Читать книгу Single Dads Collection - Lynne Marshall - Страница 11

CRISIS in night. Please contact us ASAP.

Harry Kavenagh stared at the message handed to him by the hotel receptionist, and felt a cold chill run through him. No. Not now. He wasn’t ready.

He’d never be ready—not for this.

Still staring at the words, he rammed the fingers of his other hand through his hair, rumpling the dusty, sweaty strands even further. So what now? He turned the paper over, looking for more information, but there was nothing.

‘When did they call?’ he asked.

‘This morning, sir. Just after you went out.’

Fingers suddenly unsteady and his heart thudding in his throat, he called the number from his room. Five minutes later he was in a car on the way to the airport, his mind still reeling.

He couldn’t believe it was actually happening. Stupid. He ought to be able to. It had been his idea, after all. They’d wanted to turn off the machine weeks ago, with his agreement, but he’d seen enough loss of life. Too much. So he’d begged them to reconsider—exhausted, perhaps a little drunk and stunned by what they’d told him, he’d haggled them into submission.

They’d kept their side of the bargain. And now he had to keep his.

He swallowed, staring out of the window, not seeing the bombed-out buildings, the shattered lives all around him. A shell exploded a few streets away, but he barely noticed. It all seemed suddenly terribly remote and curiously irrelevant, because in the space of the next few hours, his whole life would change for ever.

She was tiny.

So small, so fragile looking, her fingers so fine they were almost transparent under the special light. She needed the light because she was yellow. Jaundiced, apparently. Quite common in slightly prem babies. Nothing to worry about.

But Harry worried about it. He worried about all of it. How on earth was he supposed to look after her? She was just a little dot of a thing, so dainty, no bigger than a doll. Small for dates, they’d said. No wonder, under the circumstances.

He didn’t want to think about that, about how he’d failed her mother. How he’d brought her here to London to keep her safe and then failed her anyway.

‘How are you doing?’

He looked up at the nurse and tried to smile. ‘OK. She was screwing her face up a minute ago. I think she might have a nappy problem.’

‘Want to change it?’

He felt his blood run cold. No. His hands were too big. He’d hurt her…

‘She won’t break, you know,’ the nurse teased gently. ‘You’ll be fine. I’ll help you.’

So he changed her nappy—extraordinarily complicated for something so ordinary—and by the end of the day and a few more goes he’d mastered it, even managing to grip those tiny little ankles between his fingers without snapping her legs when he lifted her up to swap the nappies over or wipe her unbelievably tiny bottom.

Such soft skin. Such astonishing perfection, all those little fingers and toes, the nails so small he could hardly see them. She was a little miracle, and he was awed beyond belief.

And terrified.

The nurse—Sue, her name was, according to her badge—brought him a bottle and helped him feed her again, and she brought it all up all over him. Panic threatened to choke him, but Sue just laughed and cleaned her up, lent him a fresh scrub top and handed her back.

‘Make her slow down. She’s feeding too fast—tip the bottle up a bit more so she doesn’t get so much air. And wind her in between.’

In between what? And wind her? How? He’d never winded a baby in his life, and he was damned if he knew where to start.

With that, or with any of it.

He felt faintly hysterical, but that was probably lack of sleep and shock. He stifled the urge to laugh, but then his eyes prickled and he felt the panic rise again.

What on earth had he done?

The old Chinese proverb rang hollow in his ears. If you save a life, it belongs to you.

He stared down at her, this tiny girl who apparently was his, her transparent fingers wrapped around his little finger with incredible strength, and the panic receded a little, replaced by wonder.

She was amazing. Beautiful. Scary as hell, but astonishing.

And his.

Officially registered this morning as his daughter, in the presence of the registrar of births, marriages and deaths just round the corner from the hospital.

He’d registered her mother’s death at the same time, armed with more forms and certificates from the hospital, and then he’d gone back there and asked to see Carmen’s body, so frail, so young, but finally at peace. And he’d told her about the baby, and promised her he’d do for the baby what he’d failed to do for her—to keep her safe. So now, in every way that mattered, she was his.

‘Get out of that, Kavenagh,’ he murmured, but strangely he didn’t want to. He couldn’t imagine walking away from her. Just the thought of abandoning her to fate made him feel so fiercely protective it scared him.

Together with everything else today.

God, he was knackered. Maybe if he just propped her up on his chest and leant back…

‘Harry?’

He opened his eyes a crack, blinking at the light, and Sue’s face came into focus. ‘Why don’t you go and have a lie-down? There’s a room here for parents—nothing flashy, just a few beds and a separate area with a TV and little kitchen, but you could sleep for a while.’

Sleep. Oh, yes. Please. He had to get some sleep. It had been weeks since he’d slept properly, with the constant shelling and rocket fire going on all night, but this had tired him more than any of that.

He nodded, realising that the baby was back in her crib under the light and that everything was being taken care of.

‘Will she be all right?’ he asked, as if his presence actually made a blind bit of difference, but the nurse just smiled and nodded.

‘Sure. I’ll look after her for you, I’m on till nine, and I’ll hand her over to the night staff before I go. Come on, I’ll show you the parents’ room.’

A bed. Crisp white sheets, a slightly crackly pillow and almost instant oblivion…

‘You’ll be OK.’

He stared down at Sue, wishing he could believe her. She’d spent the last few days telling him he could cope, showing him not just how to change nappies and hold feeding bottles, but bath and dress and simply cuddle his tiny daughter, and he’d begun to believe that maybe—just maybe—he’d manage. Till now.

She was so small, his little doll, but she was tough, like her mother—fierce and determined, and for something so tiny she had a blood-curling scream. He’d become almost confident, in the safe environment of the special care baby unit, surrounded by the bleeps and clicks of the equipment, the hurried footsteps, the laughter and the tears. But now…

‘We’re always here if you have a problem. You can ring at any time. You will cope, Harry,’ Sue said again, as if by repeating it she could make it true, and stretching up on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek and went back inside, leaving him on the outside of the doors, stranded.

What was he supposed to do now? Where could he go? His flat? It was nothing more than a crash pad, really, and it didn’t feel like his any longer, but stupidly until now he hadn’t even thought about where he’d take the baby. Just not there. It didn’t seem right. But where?

He looked down at his tiny girl in the shockingly expensive baby carrier he’d bought that morning, and his heart squeezed. She was staring up at him intently, her almost black eyes fixed on his face, and he found himself suddenly calmer.

He knew what to do, and it was more than time he did it. He should have done it years ago.

‘Come on, my little Kizzy,’ he murmured softly. ‘We’re going home.’