Conditional Surrender Read online

  `You can bet on it! Kate? How would you feel if I were to go and work with your father and Terry?'

  She looked up in surprise. 'You were serious about leaving Courtney's to fend for itself?'

  `I can still hold a watching brief—but I'd forgotten how good

  it was to get back to basics. How satisfying it is to build something from scratch.' He looked around him. 'I've enjoyed working on this place.'

  `Mm. I'm told there are many advantages to men who work with their hands!'

  He growled and kissed her fiercely..

  `How long is this baby going to take, my love? I'm not sure of my ability to lie beside you all night without making love to you.'

  Kate's tongue appeared to moisten suddenly dry lips. She knew she could put off telling him no longer.

  `I don't think you have to face that problem just yet, darling. I won't be here tonight.'

  Greg paled. 'Kate, you can't leave now . .

  `No, Greg . . . I mean, I'll be spending tonight at the hospital.' His relief was short-lived as the implication hit him. 'Don't worry, love,' Kate reassured him with amazing calm. 'We've got hours yet.' She took his hand as they descended the stairs. 'And I could murder a bacon sandwich!'

  Greg looked sick. 'How can you think of your stomach at a time like this?'

  Then they burst out laughing at the unintentional pun, dispelling the panic.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  `Dammit, Greg, I do not need a painkiller! I've spent months learning these breathing exercises so I wouldn't need an anaesthetic—Just leave me alone!' Kate broke off as another contraction took her over.

  Greg muttered angrily as her face contorted with a spasm of pain.

  He still managed to look completely dignified and authoritative even in the ridiculous cap and gown the midwife had insisted he wear, Kate thought resentfully as the midwife examined her yet again.

  `Yes, I thought so,' the young woman murmured calmly `Take no notice of the bad temper, Mr Courtney,' she added with a flirtatious wink Greg did not even notice. 'It means the serious stuff is about to begin. Will you be staying for the birth?' Merry blue eyes twinkled at his sudden pallor.

  Greg turned to Kate, his mouth dry.

  `Do you want me to stay, darling?' he asked huskily.

  `I'm scared, Greg.' Anxious green eyes stared a little wildly into his. Greg smiled at the midwife, once more in full control. His wife needed him.

  `I'm staying.'

  And it was Greg who, an hour later, placed their son in Kate's arms.

  `Will you be naming him after your husband, Mrs Courtney?' the midwife asked.

  Kate looked down at the tiny head cradled in her arms, at the little fingers curled around her thumb, at the already hungry mouth suckling at her breast.

  `No,' she murmured. 'The next one, perhaps. But our firstborn will be named after a very special—loving man.' She looked up into Greg's unsmiling face. Her husband, her lover,

  the father of her child—and her best friend.

  `With your agreement, my love, I'd like to call him Ben.'

  `Did I ever tell you, my darling, just how very beautiful you are?' Greg's voice was hoarse with emotion as he looked deeply into his wife's loving face, not even seeing the red blotches from the strain of childbirth, but the woman he would love and cherish for the rest of his life.

  `I'll go and get you both some tea,' the midwife announced. They did not hear her.

  `Do you think I stand any chance of catching a man like that?' the midwife asked the matronly ward maid with a sigh 'He's a dreamboat!'

  `Well, one thing's for sure, dearie,' the ward maid snapped, not without a touch of envy herself. 'You stand no chance with that one. Acting like a pair of soppy teenagers, they are.' She sniffed, and added with satisfaction, 'That won't last, you mark my words!'

  But it did.