Читать книгу A Forever Family: Their Christmas Delivery - Kate Hardy - Страница 13

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT HAVE I DONE? Amy asked herself as Josh went to collect his duvet.

Two years ago, she’d been in what she’d thought was a secure relationship, trying to start a family. A year ago she’d had a broken relationship, broken dreams and a broken heart. This year, she was on an even keel; but it seemed that she was going to be spending the next week with a man she barely knew and a baby who’d been left on their doorstep. It was an odd version of what she’d wished for.

Josh came back carrying a duvet. She wasn’t sure if she felt more relieved or awkward that he was still fully dressed; clearly he intended to sleep in his ordinary clothes on her sofa. Though she guessed that went with the territory of his job.

He folded the duvet neatly over the back of her sofa. ‘Anything you need me to do?’

‘No. Hope’s milk is on the top shelf of the fridge. But help yourself to anything you want.’

He smiled. ‘Fifteen years ago, that would’ve guaranteed you an empty fridge.’

‘That’s what my colleagues at school say.’ She smiled back. ‘The boys leave crumbs everywhere, and the girls make chocolate mug cakes at three in the morning and leave everything in the sink.’

‘Mug cakes?’ He looked blank.

‘You mix everything together in a mug and then stick it in the microwave. Three minutes later, you have cake,’ she explained. ‘I haven’t actually tried it. But apparently it works perfectly when you really, really want cake at three in the morning.’

‘Three minutes. Hmm. You can make a cheese toastie in that,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘If you get the munchies when it’s your turn to feed Hope, feel free to make yourself a cheese toastie.’

He grinned back. ‘If I do, I promise I’ll clean up the crumbs.’

Almost on cue, Hope woke, wanting milk.

‘I’ll do the next feed,’ Josh said when she’d finished. ‘Go and get some sleep, Amy.’

Once Amy had showered and changed into her pyjamas, she lay awake in the dark, thinking that this was the Christmas she’d never expected. It must be just as weird for Josh, too, spending Christmas with an almost complete stranger—and tough for him, because his wife had left him on Christmas Eve last year and the memories had to hurt. But maybe looking after the baby would help distract him from some of the pain.

Part of her wanted to sleep for eternity, she was so tired—which was ridiculous, because she hadn’t exactly done much all day. But looking after a newborn baby had been fraught with worry that had unexpectedly worn her out. Was she doing the right thing? How would she know if she was getting it wrong? What if the baby was ill and she hadn’t spotted the signs? Or if she made such a mess of changing Hope that the baby ended up with nappy rash—and where would you be able to buy nappy rash cream on Christmas Day, when all the shops were shut?

The worries flickered through her head, stopping her from falling asleep. Part of her wanted to go and check that the baby was OK—but what if she woke Josh? He’d already worked a busy shift today at the hospital. Plus he was used to dealing with babies, and he’d said this was his shift; if he woke and found her checking on the baby, he might think she didn’t trust him. And if that upset him enough to make him walk out on her without really discussing anything, the way Michael had walked out on her, how was she going to cope with the baby all on her own for a week?

Be careful what you wish for...

She’d longed for a baby. Now, she had exactly that. A baby to look after. For a week.

And it was terrifying.

Maybe Michael was right about her. She’d been too stupid to guess that Gavin might have given her a symptomless STD, so when she’d finally discovered the truth the treatment had been too late to prevent the damage to her Fallopian tubes. So it was her fault that she was infertile. Maybe she was too clueless to look after a baby, too. Why, why, why had she agreed to help?

She heard the baby start crying, and glanced at the clock. She hadn’t even managed to sleep for five minutes. It was Josh’s turn to feed the baby, but clearly he was in a deep sleep because the baby’s cries grew louder.

Get up and see to the baby, she told herself sharply. The poor little mite has nobody. Stop being so whiny and self-pitying and get up. You can’t worry about not coping because you just have to. There isn’t another option.

She dragged herself out of bed and stumbled into the living room. ‘Shh, baby,’ she whispered—but the baby just kept screaming.

Just as Amy scooped the baby out of the Moses basket, she heard Josh mumble, ‘My turn. I’ve got this.’

‘I’m awake now. I’ll do it,’ she said.

‘We’ll do it together,’ Josh said. ‘Cuddle the baby or do the milk?’

Amy inhaled the sweet, powdery scent of the baby.

A baby she couldn’t afford to bond with. So it would be better not to get too close now.

‘Milk,’ she said, and handed Hope to him.

‘Shh, baby,’ he crooned.

On autopilot, Amy boiled the kettle and put the baby’s bottle in a glass jug to heat the milk. She nearly scalded herself when she poured boiling water into the jug, and it splashed.

‘Everything OK?’ Josh asked, seeing her jump.

‘Yes,’ she fibbed. The last thing she wanted was for him to guess how stupid and useless she felt.

‘Sorry I didn’t wake sooner. I guess my shift took more out of me than I thought,’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to be helping. I’ve let you down.’

And then the penny dropped.

She wasn’t the only one finding it hard to do this.

‘You’re fine,’ she said. ‘We’re both new at this. I always tell my class, you learn more if you get it wrong first time.’

‘I guess.’ He sounded rueful. ‘Except a baby is a hell of a lot tougher than a page of maths problems. And, given how many babies I treat in the course of a month, I should be better at this.’

‘There’s a big difference between treating a baby and looking after one full time,’ she reminded him. ‘And didn’t you say to me earlier that Hope doesn’t know if we’re doing it wrong?’

‘Yeah. I’m glad I’m not doing this on my own,’ he said.

He’d admitted it first, so it made it easier for her to say, ‘Me, too. I never expected it to be this hard—you’re desperate for sleep, but you’re also too scared to sleep because you want to keep an eye on the baby.’

‘All the what ifs,’ he agreed. ‘Being a medic is a bad thing, because you know all the worst-case scenarios and your mind goes into overdrive. You start thinking you’re seeing symptoms when there aren’t any. And then you’re not sure if you’re being ridiculously paranoid or if you really are seeing something.’

‘And if you’re not a medic, you look up stuff on the Internet and scare yourself stupid,’ she said. ‘Being a parent—even a stand-in—is way harder than I thought.’

‘Especially the first night, when you don’t have a clue what to expect,’ Josh agreed.

‘We’re a right pair,’ she said ruefully.

‘No. We’re a team,’ Josh said.

And that spooked her even more. It was so long since she’d seen herself in a partnership that she didn’t know how to react. Then she shook herself. He meant they were a team, not a couple. She was reading too much into this. To cover how flustered she felt, she shook a couple of drops of milk onto the inside of her wrist to check the temperature. ‘I think it’s OK for her, now.’

‘Thanks. Go back to bed,’ he said. ‘I’ve got this.’

‘Sure?’ she checked.

‘Sure.’

‘OK.’ And this time she felt more relaxed when she snuggled under the duvet—enough to let her drift into sleep.

The next time the baby cried, Amy got up and scooped up the Moses basket. ‘Shh, baby,’ she whispered. ‘Two minutes.’

‘OK?’ Josh asked from the sofa, sounding wide awake this time.

He hadn’t been joking about usually being fully awake in seconds, then.

‘It’s fine. It’s my turn to feed her,’ she said quietly. And the way they’d muddled through together earlier had given her confidence. ‘Go back to sleep.’

She took the baby into the kitchen and cuddled her as she warmed the milk, then took the baby into her bedroom, kept the light down low, and cuddled the baby as she fed her.

This felt so natural, so right. But she had to remind herself sharply that this was only temporary and she couldn’t let herself bond too closely to Hope—or start thinking about Josh as anything more than just a neighbour. By New Year, life would be back to normal again. They’d be back to smiling and nodding in the corridor, maybe exchanging an extra word or two. But that would be it.

Once the baby fell asleep again, Amy laid her gently back in the Moses basket and padded into the living room. Josh was asleep on the sofa, and this time he didn’t wake.

* * *

A couple of hours later, when Hope started to grizzle again, Josh was awake in seconds.

‘Shh, baby,’ he whispered, and jiggled her one-handed against his shoulder as he set about making up a bottle.

When it had been his turn to deal with the baby, he’d made a complete hash of it. Not being used to listening out for a newborn, he’d slept through Hope’s cries. But it turned out that Amy had been having the same kind of self-doubts that he had. Given that she’d seemed so cool, calm and collected, he’d been shocked. And then relieved. Because it meant that they were in this together.

And they made a good team.

To the point where he actually believed that he could do this—be a stand-in parent to an abandoned baby.

Then he realised he’d been a bit overconfident when he burped Hope and she brought up all the milk she’d just drunk. All over both of them.

He really hoped Amy didn’t wake and find them both in this state. ‘I dare not give you a bath,’ he whispered to the baby. He knew she’d scream the place down, even if he managed to put water in the bath without waking Amy. But when he stripped off her sleep suit and vest, he discovered that luckily the baby wasn’t soaked to the skin. Unlike him—but he was the adult and he’d live with it. He changed the baby into clean clothes, gave her more milk, then finally settled her back into the Moses basket.

Which left him cold and wet and smelling disgusting. He could hardly have a shower right now without waking Amy, and he couldn’t go back to his own flat because he didn’t have a key to Amy’s. Grimacing, he stripped off his T-shirt and scrubbed the worst of the milk off his skin with a baby wipe.

Was this what life would’ve been like if he and Kelly had had a family? Would he have made as much of a mess of being a real dad as he was making of being a stand-in dad? Or maybe Amy was right and he was being too hard on himself. But he was seriously glad he wasn’t looking after the baby on his own. It helped to be able to talk to someone else and admit that you didn’t know what you were doing, and for them to say the same to you. And he was pretty sure now that he’d be able to get through this week—because Amy was on his team.

* * *

The next time Amy heard Hope crying, her eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep. Either the baby had slept a bit longer between feeds this time, or Amy had been too deeply asleep to hear her crying at the last feed.

When she stumbled into the kitchen to put the kettle on and checked the top shelf of the fridge, she realised it was the latter; Josh had done the last feed. He’d left her a note propped against the kettle. His handwriting was hard to read and she smiled to herself. Josh was definitely living up to the cliché of all medics having a terrible scrawl. Eventually she deciphered the note.

On early shift this morning—back for about 5.30 this evening—Merry Christmas, J

Christmas.

Amy hadn’t planned to cook the traditional turkey dinner; she hadn’t seen the point of bothering when she was going to be on her own. But now she had unexpected company for dinner. She didn’t have a turkey, but she did have the ingredients to make something nice. She could wrap a couple of chicken breasts in bacon, stir fry some tenderstem broccoli with julienned strips of butternut squash and carrot in butter and chilli, and make some baked polenta chips sprinkled with Parmesan.

‘I forgot how much I enjoyed cooking,’ she told the baby as she fed her. ‘I haven’t even had people over for dinner since I moved here. I always eat out with my friends. So maybe it’s time to move on a bit more and start doing the things I enjoy again.’

The baby simply drank her milk and stared at Amy with those huge dark blue eyes.

‘I’ve spent the last eighteen months living on autopilot,’ Amy said. ‘Don’t you ever make that mistake, Hope. Life’s for—well, enjoying.’

Though she was pretty sure that Hope’s mum was having a thoroughly miserable Christmas. ‘I hope we can find your mum,’ she said softly. ‘And I really hope we can do something to help her. I really don’t know why she left you in our lobby—whether she knew me or Josh from somewhere, or whether it was a completely random choice—but I’m glad she did, because I think you’re going to help us as much as we can help you.’ And she was glad that Josh had moved in on her floor, because the reason she’d got through that first night with a baby was because of him.

Once she’d showered, washed her hair and dressed, she sent Josh a text.

Hope you’re having a good shift. Alternative Christmas dinner this evening. Amy

And whether Hope was responding to her sunny mood and burst of confidence, Amy had no idea, but the baby seemed content, too; she wasn’t quite as fractious and unsettled as she’d been the day before. To her relief, there wasn’t one of the protracted crying sessions that had left Amy feeling hopeless and frustrated and miserable.

‘Merry Christmas, baby,’ she said softly. ‘It isn’t quite the one I think your mum would’ve liked for you, but hopefully the police are going to find her and reunite you in the next few days.’

Amy ate yoghurt and granola for breakfast, then looked at the small stack of presents beneath the tree. It felt odd, opening her Christmas presents all on her own. But she pushed away the melancholy before it could take hold. She intended to make the best of this Christmas, and she wasn’t the only one on her own. It must be much harder for Josh in the circumstances.

Most of the envelopes contained gift vouchers, but one friend had given her the latest crime novel by one of her favourite authors, another had given her some nice Christmassy scented candles and another had bought her posh chocolates.

‘That’s my table decorations and dessert sorted for this evening,’ she told the baby. ‘And in the meantime you and I are going to curl up together on the sofa and watch a pile of Christmas movies.’