Page 31 of Prognosis Christmas Baby

‘Don’t yawn,’ Linda griped. ‘It’s contagious.’

‘Sorry.’ Maggie grimaced. ‘I know I say this every night duty at this time, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so tired.’

Linda frowned at her. ‘You burning the candle at both ends? You’re always tired lately.’

Maggie busied herself in the box, scrabbling for more decorations. ‘It’s nights,’ she dismissed casually. She wondered if Linda would be shocked to know she was indeed burning that candle and who she was burning it with.

‘No. It’s daytime too,’ Linda insisted.

Maggie blushed and was pleased to still have her head in the box. She hadn’t been getting much sleep the last month. Maybe a few hours a night — if that.

‘Just getting old,’ she joked.

‘Hey, forty is not old,’ Linda protested. ‘It’s the new thirty. Besides, you’re only as old as you feel, or the man that you’re feeling anyway.’ Linda laughed raucously at her own joke.

Maggie flicked her gaze to Nash and caught him as he sneaked a glance her way, a grin on his face. ‘Come on,’ she said, deftly changing the subject. ‘Let’s use all this leftover tinsel to decorate each bed space. We can string it along the curtain rails.’

An hour later the unit was looking very Christmassy. Red and silver tinsel was entwined and looped through the curtain rails as well as along the desks of the central station and down the corridor. Colourful ‘Merry Christmas’ banners were stuck up on the windows at each bed space and the Christmas cards the unit had already started to receive were displayed on the main swing doors.

‘I love Christmas,’ Maggie sighed as she and Linda stood back to admire their handiwork.

‘Not bad for a couple of hours’ work,’ Linda agreed. ‘What do you reckon, Nash?’

Nash looked around at the transformed clinical environment. ‘I think you two could get jobs as elves,’ he said, and tried really hard not to think about Maggie in a tiny elf costume. And failed.

‘You got your tree up yet, Maggie?’ Linda asked.

‘Nah. Not much point with just me.’

Nash saw the wistful look in her eyes as her gaze roamed around the room, reflecting the twinkling tinsel. She sounded a little sad and he suppressed the urge to stand and draw her into his arms.

‘We had ours up two weeks ago. The kids’ nagging was driving me insane,’ Linda said with a laugh.

Maggie’s gaze briefly settled on Nash’s and he gave her one of his public smiles where his face said one thing but his tropical-island eyes said something much more intimate. She looked away, not wanting him to see the stupid jealousy that had seized her thinking about Linda and the six kids she was going to spoil rotten Christmas morning.

The yearning never went away.

She could work and work and bury it deep but someone talking about their kids or a mother pushing a pram in a street and it all came crashing back.

‘Well, I’m going to get something to eat before I throw up,’ she announced, the horrible nausea persisting.

Would this night never end?

‘I’ll join you,’ Linda volunteered.

Waiting in the kitchen for the toast to pop was torturous. It smelled amazing as only toast could do to a stomach under revolt. Maggie placed her hand on her belly. ‘Ugh. I think I really am going to throw up.’

As often as she felt like this on night shift, she’d never actually vomited.

Linda frowned at Maggie’s pale face. ‘Well, if I didn’t know all about your fertility problems I’d ask the obvious question. Tired. Nauseous. You haven’t skipped a period, have you?’

A surge of laughter bubbled up her throat. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Linda quirked an eyebrow. ‘Have you?’

Maggie stared at her colleague like she’d just grown horns. ‘You can’t be serious?’

‘Sure.’ She shrugged. ‘Why not?’

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