Читать книгу The Heart Surgeon's Baby Surprise - Meredith Webber, Meredith Webber - Страница 6

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 already 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 potassium 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 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 make the running in a developing relationship—and most women were adept at reading the ‘not interested’ 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, wondering 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.’

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, bypassing 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, hesitating 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 she was looking at him, her mind was elsewhere.

On the question she wanted to ask?

It was looming larger and larger in his mind, so surely it was swooping around inside her head.

‘We’re going in?’ he asked, and she nodded, though she indicated the outdoor area with a wave of her slim, thin-fingered hand.

‘Could we sit outside?’

He was still thinking about her hands—he’d noticed them in Theatre, where, even gloved, they’d looked… aristocratic somehow.

‘Of course.’

The waitress seated them at a corner table, close by a rambling vine that drooped tiny purple flowers, dropping them when the wind rustled through the leaves so a vagrant few rested in Grace’s golden hair like tiny amethyst gemstones.

Theo opted not to tell her, sure she’d be annoyed by such frivolous beauty and brush them out.

‘I’ll have the lamb,’ Grace announced, one minute’s perusal of the menu enough for her to make up her mind. The decisiveness fitted what he knew of her. He ordered moussaka—wondering if she could tell as much about him from his order. A man of habit—that’s about all she’d gather.

‘So, the question?’ he prompted when the waitress had disappeared to the kitchen with their orders.

She seemed startled, then, to his surprise, she blushed.

‘It should be easy for a person as blunt and plainspoken as I am,’ she muttered, looking more embarrassed by the second, ‘but it’s not that kind of question.’

‘Oh?’

He wasn’t going to help her. He was already regretting agreeing to this dinner. Getting even mildly entangled with a particular member of the team wasn’t on his agenda. His private life was just that, private, and he wanted to keep it that way.

‘It’s personal—very personal—and you’ll think I’ve got a cheek, a terrible cheek. And presumptuous—very presumptuous.’

She stopped and tried a smile that failed dismally, although something about the pathetic attempt struck Theo as brave—valiant.

‘Perhaps if I explained, just a little about myself—no, that won’t work, it’s better just to ask. The thing is, you see, I badly want a child. I’m thirty-five and running out of time, and while I’m here in Sydney is the ideal time to get pregnant and I wondered, if you’d mind—if you had no objections and I know it’s a totally outrageous thing to ask, but you’re everything that would be fantastic—I wondered if I could use…’

The floundering stopped as suddenly as it had started and, scarlet-faced, she stared at the far corner of the courtyard, swallowing convulsively.

‘Don’t mind me,’ she managed a little later. ‘I’m an idiot! Let’s just forget all about it and eat.’

‘Except our meal hasn’t arrived,’ he told her, speaking quietly and gently for he could see she was genuinely upset. Somehow she’d convinced herself that whatever it was she wanted to ask was OK, yet when it came to saying it, she’d baulked.

What could have been so outrageous?

He tried to remember what she’d said, but the words, spoken so quickly in her crisp South African voice, had all run together and he’d been more interested in watching her face and seeing her mounting embarrassment to really listen.

‘Moussaka?’

‘Mine,’ he told the waitress, then watched as she placed the lamb dish in front of Grace.

‘Perhaps a bottle of wine, the Newnhams Shiraz,’ he suggested, more to the waitress than Grace. Neither of them would be involved in Theatre the following day, and the alcohol might help Grace relax.

Though why he was worrying about her, he didn’t know. She was a self-confident, thoroughly together woman—and very capable of getting her own way. His presence in this restaurant right now was evidence of that.

Had he ordered the wine to dull the impact of dinner with her? Grace wondered, thinking how idiotic she must have sounded, words somersaulting out of her mouth, tumbling over each other and making no sense at all. She couldn’t even remember how far she’d got, her embarrassment so acute her cheeks had been burning!

She tried to concentrate on her meal, which looked and smelled delicious, but she was afraid her hands would shake when she picked up her knife and fork.

‘Ah, wine. Try this. It’s not well known—in fact, the restaurant gets it from a small producer so you won’t find it in bottle shops. You do drink wine?’

Even if she’d been a lifelong and committed teetotaller she’d have agreed to try it. Anything to stop this man thinking she was a complete klutz!

She nodded and watched as he poured the ruby-coloured wine into her glass, then she picked the glass up and lifted it towards him, trying desperately to behave normally, although despair had taken over every cell in her body as she’d finally realised just how stupid her idea had been.

‘To your stay in Australia,’ he proposed, and Grace acknowledged the toast with a dip of her head. Tiny flowers fell forward onto the table and, realising they must be in her hair, she lifted a hand to brush them out.

‘Don’t,’ he said, reaching out his free hand to catch hers in mid-air. ‘They look so pretty.’

‘Pretty?’ she echoed, the despair finding voice in bitterness. ‘That’s the last thing anyone’s ever called me.’

Still holding her hand, he brought it down to the table, where he rested it, leaving his lying negligently on top of it.

‘The flowers are pretty—they’re pretty in your hair,’ he said, and her bitterness deepened. ‘But you, you’re way past pretty—you’re beautiful.’

He raised his glass again then took a sip of the wine, but she was too flabbergasted by what he’d said to even think about sipping hers.

Beautiful?

He must want something.

She was good-looking, she knew that, even attractive most of the time, but her mouth was too big and her nose too long for beauty and she was too tall…

She shook her head, denying his assertion, and sipped some wine, then wiggled her hand out from under his and tucked it under the table where she had hoped it would stop remembering the feel of the weight of his and the texture of his skin.

Eventually!

‘Eat!’ he ordered, and by now she was too confused to do anything but obey him.

The meal was delicious, the wine smooth and mellow, slipping down so easily he was filling her glass before she realised she’d emptied it. They talked of the hospital, of the genesis of the paediatric surgery unit at the hospital called Jimmie’s, its future, and the people in the team. Doctors and nurses, Theo classified them all for her, every one of them good in their own way but each with special talents.

‘And your future—after your time in Sydney?’ he asked as the waitress took her plate and she’d said no to dessert. She sat back to enjoy the rest of the wine in her glass, more relaxed than she could believe possible.

‘I’ll go back home. I’ve been offered a place on a similar team in Cape Town. My father lives there and as he’s not getting any younger I want to be near him.’

‘Family’s important,’ Theo agreed, and whether it was the wine, or that simple statement, or just that she really, really needed to find out if he was the one, she found herself explaining once again.

‘My father is to me,’ she said. ‘He brought me up. My mother died when I was too young to remember her, and though he was a busy man—he was an orthopaedic surgeon—he always had time for me, time to read me a story at bedtime, and to listen to my worries and concerns, and to encourage me to do better, and to help me with my studies.’

She paused, wondering what effect this sudden outpouring of information was having on her companion, but Theo was leaning back in his chair, sipping his wine, if not absorbed in her conversation at least listening politely.

So she barged on, anxious to get it said once and for all.

‘It’s because of him I want a child—well, partly because of him. He’s seventy at the end of the year and I know a grandchild isn’t a normal kind of birthday present, but you have to understand my father. He can trace his family back for generations—back to the Scottish Jacobite rebellions, and further, even to the Vikings who conquered parts of Scotland from time to time. His grandfather emigrated to South Africa, but my father has always been interested in his Scottish heritage—in family. But with my mother dying, and him not marrying again, he was left with an only child and one who, at the moment, looks like being the end of the line. I know he’s proud of all I’ve achieved, and he’d never think less of me for not having a child, but deep down I feel I’ve let him down by not producing one—not producing someone to carry on his bloodline.’

She sneaked another look at Theo but he hadn’t fallen asleep neither was he yawning with boredom.

‘As I said, I’m thirty-five so I haven’t got much time, quite apart from his milestone birthday being this year. Which is what I wanted to ask you—being single and not in a relationship and all. I considered IVF but I don’t really want an unknown donor and there’d be no responsibility on your part, of course, it would be like you gave at the sperm bank—’

‘Grace!’

He didn’t yell her name but he said it with enough force to stop her in mid-flight.

‘Yes?’

He’d abandoned his wineglass and his relaxed pose and was leaning forward across the table, frowning fiercely at her.

‘Are you for real? Are you honestly sitting there, asking a virtual stranger—we only met yesterday, after all—for some of his sperm? Why not ask some hobo out in the street? For a few dollars you’d probably get all you need. Better still, go down to the beach and ask some of the board-riders—they’re outdoors all day, healthy—’

‘Stop! What you’re saying is ridiculous. Of course, what I asked was ridiculous as well, but you’re a doctor, you should understand. If I know where it’s come from I have some idea of genetic qualities. Yes, I know it was stupid to ask you when we’ve only just met, but I’ve thought about—about getting, you know, into a kind of relationship with someone so I could do this, but I’m not good at flirting and I’m a disaster with relationships, and anyway going to bed with someone I didn’t like just to get pregnant seemed wrong somehow, quite apart from the fact that if I did get pregnant I’d feel guilty, as if I’d stolen something from him.’

‘And asking a man for some sperm over dinner seemed OK?’ His voice, crisp with disbelief, seemed to echo around the outdoor space. She knew she was blushing fiercely again and that made her even angrier—mostly with herself, but surely this man could have been just a little more understanding!

‘Of course it’s not ideal but when would be? Think about it—halfway through a team meeting can I say, “Would one of you guys mind obliging?” And, anyway, most of the team are married and having a biological child by someone other than their wife, even if they didn’t acknowledge it, could cause problems in their marriage. I’m not totally insensitive!’

‘No?’ He was smiling now, the rat! Taking absolute delight in her embarrassment. ‘I must say it would enliven team meetings no end for you to suddenly come out with a request for a sperm donor.’

‘It’s all very well for you to joke,’ Grace snapped, hating him more and more for she’d never found it easy to deal with teasing. ‘But this is a serious problem for me.’

She sank back in her chair, swigged down the rest of the wine, and sighed.

Theo looked at her, reading the dejection in her pose, the embarrassment that lay behind it, and seeing also, behind the façade of confidence, the motherless little girl who wanted nothing more than to please the father she obviously adored.

It was the little girl who sneaked through his defences, although when he replayed Grace’s rationale in his head he suspected there was more to her wanting a child than she’d said. Oh, it had sounded very sensible—but was she using her father’s desire to see the family line continued to hide her own longing? He’d seen her at the hospital—seen the way she looked at the small patients—and wondered if she felt it would weaken her somehow to admit she wanted a child for herself?

He sighed.

‘Look, I’m sorry for teasing you, and I do see how difficult it must be for you, but if you’ve thought this through at all, you must realise that the chances of you getting pregnant right off from one…er, donation are very slim. What are you going to do then? Ask someone else?’

She stared at him, such horror in her eyes he knew immediately she hadn’t considered the possibility of not getting pregnant straight away.

‘But I ovulate regularly and I’ve been tested and I’m still producing viable eggs so if I time it right, why not? People get pregnant accidentally all the time, so surely if I stick to the right date, so will I.’

Theo shook his head at her desperate protest.

‘Are you really such an innocent?’ he demanded, then was sorry when he saw the colour creep into her cheeks again. And although he found her blushing attractive he was sure she hated it, so he regretted he’d embarrassed her.

‘Of course not!’ she said indignantly, but he heard a lie in the words. Then she shrugged her shoulders.

‘You must think I’m stupid—stupid for not realizing. Even more stupid for having such a pathetic idea—a baby for a birthday present…’

She stood up, adding, ‘Let’s go. I’m paying,’ in the kind of voice he heard from her in the hospital—cool, efficient, in control.

But not totally in control for her handbag had fallen from her lap, spilling its contents on the floor.

She bent to gather things, obviously flustered, and he bent with her, picking up a lipstick tube, thinking how attractive she was when her mask of self-control slipped. And suddenly the idea of being a sperm donor for this woman didn’t seem such a bad idea, although…

‘There, I think that’s it,’ he said, pressing a small pack of tissues into her hand, touching her fingers, looking into her clear eyes, the full lips so close he could have kissed them.

Tension he didn’t understand built between them, growing stronger by the second until he had to diffuse it—or kiss her!

He let her pay the bill, and as they left the restaurant she turned back towards the hospital.

‘Aren’t you living on Kensington Terrace?’ he asked.

She nodded, as if still afraid to speak in case she said something more she’d regret.

‘Then you don’t have to go back to the hospital. We can walk across the park.’

‘Do you live in that direction?’ she asked, studying him now, suspicious…

‘I don’t, I live closer to the city, but it’s not much further for me to walk through the park then from your place to the hospital where my car is than it is to walk from here. I’ll see you home.’

Definitely suspicious but although her lips—he really had to stop looking at her lips—opened to protest, they closed again, and she didn’t shake off his hand when he put it on her elbow to guide her across the road and in through the park gates.

Grace had seen the park in daylight but had not had time to explore it, although someone on the team had mentioned ponds with ducks and geese, and riding trails and dog exercise areas. None of which had much relevance for her, so she’d not taken much notice. And certainly no one had spoken of the romantic possibilities of the area, although as they walked along well-lit paths, in and out of patches of shadows cast by huge old trees, the park assumed a very romantic atmosphere.

Romantic atmosphere? What was wrong with her? One devastatingly embarrassing meal with a colleague and she was thinking romance?

‘Peaceful, isn’t it?’ Theo remarked, as they wandered along the path through a particularly dense bit of shadow.

‘Yes, very!’ she said quickly. Peaceful was a much better description than romantic!

‘You’ve settled into your flat?’ her companion asked, and once again she was grateful. Perhaps he’d forgotten her stupidity at dinner.

‘Yes, although I need to find a supermarket and do some proper shopping, and probably find a means of transport to get to and from the shops. I assume there are buses.’

‘There are buses but I could drive you. You’ll probably have a lot of stuff to get and bringing it home in the car is easier than carting it home on a bus. After work tomorrow? We’d better check with Jean-Luc as he’ll probably need to find a supermarket as well.’

Why was he doing this? Making arrangements that meant he would see more of her? Theo puzzled over this dilemma as they exited the park, a little part of him feeling regret that they’d not taken advantage of the night-time romantic ambience.

He must be crazy, although Jean-Luc would probably be with them the following day.

Jean-Luc? Grace was living in a flat above him. Surely he’d have been a better candidate for a sperm donation.

‘Why not Jean-Luc?’ Theo asked, as they waited for traffic to clear before crossing the road to the big old house that had been divided into flats and was kept by the hospital for visiting medical personnel. She turned to him, hesitated an instant, then offered him a smile that was only marginally better than a grimace. They crossed the road before she answered.

She turned to face him on the footpath outside the house. ‘Believe it or not, I did consider it.’ There was enough honesty in her voice for him to know it was the truth. ‘But how embarrassing for both of us if he felt he didn’t want to do it,’ she continued, ‘and probably worse if he did agree. No, it had to be someone a little more at arm’s length, if you know what I mean. Anyway, thanks to your common sense I’ve realised I was being unduly optimistic and definitely irrational in thinking I could do it my way. I’ll get in touch with an IVF clinic here and find out what’s involved in getting on a programme.’