Patty’s eyes swivelled between them, looking interested.
‘Don’t look so worried!’ The midwife laughed. ‘You’re not the first, by a long shot. Whatever works for you. Either way, Mary needs a change of clothes and her toiletries, and this little man definitely needs a nappy and something snuggly to wear.’
‘Is it okay if I fetch your bag?’ Beckett asked Mary, because he wasn’t going anywhere unless she said she didn’t mind.
‘Maybe leave him here?’ she said, smiling as she nodded at her son, to show she was fine about it.
Even so, after gingerly handing the baby to his mother, Beckett had to restrain himself from running down the corridor, across the small car park and back again. He was nothing to this tiny new family, yet felt startlingly protective of them.
While Patty dug through the bag for whatever Mary would need, she discovered a problem.
‘There’s nothing for baby. Did you leave another bag in the car, or at home?’
Mary leant back onto the sofa with a wince. ‘No… I…’ She glanced at the midwife. ‘I was in such a panic I must have forgotten it.’
‘No problem,’ Patty said. ‘I’m sure we’ll have some spares in the toddler-group cupboard. Let me ask Moses.’
She returned a few minutes later with a clean sleepsuit that was only a few inches too big, a nappy and a soft woollen blanket. She also brought Moses, a Jamaican man who introduced himself as the co-pastor of New Life Church. He bore a takeaway pizza box emitting a smell that had Beckett’s stomach gurgling with anticipation.
‘Shall we leave the experts to it for a few minutes?’ he asked Beckett, winking as he placed the pizza on the kitchenette worktop. ‘I’ve got plenty more where this came from.’
‘Um. Sure.’ Beckett again looked at Mary to check whether she was okay for him to leave. As she nodded and smiled, despite the dazed exhaustion on her face and strand of hair plastered to one cheek, he couldn’t remember ever seeing anything more beautiful. Except, perhaps, for the baby in her arms.
He wanted to stay with them. Indefinitely, if possible. But he was already treading a fine line between hero and creep. He sent Tanya a quick text and followed Moses out of the room.
‘So, big night,’ the pastor said once he’d collected a fresh pizza box from a room where a handful of people were sitting on leather sofas. They’d burst into applause when Beckett had walked in, standing up to shake his hand or hug him, before Moses led him into an office, where they sat down on either side of a cluttered desk.
‘My most heartfelt congratulations.’
Beckett was too hungry not to cram in half a slice before answering.
‘Thank you. But I should say, I didn’t meet Mary until this evening.’
Moses sat back, warm eyes gleaming with curiosity as Beckett explained what had happened.
‘Well,’ he said after a considered moment of silence, ‘I’d say that accompanying the safe arrival of a new baby warrants congratulations, whatever the circumstances. Besides, from the brief interaction I witnessed between you, I’d be bold enough to suggest your story doesn’t end tonight.’ He furrowed his brow. ‘A woman with no one to call on in an emergency like this is probably in need of a friend.’
‘I plan on being that for her. If she doesn’t mind.’
‘Son, she just squeezed your hand through one of the toughest moments of her life. She’s not going to mind.’
Beckett, who when it came down to it could probably do with a couple of friends himself, was starting to like this Pastor Moses.
‘Is it normal for a church to have takeaway pizza at almost midnight on a Sunday evening?’
Moses smiled. ‘It is not. I’ve got to get five kids up and out for school tomorrow while my wife hosts a women’s prayer breakfast. Believe me, I needed to be asleep hours ago for that to feel like a blessing. But some of us stayed behind for a quick meeting after the evening service, and by the time we’d cleared up, the blizzard was in full force. We decided to wait until it had passed, or at least the main road was open again, before venturing out.’
‘You have five kids? Maybe you’d have been better off as impromptu birth-partner.’ Not that Beckett would have given up that role for anything.
‘All adopted.’ Moses grinned. ‘Hearing it through the wall was enough to make my insides coil up like a corn snake. Happy to let you take all the glory on that one, my friend.’
Moses carried on while they finished the pizza, asking how Beckett had ended up stopping at the New Life building, the wider impact of the weather, the church, nothing too serious. Beckett tried to respond as if making conversation, rather than enduring a job interview, and his genuine interest prompted him to ask a few questions. However, it had been too long since he’d sat with someone and simply talked, and he felt painfully out of practice, even if Moses’ easy manner did help the adrenaline of the past couple of hours to subside.
Eventually, Patty knocked on the door and poked her head in.
‘Mary’s ready to get going. Bill still has a car seat from when his grandson was staying with him, so he’s given it to her.’
‘Leant it,’ Mary called from somewhere in the corridor. Hearing her voice, Beckett quickly downed the rest of his squash and got up to join her.
