Kitabı oxu: «Hearts of Gold: The Children's Heart Surgeon»

About the Author

MEREDITH WEBBER says of herself, “Once I read an article which suggested that Mills & Boon were looking for new Medical Romance^™ authors. I had one of those ‘I can do that’ moments, and gave it a try. What began as a challenge has become an obsession—though I do temper the ‘butt on seat’ career of writing with dirty but healthy outdoor pursuits, fossicking through the Australian Outback in search of gold or opals. Having had some success in all of these endeavours, I now consider I’ve found the perfect lifestyle.”

Hearts of Gold
The Children’s Heart Surgeon
The Heart Surgeon’s Proposal
The Italian Surgeon
Meredith Webber

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Children’s Heart Surgeon

CHAPTER ONE

THE music followed Alex from the ballroom to the bar— deserted now the dancing had started. The band was the best, seducing even the most staid of attendees at the congress onto the floor, and as his feet moved to the beat he felt vague regret that he hadn’t brought along a partner.

He gave a huff of self-mocking laughter as he ordered a brandy.

What partner? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a girlfriend for long enough for her to qualify for the word.

His own fault, as his last non-partner had pointed out, but she had been wrong about the cause. Wrong to blame his focus on his work.

What he couldn’t handle in a relationship was emotional dependency. Put that way he sounded cold, which he knew he wasn’t. But what woman would understand that he carried so many emotional burdens and expectations in his work that he was looking for escape from them in his private life?

Impossible, his sister had told him. In any good relationship there has to be an element of dependence…

He shook his head in denial of his thoughts and sipped his brandy, moving his head in the action just enough to realise he wasn’t alone at the bar. Way down the other end of the horseshoe, deep in shadow, he caught a glimpse of silvery hair, moving like a moonbeam on flowing water.

A woman swaying to the music, as alone as he was but feeling the lure of the beat in her body.

He hesitated a moment, aware that what he was about to do was totally out of character, then with great deliberation he put down his glass, stood up off the stool and moved towards her.

She was dressed all in black, which explained why he’d only seen her hair in the shadows, and still she swayed, unaware of his approach.

‘The music’s great. Would you like to dance?’ He spoke quietly but knew he’d startled her, for she stopped abruptly and he could have sworn her pale skin turned even paler.

Behind him, he sensed the barman watching both of them—suspicious of him, protective of his female customer.

It was her turn to hesitate, but then she gave a smile so sad it hurt his heart.

‘I’m not dressed for a ball, and I’m fresh out of fairy godmothers,’ she said, holding out her arms to show him she was wearing black trousers and a high-necked black sweater.

‘We can dance outside,’ he said. ‘On the terrace.’

Then he waited, willing her to say yes—willing her to dance with him because, for some unfathomable reason, it suddenly seemed important that she did.

He waited for ever, it seemed, until she gave a why-not, almost fatalistic kind of shrug and slipped off her stool.

He took her arm, tense as a steel rod, and led her out onto the terrace. Beyond it, manicured lawns led down to a large artificial lake, but the moonlight shining on the water was authentic, and the stars in the black night sky twinkled like fairy lights.

She was slim and lithe, and once she relaxed very light on her feet. In fact, she danced with a grace that made his dancing better—made him feel like someone from an old movie. Fred Astaire? Was that the dancing guy’s name?

Her body fitted his so they moved as one, gliding across the terrace to the strains of the big band inside.

A moment out of time.

He was aware of that even as he held her in his arms, and an inner instinct told him to remember it, so he looked at her face, seeing a dusting of freckles across her pale skin and dark shadows beneath her eyes. He’d seen shadows like those under the eyes of his patients’ parents. Shadows etched by emotional pain and physical exhaustion.

He held her closer, wanting to protect her, forgetting he needed to avoid emotional dependency.

Forgetting he didn’t know her.

He was vaguely aware the real music had stopped, but he heard it playing in his head and danced on, knowing she, too, was hearing it—dancing to it. Then it started up again, a different tempo—slower, more seductive.

He felt her body stiffen beneath his hands, but he wasn’t through dancing yet. Through holding her! Could he will her to open her eyes so he could see their colour? They’d looked dark in the shadows of the bar, but with her fair hair and pale skin, they could be light. Her lips were pinker than the skin around them, which wasn’t saying much. No lipstick, but he could see their shape—their soft, ripe fullness.

Best he think about her eyes again, he told himself, but his feet had guided them to the darkest corner of the terrace and as the music slowed their feet stilled while their bodies kept swaying to the tune, as close as two people could be—two fully clothed people.

Seduced by music, and moonlight on water, and the feel of the woman in his arms, he bent his head and kissed her.

There was a long, indecisive moment as she again stiffened in his arms, then as suddenly relaxed against him. She didn’t quite kiss him back, but didn’t pull away or slap his face, indicating, he decided, by these two negatives that he could continue with this gentle, exploratory quest.

He could feel her heart beating against her ribs and sensed a tension in her, as if kissing a strange man was a very risky business even with two hundred congress delegates and their partners within screaming distance. And while he guessed she wasn’t not enjoying it, she was also poised for flight.

Then suddenly she was with him, opening her lips to him, responding—whatever inhibitions had been holding her released.

Had they really kissed for an hour, or had they danced for longer than he’d thought they had? Afterwards he tried to work out the timing, but found he couldn’t.

Unless they had kissed for an hour…

Could anyone kiss for an hour?

All he knew was that they’d kissed for a long time, demanding more and more of each other until it had seemed they’d known each other’s blood.

Until he’d known they’d had to get off the terrace before they’d become a public spectacle!

‘Can I walk you to your room?’ he asked, voice husky with the passion kissing had aroused.

She leaned back in his arms, and looked up into his face. Dark eyes—brown or hazel, though he couldn’t tell which in the shadows—scanned his face, while his own eyes were riveted on her bruised and swollen—well-kissed—lips.

‘No,’ she said, and pushed away from him, but as he released her he felt a shudder pass through her body, as if his suggestion had repelled her.

When she’d kissed him like she had?

Then she touched his hand and said gently, as if apologising for the shudder, ‘My room’s too far away.’

And with that she departed, not back into the bar where the dancers were now gathering for nightcaps, but down the steps towards the lawn, vanishing into the night’s shadows.

He’d find her again, he vowed as disappointment doused the fire within his body.

The congress ran for three more days, and the hotel was closed to all but congress attendees and their partners.

Partners? He hadn’t seen her at any congress sessions. She was with someone?

Married?

But unhappy—he’d felt her unhappiness from the moment they’d met.

He’d find her. Find out about her.

Kiss her?

That would be up to her!

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU know something, Henry,’ Annie said, pouring milk over the cereal she’d piled in both their bowls, ‘I hate the idea of starting this new job.’

Henry, far more interested in the preparation of his breakfast than in Annie’s conversation, said nothing, prompting Annie to explain.

‘I know I was excited about it back when it was first offered to me. Really excited. Well, all right, I was over the moon—but that was before I realised Dan Petersen was leaving. I thought Dan would be my boss.’

She lifted Henry’s bowl and put it in front of him.

‘Now I’ve got a new job and a new boss! And there’s something dodgy about it, I know there is. I’ve been invited for little chats with just about every hospital executive, which, even when you consider it’s a new unit, seems strange. And there’ve been looks between those pencil-pushers, and conversations that stop when I walk near them. Definitely dodgy.’

Henry gave a derisive huff, as if he didn’t believe a word she was saying.

‘Then there’s the man himself—the new boss,’ Annie continued, refusing to be put off by his lack of support. ‘You know I don’t listen to gossip—’

Henry’s look of disbelief forced her to add, ‘Well, I do listen, it’s the lifeblood of the hospital, but I don’t repeat it, except to you. And even if I didn’t listen I couldn’t have helped but hear the stories about him—they’re legion. He may be a surgical genius but he’s a tyrant both in Theatre and in the ward, and the words they use about him. “Ruthless” seems to come up most often. Now ruthless, as you and I both know, usually implies a person who’ll do anything to get ahead, so why’s a ruthless top US surgeon with an international reputation coming here, to Jimmie’s, to work? Working here, even setting up a new unit, isn’t going to put four stars on his CV—not even one star, to tell the truth—so why? That’s what I want to know.’

Soft brown eyes looked into hers, but Henry offered no comment. Instead, he turned away, scoffed his breakfast then, realising she hadn’t started hers, looked hopefully at her.

‘You’re not getting it,’ she told him, ‘so don’t sit there drooling all over the floor. Go outside and chase a cat. Bark at something. Wake the neighbours.’

He gave her a look that acknowledged her contrary mood but made no move to offer comfort by bumping his big head against her legs. You’ve only yourself to blame, he was telling her. Or maybe she was telling herself, only it seemed more definitive coming from Henry.

‘That dog doesn’t understand a word you say.’ Her father propelled his wheelchair into the kitchen. ‘They go on tone of voice. Listen.’

In the sweetest, kindest voice a gruff and unemotional man could muster, he called Henry all the harshest names under the sun, berating him without mercy, while the dog fawned at his feet—bumping his head against her father’s knees in utter adoration.

‘We all know that trick, Dad,’ Annie grumbled, picking up her handbag and looping the strap over her shoulder. ‘I’ll leave you two here, bound in mutual admiration, and go to work to earn some money to keep us all.’

Her father grinned at her, while his hand, twisted and gnarled by the rheumatoid arthritis which had also crippled his body, fondled Henry’s head.

‘Someone’s got to do it,’ he said, ‘and Henry’s got a full-time job taking care of me.’

Annie dropped a kiss on his head, patted the dog and left the pair of them in the sunny kitchen. Her going out to work to keep them all was an old joke between them, her father being well enough off to afford to pay for whatever care he might need and to keep her and Henry in relative comfort. But her father knew how much her work meant to her, so had encouraged her to continue her career.

‘Or how much work used to mean to me,’ she muttered to herself as she strode along the tree-lined street towards the hospital. ‘Back when getting back to work was part of feeling normal, and having responsibilities in a job gave me a sense of being in control. Maybe it’s the control thing that’s making me edgy about the new position. Maybe I’m afraid this man will take that away from me. Maybe I’m not ready to lose control again…’

Two schoolboys steered a wide path around her, no doubt taking her for a nutter because she was talking to herself.

‘A lot of people talk to themselves,’ she said, turning to address the words to their departing backs.

The body she slammed into was solid enough to not only keep its balance but to stop her falling as well.

‘Yes, but most of them look where they’re going as they do it,’ a male voice, enhanced by a rich British accent, said, and she looked up into the amused blue eyes of a handsome, well-built man, clad in an impeccable three-piece suit.

‘Not necessarily,’ she felt constrained to point out, backing hastily away from the suited chest. ‘A lot of the ones around here keep their heads right down and mutter, mutter, mutter into their beards. If they have beards.’

She wasn’t sure why she was arguing with a stranger over such a trivial matter.

Or talking to him at all!

She had to get to work. Start the new job. Meet the new boss.

‘Being new around here, I wouldn’t know,’ he said, the blue eyes still smiling into hers in a disconcerting manner—a flirtatious manner.

‘I’ve got to get to work,’ she said, resorting to a mutter once again. Then she added ‘Now!’ because her feet hadn’t started moving in that direction.

‘Me, too,’ blue eyes said cheerfully. ‘I’m heading for the hospital, and you seem to be going in that general direction. Shall we walk together?’

She could hardly say no. He’d come out of a house only four doors up from hers—a house that had been on the market for so long she’d stopped looking at the sign, so had missed the ‘Sold’ banner she now saw slapped across it. That made him a neighbour and to say no would be downright unneighbourly.

‘I guess so.’ Still muttering, though this time it was ungraciously. Now she had a new job, new boss and a new neighbour, and she hated change.

They were walking together now, and she knew it was time for introductions, but couldn’t bring herself to take the initiative, feeling that if she didn’t know his name, she needn’t count him as a neighbour. She’d make idle conversation instead.

‘You’re going to the hospital? Visiting someone?’

It was early but the place allowed relatives in at just about any time.

‘Going to work,’ he said, surprising her, as she’d put him down as a lawyer.

‘At the hospital?’

‘I’m a doctor—a lot of us work at hospitals.’

She knew the eyes would be twinkling but refused to look as he turned sideways towards her and held out his hand.

‘Phil Park. My father wanted to call me Albert or Centennial, but fortunately my mother’s common sense prevailed.’

He dropped his hand when Annie failed to take it, and she could sense he was disappointed his little joke—which he’d probably told a million times—had fallen flat, but Annie was too busy absorbing his name to be smiling at weak jokes.

Phillip Park. His name was on the list of new staff—one of the doctors who had come along in the new boss’s train. Paediatric surgery fellow? Anaesthetist? No, Annie was pretty sure the anaesthetist was a woman—Maggie Walsh.

Annie had personnel files of all the new appointees on her desk, but she’d purposely not read through them, deciding to meet the new staff without any preconceived ideas. Now she was sorry she hadn’t checked. She’d known Alexander Attwood was American, but had assumed the other staff would be Australians from Melbourne, where Dr Attwood had been working for six months.

‘And you are?’ Phil was saying politely.

‘Annie Talbot, former sister in charge of the neonatal special care unit at St James’s Hospital and, from today, manager of the new paediatric surgical unit. Great way to start a working relationship—running headlong into you.’

Phil Park’s hand clasped hers, warm fingers engulfing her palm, holding her hand just a fraction too long.

She withdrew hers carefully and moved a little further away from him, guessing he was a toucher, and not wanting to be the touchee.

‘But that’s great!’ he said. ‘We’ll be working together, and neighbours as well for a while. At least I assume we’ll be neighbours—or are you a health nut, and had covered several kilometres before you bumped into me?’

‘No, we’ll be neighbours,’ Annie told him, though she didn’t share his enthusiasm. Because, with the smiling eyes and hand held too long, she was sure he was flirting with her?

Or because the smiling eyes and hand held too long reminded her of Dennis?

‘Manager of the new surgical unit, eh?’ he asked, not in the least put out by her lack of enthusiasm. ‘How do you feel about that—coming from hands-on nursing in the PICU? That is what your special care unit is, isn’t it? A paediatric intensive care unit? And don’t most unit managers come from a secretarial or management background rather than a nursing one?’

Annie breathed easier. He might rattle on but she’d followed his thoughts and talking work was much better than considering flirtatious new neighbours.

Or Dennis.

‘I’ve mixed feelings about the shift from nursing,’ she told him, ‘but the new job’s a challenge. The new unit is a challenge—I imagine that’s why someone like your boss has come on board. Shifting to Jimmie’s isn’t like taking up a post at one of the renowned children’s hospitals. We’re just starting up. Neurologists and cardiologists—all the specialists, in fact—are still going to refer patients to the bigger hospitals.’

‘Not for paediatric cardiac surgery—not with Alexander the Great on board,’ he said.

‘You call Dr Attwood Alexander the Great?’ Annie was awed by such daring. Everything she’d heard or read about the man had instilled her with enormous respect for him.

Not to mention apprehension about the ‘ruthless’ part.

‘Not to his face.’ Phil retreated. ‘But all of us—Maggie, Kurt, Rachel—use the title when we’re talking about him. He’s come here because of the opportunity to start a small specialised unit that he hopes will be used as a model for other small units. Other hospitals have paediatric surgical units, but they’re not specialised to the extent we’d like to be. They do some congenital heart defects, which is our specialty, but they also do other congenital defects and things like brain tumours, gut obstructions, kidney and liver transplants—the lot.’

He glanced at her as if to see if she was listening, and as she was—and was fascinated as well—she encouraged him with a smile and a quiet, ‘Go on.’

‘Well, Alex hopes that if a small cardiac surgical unit can be made to work, physically, medically and financially, he’ll have a model to set up similar units in city hospitals across the US. At the moment, over there, they have places like Boston Children’s and Cleveland Clinic, maybe ten large hospitals with elite paediatric surgery units, but that means seriously ill babies, often newborn, with complex heart problems requiring surgery, have to travel huge distances for treatment, which not only puts extra stress on them but also disrupts family life and support systems.’

Annie took it all in—even felt a skip of excitement for the vision in her own heart—but at the same time his words puzzled her.

‘Does anyone else know of this plan of Dr Attwood’s? Is the hospital CEO on side? Does the board know? The government? After all, most of our funds come from them.’

She glanced towards Phil and for the first time saw his smile replaced by a frown. She hurried to dispel it.

‘I’m only asking because, as unit manager, I hadn’t heard any of this,’ she explained. ‘I thought we were going to be just another paediatric surgical unit like the ones you’ve mentioned.’

Her voice trailed away as she wondered if she’d missed something in the job description and in the interviews that had followed her application. Although that might explain the ‘little talks’ and her feeling that something ‘dodgy’ was going on!

‘A number of people know,’ Phil said, then he must have realised he’d spoken abruptly, for he found his smile again and favoured her with a particularly warm and teasing version of it. ‘Though I’ve just committed the cardinal sin in Alex’s book and blabbed about it to a virtual stranger before he’s held his briefing.’

A pause, then he grasped her arm and added, ‘You won’t give me away, will you? You’ll look suitably surprised and then delighted when he tells everyone at the staff meeting?’

They were walking through the hospital gates and up the paved path towards the main staff entrance as Phil made this plea. Annie studied him for a moment, wondering why an attractive, self-assured man should be worrying over such a minor indiscretion as telling a colleague something she’d hear very shortly anyway.

The word ‘ruthless’ echoed in her head. Was the gossip even half-right? Was the new boss tyrannical enough to cause his colleague such alarm?

She patted Phil’s hand, still resting on her arm, to reassure him and led the way through the doors, nodding at other staff arriving early for their shift.

‘Trust you to find a beautiful woman before you’ve even entered the hospital,’ a deep voice said, and Annie turned to see another immaculate three-piece suit standing just inside the entrance. Inside it was a tall, rangy man, with a craggy face and the coolest, clearest grey eyes she’d ever seen.

Her heart stopped beating, stuttered back to life, then raced out of control. It couldn’t be…

Yet she knew it was.

Had known it was from the moment she’d heard his voice…

‘Do I know you?’ He reached out a hand towards her as he asked the question, and Annie stepped back.

He sounded perplexed and when she glanced at him again she saw the untidy brows drawn together in a frown as if perplexed wasn’t an emotion he enjoyed.

‘No!’ she said, far too loudly in the small space, then wondered if something less definite—a vague I don’t think so—might have been more believable.

‘This is Annie Talbot,’ Phil said to the suit. ‘She’s our neighbour and our new unit manager. She bumped into me—literally—outside our gate. Your gate. Annie, this is Alex Attwood.’

This cannot be happening. That was Annie’s first thought.

But it is, was her second.

The third suggested it wouldn’t matter. Might not matter. Especially if she stuck to her denial. She’d just go through to her office, sit down and think things through.

After which she could find out about jobs in Botswana or Tibet or somewhere.

Except she didn’t have a passport—not a real one…

‘Dr Attwood,’ she said coolly, gaining some control over her panic and finally responding to Philip’s introduction. ‘Welcome to St James’s. Phil, I’ll see you later.’

She strode away.

Alex watched her long slim legs eating up the yards down the corridor, saw her head move as she acknowledged colleagues and her hand lift to give a slight wave to others.

It was her. He would swear it was. The hair was different—but women were always changing their hair. He knew it was her from the way she moved. He’d watched her stride away from him once before.

And from her voice—low register, somewhat husky…

But he would also swear there’d been no Annie Talbot on the list he’d kept for the last five years. The most likely name, he’d eventually decided, after three days of detective work and straight-out gossip at the congress, had been Rowena Drake, wife of an Australian cardiologist called Dennis Drake. The fact that she was married should have stopped him thinking about her right then and there but, like the prince with the glass slipper, he’d wanted to know for certain who his mystery woman was.

Since coming to Australia six months ago, Alex had tried to find Dennis Drake, but though records of his training existed it appeared he was no longer practicing in Australia. Probably still working in the US, where he’d been five years ago, Alex had decided, and he’d put the matter to rest once again.

Now here she was!

Alex shook his head. He didn’t know that. And she’d said they hadn’t met. The odds of Annie Talbot being Rowena Drake—being his mystery woman—were a million to one, probably even higher than that, given the population of the country and the percentage of women in the figure.

Yet he’d felt that connection, and he would swear she’d felt it, too.

‘Are you listening to me?’

Phil’s question made Alex realise how deeply he’d lost himself in his memories of the past.

‘Not really,’ he told Phil, certain all he’d been delivering had been gossip about their colleague. Although learning more about her might help him…

‘I was saying Maggie phoned just after you left the house. She wanted to know when you hoped to start operating. A colleague has asked her to stand in with him in a liver transplant later tomorrow, but she doesn’t want to say yes until she’s spoken to you.’

‘We won’t be starting tomorrow,’ Alex replied, feeling better now he could focus back on work. ‘I kept the week clear for checking equipment, staff training, talking to local cardiologists, reviewing files of possible patients and generally settling in. I’ll be seeing Maggie at the meeting, we can talk about it then.’

He’d be seeing Annie Talbot at the meeting, too. Seeing a lot of her, in fact. But if it was her, and she’d lied about meeting him before, what kind of base was that for a working relationship?

‘Who are you waiting for?’ Phil had broken the silence again.

‘Waiting for?’

‘We’re standing here in the staff entranceway, which, in case you haven’t noticed, is becoming increasingly congested. You were standing here when I arrived. I assumed you were waiting for someone.’

‘Oh! No! Well, I might have been waiting for you. Actually, I came in, then wondered about exits and entrances—not knowing the hospital—and went back outside to look around. I’d just come back in and was looking at the fire evacuation plan on the wall when you walked in.’

‘You were checking out the fire exit plan?’

Phil’s disbelief was evident and Alex wasn’t surprised but, having seen the plan on the wall, it had seemed like a good excuse. He could hardly admit he’d seen Phil come through the gates with the woman, and something about her—the way she’d moved—the way her hair had swung to her shoulders, though it was dark, not fair as moonlight—had caused a hitch in his breathing and held him rooted to the spot.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, refusing to be drawn any further into a totally pointless conversation. ‘There’s a small lecture room included in the space the hospital has allotted us. It’s not ideal for staff meetings as I’d rather we were all on one level, but with space at a premium in all hospitals we were lucky to get it. Nine o’clock, we’re on show. That’s if your pretty woman has organised things for us.’

‘She is pretty, isn’t she? And she struck me as an efficient type—power suit and all. Though she told me she was head of the PICU before she took this job. Did you know that? Do you know of many hands-on nurses who’ve gone into admin positions?’

Alex felt his forehead tightening and realised he was frowning, though he tried hard to control this facial expression, knowing it made him look especially grim and therefore intimidating to the families of his patients.

‘No, I didn’t know, but I don’t think it matters as long as she’s efficient at her job. I did ask to be involved in choosing the manager—after all, she’ll be acting as my personal assistant as well—but I was told in no uncertain terms they already had someone for the job.’

‘You didn’t do too badly, getting to bring your own fellow, anaesthetist, perfusionist and head theatre nurse.’

‘It was a condition of my employment,’ Alex said briefly, his mind, now they’d reached the fourth floor where the unit would be situated, on what lay ahead. He may have brought key figures with him, people who’d worked with him during his time in Melbourne, but for the unit to succeed it had to be a team effort. An image of Annie Talbot flashed through his mind. She would be both the handson team leader and his liaison with the powers that be within the hospital. The second element was as important as the first—in fact, it could be the key to success.

So he had to get over his reaction to her. Even if she was the woman on the terrace, she didn’t want to remember it. Didn’t want him to remember it.

Well, he’d tried darned hard not to, yet for five years his subconscious had measured all women against her.

Against a ghost.

A wraith.

A woman he didn’t know!

Annie slumped down at her desk and buried her face in her hands. This couldn’t be happening.

It was!

OK, so did it matter?

She took a deep breath and thought about that one.

In some ways yes, because it had physically hurt her to deny they’d met before, when it had been that night—that small experience of dancing with that man and kissing him—which had freed her from her living hell.

Kissing Alex Attwood, although she’d had no idea at the time who he was, had shattered the chain that had bound her to Dennis. Kissing Alex Attwood had made her turn away from the hotel room where her husband had slept, knocked out by a drug he’d been given for seafood poisoning, and keep walking until she’d reached the nearest town, where she’d gone into the police station and asked the sleepy man on duty if she could phone Australia.

Heavens! She should be down on her knees kissing Alex’s feet, not denying she’d ever met him, but the denial had been instinctive, and now, she knew, on so many levels, it had been the right thing to do.

And, given that cardiologists and cardiac surgeons, even in a place the size of the US, moved in the same small world, it was also the only safe thing to do.

Having sorted that out, she raised her head and looked at the clock. Five minutes to the staff meeting and she hadn’t checked the room. Hadn’t done anything but panic since she’d seen him.

Again she felt the jolt of recognition that had shaken her body when she’d looked at the man. Could one body know another so instinctively?

After so short a time?

After one dance?

One kiss?

She shook her head. Forget it. Get moving. You’re here to work, and you’re Annie Talbot, not Rowena Drake.

Dragging air into her lungs, willing the deep breaths to calm her nerves, she entered the small lecture room, crossing to the table on the raised dais, checking there was a jug of water and sufficient glasses for those who would be sitting there—her new acquaintance, Phil; the big boss and the rest of his retinue; Col Bennett, hospital CEO; and herself. Col would introduce the newcomers, then hand over to her to introduce the staff members who would be fixtures in the unit—the unit secretary, two paediatric special care sisters, two sisters from the paediatric surgical ward and two theatre sisters. Other staff would be rostered through the unit once operations were under way.

She was using efficiency to block off any other thoughts. If Phil was right about Alex’s plans for the unit, she’d need to focus completely on what lay ahead workwise.

‘All ready?’

She recognised the voice and turned to see Alex Attwood, frowning grimly, apparently at her. Then, as if he’d suddenly become aware of his fierce expression, he adjusted his features into a smile. The expression shifted the planes of his craggy face so he looked not exactly handsome but very close to it.

Though it wasn’t just the look, but a kind of power she felt emanating from him as he came towards her, that made her realise he was an attractive man. Not conventionally good-looking as Phil was, but attractive nonetheless.

Not that she’d considered attractiveness five years ago when he’d asked her to dance. She’d been too caught up in the music and in an illicit feeling of freedom to take much notice of him as anything more than a dance partner.

Until he’d kissed her…

And by then he’d been too close for her to really see much of him.

‘I think so,’ she said, wishing she could press her hands to her overheated cheeks but knowing that would just draw attention to them.

He was looking at the table on the dais, as if checking off who would sit where. Maybe he hadn’t noticed her scarlet cheeks.

‘I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to get together before today,’ he said. ‘I’d intended getting over on Friday, but a friend asked me to assist at the Children’s Hospital—an emergency admission. Three-month-old brought in from the country with an undiagnosed PDA.’

Mentally, Annie translated the initials into patent ductus arteriosis. The foetal duct between the pulmonary artery and the aorta hadn’t closed, so oxygen-rich blood was still flowing from the aorta back into the pulmonary artery and the lungs. It occurred more often in premmie babies and usually closed spontaneously, but if it didn’t, it could lead to a number of problems for the infant or growing child.

It was a relatively common operation now, with good success rates. The best ever achieved in Australia had been during the time Alex Attwood had been in Melbourne.

‘The baby OK?’ she asked, and saw her new boss smile again—though this time with a warmth that had been absent when he’d used a smile to reassure her earlier.

‘Doing great,’ he said, still smiling. ‘Just great.’

Annie heard genuine satisfaction in his voice and some of her apprehension faded. She had enormous respect for doctors who cared deeply about their patients. So with respect, and with admiration for his ability as a surgeon, she could shut that tiny moment in time when their paths had crossed back where it belonged, in a far corner of her memory, and get on with the job she’d been appointed to do. She was so pleased with this discovery she forgot her promise to Phil.

‘Phil was saying you’re hoping to make this unit a specialised paediatric cardiac surgery unit—a model for small units that could work in other hospitals across the world. Does everyone know this? I mean, the hospital CEO, the board. I’m only asking because no one mentioned it to me…’

Too late, the echo of the words she’d used to Phil reminded her she wasn’t supposed to know, and the return of the frown to Alex’s face suggested he was less than pleased with both her and his offsider.

‘Quite a number of people know.’

The voice she remembered, even with the memory tucked away, hardened.

‘And a high percentage of them are influential in both medical and government circles, but—what are you? Thirty-one? Thirty-two?—you must know how political medicine is. Hospitals have to fight each other for the best funding deals, fight for corporate sponsorship. If news of this unit had leaked out, there’d have been a furore about funds being diverted from other places. We needed it to be a fait accompli before making any announcement.’

He strode across the dais then propped his elbows on the lectern and turned to look back at her, as if prepared to lecture his audience of one.

‘You’ll hear all of this very shortly—and after that the word will spread and the fun and fighting will begin. But believe me, Annie Talbot, this unit will not only come into being, it will eventually be the best in the country. And the model that I want it to be.’

Annie, at first affronted by his quite accurate guess at her age, heard the fire of dedication in his voice. It made her study him more closely—the craggy face, with a straight sharp nose, firm chin, untidy eyebrows over stern grey eyes—and what she saw—and sensed in him—stirred a feeling of true elation. Forget jolts of recognition and kisses in the past! If what he was saying was true, then this was going to be the job of her dreams, not just, as she’d thought when she’d applied for it, a stepping stone to something special. This was going to be the something special she’d always hoped was out there for her. The something special to which she could dedicate her life!

Alex watched a whole array of expressions flash across his companion’s face. Used to reading faces—how else could babies tell you how they felt?—he saw puzzlement, then surprise, then something that looked very like excitement. Whatever it was, it brought a glow to her pale skin, making the brush of freckles—a familiar brush of freckles, he was sure—across her nose and cheeks appear luminous. Then clear hazel eyes lifted to meet his, and her smile lit up the dreary lecture room.

‘This, Dr Alex Attwood, is what I’ve been waiting for for ever, it seems. Yes, I know about hospital fighting and it won’t only be hospital against hospital, there’ll be in-house battles as well as other departments fighting to keep money or claim money they feel is being siphoned off to your unit.’

‘Our unit,’ he corrected, but he doubted she’d heard him, so intent was she on what lay ahead of both of them.

‘But we’ll fight and we’ll win,’ she continued, as if driven by some inner force. ‘Because you’re good—the best, most people say—at what you do, and because I’ll be the best damn unit manager ever put on earth.’

She smiled at him again, triumph already shining in her eyes.

‘You have no idea just how much this means to me,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

Then, almost under her breath, he thought he heard her add, ‘Again.’

Puzzled by the strength of her reaction, he forgot the puzzle of ‘again’ and considered where they stood. He was pleased to hear the commitment in her words and voice, but to be thanking him?

Did she not realise just how hard and dirty the fight ahead of them was likely to be? Didn’t she realise she should be running for her life, not thanking him with such delight?

And why would any woman so obviously welcome the challenge the unit would provide? Most women he knew would back away—say thanks but, no, thanks.

Maybe she saw only the glory at the end—the image of herself as manager of an elite unit. But she looked far too sensible—and if she’d managed the PICU she was far too experienced—not to know how dirty hospital fights could get.

‘To the best of our ability we’ll ignore the politics,’ she said—not ‘we should’ but ‘we will’! ‘We’ll make our name on results. Of course, to get results you need the best staff, and that usually requires money, but if we have to work with what we have, then we’ve got to make them the best.’

‘Hey, we haven’t had the staff briefing yet, and already you’re into staff training.’

She swung her head to look at him again, and the way her hair moved reminded him of moonlight on a lake, al-though her hair was dark and shiny, not pale as the silk he’d spun off silkworm cocoons when he was a child.

‘Aren’t you?’ she challenged, and it took him a moment to think what they’d been talking about.

Of course he was. He’d thought of nothing else for weeks. Every free moment had been given over to working out how he could bring the unit staff to the level of expertise he’d require from them. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to admit that to this woman just yet.

In fact, he felt a little put out—as if she’d taken some of his dream away from him, as if she was already sharing it.

Which was good, he reminded himself. The entire staff needed to share the dream—to be committed to it. And it wasn’t that he wasn’t ready to share, he just hadn’t expected anyone to take it on board so wholeheartedly—so immediately.

Noises outside suggested other staff were arriving.

He glared at Phil as he wandered in, greeting Annie as if they’d been friends for years, putting his arm around her waist to draw her forward so he could introduce her to Maggie and Kurt and Rachel.

For one brief, irrational moment Alex was sorry he’d brought Phil to St James, then he remembered that Phil, for all his flirtatious ways and womanising, was one of the best surgeons he’d ever worked with. He needed Phil here—the unit needed him.

Besides, Annie Talbot had drawn away from his arm, positioning herself out of touching distance of Phil.

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU’D like them, Henry. All of them. Even the boss,’ Annie said, as they breakfasted the following day. ‘Maggie’s an Australian, from Melbourne, Kurt and Rachel are Americans—they came out to Melbourne with Alexander the Great.’

As Henry was the recipient of this information, she didn’t have to explain that the title his staff had given him had stuck in her brain. That was the nice thing about talking to Henry. She didn’t have to explain.

‘Phil, although he’s originally from England, came with them from the States as well, because he’s learning under you know who for five years. Phil’s a flirt with a predilection for blondes, I suspect. He’s been chatting up Becky, the unit secretary, and she’s blonde, and I saw him in the canteen with one of the unit nursing staff—another blonde.’

Annie reached up and pushed her hair back behind her ears, then she rubbed Henry’s head.

‘Good thing I’ve had a dye job, isn’t it, Henry?’

But although she spoke lightly, her heart was heavy, and though the new job seemed to hold the promise that all her dreams could come true, she was edgy and apprehensive about working with ‘the Great’.

She’d spent a restless night hovering in the no man’s land between sleep and waking, trying desperately to rationalise this uneasiness, finally deciding that in part it was to do with her denial—that their work relationship had started off on the wrong foot because of that one word. Because of a lie!

But she couldn’t have said yes—couldn’t have admitted they’d met before then gone through the ‘where and when’ questions which would inevitably have followed. It was unlikely Alex even remembered dancing with a stranger one night five years ago, and to say ‘I’m the woman you kissed on the terrace at Traders Rest’ would have been too humiliating for words. Especially with Phil standing there, all ears.

And, she feared, it would have been too dangerous as well, for it would tie her to the congress, to the delegates—maybe even to Dennis…

Annie stood up, hoping physical movement would shake off the hungover feeling that was the legacy of her sleepless night. She patted the dog, called goodbye to her father and walked briskly out the door.

Today she wouldn’t talk to herself, would look where she was going, would not bump into anyone and would not tell any lies. Even small ones. Even small self-protective ones.

‘Good morning!’

Not Phil’s cheerful cut-glass accent, but a slow, deep, American drawl. Alex was emerging from the front gate of the house four doors down.

‘Good morning,’ Annie managed, mentally noting that was lie number one and her resolution was already shot to pieces because there was nothing remotely good about having to walk to work with Alex.

‘The meeting went well. The staff seemed enthused. You met with the nursing staff later—are you confident we’ll have them all on side, even when things get tough?’

Annie should have felt relief that the walk to work was going to be nothing more than a business meeting with added exercise, but relief wasn’t happening. What was happening was a hot flush. Premature menopause it must be, because just walking next to this man couldn’t make her feel hot all over.

Very hot all over.

‘Are you all right?’

Annie stopped walking and turned to glare at the questioner.

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ It must be early menopause—menopause made you snappy!

‘You’re a little flushed and you didn’t hear my question.’

Alex Attwood was now frowning at her—so much for good mornings!—but it seemed more an enquiring kind of frown than an angry one, then he reached up and touched a finger to her cheek.

‘You’re not sickening for something?’

Only love.

The thought came from nowhere, and so horrified Annie she knew whatever colour had been in her cheeks was now gone as all the heat drained from her body, leaving her deadly cold.

‘I might be,’ she told him, ‘and it might be catching.’ She turned away to keep walking. Think premature menopause, not love. Although menopause itself wasn’t contagious—and not really a sickness, either, though she was reasonably certain premature menopause could be classed as such. And as she’d now come up with a third symptom, fuzzy thinking—why else would love have popped into her head?—she was willing to believe that’s what she had. Especially since she also had mood swings and she’d felt like crying when he’d touched her cheek.

‘Annie!’

She’d been striding determinedly along the footpath, but something in the way he said her name made her look at him again. She read confusion on his face, yet he seemed to have nothing more to say.

Alex cursed his ineptitude with words. It had always been this way. As a child he’d made things with his hands, fixed things—found making a gift for his mother easier than saying he loved her.

Oh, he could talk about his work, to a certain extent. Though even there he preferred to do it—to operate—and to let the results do his talking.

But at some stage he had to talk to Annie, really talk to her. Find out if there was any validity in the way his thoughts kept imposing a fair-haired ghost over her features. Because if there wasn’t, then he might be going mad. He might, as his sister had so kindly suggested when she’d visited him in Melbourne, be suffering the effects of living upside down for six months—mental muddle-headedness, she’d called it.

Though she’d only accused him of that because he’d refused to laugh at her absurd jokes and failed to accompany her on an umpteenth shopping expedition.

She’d walked on—Annie, not his sister—and had stopped at the lights on the busy intersection opposite the hospital. He took her arm as the green man indicated they should cross, and though he felt her soft muscle go tense she didn’t pull away, accepting the touch as nothing more than a courtesy.

Not knowing that he’d had to touch her, had to feel her flesh and the hardness of bone beneath it. Closer to madness than mental muddle-headedness. He sent the thought-wave to his sister, now back in North Carolina with the rest of his family, then, the crossing safely negotiated, dropped Annie’s arm and turned his thoughts to work.

‘The staff are really keen. It was a good idea to negotiate to have our own staff treating our patients even once they leave the special care unit for the ward.’

‘I’ll be observing in Theatre Three today—adult patient but an intricate aorta repair.’

They spoke in unison, then Annie gave a laugh and said, ‘As I was answering a question you asked ages ago, it seems only fair you continue.’

Though equally willing to talk about the nursing staff—anything to get his mind off the physical manifestations of Annie’s close proximity—Alex continued.

‘It was torn in a MVA, repaired at the time, but now the cardiologist feels there must be adhesions slowing the flow of blood through the vessel. The echo shows some kind of blockage but it’s where the aorta’s tucked away behind the pulmonary artery and it’s hard to get a clear picture of the problem. Even the MRI doesn’t show much.’

‘Sounds tricky,’ Annie said, though he guessed from the relaxation in her voice that she was relieved by the topic. ‘I’m assuming that’s this morning. You’ve a couple of patients booked for consultations this afternoon.’

They were inside the staff entrance, in the small alcove where he’d waited for them yesterday, and she turned and smiled at him.

‘To think I doubted you’d get referrals. I know Phil laughed at me when I said as much yesterday, but I wondered if paediatric cardiologists here would prefer to continue to use the surgeons they knew.’

He found himself smiling back.

‘I knew I could always take cases from the waiting list at Children’s. That was part of the deal, but referrals? I had a few doubts about them myself,’ he admitted, still smiling, because Annie’s smile had brightened up his day.

He sent a new thought-wave to his sister. Total muddle-headedness!

Annie wondered if it was because they were in the hospital—on her home ground, so to speak—that she felt able to relax. Back there, when he’d said her name, even premature menopause couldn’t explain away the quiver of excitement that had ricocheted through her body. But now they were talking work, and she was so relieved she smiled at him. A real smile, not a pretend one, so the score on small lies for the day remained at one.

And he was smiling back—which made her confidence on being on home ground waver slightly. But she held firm and asked about the operation, and somehow they made it to the office without any further manifestations of her condition.

Manifestations of something else, perhaps, when they’d bumped together in the lift, but it certainly wasn’t love, she assured herself. Attraction, maybe. And why not? He was an attractive man.

That thought alone was enough to make her seek refuge in her work. It had been so long since she’d considered the attractiveness or otherwise of men, this time she felt a shiver, not a quiver, and the shiver was more fear than attraction.

‘Come on, the unit can’t afford too much overtime. We’re all heading for that pub up the road for a drink to celebrate day two safely over.’

Phil had poked his head around the door and, looking at him, Annie suspected he hadn’t poked more of his body into the office because the rest of it was attached to Becky.

‘Maybe later. If you’re still there.’ Second small lie of the day as she had no intention of going near the pub. But it was only a self-preservation-type lie so surely that didn’t count! ‘Right now I have to finish some requisitions or the Great will have my hide.’

Phil rolled his eyes. ‘Forty-eight hours into the job and he’s got you bluffed already. Believe me, his bark is far worse than his bite—not that he barks all that often. Come and see the man relax—learn for yourself he’s human.’

For some reason Annie’s mind flashed to the kiss, and though she didn’t tell Phil, she was willing to admit to herself that she knew for sure he was human.

‘Maybe later,’ she repeated, pulling a sheaf of paper across the desk to let him know she was serious about working.

He shrugged good-naturedly and walked away, but what seemed like only minutes later her diligence was again interrupted.

‘Phil says you’re not coming for a drink. He’s blaming me—says I’m a slavedriver. Is there really so much work for you to do?’

Annie considered lie number three, then shook her head.

‘Not really. I do want to check these letters going out to possible corporate sponsors. You mentioning that cardiac units can generate more money than most hospital divisions started me thinking. It won’t take long, but I don’t feel like going out tonight anyway. I’ve not let anyone know I’d be later than usual, so I’d prefer to go straight home.’

Was that a lie? I’d prefer not to spend avoidable time with you would be closer to the truth, but that could be translated into going straight home.

‘There are people at home you have to let know?’

He asked the question softly, as if he didn’t want it to sound like prying.

‘Of course,’ she said, answering the question yet knowing it wasn’t an entire answer.

Knowing immediately from his silence he was waiting for the rest of it.

‘Dad and Henry. Both at home. Waiting.’

The silence that followed this less than explicit explanation seemed to hover in the room like a third person, then Alex nodded briefly, said, ‘Goodnight, then,’ and walked away.

‘If he’d asked, I’d have told him Henry was a dog,’ Annie told the door which had closed behind him.

‘Plege on!’ Alex said, the order crisp.

Who outside this room could guess it meant a cocktail of chemicals and nutrients, in the main a potassium solution—poison—would flow into the baby’s heart?

The tiny heart stopped beating. It was pale and floppy-looking, clearly visible to Annie where she stood on a stool behind the heart-lung machine that was oxygenating the baby’s blood while the intricate surgery took place.

She held her breath, knowing every second Baby Ross was on the machine increased the risk of long-term damage to his frail body. Alex had explained exactly what would happen at every stage of the operation. He’d called all unit staff, including the sisters from the special care unit, together and drawn diagrams on a whiteboard, but nothing had prepared Annie for how small and totally vulnerable Baby Ross would look on the operating table, or how desperately sad it would be to see the still, lifeless little heart.

She reminded herself his heart would start beating again within minutes. That Alex was the best at what he did. She swallowed the lump of fear for Baby Ross that had lodged in her throat, and concentrated on what was happening now.

The switch, they called it. Baby Ross had been born with TGA, or transposition of the great arteries, which in effect meant that oxygen-rich blood from his lungs, instead of being pumped around his body, was being pumped back into his lungs, while oxygen-depleted blood was recirculated through the rest of his body.

Baby Ross was unlucky to be born with TGA, but his lucky break had been being born in St James’s—Jimmie’s as the staff called it—not just at any time but three days after Alex and his team had begun work there.

Annie studied the man they called ‘the Great’.

Cool. Detached.

Ruthless?

She wasn’t sure about the last, although both the other words would describe her impressions of the man. Having worked with critically ill children for the last five years of her career, Annie knew both the children and their parents needed very special characteristics from their doctors and nurses—characteristics like warmth, compassion, understanding.

Yet the parents she’d seen with Alex in consultations in his rooms didn’t seem bothered by his attitude. In fact, some of them—the fathers in particular—seemed to appreciate the forthright way he described their child’s condition, and the deliberate way he warned them that all surgery had potential dangers for the patient, who could die or be brain damaged for life.

The first time Alex had said this in Annie’s hearing, she was sure she’d reeled from the shock, but in retrospect had decided it was only fair the parents knew the risk, although Alex had quickly followed up his warning with statistics proving how unlikely such an outcome was.

Her thoughts were wandering but her eyes followed every move of the surgeons’ hands. Alex, Phil and a surgical registrar Annie didn’t know were all working on this one small mortal, while Rachel passed instruments and Kurt Reynolds operated the heart-lung machine, making sure the flow of blood was just right for tiny fragile arteries and veins. Maggie Walsh gave blood-gas readings and oxygen perfusion rates in a calm, relaxed voice.

Maggie, a petite brunette, oozed confidence, a great asset in an operating theatre where things could so easily go wrong. Even when Baby Ross had arrested earlier, she’d remained calm, giving Alex the information he’d needed, easing everyone’s tension with her quiet calls of pressure and blood gas.

Was she involved with Alex?

Annie wasn’t sure why the thought entered her head, but once it lodged there she looked from Maggie to Alex, considering the idea. Almost wishing she’d gone to drinks with them on Tuesday evening so she could have seen them together socially.

She gave an impatient shake of her head and turned her attention to the tiny form on the table, although she was sure she felt a frown gathering on her forehead and there was a definite squeamishness in her stomach.

Nonsense!

She concentrated on the operation, watching the glove-sheathed fingers of the surgeon sew with thread so fine she couldn’t see it. The clock on the heart-lung machine ticked off the seconds. Baby Ross had already been dependent on it for over an hour. Below the clock, another set of digital numbers—the baby’s core temperature. Baby Ross’s blood had been slowly cooled as it had gone through the machine so when the machine was stopped for the final stages of repair, he wouldn’t suffer brain or other organ damage.

All this Annie knew in theory—theory she’d brushed up on before the hour the staff had spent in front of the whiteboard—but her own heart thudded with tension as the operation continued. How much could this tiny baby take?

She looked at Alex again, and saw the precision with which he moved, the teamwork between himself, Phil and Rachel. They made it look easy—a symphony of hands moving in concert—and though one small slip could mean the baby died, Annie couldn’t feel any tension emanating from the group.

A little of her own tension eased, as if their confidence was transferring itself to her, but when the heart was stimulated and cannulae to and from the heart-lung machine were removed, the tension built again, until the little heart pumped on its own and the repairs to the big vessels held.

A faint cheer from Phil, while Alex nodded his satisfaction, stepping back from the table and pausing there while the circulating nurse unplugged his light.

Annie glanced at the clock and saw the operation must have proceeded according to plan, for Alex’s estimation of the time of completion of the major work had been spot-on.

He would now leave Phil and the registrar to close.

Annie remained where she was. She hadn’t done much theatre work in recent years, but she knew from her work in paediatric special care units that every stage of an operation was important. OK, if Phil slipped up and didn’t insert his stitches into Baby Ross’s chest just so, it might not make a difference to the final outcome of the operation, but regularly spaced stitches put equal pressure on the fine new skin, so the wound healed more quickly and left less scarring.

She gave a nod of satisfaction as she saw Phil’s work. He might be a light-hearted flirt outside the theatre, but in here he was as meticulous as his boss.

Alex, still trailing the cord from his light, stripped off his gloves and gown and dumped them in a bin. The design of the new theatre meant all the electrical equipment was contained in one central column so there was no tripping over leads and having no room to move because of bulky equipment. Even the echocardiogram machine was fitted into the column, with screens around the walls of the theatre so everyone could see what the machine found.

In this case, as Kurt, who was working it, had run the sensor over Baby Ross’s chest, it had showed blood flowing sweetly through the switched vessels, and now the camera in the column was focussed on Phil’s hands as he closed.

Alex sighed, awed as ever by the insults such small mortals could take to their bodies and yet survive. Behind him, an increase in the chat level signalled the operation was nearly at an end. Normally, he’d be operating again within an hour, but he’d deliberately not scheduled anything for this week, wanting to get the unit organised to his satisfaction first. Baby Ross had been an emergency admission—and in some ways it was good to get that first op out of the way.

Annie had said as much when he’d called the staff together for a pre-op briefing, and he’d wondered if she’d been as nervous as he had been about this first case in the new unit.

Annie, or Rowena?

He shook his head, unable to figure out why he couldn’t let it go. OK, so he’d looked for his ghost on and off for years, trawling through the names at medical conventions, checking lists of hospital employees. Not all the time—not obsessively—not quite obsessively…

She didn’t give much away—the woman everyone knew as Annie Talbot. Very self-contained. Very cool. Utterly charming to everyone she met, yet detached somehow.

He smiled to himself—knowing that was exactly how people described him. But he had his reasons for avoiding emotional involvement. Although he rarely admitted it, his job made huge demands on his emotions. To hold the life of a newborn infant in your hands—to hold the dreams of the infant’s parents—this was where his emotion was spent.

So where did Annie spend hers?

On Henry?

Was he a boyfriend? Lover? Partner?

He turned as he remembered she was here in the theatre. Remembered telling her he wanted her to observe the operation. She was still perched on the stool, and he saw her give a nod as if approving Phil’s handiwork.

‘Can I help you down?’ he said, then clutched at her waist as she wobbled precariously.

‘Sorry, you startled me,’ she said, her soft throaty voice made huskier by the mask she was wearing, although she was beyond the vital ‘clean zone’ of the theatre. ‘Yes, I could do with a hand to get down.’

Eyes he’d thought green earlier today but which now seemed blue looked down into his then slid away as if embarrassed by his closeness, while beneath his hands he could feel her body contracting—drawing away from his touch.

Drawing away as it had once before…

What rot! his brain scoffed as he lifted her easily and set her down on her feet. But the speed with which she stepped back made him wonder if it had been rot, or if she had indeed flinched from his impersonal touch.

Not that it mattered one way or the other. Now she’d seen something of his work, there’d be no further need for her to be lifted off the stool by himself or anyone else.

Especially not Phil, who’d taken the liberty of lifting her up there!

‘That was unbelievable,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you suggested I watch.’

She’d moved to the wall and was watching the screen that showed the registrar, under Phil’s instructions, securing the drains, catheters and pacemaker wires on the baby’s body.

‘That’s the pacemaker,’ Alex explained as she peered closer to see Phil adjust the wires. ‘It’s there in case Baby Ross’s heartbeats need regulating over the next few days. A heart that’s suffered the trauma that one did during the op might not work perfectly as it heals. We give dopamine as well, to keep it beating.’

Alex saw Annie nod at his explanation but her eyes remained on the screen as she watched the final stages of the operation. She lifted her hands to untie her mask, undoing the top strings and letting it dangle, revealing a slight smile hovering on her pale, curved lips.

‘You must have done so many, to be so sure in all your actions.’

The words, and possibly the smile, were meant for him, but her eyes, and, he thought, her attention were still on the screen.

‘What now?’

‘For Baby Ross?’ Alex said, coming closer so he could check the tubes and wires were all positioned as he liked them. ‘He’ll go back to the PICU on the respirator, and we’ll see how he is when he wakes up tomorrow. Sometimes babies are strong enough to breathe on their own after twenty-four hours, but this little chap was so young, we’ll just have to wait and see.’

He paused then touched her lightly on the shoulder.

‘Good to have the first one over?’

‘I was thinking that myself,’ she said, ‘though it seems unfair to be pleased about something when that little fellow has been through so much—and will go through more before he can be discharged.’

‘We should always be pleased when things go right,’ Alex told her. ‘Things go wrong all too often, so it’s right to rejoice in successes.’

She studied him for a moment, then nodded and smiled.

‘OK, I’ll rejoice without the guilt,’ she said, and walked out of the theatre.

Alex followed, pausing at a cupboard outside the theatre to pack his loupe into its special wooden case, then he did the same with the fibre-optic light. Tools of his trade, he thought, as he often did. More important for the delicate and intricate work he did than the needles and thread. Well, maybe not more important, but as important. Weird conversation to be having with himself, but a successful operation invariably left everyone on a high, and his high, since he’d lifted Annie off the stool—felt his fingers span her tiny waistline—seemed to be taking off in an unexpectedly sexual direction, so it was better to think about loupes and lights.

At least she’d walked away now, so his physical awareness of her had lessened.

Was it because she reminded him of the ghost that he felt this?

Because she might be the woman who’d featured, on and off, in his dreams for the last five years?

He shook the thoughts away.

It wasn’t that he was against involvement with work colleagues, although personally he did his best to avoid it, but Annie gave off vibes that would put off any but the most determined of suitors. There wasn’t much of her—above medium height but slim, almost willowy, yet she generated an enormous amount of ‘don’t mess with me’ attitude. Even Phil had backed off his usual flirtatious approach.

Though knowing Phil, he was probably planning to come at her from a different angle. Alex caught his finger in the catch on the box and cursed softly. At least he told himself it was the catch that had made him swear.

Why Phil felt that every pretty woman he met presented him with a challenge, Alex didn’t know. Though to be fair to Phil, he usually went for blondes so maybe Annie would be safe from his attentions.

She’d better be, he grumbled to himself as he changed, but the possibility that Phil might consider a darker-haired woman as fair game rumbled within him as he made his way to the office.

Annie looked up from some paperwork as he walked in.

‘I saw Baby Ross’s parents on my way here,’ she said, ‘and told them everything had gone well. I said you’d probably see them in the special care unit later. Coffee and sandwiches should be here any minute.’

Alex’s scraggly brows drew together in a frown.

Had she come on too strong? Made herself sound too businesslike?

Should she not have spoken to the Rosses?

She was about to apologise when the frown cleared and he smiled. At least, she thought it was a smile. It wasn’t exactly radiating warmth and sunshine, but it stretched his lips and even pressed the hint of a dimple into his left cheek. Something she hadn’t noticed before.

‘I’m sorry, I was still thinking about the procedure.’

His excuse sounded lame, but Annie could hardly accuse him of lying to her about his frown. As if it mattered, she scolded herself crossly, watching him settle his rangy frame into the comfortable chair on the other side of her desk, then reach for the sheaf of mail she had waiting for him.

But somewhere deep inside her was a niggling feeling that it did matter. She could tell herself it was because this new work relationship was the most important one in her career thus far. That this was her dream job, and she wanted to get it right from the very beginning. But she didn’t think she’d believe it…

An aide came in with a tray holding a big pot of coffee—Annie was getting used to Alex’s coffee addiction now—two mugs and a plate of sandwiches. She lifted the plastic wrap off the sandwiches and pushed the plate towards him, then poured his coffee, glad to have something to do while her mind teased at the niggle she was feeling.

OK, so there were some small hitches. The long shadow thrown from the past for a start, but if she kept denying they’d met before—not that he’d ever mentioned it again—surely they’d get past that.

And then her attraction to him—she’d get past that as well.

And as long as she was here and Dennis was in the US, then any tenuous link between him and Alex wouldn’t matter.

Maybe—eventually—when Alex went back to the States, it would be different. Maybe then there’d be some danger. Maybe, just before he left, she’d have to tell the truth…

Satisfied with this decision, she reached out for a sandwich, mistiming the movement so her hand brushed his. He looked up from the letter he was perusing, the movement so quick she knew he’d felt the same jolt she’d experienced. More electrical than sexual, like a mild shock.

‘Dry air?’ His eyebrows lifted and his lips half smiled as he asked the question, but Annie, mesmerised by that half-smile, couldn’t answer. She looked away, while heat again surged into her cheeks.

‘It must be,’ she said, released from the spell and using her hands to hide her colour. Then, after checking his hands were nowhere near the sandwiches, she reached out again.

Alex tried to concentrate on the letter he was reading, but knew he’d have to read it again later. In another room. Away from Annie and the strange effect she was having on him.

He glanced at her, head bent as she ate her sandwich, pretending to be reading the file in front of her. He knew she was pretending, because he was as well. Silky dark hair fell forward on either side of her face so all he saw was the curve of her cheek, pale as cream, enhanced rather than marred by that light scattering of freckles bridging her neat, straight nose.

A slim, neat, self-contained person, he guessed, but super-efficient, according to Col Bennett, the CEO.

He remembered the way his hands had almost spanned her waist and the feeling of lightness as he’d lifted her off the stool. Remembered the same feeling of lightness as he’d danced with his ghost. Was he still in post-op euphoria that he couldn’t concentrate on business matters? That he was distracted by this woman?

Post-op euphoria was common, although, generally speaking, he didn’t get it after a straightforward operation like Baby Ross’s. Different hospital, new theatre—either could explain it. But did the euphoria usually take the form of distraction?

Not women-type distraction, he was sure.

In fact, a lot of his ability to focus so strongly on the job stemmed from his deliberate decision to avoid women-type distraction. Not avoiding women as such, just any distraction associated with them.

Avoiding emotional dependency.

The woman he was pretty sure wasn’t distracting him gave a little cough and he realised he’d been miles away, lost in his thoughts—distracted!—instead of checking his mail and giving her answers to any questions she’d written on it.

‘What if I take it all through to my office and rough out some answers for you?’ he suggested.

‘No way,’ she said, then, perhaps noticing his surprise, she added, ‘I’ve worked with doctors for years. That mail will go into your office and not be seen again for months. No, Dr Attwood, today’s the day. There’s nothing difficult, and if we work through it together we should be finished by the time you’ve eaten your lunch.’

‘Slavedriver,’ he muttered at her, and heard her laugh.

The sound, so clear and fresh and light-hearted, startled him, and he looked across at her again and decided maybe he was wrong about her being his ghost. His ghost had had dark, bruised shadows under her eyes, and had carried a weight of sadness he had felt as he’d danced with her.

Annie Talbot of the carefree laugh was exactly who she said she was, a super-efficient, career-driven woman who would help him make his dream a reality.

She leaned forward again, jotting a note on the file, and he saw a line of pale hair along her parting. The sight jolted him nearly as much as her touch had earlier. She was either prematurely grey, or dyed her blonde hair dark. And didn’t women usually go the other way—go blonder rather than darker?

CHAPTER FOUR

ANNIE heard the hum and beep of the machines that guarded Baby Ross’s life, but they were no more than background noise, a kind of counterpoint to her thoughts. It was late evening, but she’d been unable to go home without seeing him again, and now she was sitting by his bed, her forefinger gently stroking his skin, and wondering about fate.

A sound outside, beyond the glass, made her look up. How appropriate—here was fate himself.

The door opened, and Alex walked in.

‘He’s doing well—better than I’d expected,’ he said, and Annie nodded.

‘I know. I’m not here because I’m worried, but because Madeleine—Mrs Ross—needed to sleep and she wasn’t happy about leaving him on his own.’

Alex smiled.

‘Then you’ll be pleased to know the cavalry’s arrived. I’ve just been talking to Ben, Madeleine’s husband. He’s come down from the country with a tribe of relatives—a brace of grandparents, several aunts and the odd cousin, if I got the introductions right.’

‘I’m glad they’re here,’ Annie told him, ignoring the squelchy feeling of regret she’d felt as Alex had spoken of family. She, too, had a brace of grandparents, several aunts and various cousins—relatives she no longer saw, who no longer knew where she was, or even who she was. ‘Madeleine’s been strong, but she’s still only, what, three days post-partum, and she needs to look after herself as well. With family support she should be able to do that.’

The door opened again and Madeleine Ross returned, with a tall, suntanned man she introduced as Ben. As she moved to the bed to introduce her husband to their son, Annie slipped away.

She assumed Alex had stayed to answer any questions Ben might have, so was startled when he joined her in the lift.

‘Are you heading home?’ he asked, no doubt finding the conclusion easy as she had her handbag slung across her shoulder.

She nodded confirmation and edged slightly away, al-though there wasn’t much room for manoeuvring in a lift crammed with end-of-visiting-hours commuters.

‘I’ll walk you there,’ he announced, leaving no room for manoeuvre at all.

She could hardly say there was no need when he lived only four doors up the road, and they could hardly make the walk—if he was going to his place—ignoring each other.

So they left the building and walked through the soft autumn night, cutting down the side street away from the hospital traffic and along the tree-lined avenue where they both lived.

‘I flew up a month ago to look for a place to rent then I saw these old houses and knew I wanted one,’ Alex remarked. ‘They’re like something out of a fairytale.’

They were. It was exactly what Annie had loved about them, but walking with Alex in the lamplit darkness had filled her with too much emotion for speech so she made do with a nod of agreement.

Until they passed his house.

‘You’ve missed your gate,’ she told him, stopping on the pavement outside his place. He smiled at her.

‘I’m walking you home, remember?’

‘It’s only four doors. I hardly need an escort.’

‘No, but I’ll escort you anyway,’ he said, and waited patiently until she began walking again. ‘See you safely home to Henry and your father.’

Already confused—by the walk, his presence, her own reactions to it—she was even more fazed by his mention of the dog. Suddenly letting him believe Henry was a person seemed unfair and yet…

Surely it was OK if she was doing it for protection?

Protecting herself against herself?

They reached her gate and he leaned over to open it. A low, gruff bark woke the night’s stillness, and as Alex straightened he smiled.

‘Henry?’

Then, without acknowledging her reluctant nod of agreement, he put his hand behind her back and guided her down the path, up onto the little porch with its gingerbread decorations and into the shadows cast by the huge camellia bush that grew beside the fence.

And Annie went, propelled by something beyond the pressure of his hand on her back. Guided by the acceptance of fate.

He turned her, slid his hands behind her back and drew her close, then he bent his head and kissed her.

Annie stood there, held not by the light clasp of his hands on her back but by memories, then, as the gentle, questing exploration continued, she kissed him back, losing herself in sensations she’d forgotten existed because five years ago she’d been too frightened to enjoy them.

The kiss went on for ever—nothing hasty or half-hearted in Alex Attwood’s kisses—but just when Annie knew her knees were going to give way beneath the emotional onslaught, he raised his head and looked into her eyes. Another long moment, then he said, ‘I had to know!’ And walked away.

Annie slumped against the wall and watched him. Up the path, out of the gate, along the street, in through his gate—then he disappeared behind the shrubbery in his front yard.

Thoughts and feelings battered at her, so strongly felt she rubbed her arms as if to stop them bruising. Clearest of all was the knowledge that Alex knew exactly who she was—maybe not her old name, but certainly that she was the woman on the terrace.

Annie was certain of this because, although she’d have scoffed if someone had suggested to her that all kisses were different, she’d certainly have recognised Alex by that kiss.

So, he’d left the ball in her court. It was up to her to admit they’d met before, or to carry on the charade. Thank heaven it was Friday and she had two whole days before she had to see him again.

Before she had to sort out the muddle in her mind…

‘I know I don’t have to go to work, Henry, and I know going up there carries a risk of running into Alex, but it’s early—barely six-thirty—and not many people will be out of bed, and I want to see for myself how Baby Ross is doing. Maybe they’ve even decided on a name for him. I’ll just slip up there, then come back and take you for a walk.’

Lacking a waggable tail, Henry made do with wiggling his hindquarters on the floor at the sound of his favourite word, but he obviously hadn’t taken much notice of the first part of the conversation because the moment Annie stood up, he fetched his lead and stood hopefully beside her.

‘Put it down before it goes all mushy,’ she told him, then added, ‘Later,’ knowing it was one word he did understand. Food, walk, later, fetch—he had quite a vocabulary.

She walked to the hospital, adding words to her list of Henry’s vocabulary, deliberately not peering towards the front of the house where Phil and Alex resided.

Fancy buying a house when you were only here for twelve months! Although houses in this area were a good investment…

Thinking about the house was better than thinking about the man, or thinking about the situation the two of them were now in, so she mused on why someone might buy a house for a short-term stay all the way to the hospital and up to the fourth floor.

‘I’m sure he’s more alert than he was,’ Madeleine Ross greeted her when she walked into the room.

The sister on duty had reported a quiet night, and assured Annie all the monitor results were positive.

‘It was weird, working in here on my own and with only one baby,’ she’d added. ‘Though staff from the special care unit next door, your old stamping ground, kept popping in to see me.’

‘Make the most of the quiet time,’ Annie warned her. ‘You know how hectic it can get, and I have a feeling that will happen sooner rather than later.’

‘Once word gets out Dr Attwood is operating here, you mean?’

Annie nodded. She’d had her doubts but referrals were coming thick and fast, from as far afield as Indonesia and the Middle East.

She sat with Madeleine until Ben returned with coffee and a doughnut for their breakfast, and was about to leave when Ben asked her to stay.

‘We want to ask you something,’ he said. ‘About the baby, but not about his health. About his name.’

Annie waited.

‘It’s like this,’ he said, so slowly she wondered if he was having trouble finding even simple words. ‘We had names picked out, but now they don’t seem right…’ There was a long pause, then Ben looked at his wife as if he didn’t know how to continue.

Annie came to his rescue.

‘They were names for a healthy baby—a different baby you’d pictured in your mind.’

She smiled at both of them, and touched her hand to Madeleine’s shoulder.

‘It’s OK to feel that way. In fact, it’s healthy to grieve for that baby you didn’t have. It’s natural for you to have a sense of loss.’

‘It’s not that I don’t love him,’ Madeleine hastened to assure her, touching the still arm of the little mortal on the bed.

‘I know that,’ Annie said. ‘Of course you do. You probably love him more because he needs so much help. But you can change your mind about his name—call him something different.’

‘We’d like to call him Alexander, after Dr Attwood,’ Madeleine said shyly, and Annie smiled, wondering how many little tots with congenital heart disease were trotting around America, proudly bearing the same name.

‘I’m sure he’d be honoured,’ she said, and heard a voice say, ‘Who’d be honoured, and by what?’

He was there again—as if she was able to conjure him up just thinking or talking of him. Like a genie in a bottle. Not a good thing when most of the genie-in-a-bottle stories she’d heard had terrible endings!

‘I’ll let Madeleine tell you,’ Annie said, and she slipped away.

It had been stupid to come up here. She’d needed two whole days—two months? Two years?—to work out how to tackle the recognition thing. And the kiss! Now here he was, back within touching distance again. Or he had been until she’d fled the room.

Determined to head straight home and thus avoid any chance of having to walk with him, she was leaving the ward when the sister called to her. A different sister, seven o’clock change of shifts having taken place while she was in Baby Ross’s room.

‘We’ve a new admission coming in. Sixteen-month-old baby, Amy Carter, shunt put in to deliver blood to her lungs at birth, but now something’s gone wrong. Dr Attwood’s called in all the theatre staff. He’s briefing them in half an hour.’

The information upset Annie. She should have been the first one called so she could contact the necessary staff. She’d been at home until half an hour ago. She had her pager.

She touched her hand to her hip and realised she didn’t have it! How could she have been so careless?

She didn’t like to think about the answer to that, because she knew it involved distraction, and the reason for the distraction was so close.

But she was here now—she could be involved.

Alex came out of Baby Ross’s room—Alexander’s room?—at that moment and she turned to him, ready to confess her mistake, but he did little more than nod at her before entering the next room where, Annie guessed, Amy Carter would be nursed.

Annie followed him, and saw him peering at the X-rays in the light cabinet on the wall.

‘You’ve heard we’ve an urgent referral on the way?’

He didn’t wait for an answer, but pointed to a small tube clearly visible in the cloudy murk of the X-ray.

‘The cardiologist sent these on ahead. I believe in shunts—I use them myself in a lot of cases. You can insert them through a thoracotomy, rather than cracking open the chest, which is far less traumatic for the infant, and by putting in a shunt you give the baby time to grow, and give the heart muscle time to firm up so it’s not like sewing mousse.’

He had his finger on the shunt, as if he could feel the small plastic tube itself rather than the image of it.

‘The other school of thought, of course, is to do all the repairs as early as possible—do a switch like we did on Baby Ross within days of discovering the problem. That saves the baby another operation later, and is possibly easier on the parents in the long run, but to me it’s still a huge insult to a newborn infant and the softness of the tissues can lead to complications. Stitches not holding, that kind of thing.’

He was frowning as he spoke, voicing a debate that must often rage in his head, but when he’d switched off the light he turned and smiled at Annie.

‘I’m operating in an hour. As you’re here, do you want to watch? I didn’t call or page you because I felt you deserved a day off, and you’ve seen one switch. This will be similar.’

‘I’d like to watch.’ Mental apology to Henry—did he understand ‘later’ was a very indefinite concept?

‘Good.’

Alex walked away, leaving Annie wondering just where things stood between them. This was not the post-second-kiss conversation she’d expected to have. Had he forgotten what he’d said last night?

Or did he have no wish to pursue it—now he knew she’d lied to him?

Or—duh!—maybe he was just better than she was at separating work from personal matters.

Whatever, it didn’t matter. Alex was working and she was here to see it all went smoothly. Theatre first.

Rachel was supervising the scrub nurse setting out what the surgeons would need, telling the nurse, a lanky six-footer called Ned, what would be happening.

‘I saw him at work in an adult cardiac operation the other day,’ Rachel said, following Annie out of the theatre. ‘I think he’s good and I’d like to think we can keep him.’

‘If you want him, he’s yours,’ Annie promised her. If he was equally popular with the adult cardiac surgeons she might have a battle, but she was willing to fight for what-ever they needed to make the unit work. She was good friends with the director of nursing and would speak to her first thing Monday.

‘Saturday morning—I was going sailing on the harbour with some mates from the UK, and what happens? The slavedriver drags us all into work.’

When Annie went in, Phil was sitting in the office, drinking a cup of coffee from the machine she’d had installed to feed Alex’s habit. She smiled at Phil’s grumble, made a note about phoning the DON, then asked who else was coming.

‘Not Maggie. She had the good sense to get out of town for the weekend. Alex has got some hospital anaesthetist—with paediatric experience—so we should be OK.’

‘And Kurt?’

‘Yes, he’ll be here. As a matter of fact, I think Kurt sleeps with his machine, and as it’s now fitted in Theatre here, he was probably asleep beside it when the call came.’

Phil was still grumbling when they moved to the little lecture room, where Alex had already drawn a diagram of Amy Carter’s heart on the whiteboard. With simple words, and an economy of description, he outlined what he intended doing, pointed to the spots where trouble could be expected then asked for questions.

‘I saw the X-rays,’ Phil said, surprising Annie, who thought he’d been mooching in her office since his arrival. ‘There seemed to be a lot of scarring on the heart—far more than there should be if the duct was inserted through a thoracotomy.’

Alex sighed.

‘You’re right. I looked at it with Annie, and hoped I was wrong, but I’ve just received another file—fortunately, her parents had kept a comprehensive one as they moved from hospital to hospital. She’s had two operations already. The first tube became compromised and they opened up her chest. We’re going to be going through a lot of scar tissue, both outside and inside.’

‘So we don’t really know what we’ll find in there,’ the registrar suggested, and Alex agreed.

‘Expect the worst in these situations,’ he said, ‘then if things aren’t as bad, you’re pleasantly surprised.’

‘And if it is the worst?’ Ned asked.

‘You have to remember that this little girl will die without the operation,’ Alex said carefully. ‘She may still die with it. I’ve just told her parents that. She could die on the table and we might not be able to save her. But we go into every operation confident of a positive outcome. If I didn’t feel that way, I wouldn’t do it.’

This operation was different. Annie felt it in the tension that vibrated around the room, and heard it in the quiet swear words Alex and Phil were both muttering into their masks.

She could see for herself the difference between Alexander Ross’s heart and the scarred, gristly organ little Amy was carrying inside her chest.

Alex, no doubt conscious of the registrar and his need to learn and understand, explained things as he went—explained what should be happening, and how little Amy’s tiny heart should be configured, cursing only when he found too many anomalies.

‘The problem is the heart has compensated for its weakness. The coronary arteries, feeding blood to the heart muscle, were compromised when the shunt was put in, so the body has grown new vessels and now we’ve this bizarre network and can’t be sure what we can safely touch.’

He bent his head to his work again, then added, ‘Touch none of them is the rule in these cases. If you don’t know what it is, don’t touch it.’

Four hours later Alex thanked them all and left the theatre. Ned helped Annie down from her stool, and she followed Alex out, passing him as he packed away his loupe and light just outside the door.

‘Annie!’

She stopped and turned towards him. The equipment he’d been wearing had left parts of his face reddened and his cheeks were drawn. He looked exhausted.

‘Are you doing anything now?’

‘Right now? Going to my office.’

‘After that—are you busy?’

He paused and rubbed at the red marks on his face as if they bothered him.

‘I know you have a life, and you have no obligations to me, but…’ Another hesitation, then he said, ‘I don’t know the area. I have to shop or Phil and I will starve to death over the weekend. I need a guide to help me get my bearings.’

Annie’s turn to hesitate.

It wasn’t much to ask, but it would put her in his company for the rest of the day.

‘I’ve promised Henry a walk,’ she said, and saw Alex smile.

‘But that’s great. Minnie needs a walk as well, and though I’ve seen the park down the road, I don’t know where dogs can or can’t go. We’ll walk them both and then we’ll shop, grab some lunch somewhere along the way. I’ll change, see Amy’s parents, then collect you from the office and we can go home together.’