Miracle Babies at Paddington's Children's Hospital - Chapter 1
Chapter One
From the moment he laid eyes on her Zach knew he’d made a mistake. There wasn’t a chance in hell, let alone London, she’d want him. He tore his eyes away from her—not that he’d even seen all of her, but he would’ve known that gold-and-flame-coloured hair from a mile away. Her beautiful face was half-hidden by a ridiculously huge bouquet of tulips and there was so much traffic in and out of the busy hospital entrance his view was constantly obstructed.
He stared at his cane. His duff leg. The bouquet of roses (roses! What a cliché!) that wasn’t half the size of the one she was all but burying her face in now.
His gut instinct was to leave. Abandon mission and hightail it back to the rehab hospital. Well… He’d take the long walk back—because come hell or high water he would walk. That and it would give him plenty of time to dream up a fiction about the non-reunion. This could’ve been the happiest day of his life. Instead? He shook his head and turned away. Precisely the reason he hadn’t come back sooner.
*
‘Easy love, mind how you go.’
Isla slipped a protective hand underneath her full belly as she let herself be steadied by the florist delivering yet another amazing bouquet to another lucky nurse or doctor. It was always easy to tell the floral deliveries meant for the young patients at Paddington Children’s Hospital and there wasn’t a stuffed toy or neon-coloured gerbera in sight. No. This bouquet was definitely for a staffer. One with some romance in their lives.
Unlike her.
She winced at another tiny little pinch in her back and gave her extended belly another protective rub as the babies shifted inside of her. Every day it seemed her belly button was getting further and further away. And the closer she came to her due date, the more she needed to come out here to the forecourt to get some air. Stretch her back. Remind herself everything was going to be okay.
Because it would be. One way or another. It would be.
Isla wasn’t yet at full term but she was close. Just a handful of weeks—maybe less—and she’d have a baby in each arm. Two little boys. Two little Zach’s who would never know their father.