be scheduled, Luke stood up. His face was grim and he blinked with slow deliberation, as though he was in pain but determined to ignore it. Or switch it off. The action took Anna straight back to their time in Theatre that morning and she knew she couldn’t avoid broaching the subject.
‘How’s your leg?’ she found herself asking. ‘I understand you suffered a fairly serious injury?’
‘I survived.’ Luke’s tone told her it wasn’t a welcome subject for discussion. ‘It’s improving all the time.’ His stare was expressionless. ‘Why do you ask?’
Anna had to fight back the urge to apologise for asking a personal question. His eyes were so blue. So intense. No way could she simply dismiss that sharp squeezing sensation occurring deep in her belly. It might have been a very long time since she’d experienced a shaft of desire but it was all too easy to recognise. She looked away.
‘I’ve taken on a position as your assistant. If you have problems that I could help with, please don’t hesitate to tell me.’
Luke made an incredulous sound, as though Anna would be incapable of giving him any assistance. That she had no idea what she was talking about. The sound rankled. She looked up to meet his gaze again.
‘If, for example, you find it hard to stay on your feet for a long theatre session.’
A corner of his mouth lifted. Just a fraction. A sardonic twist but enough of a curl for Anna to realise she had yet to see Luke smile. He certainly wasn’t about to now. His expression was anything but friendly or relaxed. Her heart skipped a beat and then sped up but it was too late to swallow any words that had been spoken and try to get back onto safe ground.
She had seen his pain when Luke knew how good he was at hiding it, and it seemed like he was exposing a physical flaw. Almost as bad as that loss of focus in Theatre that morning had been. Anna had been the only person to pick up on that, as well.
He’d barely met the woman and yet it felt like she was inside a very personal space. As for offering to help with his problems. Ha! She didn’t know anything.
No one here did.
And yet the idea was appealing. To have someone in his corner who was prepared to listen even if they couldn’t begin to understand.
To have someone to hold at night.
Whoa! Where the hell had that come from?
Luke could manage being alone. He had to. Just as well he’d learned to bury the kind of emotional involvement that could make reality too hard to deal with. He might be back in a very different reality now but the ability to remain detached at some level was just as important. More important, maybe, given that he felt the despair of a meaningless existence pressing in on him from all sides.
He was looking into a future that had only one bright spot. His work. And Anna was trying to undermine it. Something like fear made him straighten and defend himself by attacking.
‘Are you suggesting I’m physically incapable of doing my job?’ He had her pinned with his gaze. ‘Hoping that it might prove too much and I’ll quietly go away and let you take over again?’
He saw her eyes widen and felt a flash of remorse at being so harsh. He also heard the swift intake of her breath but he didn’t give her time to speak. He couldn’t afford to back down. Admitting defeat wasn’t something Luke Davenport did willingly.
‘This is my home,’ he continued. ‘Where I live and where I work. Where my future is. I’m back and I have no desire to go anywhere else.’
Which one of them was he trying to convince here?
‘I wasn’t suggesting anything.’ Anna’s tone was clipped and very cool. ‘Maybe I was hoping there might be a satisfactory explanation for what happened in Theatre this morning. For your slow response to a significant bleed.’
A moment’s silence hung heavily between them. Not that Luke had any intention of denying the accusation or trying to excuse himself.
‘I lost focus,’ he admitted simply. ‘It won’t happen again.’
He saw the way her features softened at his honesty. She wanted to believe him. But he could also see confusion in the depths of those astonishing green eyes. What had he been thinking, attacking her for asking what had been a perfectly reasonable question? No wonder she felt torn.
‘Are you intending to report the incident?’
She held his gaze. She had courage, this woman.
‘Would you?’
‘Yes,’ Luke responded without hesitation. ‘Sloppy performance is never acceptable.’
Anna tilted her head in agreement but said nothing. They left the meeting room in silence. There seemed to be nothing more to be said.
So that was that. The subject was out in the open and he’d all but told her he expected it to be reported. All he had to do now was wait until someone, presumably Albert White or one of the other hospital administrators, came to have a little chat with him.
It didn’t happen the next day.
If anything, Luke got the impression that Anna hadn’t said anything at all about him that wasn’t complimentary, judging by comments made in the departmental meeting the next morning.
More than one member of the cardiology and cardiothoracic surgical staff said admiring things about Colin Herbert’s surgery. The congratulatory buzz when Roger’s case came up during the discussion on revised theatre lists was actually embarrassing.
Luke cut it short. ‘I had some very able assistance from Dr Bartlett,’ he told the group briskly. ‘And she’s the one with the real work to do with his CABG today.’
That coronary artery bypass grafting was well under way by the time Luke left his administrative tasks and headed for the theatre suite. He didn’t don a gown or mask and enter the theatre. Instead, he slipped quietly into the observation deck and sat, probably unnoticed, in the far corner. You could see what was going on and hear what was being said and, if you wanted, you could focus on one person and make judgments about their ability. Their personality even. That was why he had requested that the space be closed during his surgery yesterday. An unusual case would have attracted as many people as could have squeezed in here and, on some level, he would have been aware of it.
Anna wasn’t aware of him. He could watch every movement and hear every comment. He could feel the time and care she took with every meticulous stitch as she took the veins harvested from Roger’s legs and used them to make new conduits to take blood to where it was needed in the heart muscle. Her voice was as calm as her movements. She was polite in her requests and prepared to discuss anything with the anaesthetist or bypass machine technicians. She spoke frequently to her registrar as well, asking questions and explaining her own decisions. A natural teacher, then.
With a voice that he couldn’t imagine getting tired of listening to. Not when it was coupled with a brain that was clearly as focused but as flexible as her hands were. An impressive mix.
He stayed where he was only until the blood flow in the new coronary arteries was deemed acceptable and Roger was successfully taken off bypass. He would see Anna again today and maybe she would let him know who she had decided
