she realised that all the other women he dated probably took three times that length of time to get ready for an evening out with him. He was gorgeous, wasn't he? Any woman spending an evening with a man like him would want to look their best. All the time in the world wasn't going to turn her
into the sort of woman he normally dated. Why on earth had she agreed to this? Why was she putting herself through this torture? ‘Twenty minutes will be fine,' she said tonelessly, ‘I'll do a rush job.'

He gave her a searching look. ‘Take as long as you need. I'll drive us. That way it doesn't matter if we're late.'

Yes, it did, because the last thing she wanted to do was make a grand entrance. She wanted to arrive along with everyone else. She wanted to blend into the background. With a shaky laugh at her own expense, Meg hurried towards the staff room. When had she ever blended at that sort of thing? She was going to stand out like a single poppy in a cornfield.

Ellie was waiting for her in the staffroom. ‘Hurry up! I've already heated the tongs. I'm going to straighten your hair before I go and get changed myself.'

Meg flattened herself against the door. ‘I was planning to just wear it up like I always do. I prefer it that way.'

‘I think you should wear it loose. You have beautiful hair. It's time you showed people how amazing it is.'

Meg allowed herself to waste five of her twenty minutes having her hair straightened. After that it took only a couple of minutes to change into the dress and push her feet into the shoes.

‘What are your plans, Ellie? Is Ben picking you up here?'

‘He's gone to see someone in the imaging department. I'm meeting him there when I've finished with you. We're going home first, because our house is on the way. Close your eyes while I do your make-up.'

‘Don't make me look too made-up.'

‘Meg, you're going to the ball. Made-up is good. But I haven't overdone it. You look gorgeous. Just lipstick, then I'm done… There… You can look in the mirror.'

Meg looked. Normally she quite liked her face, but the make-up seemed to accentuate all the worst aspects of her
features. The lipstick made her mouth look too big. The freckles on her nose, earned from so many hours spent outdoors, stood out. Resisting the urge to grab a tissue and rub it all off, she smiled because she didn't want to offend Ellie, who looked genuinely delighted with what she'd achieved. ‘Thanks. Wow.'

Ellie's mobile rang and she gasped. ‘That's Ben. I need to get going. We'll see you there, Meg. You look fab. Dino is going to be blown away. I wish I could stay to see his face.' She sprinted out of the room, leaving Meg on her own with all her insecurities echoing in her head.

Staring at her reflection, she sighed. She didn't look like herself. She didn't
feel
like herself. Turning sideways, she kept her eyes on the mirror. All right, maybe she didn't look awful. Just weird. Different.

The dress was nice.

Actually, she looked better than she'd thought she would.

Remembering Ellie's comment that Dino would be blown away, Meg picked up the gold clutch bag that Ellie had persuaded her to buy along with the shoes. He wasn't going to be blown away. She didn't expect that. She didn't have the sort of looks that would turn heads. But she looked OK. Decent. Hopefully he wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen with her.

He'd asked her, she reminded herself firmly. He'd worked with her long enough to know what she was like. He'd kissed her when she'd been dressed in her windproof jacket. She had to look better than she did when she was being blown to bits by a gale.

Meg opened the door of the staffroom and was about to go in search of Dino when she saw him standing in the corridor. He was deep in conversation with a woman wearing a short scarlet dress. It was covered in sequins that sparkled and glinted under the lights.

Short? Meg's stomach plummeted. Was she supposed to
have worn something short? Why had no one told her? The invitation had just said ‘Black Tie' and she'd interpreted that as meaning that everyone would wear a long dress. Ellie hadn't said anything about the dress being unsuitable. But perhaps Ellie didn't know. As a mother of two young children, she didn't get out much either, did she?

Meg's mouth dried and her heart started to pound.

She looked completely wrong.

Then Meg recognised the woman—Melissa. Staring at her sexy dress, which clung to her body and ended at mid-thigh, Meg wondered why on earth Dino hadn't just invited her to the ball. In all probability he was wishing he had. He certainly seemed to be enjoying the conversation, his laughter echoing down the corridor.

Meg looked down at herself and felt her face burn with embarrassment. It was all too easy to imagine what his reaction would be when he saw her. The comparisons he was going to make. She was going to be a laughing stock. Everyone at the ball was going to be staring at her and feeling sorry for her.
She has no sense of style. No idea how to dress.

Her palms damp with sweat, Meg closed the door to the staffroom, yanked off the gold shoes and quickly pushed her feet into her trainers.

No way. No way was she putting herself through this. She'd rather fling herself over the edge of a gully, naked. Dino was blocking the only exit, which meant…

Hesitating for only a fraction of a second, she grabbed her coat and opened the window. The freezing night air poured into the staffroom but Meg didn't care. The cold was the last of her worries. Praying that no one would notice her, she hauled the dress up to her waist, slid nimbly out of the window and moments later she was sprinting through the darkness, the silk dress winding itself around her legs as she fled through the thick snow that covered the grass and on towards the car
park. Her feet were soaked in an instant. Twice she tripped and landed on her hands and knees in the snow.