The Surgeon's Proposal Read online

  ‘Is that what marriage is—?’

  She rode right over the top of him. ‘I was going to relax, for once, with a man I respected and cared for—care for—at my side, a man who’s made it clear that I’m important to him, and that we can create a good partnership together. I had faith in that partnership! How dare you impose your own shallow definition of marital happiness? And how dare you presume to make that sort of judgement about us?’

  ‘Not Alex,’ Dylan corrected. ‘Just you.’

  ‘How dare you imagine you know me that well? No wonder Alex thought we were having an affair!’

  The bridesmaid squeaked and covered her mouth with her hands.

  ‘Darling…’ came a shaky, smoke-damaged voice.

  Annabelle turned. ‘Yes, Mum?’

  ‘Can you take Duncan now? He won’t go to anyone else, and I just…can’t. I need my oxygen from the car, and my inhaler. I shouldn’t have thought I could get by for so long without them.’

  ‘Oh, Lord, Mum, I’m sorry!’ Annabelle muttered. She blinked several times, and Dylan realised it was because she was fighting tears. She reached out for the little boy, but he’d had enough, lollipop notwithstanding, and wriggled immediately to the ground.

  ‘Splore!’ he said.

  ‘No, we can’t explore now, love.’ She bent to him, and Dylan got a serious and spectacular view of her breasts, as smooth as ivory and as plump as fresh-baked rolls. His groin tightened unexpectedly, and he felt as if someone had barged into him and knocked him sideways. Now was not the moment to have this happen.

  ‘Want to explore with me, Dunc?’ the bridesmaid offered tentatively, just behind Annabelle.

  Too late. Duncan was already off and away, through the crowds of guests, who were milling uneasily in aisles and between rows of seats. The bridesmaid followed him, way too slowly. Dylan was still rooted to the spot. For several reasons. Annabelle straightened, and a sigh escaped between her teeth.

  ‘He’ll come back, won’t he?’ Annabelle’s mother said.

  ‘If he doesn’t head straight for the street and get mown down by a car, the little monkey-love.’

  ‘I meant Alex.’

  ‘Oh.’ Annabelle sighed again. ‘No, Mum, I don’t think he will. Alex is…not the type who cools off quickly.’

  ‘But surely he’ll realise—’

  ‘I’d better go after Duncan, Mum. Linda’s had no experience with kids. I’ll bring your oxygen and your inhaler, and I’ll tell everyone that they’re welcome to stay. You can pass the word around, too. Get the music playing, perhaps? There’s no sense all this food and planning going to waste. And then I’d better phone and cancel our hotel…’

  Gathering up the folds of her dress, she smiled distractedly at several guests and began to make her way down the aisle. Following her, Dylan spotted Duncan at the back of the string quartet’s dais, and pointed him out to Annabelle.

  Again, she wasn’t grateful.

  ‘You won’t be staying to eat, I don’t suppose,’ she said. It was an order rather than a question, and her chin was raised. ‘But perhaps you’d care to mention, on your way out, that cocktails and dinner are still on for those who want them?’

  ‘Sure. Of course,’ he agreed, knowing how completely inadequate it was.

  He did as she’d asked, heading gradually towards the beckoning glass doors. After fielding several questions along the lines of ‘What on earth did you say?’ and ‘Oh, was it you, then?’ he was finally able to make his escape. He’d never been so relieved in his life.

  At home, once he’d peeled off his limp clothing and had a cold shower, a message on his answering-machine awaited him.

  It was from Sarah.

  ‘I’ve heard your offer, and it’s insulting. We’re preparing a counter-offer over the weekend, and your lawyer will hear from mine on Monday.’

  Am I that out of touch with reality? Dylan wondered, after he’d erased the message. We were only married for two years. I was working. She was working. We employed a cleaner. We ate take-away meals, or I cooked. We kept separate bank accounts, and split the mortgage payments. For six months of that time, I was on rotation in Townsville and we only saw each other every second weekend.

  In fact, they’d been far too scrupulous about maintaining a degree of separation in their lives, he now considered. Sarah hadn’t wanted to come to Townsville. Perhaps their marriage would have lasted longer, and been happier, if they’d joined themselves to each other more completely. And perhaps he would then have felt that Sarah was entitled to the top-heavy percentage of their assets that she was obviously planning to claim.

  Still stewing over it, and over the wedding fiasco, he made himself some salad and one of those nutritionally challenged instant dried pasta meals that people took on camping trips. Then he bored himself with television for several hours and dropped into bed at eleven, seeking oblivion.

  It didn’t come. He felt like a heel and resolved to himself, I’ll make it up to Annabelle. That’s the least I can do.

  Go and see Alex, try and explain. Cover the cost of the reception. Ring each and every guest personally. Anything. Whatever Annabelle wanted.

  Had this whole mess happened because of the divorce, or because he was a really terrible person? Until things had gone pear-shaped with Sarah, he’d have said his life was in an impeccable state. Priorities in order. Heart in the right place. Career on track. Judgement damn near flawless.

  Hang on, though! Had he lost that much faith in himself? Rebellion began to stir inside him.

  Annabelle Drew, I saved your backside this afternoon, no matter how you twist your definition of marital happiness.

  Poking at his feelings a little more, he discovered, to his surprise, that he was angry with her. Disappointed, too. Somehow, she was a woman of whom he would have expected better. Better priorities. Better principles. Better sense.

  I will make it up to her, if she’ll let me. But she’s wrong to blame me for this!

  Rolling onto his stomach in a twisted sheet, Dylan slept at last.

  ‘Thank heavens that’s over!’ Helen Drew said to her daughter, as the final straggle of wedding guests headed for their cars, later than both of them had hoped. She had her portable oxygen close beside her, and really should have been using it more tonight. Her breathing sounded terrible, despite the use of her inhaler, and she looked even worse. ‘You did a fabulous job, darling. I was proud of you.’

  Annabelle felt her mother’s arms wrap around her like a comfortable quilt. On the dais vacated by the departing string quartet, Duncan had fallen asleep at last, about fifteen minutes ago. And Linda had gone, too, thank goodness. She was a good and loyal friend, great at helping Annabelle with tax and finance questions, but was useless, and knew it, with kids, the elderly and sick people. Her ineffectual offers of help had, in the end, been something of a strain.

  ‘You mean the fact that my face felt as if it was about to drop off didn’t show from the outside?’ Annabelle said to her mother.

  ‘Well, of course it did, but people expected that. They knew you were upset.’ Annabelle’s mother hesitated for a moment. ‘Life will go on, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I know that, Mum.’ Although she couldn’t quite imagine it at the moment.

  She felt like one of those cartoon characters who stepped off a cliff, but didn’t start falling until the gravity of their situation hit home. Her mind ticked and rattled like an engine out of tune.

  Cancel the hotel for this weekend. Cancel the two-week honeymoon, planned for just over a month from now, at a time when Alex had been able to make some space in his schedule. Thank goodness she hadn’t handed in her notice at the hospital yet! Where was Alex right now? At home?

  ‘And anyway, you and Alex, I’m sure, will patch things up,’ Helen said. ‘It would seem silly not to get married just because some idiot of a man decided to get clever during the ceremony.’

  Which of those misconceptions, if any, to tackle first? Annabelle wondered.
>
  First misconception—she and Alex weren’t going to patch things up. She knew that. Their relationship was over.

  He had put so much thought and time and money into making theirs a perfect, elegant wedding, befitting the strong and sensible partnership they had hoped to create together. He’d wanted a ceremony and reception that would set a benchmark for friends and colleagues to aspire to, the sort of occasion that people would talk about for years. Well, they’d achieved the latter goal! Unfortunately, not in the way he’d wanted.

  And he was a very stubborn man. Slinking off next week to a sparse little ceremony in a bureaucrat’s office wouldn’t make the grade, even leaving out the question of Alex’s loss of face.

  Which Alex would never leave out. And he was probably right—people would gossip.

  Second misconception—Dylan Calford wasn’t an idiot.

  She’d known him, on and off, for three and a half years now. In some ways, she knew him better than she knew Alex, since there wasn’t such a gap in status between them. She knew what he looked like first thing in the morning, fresh from a snatched sleep in the doctors’ on-call room. She knew what he ate for lunch, and the places he’d been to for holidays since his marriage. They called each other by their first names.

  He was proving himself as a fine surgeon, he was good to work with, and by all scales of character measurement, he was a pretty decent man. What Annabelle knew of him, she liked—had liked until today—and along with the rest of the hospital staff who worked with him, she felt for him over the issue of his divorce. He wasn’t quite the same person he’d been a couple of years ago. Harder. More cynical, and less patient.

  And, finally, he hadn’t ‘decided to get clever’. He hadn’t intended his words to be overheard. Possibly, he hadn’t intended to speak them out loud at all.

  Which means he genuinely thinks our marriage would have been a mistake.

  How could something be a mistake when you needed it so badly? Annabelle knew that she and Alex weren’t in love the way most couples believed themselves to be when they married. They’d talked about that, seriously and at length.

  Alex had exhibited his worst qualities today—as he sometimes did in surgery—but in their private time, he was thoughtful and interesting. They respected each other. He approved of her. They could talk about plans without friction. He was a tender, undemanding lover, and he worked hard at his relationship with Duncan.

  And, oh, dear Lord, she’d needed their marriage! She needed to be able to give up work for a few years in order to focus her attention on caring for her mother and Duncan. She needed Alex’s financial support, not for herself but for the people she loved.

  When they’d started going out together four months ago, it had been like being rescued from a dragon’s lair by a white knight. She’d started sleeping again. She’d seen light at the end of the tunnel.

  Whereas now…

  Suddenly, she felt sick. Anger towards Dylan Calford rose in her throat like bile. The concern he evidently had about the dire possibility of her making a mistake in marriage, of her ‘being unhappy’, was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

  ‘I wouldn’t have let it be a mistake!’ she muttered to herself. ‘I would have made it work, no matter what it took. I would have been happy! Imposing his cynical stance on other people just because he’s having a bad divorce is unforgivably arrogant!’

  ‘Are you angry with him?’ her mother asked.

  ‘Yes. Absolutely and utterly furious!’ Annabelle said aloud.

  ‘Don’t let it get in the way when you talk.’ Mum put out her hand and rested it heavily on Annabelle’s arm. ‘And try to talk to him soon. He acted out of pride. He’ll make it up to you. I’m sure you can work it out.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, no, I’m not angry with Alex. I understand why he walked out. It’s Dylan Calford I’ll never forgive for all this!’ Annabelle said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DYLAN appeared at Annabelle’s house at nine-thirty the next morning.

  Duncan had awoken, as usual, at six. No matter how late he stayed up, he never slept in. Right now, he was running wildly around the back garden, pushing a big toy truck, and he would barely slacken his pace all day. Annabelle often wondered what sort of a child his father had been. This active? This unstoppable? There was no one to ask about him.

  ‘Hello,’ she said coolly to Alex’s registrar at the front door of her little weatherboard Queenslander.

  ‘Uh, yeah, hi…’ he answered.

  ‘I suppose you want to come in,’ Annabelle prompted him, not sure why she was taking the trouble to help him out, even to this limited extent.

  She had never seen him so at a loss for words. Had never seen him dressed so casually either. His body was one hundred per cent male. Broad shoulders, strong legs, dark hair and darker eyes, football player’s waist and hips. Orthopaedic surgeons had to be strong.

  Since this was Brisbane in January, he wore shorts—navy blue and topped with a polo shirt subtly patterned in a beige and khaki print. He was freshly showered and shaven, and radiated an energy that was only partly physical.

  He looked good, and he’d recovered his equilibrium already. He was intimidating, if she’d been in the mood to feel intimidated by anyone. Right now, she wasn’t.

  ‘Look, I won’t apologise again,’ he said, his tone that of a man who was sure of his ground.

  ‘No, don’t,’ she agreed. ‘But, please, don’t stay here on the veranda. It’s cooler out the back, and I need to keep an eye on Duncan.’

  ‘Sure.’ The word sharpened his slight American accent. Annabelle knew he had been here since his early teens, had been a star rugby player at Brisbane’s most illustrious boys’ school and held Australian citizenship, but sometimes his Chicago origins still showed.

  She led the way through the house and he spoke behind her. ‘But I do want to do what I can to make this whole thing less difficult for you.’

  ‘Sure.’ She turned her head and smiled as she echoed the word he’d used, but the smile didn’t do much to soak up the pool of dripping sarcasm in her tone. There was nothing he could do to make this ‘less difficult’!

  He didn’t reply, yet somehow this time his silence was much stronger than some bleating protest would have been. Her spine prickled suddenly.

  They reached the back veranda, which was shaded by the riot of tropical growth that threatened to encroach upon it. Along the paved path, Duncan was still making truck sounds, while the small and securely fenced swimming pool beckoned invitingly in a patch of sunshine. Hibiscus and frangipani gave bright and sweetly scented accents of colour, and the wooden floor of the veranda was cool and smooth under Annabelle’s bare feet.

  From somewhere, as she invited Dylan to sit in one of the cane-backed chairs, came the thought, At least now I don’t have to move. To Alex’s large, air-conditioned and professionally decorated river-front house. They’d been planning to sell this place, or rent it out as an investment.

  ‘You have a nice little place,’ Dylan observed.

  ‘I’m fond of it,’ she agreed.

  That was an understatement. She loved this small eighty-year-old cottage, perched on an absurd patch of land that had a cliff for a front garden and a crooked walkway of twenty-seven steps up from the street to the front door. This was one of the older areas of Brisbane, just a few kilometres from the city centre.

  She didn’t mention to Dylan that the mortgage on the house was stretching her finances far too thinly, now that she had child-care fees for Duncan on top of it.

  Change to night shifts if I can. Mum’s health is only going to get worse, but hopefully she’ll have a few good years yet, and by then Duncan will be at school. As for the money…

  The repetitious thoughts droned on in her head. Cutting them off, she offered, ‘Would you like tea or coffee? Or something cool?’

  ‘Coffee would be great.’ The cane chair creaked a little as he shifted his weight.

  ‘Can you keep an eye on
Duncan for me while I get it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Mad. She had been stark, raving mad to invite him in, Annabelle decided in the kitchen. He didn’t particularly deserve a fair hearing, she considered, so why give him one?

  Habit.

  This was how she’d first become involved with Alex. He had been particularly brutal during surgery one day several months ago. Had had her on the verge of tears, which not many surgeons could have done. And he’d invited her out to dinner as an apology. ‘And to prove to you that what you see in surgery is only a small part of who I am. I should probably invite the entire theatre staff in rotation!’

  Although it had seemed a little out of character, she had taken the invitation at face value, and had been surprised at the ultra-expensive restaurant he’d chosen. She had been even more surprised when he’d kissed her at the end of the evening. She hadn’t picked up on his intention until it had happened.

  It probably hadn’t been until their fourth or fifth date that she’d gone beyond the fair hearing thing and had really started to appreciate Alex for who he was. His clever mind, his knowledge of wine and food, his informed opinions and the fact that he’d made his approval of her very clear.

  It had been like an audition, or a job interview. She’d realised that. He’d been making sure she was suitable. He had been impressed to discover that her mother was that Helen Drew, the widow of Sir William Drew, QC, and when he’d then heard from Annabelle that her father’s finances had been in a disastrous state on his death several years ago, it hadn’t put him off.

  At the same time, Annabelle had been assessing Alex in a similar way. For a start, they’d got on well. Always had something to talk about. Never yelled at each other, if you didn’t count surgery. Annabelle didn’t like the way Alex behaved in surgery, but he defended himself.

  ‘Sorry. It’s bloody hard. I’m a prima donna, I know. But there’s too much at stake, Annabelle, during a difficult operation. I’m going to swear if something goes wrong, and I’m going to yell at whoever’s responsible. That, by the way, is never me! Don’t try and get me to change.’