The Heart Surgeon's Baby Surprise Read online

  looked as if some of the food had disappeared.

  ‘I know that trick,’ his colleague said, leaning a little

  closer so she could speak quietly, a drift of a very femi-

  nine perfume—orange blossom?—assailing his nos-

  trils. ‘I’ve done it myself many a time. I’m sorry if I

  upset you, asking about your wife. I didn’t mean to. It

  was just the way you said seven years—it sounded

  as if you’d been counting. That means it must have

  hurt.’

  He’d been determined to ignore her, but from the

  very formal way she spoke he guessed apologising was

  rare for her, and one look into the crystalline blue eyes

  confirmed that she was upset.

  And so was he, but for more dubious reasons! Those

  eyes held the same fascination as her pursed lips had

  earlier and he definitely didn’t do relationships with col-

  leagues.

  Although she was only here for six months—

  No! He had to stop this!

  Now!

  ‘We had a car accident, our daughter died, my wife

  MEREDITH WEBBER

  25

  blamed me, but it is my daughter’s death that’s im-

  printed on my mind, not my wife leaving me.’

  Grace reared back in her seat, feeling as winded as

  if he’d struck her with his hand.

  How did she get herself into these situations?

  Because she had a one-track mind, that’s how!

  Why couldn’t she do normal chit-chat, like other

  women?

  Theo had pushed his plate away and was standing up,

  and much as she’d have liked to stand up with him, to

  follow him wherever he was going so she could apolo-

  gise, she knew he’d revealed his pain to a virtual stranger

  for one reason and one reason only—to repel her.

  She watched him, aware everyone at the table must

  be wondering what the South African woman had done

  to upset him.

  ‘Eat your pizza, act normal—that’s if you know how

  to!’ he muttered to her as he bent to push his chair back

  into place. Then he straightened and faced the rest of

  the gathering. ‘Sorry, folks, not feeling the best.’

  He walked away, stopping to talk to the waitress

  who’d served them, money changing hands.

  ‘He must have been feeling a bit off all along,’

  Jasmine said. ‘Ordering steak when he always orders

  the Creole pizza.’

  Grace looked at the pizza growing colder on her

  plate and understood why he hadn’t ordered it. But

  he’d been right, she had to eat some of it because not

  eating it would look suspicious. She picked up a slice

  and bit into it, recognising that the mix of flavours was

  indeed delicious, although the food seemed to be

  turning to sawdust in her mouth.

  26

  THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE

  A car accident—losing a daughter. The poor man!

  And for all he was so perfect, she’d have to cross him

  off the list.

  Although…

  She thought it through, looking at the idea from all

  angles, finally coming to the conclusion that maybe

  what she was offering was just what Theo needed.

  In the back of her head she heard her father warning

  her that her solutions might not always be what was

  best for other people, but that had been when she’d

  been dealing with some of the poor families at home,

  ruthlessly reorganising their lives into some sem-

  blance of order.

  This was different.

  A child that was yet wasn’t his.

  No responsibility.

  No need to get emotionally involved.

  With either her or the child…

  Yes, it could work.

  ‘Does he live somewhere nearby?’ she heard herself

  ask Jasmine, then, in case the question was too obvi-

  ous, she added, ‘Perhaps someone should call in and

  see if he’s OK.’

  Jasmine looked at her, then smiled.

  ‘He’s OK and even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t want

  anyone fussing over him,’ she said. ‘He’s a very pri-

  vate man, our Theo. I’d better tell you that he never

  gets involved with colleagues. Believe me, many have

  tried but none have succeeded. It’s kind of like a

  golden rule with him.’

  Well, really! Grace thought, annoyed with Jasmine

  for assuming—quite correctly—that she was inter-

  MEREDITH WEBBER

  27

  ested in Theo, and horrified with herself for being so

  obvious about it.

  ‘It’s a good rule,’ she managed, realising some re-

  sponse was necessary. ‘Relationships at work can get

  very messy.’

  ‘Or can work brilliantly,’ Jasmine said, nodding

  towards Maggie and Phil, who were laughing together

  at the far end of the table. ‘We had three couples fall in

  love within the unit only last year, so don’t think you’ll

  be immune to love while you’re here in Oz.’

  She paused and studied Grace for a moment.

  ‘Unless, of course, there’s a very special man back

  home in South Africa?’ she teased.

  Grace thought of the very special man back home

  and smiled.

  ‘Oh, yes, there is,’ she said, but she didn’t add that

  it was because of him—well, partly because of him—

  that she was interested in Theo. Someone like Jasmine,

  recently engaged to the man she loved, would never un-

  derstand Grace’s plan or the means by which she hoped

  to implement it…

  CHAPTER TWO

  THEO watched as Grace attached the PVC tube from the

  bypass machine to the cannula inserted into the right

  side of little Adelaide Matthews’s heart. She worked

  quickly but carefully, her movements so precise and

  economical he had to admire them.

  With the ingoing tube attached to the cannula al-

  ready inserted into the aorta, she stepped back to let

  Phil get closer.

  ‘On pump,’ Phil said, the order crisp and quiet, and

  Theo started the machine, watching closely to see that

  the heparin given to thin the blood had been sufficient

  to prevent clotting, watching the pressure—Adelaide

  was three and needed more pressure than a baby but less

  than a five-year-old—watching for anything to go

  wrong.

  ‘Plege on.’ Now Phil fed the cardioplegia—a potas-

  sium poison—into the heart to stop it beating. When it

  worked, in a matter of minutes, he could begin.

  The operation, to correct a problem with the coronary

  arteries which had been repositioned during an earlier op-

  eration for transposition of the great arteries, shouldn’t

  MEREDITH WEBBER

  29

  have been difficult, but scans had shown that one of the

  coronary arteries had grown through the wall of the heart,

  like a hose going in through the side of a bucket then back

  out again, and needed total repositioning.

  Aware it could take some time, Theo was overly

  conscious of his patient’s status, checking the monitors

>   constantly, noting the various pressures, the ECG, co-

  agulation values, blood gases and electrolytes. But

  mainly it was controlling the pump that absorbed him.

  Too little blood flow and the patient could suffer

  oxygen deprivation to her brain, too much and it could

  blow her delicate little blood vessels apart.

  Why did a surgeon turn to this job? Grace had asked,

  but the satisfaction he found in getting a patient through

  an often long and complex operation in as good a con-

  dition as possible, was a source of enormous satisfac-

  tion, and already some of his refinements to the bypass

  machine were being used worldwide.

  Why not?

  He looked across at Grace—well, at the hooded,

  gowned, bespectacled figure he knew was Grace—and

  was sorry he hadn’t answered that particular question.

  Wouldn’t have an opportunity now, having spoken

  so abruptly to her the previous evening…

  ‘Theo?’

  Knowing what Phil was asking, he recited all the in-

  formation he had to hand, adding that Adelaide was

  doing very well.

  ‘So why change from surgery?’

  Three operations later, he’d just emerged from the

  shower in the theatre changing rooms, a towel wrapped

  30

  THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE

  around his waist, when Grace, in bra and panties—her

  figure was superb—asked the question he’d decided she

  would never ask again.

  He stared at her, debating whether to answer, but as

  everyone else was gone—he always stayed back to

  ensure personally that the machine was properly steril-

  ised and sealed—there was really no reason why he

  shouldn’t tell her.

  Particularly as she was pulling on a crisp white shirt,

  buttoning it up, drawing his attention to her breasts in

  a way that was totally out of order—he changed with

  women all the time and never looked at their breasts!

  ‘I injured my hands—for a while I couldn’t oper-

  ate—but the world of paediatric cardiac surgery had

  been my focus as I trained, through basic surgery, then

  cardiac surgery. I’d finally made it as a registrar on the

  paeds cardiac team and I didn’t want to leave it. Prob-

  ably out of pity, my old boss, the chief surgeon at the

  hospital, suggested I have a go at perfusion while my

  hands healed. I did a course, learned even more from

  the woman who had run the machine for our team, then

  began to see possibilities of improving the system,

  which was when I became hooked. To me, keeping a

  child as stable as possible while on pump—and even

  more importantly while on ECMO—has become my

  obsession.’

  ‘So much so you never considered going back to

  operating?’

  He paused, looking at his hands.

  ‘My hands were burnt, the tendons damaged, and

  although they healed, it worried me that they had prob-

  ably lost some sensitivity.’

  MEREDITH WEBBER

  31

  He paused, remembering the pain of those years—

  so much pain, the least of it physical.

  ‘I wondered if I would still have the feel you need

  to put a stitch the size of a pinhead into a vein with the

  diameter of a hair. I decided I couldn’t take the risk.’

  ‘That’s an incredibly honest answer,’ she said, look-

  ing puzzled again.

  ‘Did you think I’d lie?’ he demanded angrily, his

  emotions already stirred up with memories. And on top

  of that, it was the puzzled look he caught on her face that

  gave the impression of vulnerability despite suspecting

  she was about as vulnerable as a slab of concrete.

  Although more shapely…

  She grinned at him, totally disarming him.

  ‘No, I suppose not, but it’s the kind of thing I might

  have said and I’m forever being told I should pretty

  things up more. Too blunt, too abrasive, too intrusive—

  I’m all those “toos”!’

  ‘You are too,’ he said, suddenly liking her, for all the

  intrusiveness and abrasion. Although she didn’t smile

  at his feeble joke and he wondered if he could really

  like someone with no sense of humour.

  Grace knew she should have smiled, but it was a

  feeble attempt at a joke and she had just put him back

  onto her list of possibles again. In fact, it was hardly a

  list—his being the only name on it.

  ‘And being blunt and abrasive…’ she said, deciding

  it was better to get things out into the open as soon as

  possible. That way she’d know where she stood. ‘I won-

  dered if I could ask you something.’

  ‘You didn’t ask if you could ask before asking me

  all kinds of personal questions yesterday,’ he reminded

  32

  THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE

  her, leaning back against the doorjamb in a way that

  made all the muscles of his chest stand out so all of a

  sudden he was an extremely sexy man as well as a col-

  league.

  Sexy man? What was she thinking?

  She forced her mind back to her problem.

  ‘Well, this is really very personal to me and very

  private so I have to believe that if I ask, you won’t repeat

  it.’

  He didn’t answer, which she took for assent, but the

  words she needed were jammed in her throat.

  Not easy words to say in any circumstances and

  she’d got off on the wrong foot with this man…

  Make amends first?

  ‘Are you finished for the day? I feel after last night

  I owe you a meal. I ruined your dinner, firstly by

  ordering your favourite pizza, although you could still

  have ordered it, then by asking intrusive questions.

  Could we go there again—or somewhere else—and I’ll

  pay?’

  What was with this woman? Theo watched her as

  she pulled on a skirt, tucking the shirt she’d put on

  earlier efficiently into the waistband. Even the way she

  dressed said a lot about her—neat, classy in an under-

  stated way, yet still…prim was the only word! But the

  questions she’d been asking didn’t go with that image

  any more than the classic but boring clothes could suc-

  cessfully hide her sexy body.

  Although if he hadn’t seen her nearly naked, might

  he have been quite so aware of it?

  And was it because of the sexy body or because of

  MEREDITH WEBBER

  33

  the inconsistencies he kept finding in her that he heard

  himself agreeing to have dinner with her?

  ‘An early dinner—I want to spend some time at the

  hospital later this evening.’

  He wasn’t sure why he’d added the stipulation. True,

  he liked to spend time at the hospital but he often came

  late at night when the unit was quiet and most of the

  parents were sleeping as fitfully as their hopes and fears

  for their child would allow.

  ‘Now?’

  He studied Grace. Of course he knew why he’d

&n
bsp; added the stipulation! He was suspicious of her—and

  doubly suspicious of her interest in him. Most women,

  even in these enlightened days, were happy to let the

  men make the running in a developing relationship—

  and most women were adept at reading the ‘not inter-

  ested’ sign he hung around himself at work.

  So what was with Grace? Was she so inexperienced—

  at thirty-five?—that she didn’t know the rules, couldn’t

  read the signs? Or did she have some agenda of her own?

  Well, yes to the latter, she’d told him as much, but

  she wasn’t giving off ‘I’d like to get to know you better’

  vibes, so what other agenda could it be?

  ‘Of course now, if that suits you,’ he said, wonder-

  ing what he was getting into, suspecting his assumption

  of her inexperience might be true and intrigued in spite

  of himself. ‘I was always curious.’

  She gave him a sharp, assessing look—no fool, this

  woman—then shrugged.

  ‘I don’t mind that,’ she assured him. ‘In fact, it might

  be a point in my favour.’

  34

  THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE

  Not smiling so it wasn’t a joke—but a point in her

  favour? In favour of what?

  ‘Shall we continue this mysterious conversation all

  evening, or should we discuss something else—there’s

  always work—until we’ve eaten?’

  Now she did smile, and although the expression held

  a degree of uncertainty it confirmed his initial reaction

  to her—she was beautiful.

  But beautiful women usually radiated confidence,

  and although Grace gave the impression of being in

  control, and certainly seemed confident in her work, he

  kept getting the feeling that her personal confidence

  was something she’d manufactured, like a cloak, that

  she wrapped around herself to protect the person she

  really was.

  Or was he being fanciful? Seeing something of his

  own self-protective instincts and habits in her?

  They left the hospital and walked down the road, by-

  passing Scoozi by unspoken but mutual consent and

  wandering towards a little brasserie, far enough from

  the hospital to be less populated by medical people.

  ‘Is there pizza on the menu here?’ Grace asked, hesi-

  tating on the footpath beside the trellised outdoor

  garden.

  ‘I don’t only eat pizza and, in fact, this place does the

  best moussaka outside my aunt’s house in Melbourne.’

  Grace glanced at him and he waited, expecting more

  questions, but none came and he realised that although