Read Online Kissing Maggie Silver by Sheila Claydon - Free Book Online

mean the baby is going to be alright?” Maggie asked as she blew her sister-in-law a kiss.
    “Maybe…at least the doctors think so. He has to have quite a few more tests over the next few months but the pediatrician doesn’t think there is any lasting damage. Of course he’ll have to stay here for a few more days yet.” He paused then, as he belatedly realized what that would mean for Maggie.
    She shook her head impatiently. “It’s fine Mark. I don’t care how long I have to stay with the girls if it means the baby is going to be all right.”
    With a farewell wave to June, they turned and walked back to the unit’s main reception area. Maggie reached up and kissed her brother’s cheek as a nurse tapped in the security code that would open the door for her. “Don’t worry about a thing. Just let me know if you need anything because Ruairi has offered to do the fetching and carrying. And let me know when I can visit properly and hold my new nephew.”
    He nodded and then turned away, his mind already back with his wife and newborn son, so that when Maggie asked him what they were going to call the baby he didn’t hear her through the closing gap of the heavy door.
     
    * * *
     
    Climbing back into the car beside Ruairi she smiled at him. “The pediatrician thinks everything is going to be fine although they won’t know for sure for a few months yet.”
    His smile was as relieved as her own. He turned to the little girls who were scrambling back into the child seats that Maggie had transferred from Mark’s family saloon into Ruairi’s hire car.
    “Did you hear that girls? Your little brother is strong and healthy.”
    “Just like me,” Sophie said.
    “And me!” Amy wasn’t going to be outdone in healthiness. “And rabbit too,” she added.
    “You are all very strong and healthy, especially rabbit,” agreed Maggie as Ruairi turned on the ignition and backed out of the parking space.
    “Does strong and healthy call for a celebration,” he asked as they left the hospital car park and filtered out onto the main road. “Because if it does, then I know just the place.”
    “But we’ve already been out for lunch,” Maggie said. “Besides it’s nearly the girl’s bedtime.”
    Then she realized where he was taking them and began to protest in earnest. “No Ruairi, not to your hotel. We all look like ragamuffins. We’re covered in grass stains and ice cream, and Sophie and Amy aren’t even wearing their shoes. You can’t possibly take us there.”
    “Watch me!” he chuckled as he turned the car sharply into the entrance of the underground car park and found an empty space near the hotel elevator.
    “Now everybody out because this hotel makes special food for hungry little girls, and besides, I know there’s someone here who will want to hear all about your new baby. And about your day in the park too,” he added.
    Maggie gave in. “You really are a glutton for punishment,” she told him and then laughed as Sophie and Amy scrambled up into his arms as if it was the most natural thing in the world, leaving her to collect all the debris of their day and trail behind them again.
     
    * * *
     
    When the elevator stopped at the ground floor to collect more passengers, the first person they saw as the doors opened was Marie O’Connor.
    “Gracious me, am I about to have company?” she asked, as she joined them in the lift, her face wreathed in smiles.
    “We’re going to have tea,” Amy told her, hanging onto the collar of Ruairi’s polo shirt as she swiveled round to talk to her.
    “Well that’s really lucky because I’m so worn out from shopping that I need a cup of tea myself, so maybe we can look at the menu together and you can help me to choose a cake to eat with it.”
    As she spoke to the children her eyes were full of questions and as soon as they left the lift Maggie told her about June and the baby while Ruairi walked ahead of them with the children clinging like limpets to his