The Surgeon's Second Chance Read online

  “You can’t do this to me!” she stormed.

  Her hands were curled into such tight fists, he knew it was only with difficulty she refrained from pummeling him.

  “Do what, Steph?” he asked quietly.

  “Come back into my life like this. Haunt me this way. Why, Harry? Why?”

  She was so distressed, he reached out and rested the back of his fingers, oh, so lightly, against her cheek.

  “I would never do anything to hurt you, Steph, you must know that. And as for haunting you—I didn’t know you were working in the clinic. Yes, I’d have contacted you, probably tomorrow or the next day. I wanted to see you….”

  There—he’d said it.

  Dear Reader,

  Although I usually use fictitious places in my books, I always have some definite town or city in mind as I write. Then all I have to do is give the place a different name. Summerland in this story is my home city of the Gold Coast, a beach resort in south-east Queensland, which attracts visitors from around the world. But it is the Gold Coast of about twenty-five years ago, when the city was a string of small beachside suburbs, with new development pushing west toward the mountains. Surfers Paradise was the place to visit, and tourists flocked there.

  Using a place where I’ve lived for nearly thirty years as the setting for my story made it easy to write, while the characters, Harry and Stephanie, seemed like people I’ve always known.

  I hope you enjoy getting to know them and, although you won’t get much of an idea of the fabulous Gold Coast from the setting of this book, why don’t you come visit it sometime?

  Meredith Webber

  The Surgeon’s Second Chance

  Meredith Webber

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  WITH an umbrella that was proving useless against the deluge from the heavens, Harry picked his way through the mud, slush and landscaping debris in front of the new hospital building, finally skidding to a halt in the sheltered entrance.

  The wide glass doors slid efficiently open, and he entered the foyer, stepping carefully on mats spread over the thick plastic protecting the new carpet. Plastic pathways led in various directions, but he’d been told where to go and took the one leading to the left, which fetched up at a door marked CHIEF ADMINISTRATOR’S OFFICE.

  The man who bade him enter wasn’t the new chief administrator but the real power behind the hospital—the man who’d built and owned it, Bob Quayle.

  ‘Harry! Good to see you, my boy!’

  Bob, smooth, sleek and silver-haired, rose from behind the desk, and came around it, hand outstretched, to shake Harry’s, then throw a friendly arm around his shoulders.

  ‘So, you’ve finally returned to the best country in the world, and rumour has it you’ll soon be the most sought-after plastic surgeon in Queensland.’

  ‘I don’t know where you heard that rumour, Bob.’ Harry deflected the praise with ease. ‘Starting up a practice takes time. I have to meet and gain the confidence of the local GPs for referrals, and to do whatever public hospital work I can get, so my name becomes known in the local profession.’

  ‘Ah, but once people know you’ve exclusive rights to practise in the newest, most up-to-date private hospital in the whole south-east region, you’ll have referrals flocking in,’ Bob assured him. ‘Summerland’s become more than a holiday destination these days, it’s one of the fastest-growing cities in the state. And with more and more wealthy people retiring to the new secured estates along the ocean front, you’ll have a continual flow of potential customers.’

  Harry thought of explaining, again, to Bob that elective cosmetic surgery was only a very small part of his work, but, knowing the older man wouldn’t listen, he swallowed the protest.

  ‘The thing is,’ Bob continued, ‘as you saw when you came in, the rain has set us back a few weeks.’

  He hesitated, then said, ‘It will be a month before anyone can start work in the new specialists’ suites, and probably some weeks after that before the hospital becomes fully operational.’

  Harry wasn’t surprised by this news. He’d guessed it was why Bob had asked to see him.

  ‘That’s OK with me,’ he assured the older man. ‘I’ve only been back in the country a couple of days and I need to find a flat, unpack, then organise furniture, equipment and staff for the rooms. A month’s delay won’t bother me at all.’

  ‘Well, maybe I can help you with the flat,’ Bob said expansively. ‘I’ve a couple of apartments I keep for visiting friends and relations—all furnished, of course. Why don’t you take one of them for, say, three months? That’d give you time to get to know the place a bit better and decide where you might eventually like to live.’

  Harry studied his benefactor. Although he didn’t know Bob Quayle the businessman all that well, instinct told him this man didn’t give much away.

  But accepting the offer would save him looking for a place—and finding furniture—and he couldn’t think of any really impossible strings Bob might attach to the offer.

  ‘Sounds good. I’d be happy to pay rent,’ he said, but Bob waved his offer away.

  ‘Nonsense! I think of you as family—you know that!’ he said, his voice suddenly gruff.

  Does he? Harry wondered, thinking of the man’s real family—his son, Martin, who’d been one of Harry’s two best friends at university. He and Martin and Steph—a tightly bound threesome from the time they’d met in a lecture theatre on the first day of their medical course, when their surnames had linked them into a study group…

  ‘Besides, you could do me a favour at the same time.’

  Bob paused and looked directly at Harry.

  ‘One good turn deserves another and all that. I don’t mean the flat, that’s nothing, but the bed you negotiated as part of your tenancy at the hospital. I’m still not sure how you talked me into that.’

  Harry shifted uneasily. When he’d first asked Bob about the possibility of the free use of a theatre and an occasional free bed in the new hospital, Bob had seen the potential of the good publicity special charity cases could generate, but it had still been a struggle to convince him it was worth agreeing.

  Was this payback time?

  ‘The apartment I have in mind for you is on the twelfth floor of Dolphin Towers,’ Bob continued smoothly—certain he’d got his message across. ‘It’s one of the first buildings I built in Summerland, on the main road in the centre of the tourist strip. There are shops and offices on the first three levels, and a twenty-four-hour medical clinic, catering mainly to tourists, on the ground floor.’

  He paused and his keen grey eyes studied Harry for a minute.

  ‘It’s the clinic where you could do me a favour. It ran into a bit of financial trouble recently, and I ended up buying out the owner. My accountants assure me it should be a viable concern, but though they’re clued-up about hospitals now, they know nothing about how medical practices run. I wondered, as you’ll be without rooms to practise from for a month, if you’d mind taking a look at the clinic for me. Maybe spend a couple of days there so you get a feel for the place and see how it works—staff rosters, patient flow-through, things like that. I’d pay you, of course, and throw in the apartment.’

  Ah! Harry thought as the words confirmed his instinct that Bob Quayle gave little away.

  But with a furnished flat provided while he settled into the holiday city, he would have time on his hands�
�

  ‘I’d like to help out, Bob,’ he said, ‘but it’s years since I’ve done any general practice, and—’

  ‘But I don’t want you doing medical work,’ Bob broke in before Harry had properly organised his thoughts. ‘Just take a look at how it’s operating. There’s a part-time office manager you can talk to, and a desk in her office you could use. You’re a clever man, you can’t deny that. And you did work shifts in twenty-four-hour clinics when you first graduated and were saving money to go overseas. You should be able to see where things are going wrong. Discreetly, of course. It’s not public knowledge I’m the new owner, and I’d like to keep it that way. Especially with the staff.’

  Harry ran the conversation over in his head, and though a niggling feeling of suspicion lingered deep in his subconscious—maybe because Martin had always talked about his father’s devious streak—he could see no harm in granting the older man’s wish.

  ‘I guess I can take a look at things,’ he said, ‘though I can’t promise you I’ll find anything. Have you any ideas about its future yourself? Do you want to get into running medical practices as a sideline to private hospitals?’

  Bob shook his head.

  ‘To tell you the truth, it’s a complication I don’t need. But it’s hard to lay off staff these days, with all the problems of workplace agreements and contracts. I guess if I can prove it’s not viable, it would give me a reason to close it.’

  Harry nodded. That sounded much more like the canny—probably greedy—businessman he guessed Bob to be. The space could probably be used for something that would bring Bob in a lot more money.

  They talked a little longer—about the past, Harry’s friendship with Martin, and about Doreen, Bob’s wife, who’d suffered ill health since Martin’s death. Then Bob gave him the phone number of his business manager, who would show Harry the apartment and the clinic, and generally help him get settled in.

  As Harry squelched back through the mire at the front of the hospital, he wondered about the people who hadn’t been mentioned in the conversation—about Steph and her daughter, Fanny.

  Martin’s daughter Fanny.

  Stephanie Prince tucked her daughter into bed, and bent to kiss her on the forehead.

  ‘Tell me the story of Daddy falling off the horse when you all went out to Uncle Harry’s farm,’ Fanny demanded.

  Steph smiled at the little girl, and gently touched her cheek. Was it because Fanny had never known her father that stories of his deeds and exploits were far more interesting to her than fairy-tales?

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ she began, ‘not long after Daddy, Uncle Harry and I first met.’

  She’d told it so often the words came out automatically, while in her head she was remembering those days. She, Harry and Martin—brought together by the accident of surnames—Prince, Pritchard and Quayle. But against all odds, Martin, the spoilt darling of a wealthy family, she herself, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and Harry, who claimed he came from so far west there were no tracks, had become friends, and then an inseparable threesome.

  In the later years of their medical course, clinical rotations had often separated them for months, and during their intern year they’d seen even less of each other. But the bond had always been there.

  Until—

  She shook off the shadows of the past, and concentrated on the story.

  ‘So Daddy’s sitting on this horse, and pretending he knows all about riding, when Uncle Harry flicked his fingers to his dog, and the dog barked right behind the horse’s hooves. The horse reared up and Daddy, who’d got such a fright he’d let go of the reins, slid off the saddle and right back down over the horse’s rump and tail and, bump, landed on his backside on the ground.’

  Fanny, who at four thought backsides irrepressibly funny, laughed and laughed, and Steph, who’d been finding life far from funny lately, felt her heart swell with love for this darling daughter who was all that remained to her of that other, carefree, happy existence.

  Except her surname, of course, which she’d determinedly kept for professional reasons back when she’d married Martin, and since his death had used solely for personal reasons…

  ‘Now, off to sleep, Fanny mine,’ she said, smoothing back the blonde curls from the small, flushed face. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

  Fanny gave her a final hug, then, clutching the ragged bear who was her favoured bed-mate at the moment, turned over and closed her eyes.

  She is secure, Stephanie reassured herself as she left the room. An insecure child wouldn’t go off to sleep so happily.

  But worry had been her constant companion lately, so the reassurance didn’t do much to banish her guilt that in another hour she’d leave her sleeping child and go to work.

  ‘You would hear her if she woke in the night, wouldn’t you?’ she asked, directing her question at the young girl who sat, head bowed over a book, in her living room.

  Tracy looked up and grinned at her.

  ‘Do you know, you ask me that every night?’ she teased. ‘And every night I tell you I would hear her. In fact, a week or so ago, she lost Adeline—you know, that incredibly ugly doll those grandparents gave her—out of bed and yelled for me to come and find her. She went straight back to sleep afterwards.’

  Steph nodded, knowing Tracy was telling the truth but finding little comfort.

  ‘Look,’ Tracy said, with all the confidence of eighteen years, ‘your mother was a single parent and you turned out all right.’

  ‘But my mother didn’t go out to work. She worked from home. I should have been something I could do from home.’

  Tracy sighed and Steph recovered a remnant of her sense of humour.

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘I’m obsessing. I’m sorry. Especially as it makes it seem as if I don’t trust you.’

  She reached over the back of the couch and gave her cousin a warm hug.

  ‘You’re the best thing that could possibly have happened to Fanny and me,’ she said. ‘I think it’s just that I’ve worried for so long that now things seem to be working out, I keep waiting for something bad to happen.’

  The foreboding hovered on the fringe of her conscious mind as she prepared for work, showering then shaking her super-short hair into place and pulling on jeans and a T-shirt, comfortable garb to wear under a white coat.

  A final peep at Fanny, sound asleep, then she was off.

  ‘See you in the morning,’ she called to Tracy as she opened the back door, looked out at the flooding rain and sighed. Even with an umbrella, she’d be soaked by the time she reached the car. And then the aging vehicle, which hated wet weather, would probably refuse to start.

  ‘One day!’ she muttered to herself, looking up at the heavens where the planets ruling her life were surely permanently misaligned. ‘One day my luck has to change!’

  It did, in so far as the car started the first time, but when she reached the underground car park, the parking spaces designated for clinic staff were all full and she had to drive down into the bowels of the earth to find a vacant spot.

  ‘You’re late!’ Rebecca, the clinic receptionist on night duty greeted her, and Steph glanced automatically at her watch.

  Rebecca laughed.

  ‘Honestly, Steph, you fall for that every time. But you are five minutes past your usual arrival time—only ten minutes early instead of fifteen.’

  ‘Someone’s pinched the parking spaces again,’ Stephanie told her. ‘I wish the guy who’s supposed to clamp illegally parked cars would just once clamp the cars in those spaces.’

  ‘Well, one’s mine,’ Rebecca said, ‘and Peter’s still here so his car is probably there, and Joanne’s, and maybe the new bloke. That’d make four.’

  ‘The new bloke? What new bloke? Don’t tell me we’re getting a second doctor for midweek night duty? Miracles do happen!’

  ‘Yeah?’ Rebecca’s tone echoed her disbelief. ‘I don’t know that he’s a doctor, just that Muriel left a messag
e saying some new bloke’s coming to check out the place. Succinct and informative as ever, our Muriel.’

  Stephanie chuckled. She’d never met Muriel, the late-shift day receptionist at the clinic, but was aware she and Rebecca had a running battle over messages, charts, information-sharing and probably the number of spoons in the tearoom.

  ‘But if he was here, you’d have seen him,’ she pointed out.

  Rebecca shrugged.

  ‘Not necessarily. He could be hiding in the administrator’s room. No one’s been in there at night since the clinic changed hands—and Flo’s only been working part time for months.’

  Steph nodded. Flo had been the full-time office manager, and had often worked in the evenings so she could keep an eye on things on the night shift, but her hours had been drastically reduced since the new owners had taken over.

  ‘We could sneak the door open and have a look,’ Steph suggested, but at that moment the front door opened and three young Japanese—two women and a man—came in, brushing rain off their jackets and looking around for somewhere to put their umbrellas.

  Rebecca hurried out from behind the desk, showing them the makeshift holder she’d fashioned from a waste-paper basket.

  Speaking in fluent, if Aussie-accented Japanese, she welcomed them and led them across to the desk. Were they all ill, or only one?

  She pushed a form, printed in Japanese as well as English, across the desk, and the young man began to fill it in, at the same time explaining he was a tour guide and it was one of the women who was ill.

  Rebecca introduced Stephanie, who led the sick young woman to a consulting room. As the area attracted predominantly Japanese tourists, all the staff in the clinic spoke at least a smattering of the language. Her own command of it was proficient, although medical terms defeated her.

  Tonight, however, the tour guide, who’d followed the patient into the consulting room, could speak English, and it was he who explained that the holiday maker had a sore throat.

  Stephanie began her examination by taking the young woman’s pulse, feeling the fast beat and heated skin immediately. Explaining each move in Japanese while she worked, she then took her blood pressure—higher than it should have been for a young woman—and finally examined her throat.