The Surgeon's Love-Child Read online

  'I wasn't—'

  'You were, too! Silently analysing everything that went in the cart. Comparing me to—well, to whoever.'

  Agnetha. He almost said it, but managed to stop himself. Felt colour rising into his neck and thought in disbelief, My God, I'm blushing!

  'I thought so!' said Candace under her breath.

  It was a type of audition. She teetered on the edge of resenting it. He had no right to judge and draw conclusions like that!

  Then, with more honesty and less bluster, she decided that she was doing exactly the same thing herself. Auditioning him for this imaginary, unlikely affair she couldn't get out of her head.

  So far, he seemed like exactly the right candidate for such a thing, if she was going to consider the question in such cold-blooded terms. He would be easygoing, physical, fun to be with. He'd also possess certain shared understandings that didn't need talking about, because they worked in the same profession.

  Yes, quite definitely an ideal candidate for an affair.

  Is this what Mom was thinking about when she told me to go away? That I'd meet someone and have a crazy fling, get my socks sizzled off and come home as revitalised as if I'd been to a health spa for three months? That I'd be over Todd and Brittany? Dear God, over it. That it wouldn't hurt any more, and twist me up inside with bitterness and resentment and regret...?

  The idea was both terrifying and dangerously alluring.

  With her breathing shallower than usual, she asked, 'Are you sure there isn't anything else you need to do today? This is taking a long time.'

  'My schedule's clear, so don't worry about it. Shall we take this lot home to your place and unpack it, then grab some lunch before we do the car?'

  'Sandwiches? We have the makings for them now.'

  'Yep. Great.'

  They got to the first car dealership at two, after a lunch so quick and casual Candace might have been sharing it with Maddy. The salesman then spent half an hour addressing himself exclusively to Steve, even when it ought to have been quite clear to him that Candace was the prospective buyer.

  'Do you think he realises why he didn't make a sale?' Steve asked her when they left.

  She laughed. 'I handled it. In fact, it was useful. He talked to you while I had an uninterrupted chance to think about whether I really wanted the car.'

  'I take it you didn't?'

  She waggled her hand from side to side. 'Probably not Let's keep looking.'

  At the second and third dealerships, she test-drove two vehicles and finally decided on a compact European model, with very low mileage on the odometer. She felt exhilarated and slightly queasy at having parted with so much money so quickly. Still, it didn't make sense to delay. She was only here for a year. She needed to get organised, get her life sorted out, hit the ground running.

  Did this apply to arranging a quick, therapeutic fling as well?

  'Now you just have to drive it home,' Steve said, reminding her that in all spheres of life, actions had consequences.

  'I don't know the way,' she answered.

  'Which is why you'll follow me.'

  By the time they reached home, it was late afternoon. Steve suggested an evening meal at a local Chinese restaurant, and that sounded fine.

  Sounded fine.

  In reality, it was harder. When someone was seated a yard away and facing in your direction, it wasn't as easy to avoid eye contact as it had been during driving lessons and grocery shopping. Candace drank a glass of red wine and regretted it. Jet-lag swamped her again, and the lighting in the restaurant was warm, inviting and intimate. She felt woozy, smily, relaxed and far too conscious of him.

  When their eyes did meet, it was like tugging on a cord. She was a marionette and he was controlling the strings. He was making her nod and smile and listen with her chin cushioned in her palm and her elbow resting on the table.

  'Hey, are you falling asleep?'

  'No...'

  'You will be soon. I'd better take you home.'

  'You're making my decisions for me,' she retorted.

  'Only tonight,' he said softly. 'Promise you, the rest of the decisions will be all yours.'

  Perhaps he hadn't meant it to sound like such an intimate threat, but Candace panicked anyway. Her sleepiness vanished and she pulled herself to her feet, grating the legs of the chair on the restaurant's scratchy carpeting.

  'Damn right they will!' she said, and saw his startled expression.

  'Candace, I didn't mean— I meant it, OK?'

  'I—I know. I'm sure you did.'

  She turned away from him, felt his fingers slide in a quick, feather-light caress from her shoulder to her wrist, and was absolutely positive that she'd end up in his arms tonight. The idea was so breathtakingly terrifying that she didn't wait for him to pay for their meal. She simply stumbled out of the restaurant, hurried along the sidewalk and stood by the driver's side door of her new car until he caught up to her.

  Steve didn't say anything about it. Not then. Not for the next few days. And he didn't kiss her.

  He had more than one opportunity. Terry and his wife were still away, but the rest of Narralee's small medical community gathered to welcome her at a barbecue at Linda and Rob Gardner's on Saturday evening. She enjoyed meeting everyone, and laid some tentative foundations of friendship.

  As Terry had predicted, Linda was going to be nice. She had a no-nonsense haircut, a chunky build, a throaty laugh and a wicked sense of humour. She was down to earth in her opinions, happy with her career and open in her love for her children and her even more down-to-earth husband.

  Getting over her jet-lag, Candace stayed until ten o'clock and drove herself home, then saw Steve's car breeze past her house as she stood on the deck, watching the moonlight over the water.

  He glanced across, saw her there, slowed down and waved. She almost wondered if he would come over. They'd had a long conversation at the barbecue. Lots of laughs in it, and some quiet moments, too. If he did come, she would offer him tea or coffee, while secretly quaking in her shoes...

  But, no, he didn't show up.

  The next morning, they met on the beach. Candace hadn't swum in the ocean in years, but loved it again at once. Taylor's Beach was patrolled and flagged in the Life-saving Association's colours of red and yellow, so she felt very safe swimming between the flags. Had no desire to go out as far as those surfers, though, in their slick black wet-suits.

  One of the surfers was Steve.

  She didn't recognise him until he came to shore with his creamy fibreglass board tucked under one arm, and he didn't see her until he'd put the board down, pulled his wetsuit to his waist and towelled himself.

  He did this with rough energy, like a dog shaking off the water, then he caught sight of her, slung his towel over his shoulder and came over. Dropping her gaze, she was treated to the sight of his bare, tanned legs still dripping with water from the knees down, and his feet, lean and smooth and brown, covered with sand.

  'Hi,' he said.

  'You're not afraid of sharks out there?'

  'Only when I see a fin.'

  'You're joking, right?'

  'We get dolphins here sometimes. They like surfing, too.'

  'Now you're definitely joking!'

  'No! Their bodies are perfect for it. They catch fish around here, too.'

  'I'm going to look out for them. Still don't quite believe you...'

  'You'll see them,' he predicted. 'If you spend any time on these beaches. The shape of their fin is different to a shark's, and so is the way they move in the water, but when you first glimpse one, before you've had time to work out whether it's shark or dolphin every hair stands up the way it does on a cornered cat. I tell you!' He laughed and shook his head. 'Yes, a couple of times I've been damned scared!'

  He was still a little breathless. His hair stood on end and looked darker than it did when it was dry. The coarse plastic teeth of the zip on his wetsuit had pulled apart to just below his navel. She could tell
by his six-pack of stomach muscles that he kept himself fit, and by his tan that he didn't always surf in his wetsuit.

  My God, he's gorgeous! she thought, her insides twisting. Who am I kidding, that he'd want an affair? With me? Sitting here in my plain black suit. He'd probably flirt like this with my grandmother. Oh, I mean, was it even flirting? It was only friendliness. He was making me welcome very nicely, as Terry would have done, and I—Oh, lord, I'm so raw, right now, I actually felt nourished by it. Totally misunderstood it, obviously.

  A girl in an extremely small orange bikini wandered past. She was as blonde as natural silk, sported a tan the colour of fresh nutmeg and looked about twenty-five. For one crazy moment, Candace was tempted to reach out, haul her across by a bikini strap and park her right in front of Steve.

  Here you go. Much more suitable. My apologies for trespassing on your personal space by even contemplating that you and I might have—

  'Ready for another dip?' he said. He had taken no notice of the orange bikini, or the body inside it, and now the girl had gone past.

  'Um. Yes. Lovely.' Oh, hell! 'That would be really nice.' She tried again, and managed a more natural tone. 'I've been pretty timid on my own, but it'd be great to get out beyond the point where every wave dumps a bucket of sand down my front.'

  He laughed. 'OK, let's go.'

  Then he reached for the plastic zipper and peeled the wetsuit down even further.

  He was wearing a swimsuit, of course. Board shorts, in fact. Black, with a blue panel on each side. Beneath the wetsuit, they'd ridden down below his hips. He had his back to her now, and she could see the shallow hollow just above the base of his spine. Like the rest of him, it was tanned to a warm bronze, and was dappled with tiny, sun-bleached hairs.

  A moment later, he had hauled casually on the waistband and pulled the board shorts back to where they belonged.

  They swam together for an hour, then she went home for lunch and he put his wetsuit back on and returned to the outer boundaries of the surf. She didn't see him when she went back to the beach for a walk late in the afternoon, didn't see him when she walked past his house on the return trip, although his car was in the driveway and a sprinkler was spinning round on the lawn.

  Definitely, he was just being friendly.

  And I appreciate that, she realised. Maybe that's the problem. I appreciate it, and I need it too much at the moment. I'd better get the rest of it under control.

  Candace didn't see Steve again until Tuesday, when she had her first surgical list, consisting of three patients. Steve was scheduled to handle the anaesthesia.

  She'd seen each of her patients the day before for a brief chat, and had gone through their reports from the preadmission clinic. No danger signals. Chest X-rays and cardiograms all normal. Blood pressures within the acceptable range.

  First was a scheduled gall-bladder removal on a fifty-three-year-old woman, followed by two straightforward hernia repairs, both on older men. Blood had been crossmatched for the gall-bladder patient as there was a higher risk of bleeding during this operation. All three of the patients were here on a day-patient basis. After the surgery, they'd make use of the 'political beds'—those reclining chairs that Terry had been so cynical about.

  Preparing for surgery was like coming home. The OR— Theatre One, which sounded odd to her ears—was a place in which she was used to possessing undisputed control. She loved this environment, and the way everything was geared towards a single focus. One patient, one operation and six people who knew exactly what they were doing.

  The scrub sinks were different—old-fashioned porcelain, with long levers on the faucets which you flicked on and off with a quick touch. She was used to stainless steel, and foot pedals. Theatre One had washable vinyl walls and the hard, antistatic floors which she knew only too well. They were murder on backs and legs after you'd been standing there for more than a couple of hours.

  Candace was the last to scrub, and everything was ready to go now that she had arrived. She briefly greeted the other staff and the patient. Mrs Allenby looked a little nervous, of course. Years ago, Candace had had to fight the instinct to give her patients a reassuring pat, but now it was second nature to keep her gloved hands back.

  There was music playing on a black compact disc player set up on a shelf. Something classical. Beethoven, Candace recognised. Not that it made any difference.

  'Could we have that off, please?' she said.

  The scout nurse, whose name badge was hidden beneath a green surgical gown, immediately went across and pressed a button on the player, bringing silence.

  'Would you like something else, Dr Fletcher?' she offered. Her name was Pat, Candace found out a little later.

  'No, thanks,' she answered, calm and polite. 'I can't operate with music.'

  She registered one or two slightly surprised looks above pale green disposable masks, but didn't take the time to explain. This was her space now. All surgeons had their quirks, and she wasn't going to apologise for hers, now or later. She never swore or threw things or yelled at the nurses; she didn't practise her golf swing to warm up her hands; she was consistent in her preference of cat-gut length and instrument size.

  But she liked silence. It helped her sense of focus. No music. A minimum of chatter. No jokes or ribbing. Absolutely no disparaging comments about the patient.

  'OK, we're looking good at this end,' Steve said a few minutes later.

  'Thanks, Dr Colton.'

  Her gaze tangled with his as he looked briefly away from his monitors, and she could tell he was still thinking about the 'no music' thing. Maybe he'd chosen the Beethoven himself. Well, he could listen to Beethoven at home.

  'All right, are we ready for the gas?' she asked, and began the operation.

  She'd done it hundreds of times, probably.

  Several litres of carbon dioxide were injected into the abdomen to provide a space to work in between the outer layers of tissue and the internal organs. A tiny incision allowed the passage of a laparoscope with an equally tiny camera on the end of it, manipulated by the assistant surgeon, Peter Moody. What the camera saw was then screened like a video, allowing Candace to guide her instruments. The lumpy, disorientating appearance of the human abdominal cavity on the screen was a familiar sight to her now.

  This patient's symptoms suggested the need for a cholangiogram, which would confirm or rule out the presence of stones in the bile duct. In this case, the X-ray-type scan showed that, yes, there were three small stones present. Candace decided to remove them immediately, rather than bring Mrs Allenby back for a second procedure at a later date.

  The monitors indicated that she was handling the anaesthesia well. Candace had no trouble in removing the stones successfully.

  'If I know Mrs Allenby, she'll want to see those later,' Steve said.

  'She's your patient?' Candace asked.

  'Since I started here four years ago. And she's got a very enquiring mind, haven't you Mrs A.?' Under anaesthesia, Mrs Allenby's conscious mind was almost certain to be unaware, but there was strong evidence that many patients could retain a memory of what happened during surgery. 'She wanted to know last week—' Steve began.

  'Could we save it until later?' Candace cut in.

  'Sure.' He gave a brief nod and a shrug.

  Again, there was a moment of tension and adjustment amongst the other staff. Candace ignored it and kept going. She used tiny metal clips to close off the bile duct at the base of the gall bladder, as well as the vessel which provided its blood supply. Next, she used a cautery to detach the gall bladder from the liver, once again working through tiny incisions.

  She brought the organ to the incision in Mrs Allenby's navel and emptied its contents through a drain. The gall bladder was limp now, and slid easily through the incision. She checked the area for bleeding and satisfied herself that all was looking good, then the patient's abdomen was drained of gas, the incisions were covered in small bandages, Steve reversed the anaesthesia and
the operation was over.

  Easy to describe, but it had still taken over two hours, and there was more work yet to be done. The two nurses chanted in chorus as they counted up instruments, sponges and gauze to make sure nothing was missing. Forceps and retractors clattered into metal bowls. Surgical drapes were bundled into linen bins. Mrs Allenby was wheeled, still unconscious, into the recovery annexe where two more nurses would monitor her breathing, consciousness, behaviour, blood pressure and pain as she emerged from anaesthesia.

  The two hernia operations which came next were simpler and shorter. Both were of the type known as a direct inguinal hernia, which resulted from a weakness in the muscles in the groin area. A short incision just above the crease between thigh and abdomen on each patient allowed Candace to slip the bulging sac of internal tissue back into the abdominal cavity.

  The first patient's abdominal wall had quite a large area of weakness, and Candace asked for a sheet of synthetic mesh to strengthen it. The second patient, several years younger, needed only a series of sutures in the abdominal tissue itself. Each incision was closed with sutures, and both patients would rest on the reclining chairs in the day-surgery room after their first hour or two of close monitoring in the recovery annexe.

  She would check on them as soon as she had showered, Candace decided. You never came out of surgery feeling clean.

  The shower beckoned strongly as she pulled off her gloves and mask just outside the door of Theatre One. Behind her, Steve and the other staff were preparing for a Caesarean, and Candace crossed paths with Linda Gardner. The obstetrician was about to squeeze in a lunch-break while Theatre One was tidied and replenished with equipment, ready for her to take over.

  'Quiet in here today,' Linda commented.

  'They'll probably appreciate a request for rock and roll, I expect,' Candace answered.

  'So you're the culprit? You like reverent silence?'

  'Reverence isn't a requirement,' she returned quickly. 'Silence is.'

  'No one gave you a hard time?' Linda asked with a curious smile.