The One Man to Heal Her Page 13

  But he still felt majorly grouchy as he carried the kayak down to the water, holding it carefully while he stepped precariously into it.

  ‘Shouldn’t you have a life-jacket on?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Of course I should, but all I’m doing is a little “here’s how to do it” paddle right in close to the shore. I can stand up in the water here.’

  * * *

  Why was she doing this? Alex wondered, as she watched Will settle into a rhythm with the single oar, digging it in one side then the other.

  Because you need a life apart from Will, the sensible part of her brain reminded her.

  However you might feel about him, there’s still a lot of uncertainty there, and, given your propensity to muck up relationships, you have to make friends to fall back on.

  She knew the sensible voice in her head was spot on, but seeing Will smiling as the art of kayaking came back to him she knew that this time she would do her darnedest to make the relationship work!

  ‘We can both join the kayak club,’ she told him, as he held the little craft steady for her to climb in.

  ‘We’ll see,’ was all he replied, and although she’d have liked to analyse the tone of the words, she was too busy trying to stay out of the river, the kayak seeming to tip dangerously every time she moved.

  ‘It won’t tip,’ Will assured her. ‘Just get comfortable and then try the paddle.’

  ‘Get comfortable when it’s going to buck me into the water any minute?’ Alex shrieked.

  ‘It won’t, I’m still holding it.’

  She glanced around and Will was still there, waist deep in water now but still holding the flimsy craft as steady as he could.

  ‘You really didn’t have to get wet,’ she protested, and he smiled and what she could only assume was love surged through her.

  ‘I wanted to be sure you were safe,’ he said simply, then the smile slid away and he added, ‘Always.’

  Her heart stopped beating—only for a moment—but something about that simple declaration had touched her as nothing else ever had.

  It had to be love!

  But how to handle it, how to nurture it and help it grow…

  She lifted the paddle and imitated Will’s movements earlier.

  ‘Let go,’ she said. ‘I have to do this on my own!’

  A bit like love, the doing-it-on-your-own thing.

  Sure, you could share it with the loved one and that shared love needed care and attention too—but the love in your heart?

  How did you protect that?

  And if you couldn’t, just how badly would it hurt?

  But somehow she was paddling, still in the shallows at the river edge. The thoughts of love racing through her head must have helped the rhythm, and the feeling was great.

  Until she tried to turn to go back to where Will waited. The disaster she was coming to expect from all her personal endeavours came as the kayak tipped her unceremoniously into the river and she emerged, dripping, the paddle clutched in one hand, the kayak in the other.

  ‘You did well to grab them both. Most first-timers lose one or the other,’ Will said, mostly, Alex suspected, to cover the fact that he was laughing at her.

  Or with her?

  Because now she was laughing too, both of them saturated, Will towing the kayak back to her beach while she slogged through the water in her sodden clothes.

  ‘Now we’ll have to shower together,’ Will told her, as seeing her body through the wet material sent a surge of desire through his.

  ‘I guess so,’ Alex replied, and together they returned the kayak and its paddle to the shed, but when they entered the house, intending to strip off their wet clothing before going further, they realised three men from the security firm were there, and even if they showered together, they could hardly make love while the men were prowling around.

  ‘Another time,’ Will whispered in her ear, and they squelched upstairs, Alex directing Will to the main bathroom while she sought refuge in her new en suite.

  The phone was ringing as she came out—the hospital, to say Adam Hawkins had been admitted.

  Not wanting to leave before speaking to Will, she waited until he returned from his shower.

  ‘Adam Hawkins,’ she said. ‘He’s been admitted to hospital.’

  ‘He’s the lad I was telling you about earlier—the one waiting for a new heart. You’ve met him?’

  ‘Thursday. I’d been reading his file and wanted to see how he was doing on the portable IV infusions, and check he was getting enough support from the community nurses. I know his GP monitors him, but, well, I suppose I wanted to meet him.’

  Will checked his pager.

  ‘He’ll have been admitted to the ICU but no one’s paged me so I assume Josh Turner’s coping with the situation.’

  ‘He’s not in the ICU, he’s in Theatre—they’ve found a heart and it’s being flown in as we speak.’

  Alex’s own heart was racing. She’d stood in as an extra surgeon once in Glasgow but somehow here, with Adam her patient, it was different.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she told Will, aware there’d be a full anaesthetic team in Theatre and Will wouldn’t be needed until after the op.

  ‘I know,’ he said, and he took her face in her hands. ‘You’ll do brilliantly, the lot of you, and know I’ll be thinking of you all the time.’

  He dropped a kiss on her lips, a kiss of such sweetness her mind, as she drove, kept drifting back to it when she should have been concentrating on what lay ahead for Adam and how much the cardiovascular surgeons would call on her to help.

  Making her way swiftly to the ICU when she arrived at the hospital, Alex realised just how quickly she’d settled in, and how easily she’d been accepted by the staff.

  She headed straight for the main theatre, to find Adam already on the table. Well, she assumed it was Adam as he was totally covered except for his bony chest, which had already been cut open, and held agape by clamps. The diseased heart flopped about in his chest like a deflated balloon, moving a little as it tried to keep working.

  She watched as Norm Wright, who apparently had the lead role in the procedure, attached a cannula to the vena cava, slid a tube into place in the cannula, turned on a switch on the bypass machine and watched as Adam’s blood drained into it. The return cannula had already been inserted into the patient’s aorta so blood was now flowing through Adam’s body but completely bypassing his heart.

  The donor heart had been removed from its cooler bag and the vessels to be attached to Adam’s vessels neatly trimmed. The surgeons swiftly severed Adam’s heart and carefully, with minute stitches, attached Adam’s veins and arteries to the new ones.

  Finally, the job was done and the moment of truth had arrived. Norm detached the tube from the cannula and unclamped the aorta. Now warm blood from the heart-lung machine began to flow into the new heart—the icy-cold organ not long emerged from the cooler.

  The strain in the room was palpable, Alex as stiff and silent as the rest. Norm’s assistant reached into Adam’s chest and gave the new heart a couple of gentle squeezes.

  Nothing.

  He repeated the procedure and this time it worked. The shiny new undamaged heart remembered its job and began to beat. Relief flowed through the team but the job wasn’t done. Now Norm inserted a tiny electrode that would keep the new heart beating at ninety-nine beats a minute for a few days until it picked up the rhythm on its own.

  Norm and his assistant stepped back.

  ‘Dr Hudson, would you like to close?’

  Pleased to be part of something so wonderful—apart from passing a clamp or two—Alex moved forward eagerly. Drawing the sides of the sternum back together, she fixed them with wire, then began the tedious stitching up of the skin, layer by layer, until Adam’s chest looked as if it had been zipped back together.

  Having been part of the final surgery, she accompanied her patient back to the recovery room, although he was now in the care of the anaesthetists
until he regained consciousness.

  The anaesthetists and Will, who was waiting in Recovery, anxious to know how the operation had gone and to check Adam’s status, for he’d be Will’s patient in Intensive Care for the next little while.

  Alex’s heart warmed at the sight of him, and she answered his raised eyebrows with a broad smile and a thumbs-up.

  But exhaustion was creeping in and as Will spoke to the anaesthetists she slipped away, past Norm Wright, who was talking to Adam’s anxious but cautiously optimistic parents, and into the locker room to shower and change.

  Change!

  Taking it literally, she couldn’t but think how much change there’d been in her life in the last few weeks.

  Coming home, her father’s death—and Will!

  Standing under the shower, she tried to sort through her thoughts. Coming home had been the right thing to do—she knew that now and not only because of Will. Her father’s death—that was strange. She felt she should be grieving more for the man who’d done so much to make up for the past, but as she pondered her reactions she realised the tears she’d shed had been over little things—kindnesses she hadn’t hoped for.

  And, gradually, she realised that she’d grieved for her lost parents a long time ago—and probably for too long—although time was really the only healer for grief.

  Her father’s gifts—especially the Anzac biscuits—made her feel he was still around, the kindly man she’d known as a child, and somehow she knew that now he’d always be with her…

  She went into the small office beside the theatres and wrote up her notes of the operation. The surgeons’ notes would be more comprehensive, but Adam was Brian’s patient—her patient now—and needed the record.

  Will appeared when she was closing down the computer.

  ‘I need to get out of here for a while,’ she said to him. ‘The ferry starts at dawn so I’ll go home, check on Buddy then come back to check on Adam before I go to the rooms.’

  ‘Good idea, but you’ll need to take these.’

  Will handed her a couple of keys and a card with numbers written on it.

  ‘These are the keys for the new deadbolt the security people put on the front door and the card has the numbers for the security system. The keypad for it is in the hall, and you just key in the numbers to deactivate the alarm.’

  ‘Oh, great!’ Alex muttered. ‘I put in the wrong numbers and wake the entire neighbourhood at five in the morning.’

  Will closed her fingers around the keys and squeezed her hand.

  ‘You won’t key in the wrong numbers,’ he told her, his dark eyes serious for once. ‘Just drive carefully. I mean it, Alex, because I’d hate anything to happen to you.’

  It wasn’t exactly a declaration of love but, standing at the desk in the ICU when a young patient had been given a new chance at life, it sounded like one, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that Alex refrained from kissing him there and then.

  She made do with a husky, ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll come back here—see you—before I go to work, okay?’

  He nodded and gave her fingers a final squeeze. She was walking away when he called quietly, ‘Go out the main entrance not the one near the car park.’

  She turned back, aware that she was frowning at the suggestion.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Media! They hear stuff by osmosis and Adam’s fight and his wait on the list for a new heart has been widely publicised. They’ll be looking for someone to comment at the staff entrance.’

  Now he smiled at her as he added, ‘Port is still a small town at heart.’

  The smile filled her with warmth and she walked away with a lighter step.

  * * *

  Will watched her disappear from the unit and shook his head at the speed with which his life had turned around. For all his doubts about allowing any woman, let alone Alex, into his life, somehow it had happened.

  Yes, it had been sudden, and the suddenness had made him wary at first, worried that it might be nothing more than a physical attraction. But the more time he’d spent with her the more certain he’d become that he wanted her in his life for ever.

  But his life included Charlotte’s life.

  Was Alex ready to meet her?

  Was he ready to introduce her to Charlotte?

  He saw Adam Hawkins’s parents perched outside the ICU.

  ‘You know when he gets in there, it’s only one at a time, and then only for a few minutes. The operation was a major stress on his body and he needs to recover from it.’

  They nodded, understanding, but needing to be near, even if it was only outside in the corridor.

  ‘You know Adam’s courage and his personality while he waited for a heart has made him a local hero, which means the press will be after you for stories.’

  ‘Of course they will,’ Mrs Hawkins answered for Will. ‘After all, it was the press and their stories that helped raise the money we’ve needed for him over the years, and made people aware of the importance of organ donation. But…’

  She looked beseechingly at Will.

  ‘Could the hospital do it for us? Have a press conference? Just tell them Adam’s got his new heart and now we can only wait and see.’

  She paused, then added, ‘We’ll be able to talk about it in a little while, but just now…’

  She broke off with a tremulous smile and Will understood that she didn’t want to hope too much—didn’t want to believe in a miracle until she saw her son’s recovery with her own eyes.

  ‘But we really don’t want to talk to anyone right now,’ Mr Hawkins added, his voice breaking with loss and strain.

  ‘I’ll sort it all out,’ Will promised, although he did wish Brian Lane could be here to take the conference with the hospital media boss and Norm Wright, the cardiovascular surgeon. In Brian’s absence, Alex would have to do it. It wasn’t that he doubted she’d manage—she’d probably done dozens of similar conferences in the past.

  But back in the town where the media had crucified her?

  Although that was so long ago, did it matter?

  He assured himself it didn’t but the assurance failed to settle a knot of tension in his gut.

  She’ll be fine, he assured himself, and, later on, as he stood at the back of the room and watched, he found she was, answering the questions put to her with a poise and confidence that replaced the tension he’d been feeling with enormous pride.

  One more night together then, Will had decided, he’d spend his spare time for the rest of the week with Charlotte, making up for time they’d missed.

  But also mentioning Alex?

  He wasn’t sure.

  He’d talk to his mother.

  Talk to Alex first to be certain she’d agree to meet his daughter the following weekend.

  CHAPTER TEN

  OFFICIALLY ON A day off after a week on call, Will finished early and went home to have a sleep. Guilt that he was sleeping while Alex worked didn’t last long and he woke refreshed and full of plans.

  He’d collect her from her work and drive her home, organise a meal delivery so they could eat and go to bed early.

  His body stirred at the ‘go to bed early’ idea but he dismissed it. They needed to talk, if only while they ate their dinner, and Alex would be tired.

  He phoned her rooms to ask Marilyn to pass on this plan, no longer caring who knew about him and Alex. Not that Marilyn seemed at all surprised.

  Hospitals! Word spread like wildfire through them.

  Alex smiled as she looked at the message slip Marilyn had passed her.

  ‘Lover-boy will collect you after work, and organise dinner,’ it read, and she knew the cheeky note showed that the office manager had accepted her.

  And Will!

  As a couple?

  Wasn’t it too soon?

  ‘Just go with the flow,’ she said to herself, speaking out loud to give the words emphasis.

  ‘What flow?’ the patient who’d followed her into th
e room asked, and Alex smiled.

  ‘Any old flow, I suppose,’ she said, smiling at the man who’d already taken a seat.

  ‘The nurse checked my heart—does she send the printout from the machine to you on your computer?’ he asked.

  ‘She does indeed,’ Alex told him, bringing up his file. ‘And your heart is looking very healthy. The stents Dr Lane arranged to have put in are working well, and, from your blood-test results, your blood pressure and this ECG, I would say you’re fine.’

  She’d stood up and approached her patient as she was speaking, wanting to listen to his chest. He knew the routine well enough to pull up his shirt, and when she was done he thanked her, pulled down his shirt, then said, ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

  Alex shook her head. Wainwright, the patient’s name was Wainwright.

  ‘I remember you as a little kid, always out in that tinnie you had,’ he said. ‘I had a trawler down at the co-op docks and you once asked me if I’d pay you for yabbies.’

  Alex smiled, although his earlier mention of the past had sent an icy shiver down her spine.

  Now the smile was genuine as she remembered happy times.

  ‘You told me you used nets and didn’t need bait,’ she said, and Mr Wainwright laughed.

  ‘You must have been all of seven and you told me you were saving up for a car—a red car. Did you ever get it?’

  ‘I did eventually,’ Alex told him, the smile slipping off her face as she thought of how she’d come by her red car.

  ‘Well, it’s good to see you,’ Mr Wainwright said, pushing himself to his feet. ‘Do I still have to come back for a check-up in three months?’

  ‘I think for a fellow fisherman I could make it six, unless your GP decides to send you back to me.’

  They shook hands and Alex walked out with her patient, and was surprised to see the waiting room empty.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked the receptionist at the desk. ‘Did you spray some kind of patient repellent around?’

  The young woman laughed. ‘No, but Dr Kent told Marilyn how you’d been up all night with Adam, so she contacted your last two patients and also let Dr Kent know you’d be finishing early.’