Kitabı oku: «Hearts of Gold: The Children's Heart Surgeon», sayfa 3

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.’