The Heart Surgeon's Baby Surprise Read online

  her to climb in. She was no sooner seated than he

  reached across her with the seat belt, snapping it home,

  and although she protested that she was perfectly

  capable of doing up her own seat belt, he ignored the

  feeble words, striding around the hood and climbing

  into the vehicle beside her.

  They were sitting at the hospital gates, waiting for

  the lights to change, when Theo spoke. ‘We’re shopping

  tomorrow, I know, but after that, the next evening, if

  you’re not on duty, I’ll cook dinner for us at my place.

  I am not yet committing myself to your audacious plan,

  but if you want me to think about it, you must grant me

  the pleasure—is pleasure the word I need?—of getting

  to know you better.’

  ‘Well, of all the—’

  Grace bit off the protest she was about to make. The

  man was Greek—it was in his blood to want to be the

  boss—and it certainly sounded as if he might be con-

  sidering agreeing to her proposition, although she

  didn’t think the kissing part was necessary. That was

  something she’d have to think about later when she

  was away from the distraction his body—and the

  memory of the kiss—was causing her.

  No, what she had to do now was remain detached—

  not get too hopeful.

  Theo eyed her suspiciously. He’d expected her to

  rebel against such high-handed treatment, and she’d

  begun to protest, but the words had died on her lips.

  Keeping on side with him—he could practically hear

  her reasoning. But that was OK. What really bothered

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  him was his own behaviour. First kissing the woman,

  and now making arrangements to see more of her.

  Surely he wasn’t really thinking of helping her out?

  And that’s all it would be! The pain of losing little

  Elena had been so great he knew he could never live

  through it again—and the only way to ensure that was

  to not have another child.

  Although a child that was yet wasn’t his? It could

  work! He could watch from afar—be involved in that he

  was kept informed of the child’s progress, and make joint

  decisions about important things like education. He’d

  certainly want that much. Just no emotional attachment!

  And that’s what Grace would not only understand but was

  insisting on.

  In fact, a child like this could be the perfect solution

  to the inheritance problem he had, although if the

  child became his heir, he or she would eventually

  become a very wealthy person, so it would be his re-

  sponsibility to make sure the child could handle such

  a situation.

  Which meant he would have more responsibility

  towards the child than he would really want…

  But couldn’t he handle that without emotional at-

  tachment?

  Surely it would be possible, especially if the child

  grew up on another continent! It was just a matter of

  putting some safeguards in place and overseeing things

  like the child’s upbringing and education. From a dis-

  tance, of course.

  He ignored a queasy feeling in his stomach, putting

  it down to remembered pain from Elena’s death. He was

  being practical here—practical, detached and unemo-

  MEREDITH WEBBER

  57

  tional, like a scientist in search of a solution to a par-

  ticular problem.

  Suddenly the idea had possibilities, although, as

  often with the very best of ideas, there were issues that

  couldn’t be ignored.

  ‘Is it fair on the child?’

  He’d pulled up outside her flat and hadn’t really in-

  tended to ask the question, but the thought kept

  sneaking into his head and had escaped without him

  being fully aware of it.

  ‘Is what fair on the child?’ she asked, turning

  towards him so in the light from a streetlamp he could

  see the lower part of her face quite clearly—see the

  slightly fuller lips he’d kissed only minutes earlier…

  Tasted…

  He dragged his mind back to the conversation.

  ‘To grow up without a father?’

  She scowled at him.

  ‘Give me a break! Take a look at statistics. Nearly half

  the children growing up in so-called civilised countries

  are growing up in single-parent households, having

  perhaps occasional contact with the non-custodial parent.

  Those kids don’t all turn into axe murderers, you know.

  Most of them are fine. I grew up without a mother and I

  managed.’

  Did you? Theo wanted to say, but he didn’t, afraid

  it might hurt her, but he couldn’t help but wonder if it

  was growing up without a mother’s love that made her

  so detached—so defensive.

  So desperate to mother a child of her own?

  And once again, thinking of the little motherless

  girl-child Grace would have been, she sneaked beneath

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  his defences, so when he touched her on the shoulder

  his hand was gentle, and when he said, ‘Let’s take it one

  day at a time, for the moment,’ he hoped she’d under-

  stand that he was seriously considering helping her out,

  although he had grave doubts about purely clinical

  sperm donation. Given the attraction he felt towards her,

  there was, and always had been, a better way…

  Was he weakening? Grace wondered as she stood in

  the shadowed porch outside the front door and watched

  his taillights disappear up the road. And if he was, how

  did she feel about it?

  ‘Far from happy about the getting-to-know-you-

  better part,’ she muttered to herself, lifting her fingers

  to her lips and feeling where he’d kissed.

  But he’d kissed her to prove a point—quite what

  point she wasn’t sure. But it had certainly been a

  proving-a-point kiss, not a getting-to-know-you kiss.

  She laughed at herself as she unlocked the front

  door—who was she to be even attempting to classify

  kisses? It had been so long since she’d experienced a

  kiss she’d forgotten what one felt like.

  Certainly not hard and hot and demanding, she was

  sure.

  Scarlett’s condition was deteriorating. Theo didn’t need

  Alex’s words to tell him, although Alex was explain-

  ing to all the team at the morning ward round how fluid

  was accumulating in her belly.

  ‘Will you draw some off?’ Grace asked, giving Theo

  the opportunity to look openly at her, not stealthily

  sideways as he had been doing throughout the round.

  Why the idea of an heir hadn’t occurred to him when

  MEREDITH WEBBER

  59

  Grace had first mooted her sperm-donation idea he

  couldn’t say, but since it had struck him as a possibility

  last night he’d thought of little else, conveniently ignor-

  ing a hidden uneasiness that questioned the emotional

  detachment ration
ale. Suddenly he had a way out of a

  dilemma that had become so great he’d forced himself

  to stop thinking about it. His father’s will stipulated that

  only a child of his bloodline could inherit so although

  Theo himself would have been more than happy to give

  away the money—to hospitals and congenital heart

  disease research institutions—he was tied.

  In fact, he’d resigned himself to the money going to

  his father’s younger brother’s family, a mob of wastrels

  if ever there was one. They’d already run through the

  money their father had bequeathed to them and were

  forever applying to Theo for what they euphemistically

  termed ‘loans’.

  Alex was explaining to Grace that they’d drawn off

  however many cc’s of fluid the previous day, but more

  and more had built up.

  ‘Less perfusion?’ Grace suggested, and Alex turned

  to Theo, who put aside all private thoughts and concen-

  trated on work.

  ‘I’m concerned if we reduce the flow, which is al-

  ready minimal—it could cause kidney damage. I’ve

  gone over all the material I can find on fluid build-up

  and believe it’s leaking from her tissues rather than

  blood related, but we could try reducing the blood flow

  and increasing the oxygenation, which might protect the

  organs.’

  ‘Or might not,’ Phil said. ‘What worries me is that

  she’s on the transplant list but if a heart became avail-

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  THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE

  able right now, here in this hospital, would we operate

  on her? Is she well enough? Could she take it?’

  Theo looked at the pretty little baby girl lying in the

  crib, unaware of the life-or-death discussion going on

  around her. He prided himself on not getting emotion-

  ally involved with patients, but there was something

  special about this baby—this little girl.

  And he knew the answer to Phil’s questions—no, as

  Scarlett was today, they couldn’t operate.

  ‘Let’s draw off more fluid, reduce the perfusion, do

  as you say, Theo, and add extra oxygen, and see what

  happens,’Alex decided, but Phil again halted the group

  before they moved on.

  ‘Do we take her off the list?’

  They all knew what list he was talking about. Chil-

  dren and adults needing donor hearts were listed on a

  central Australia-wide register and when a heart

  became available, it went to the next person on the list,

  according to its size and compatibility.

  ‘And possibly let a heart that would suit her go to

  someone else?’ Grace demanded.

  ‘Better than waste it giving it to Scarlett then losing

  her and a viable heart that might have saved another

  child.’

  Alex’s registrar, Aldo Stephens, voiced the thought

  in everyone’s mind, but Grace apparently didn’t give in

  too easily—not that Theo should be surprised!

  ‘We don’t know she couldn’t handle it,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve operated on very sick babies who have come

  through like little champions, and on top of that, who’s

  to say a healthier baby will definitely survive a trans-

  plant op? I hate the idea of delisting Scarlett. She might

  MEREDITH WEBBER

  61

  be better tomorrow but would have to be relisted lower

  down. Surely we can wait until we’re offered a heart

  and then make the decision about whether she’s well

  enough or not. If we decide not, then the heart goes to

  the next on the list anyway and there’s nothing but a

  really small period of time lost, but at least she can keep

  her place until then.’

  Theo felt like giving a cheer, but Grace was looking

  embarrassed enough, perhaps thinking, as a newcomer

  to the team, she shouldn’t have spoken so forcefully.

  Phil and Maggie both now backed her up and Alex

  nodded at least partial agreement.

  ‘We’ll keep her on another day and see how she

  responds to the changes in the ECMO. What’s the level

  of the diuretics we’re giving her, Aldo? Can we increase

  them without jeopardising anything else?’

  The discussion turned to drugs, and although Grace

  was no doubt interested and taking it all in, her eyes

  were on Scarlett and Theo knew, for all she might deny

  it, she did get emotionally involved with her patients.

  Which must augur well for her as a mother, surely,

  he decided.

  But wasn’t his thinking becoming clouded by the

  fact he found her attractive—as in he was undeniably

  attracted to her?

  Which should have been reason enough to avoid

  her, but he could hardly call off the shopping trip as

  these people were colleagues—it was only polite to

  show them where they could shop.

  Having Jean-Luc there made things easy. All Theo had

  to do was show them where the shopping trolleys were

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  then guide them around the store. Although he did hear

  himself offering to push Grace’s trolley.

  ‘Push Jean-Luc’s if you want to push a trolley,’ she

  told him, marching down the refrigerator aisle at a mile

  a minute, lifting items off shelves, checking the labels

  and either rejecting or selecting them.

  ‘A formidable woman,’ Jean-Luc remarked as he

  stacked yoghurt into his trolley. ‘Not many get into our

  specialty—I imagine it cost her a lot.’

  And not for the first time Theo wondered just why

  such a beautiful woman was still unmarried at thirty-

  five. By choice, he was sure, but if she wanted a child

  surely a conventional marriage would have been the

  best way to produce one.

  ‘Can you believe that man?’ Grace said to Theo as

  they waited on the far side of the checkouts for the

  other doctor to finish. ‘It took him five minutes to

  choose which coffee beans to buy, then he had to put

  the beans through the grinder, then get a coffee-pot.’

  Theo said nothing but he understood why Grace had

  felt she couldn’t ask Jean-Luc—the two of them were

  polar opposites. But the Frenchman did eventually

  finish his shopping, politely thanking them for waiting

  and inviting both of them to have coffee with him when

  they returned to his flat.

  Interested in seeing Grace in a social environment,

  Theo agreed, although he would have preferred having

  coffee with Grace on her own, the attraction he was

  feeling towards her suggesting that making a baby with

  her might be a lot of fun.

  Which was a very irresponsible thought!

  But since the notion of the baby being a suitable heir

  MEREDITH WEBBER

  63

  had occurred to him, he was interested in Grace’s pro-

  posal on more than the attraction level, although he

  wasn’t getting caught up in the idea until he knew a

  whole lot more about the woman who would be the

  baby’s mother.


  And until he’d thought through all the implications

  for the baby…

  His baby!

  The inner queasiness returned.

  They were unloading groceries from the car when

  Lauren Henderson, a nurse in the PICU, arrived at the

  flats where the two surgeons were living. Theo knew

  her well, or as well as any fellow worker could know a

  very reserved woman. That she was there to see Jean-

  Luc was obvious, and that she was nervous, to the point

  almost of panic, was also evident to Theo.

  But whatever was bothering her had to remain a

  mystery, for she left within minutes of arriving, an

  anxious-looking Jean-Luc going after her.

  ‘It doesn’t look as if we’re going to get coffee here,’

  Grace said, turning off the hot plate under the coffee-

  pot. ‘Shall we walk across the park and get some?’

  Theo hesitated, and she smiled.

  ‘I have no ulterior motive,’ she said. ‘I don’t want

  romance in the shadows or further discussion on me

  wanting a child. I simply want a decent cup of coffee.’

  He agreed and they crossed the road and entered

  the night-lit park, and though he’d walked through it

  in the evening many times, tonight it struck Theo that

  there was a romantic air about the place. Perhaps it

  was the thick shadows of the Moreton Bay fig trees,

  or the sound of the fountain splashing in the pond, or

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  even the way you could see the stars in spite of the

  city lights…

  ‘Why no romance, Grace?’ he asked, an earlier

  thought recurring. ‘I don’t mean right here and now in

  the park, but in your life. You’re a beautiful woman,

  there must have been men interested in you. Was there

  no one you wanted to settle down with and raise a

  family in what most would consider a normal way?’

  She glanced his way but didn’t answer, simply

  lengthening her stride as if she needed to get away, not

  only from him but from the question.

  ‘You did ask me some very personal questions,’ he

  reminded her, keeping up with her pace easily but

  finding it harder to guess at her mood.

  ‘I was left at the altar,’ she said, after several minutes

  of very tight silence. ‘Literally! And if you’ve ever suf-

  fered any kind of humiliation—something I can’t

  imagine you have—then arriving at a church where all

  your friends and colleagues are gathered, in full bridal