begin.
The operation, to correct a problem with the coronary arteries which had been repositioned during an earlier operation for transposition of the great arteries, shouldn’t 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, coagulation 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 condition as possible, was a source of enormous satisfaction, 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 information 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 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 sterilised 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 operate—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. Probably 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 probably lost some sensitivity.’
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, looking 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 wondered 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 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 colleague.
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 understated 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 successfully 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 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 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
