The Surgeon's Proposal Read online

‘No, Dr Calford,’ Alex said again.

  Wouldn’t it be nice, though, to shoot my whole career down in flames with one well-aimed fist? Dylan decided. A whole raft of reasons held him back, and he knew that control was the stronger and tougher response. His jaw ached.

  Beyond the appalling atmosphere, the procedure itself was actually going well, although an untrained observer would have thought they were witnessing a medical disaster.

  And then Annabelle opened the wrong hip pack.

  Alex exploded. ‘You should have known I’d want the new ceramic hip for this patient,’ he shouted. ‘And if you didn’t know, you should have asked! Do you realise you have just ruined over $3000 worth of equipment? Get the right pack, please, someone, and get it now!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dr Sturgess.’ Annabelle’s voice shook.

  Barb was already looking for the right hip pack, her movements quick and a little clumsy. The error was as much hers as Annabelle’s but, in fact, the fault lay most heavily on Alex’s shoulders. He should have made his wishes clear. His staff weren’t mind-readers. Dylan hadn’t known he was planning to use a ceramic hip today either.

  While they waited for Barb, Annabelle stood back, her shoulders held high and tight. Alex was becoming more impatient by the second, and didn’t try to hide the fact.

  ‘I can’t possibly operate under these conditions,’ he said in a cold tone.

  Nobody pointed out that he hadn’t actually been operating at all. The gleaming instruments were all in Dylan’s hands. ‘I’ll expect a report later, Calford, and I’ll expect to be paged if you can’t handle the next procedure.’

  ‘Fine. No problem,’ Dylan said, without moving his lips.

  The senior surgeon walked out as if he hadn’t heard.

  Sharon controlled a sigh, and after a thunderous and lengthy silence said, ‘Anyone hear anything about the cricket?’

  ‘All out,’ James answered in a thin voice. ‘Can’t remember the score.’

  ‘All right, everyone, let’s take a deep breath and focus, OK?’ Dylan said. ‘We all have our off-days. Found that hip pack yet, Barb?’

  ‘Yes, finally.’

  ‘It’s no one’s fault. I hope we’re all clear on that.’

  The relief he saw in four sets of eyes, above four disposable masks, confirmed his belief that his, not Alex’s, was the better way to get results.

  Only fifteen minutes late going off, Annabelle noted with relief as she crossed the main hospital foyer in her street clothes. Felt as if she’d been here for about fourteen hours. A spot high on her spine was burning, her shoulders ached and her stomach rumbled.

  But three-fifteen was good. She’d have enough time to do a couple of odd jobs at Mum’s before they had to leave for her four-thirty appointment. The traffic was still fairly light, and in the short stretches when it wasn’t, Annabelle tried the method that Vic always used to urge on her.

  ‘Visualise what you want, and it’ll happen.’

  OK, the three cars ahead are going to turn right at the next light, and I’ll be able to overtake that truck…

  For Annabelle, at least, it never worked.

  At Mum’s they made a list of the shopping Annabelle needed to do—some for Mum, some for herself and Duncan—and she watered the plants on the little balcony. She saw Mum’s inhaler sitting on the coffee-table…and an open packet of cigarettes on the kitchen window-sill.

  She didn’t say anything about them, and neither did Mum.

  They’d had a huge blow-up on the subject after Vic’s death. Mum had given up six years ago, after starting in the swinging sixties and smoking forty a day for the next thirty-two years, but after the news had come about Vic, she’d started again, just a couple a day. Annabelle had exploded when she’d first found the evidence, about three weeks after Vic’s funeral.

  ‘I’ve lost Dad, and I’ve lost my sister, and now you’re doing your best to shorten your life, so that I’ll lose you, too? Am I the only person with any sanity around here?’

  ‘I lost her, too!’ Helen yelled back. ‘And I lost Bill. Don’t you think that I feel weak and guilty for needing this? But I can hardly get through the days at the moment. Leave me alone!’

  Annabelle almost…almost…stormed out. A second before slamming Mum’s front door, she turned back. They were both in tears. Hers were the first tears she had been able to shed since the news had come. The first tears she’d let herself shed, with so much else to do, and in her care a sad, confused baby boy who’d just learned to walk.

  She and Helen held out their arms to each other, and sobbed and rocked in each other’s embrace for a long time. They were closer from that day on, with a relationship that was richer and deeper, and the closeness gave them a lot of courage.

  ‘We’d better get going, Mum,’ Annabelle said at just after four. Then she watched as her mother picked up the inhaler but left the cigarettes where they were.

  Dr Badger was on time today. Mum needed her routine appointments with him fairly often these days. He tested her lung function before and after she used the inhaler, and checked for evidence of infection or the dangerous pockets of trapped air which were called bullae.

  The news today was mixed. Mum was worried that her inhaler had been losing its effect over the past few days. It contained a bronchodilator which opened her airways as much as her disease allowed.

  But Dr Badger shook his head. ‘No, I think you’ll find that’s not the problem.’ He was a rather ponderous man in his late fifties, and spoke slowly.

  ‘What do you think is going on, then, Dr Badger?’ Annabelle asked. Helen always preferred that she come into the doctor’s office too, trusting her to later interpret anything that she hadn’t understood.

  ‘You’ve got a chest infection, Mrs Drew, so we’ll treat you for that, and I’ll see you again next week.’

  He wrote out a script for oral antibiotics, and they made a follow-up appointment with the receptionist. With the prescription to pick up and shopping to do, while Mum waited in the car, Annabelle didn’t reach Gumnut Playcare until ten past six.

  Duncan was one of just three children left at the child-care centre, and he wasn’t playing with the other two, who were a couple of years older, but was slumped on a beanbag, kicking his heels on the floor. Bored? Angry? Lonely? Possibly all three. The afternoon staff were clearing up for the day and paid him no attention.

  When he saw Annabelle, he was on his feet in seconds, eager to hurl himself into her arms. Feeling his warm little body against her, and his soft hair tickling her cheek, she hugged him tightly, whispered, ‘I missed you today,’ and almost cried.

  ‘Go inna pool?’ he asked at once, and although it was the last thing she felt like, she promised him they’d have a lovely cool swim as soon as they got home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE doorbell rang just as Annabelle was poised on the lip of the pool in her colourful bathing suit. Duncan hopped impatiently beside her, ready for his first exuberant leap into the water and into her arms as soon as she’d eased her way down the steps.

  ‘Let’s see who that is,’ she told him, and hefted him onto her hip so they’d actually have a chance of reaching the front door before the person gave up and left again. Duncan wasn’t very goal-oriented about the doorbell.

  When she saw Dylan standing there, she wished she hadn’t taken the trouble.

  ‘You said you weren’t available to go out, so I thought I’d better bring dinner in,’ he said, lifting several bulging plastic shopping bags in each hand.

  ‘You’re not going to leave this alone, are you?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he agreed calmly.

  ‘Even if I tell you that I’m—’

  ‘Stop!’ He stepped through the doorway and dumped the shopping bags just inside her tiny entrance hall. ‘I warn you, I’ve prepared for all the excuses. I’ve brought groceries, in case you had to go shopping.’

  Duncan was already examining the contents of the bags.

  ‘No,
I’ve just been shopping.’

  ‘And…’ He bent to a vinyl athletic bag at his feet, and she was astonished to see him pull out a hairdryer, a brush and bottles of shampoo and conditioner.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Classic female excuse number three. If you’re washing your hair tonight, I’ve brought the necessary equipment.’

  He grinned a cool, lazy, challenging grin as he flourished the hair-dryer in his hand, and suddenly she was laughing helplessly, laughing until tears flooded her eyes, laughing despite the fact that it wasn’t all that funny, laughing just because it was a relief to let go and feel silly for once.

  ‘Sorry, wrong brand of shampoo?’ he suggested, as she clung, weak-kneed, to the doorframe.

  Duncan, who was still examining the plastic bags, happily announced, ‘Chippies! Yummy!’ And started laughing, too.

  ‘The girl next door provided the salon supplies for me,’ Dylan said.

  ‘I’ll just bet she did, Dylan Calford! You’re not proving an easy man to say no to. The shampoo is…’ Annabelle lifted her hand helplessly ‘…fine.’ It was a far more expensive brand than she ever bought for herself. ‘I’m sorry, I think I must have needed that, or something. The laughing, I mean.’

  ‘I can imagine that you did. Are you going to let me all the way in?’ He was still poised with his heels on the doorstep.

  ‘I’ll have to, won’t I?’ But it wasn’t nearly as belligerent a statement as it could have been in a different tone.

  Annabelle began looking around for something on which to wipe her streaming eyes, and realised that all she had on was her bathing suit. She used the heel of her hand instead. ‘Um, Duncan and I were just going for a swim.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘I’d invite you to join us, only—’

  ‘I don’t have a suit.’

  ‘And I don’t have any spares.’

  ‘Might not fit, even if you did.’

  ‘I meant spare men’s.’

  She hadn’t missed the sweeping glance that trailed over her figure, on show in the sleek, close-fitting swimsuit, and it disturbed her. She knew why he was here. The ‘making amends’ thing. And she was starting to understand that it was best to let him get it out of his system.

  But there was something more, and it wasn’t coming from him, it was coming from her. She didn’t want to be aware of him like this. Growing hot when he came near. Conscious of her own body—of its curves and its pulse points and its position in space. Enjoying the zestful atmosphere of his company, even when she was angry with him.

  Nothing could come of it. It was simply a nuisance, and when she’d already known him for three and a half years without feeling this way she ought to be able to get rid of it quickly.

  ‘Maybe after you’ve been for yours, and you’re getting Duncan dressed, I could skinny-dip for a few minutes,’ he suggested. ‘It’s fairly private out there, if I remember.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, not thinking about it.

  Dylan Calford, naked in her pool, powering through the water like a shark. Water making a glistening film over his skin. Tan lines low on his back and high on his thighs, and between them…

  ‘It’s very private,’ she went on quickly. ‘You can’t even see it from inside the house.’

  ‘First, though, I’ll get this lot into the kitchen.’

  ‘What on earth have you brought?’

  ‘Take-away Thai, and I didn’t know what you liked, so I got a lot of different dishes. And wine. Red and white. Basic groceries to knock the shopping excuse on the head.’ He stopped and looked at her. ‘Although I think perhaps you’re a little less angry with me than you were.’

  ‘I’m not sure who I’m angry with today after the way Alex behaved this afternoon,’ she admitted.

  Shouldn’t have admitted it, and waited, holding her breath uncomfortably, for him to comment. He didn’t. Which was nice of him.

  She and Duncan had their usual noisy swim. Dylan didn’t appear until she’d said, ‘Three more jumps, Duncan.’

  Standing with his arms resting on the top of the pool gate and a grin on his face, he watched the three jumps, and the ‘one more lucky last’ that Annabelle always agreed to.

  ‘There are spare towels in the bin, just there,’ she told Dylan, and then carried a towel-wrapped Duncan inside to give him a quick rinse in the shower and get him into his pyjamas.

  Just before the veranda door closed behind her, Annabelle heard the sound of a resonant splash. Dylan—naked—had just dived in.

  The kitchen was an Aladdin’s cave of new groceries, she found when she arrived there to heat up some leftover spaghetti and a plate of fruit for Duncan’s dinner. Dylan must have brought at least two more loads of shopping bags up from the car, and he’d unpacked it all and wadded the bags together, making it impossible, or at least difficult, for her to say, No, take it back. I didn’t need you to do this.

  In the pantry, there were cans of tomatoes and soup and corn, packets of spaghetti and biscuits and tea, boxes of cereal, jars of peanut butter and curry sauce. In the fridge there were tubs of yoghurt and blocks of cheese, and in the freezer there were packets of sausages, minced beef, chicken and steak.

  In the oven, on a very low heat, he’d stacked the Thai take-away containers to keep them warm. A quick look told her there were dishes enough to freeze later tonight and fall back on for half a dozen meals over the next few weeks, a reprieve from the ‘What will we eat tonight?’ dilemma that plagued her every evening as she drove home. Duncan liked spicy food.

  Annabelle immediately started her usual obsessive, anxious calculations. This will keep us going on basics and freezer supplies for months. I’ll halve my food bills. I can pay the credit card bill down. I can take some of this over to Mum’s…

  Mum could only afford to stay in her unit because it was all paid off, and she had to manage her cash flow as carefully as Annabelle did.

  Then she went beyond the initial relief of it and rebelled.

  She must not let her immediate need cloud her broader perspective. She couldn’t let Dylan think that it was OK to do this. It wasn’t. On a practical level, she might need his guilt offerings, but she didn’t want them. After the drama of Alex’s walkout on Friday night, ‘want’ was winning over ‘need’ this week. For once, she would rebel. For once, she would act on selfish feelings and high-minded, expensive principles, instead of making a calculated sacrifice.

  Without stopping to think, she strapped Duncan into his high chair, gave him a couple of crackers and some juice to tide him over and marched straight out to the pool.

  Dylan didn’t have a tan line at all. His body—or the back of it, at least—was pale golden brown all over.

  ‘Sorry. Later,’ she blurted, and turned on her heel.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ he said behind her.

  She turned again. It wasn’t a very natural movement. Much too slow. Breath held too tightly. He had reached the far end of the pool and was standing up, waist deep, using his hands like a towel to wipe the water off his face.

  ‘It can wait,’ she answered.

  ‘Can it? I heard the door slam, and then the pool gate, and you stood there at the edge of the water like my old school swimming coach, about to blow his whistle and yell.’

  The water, which had been churning in his wake, began to settle and grow still, and since Annabelle had a very good relationship with the man at the local pool supply shop, its chemical balance was perfect and it was crystal clear.

  ‘Nothing. I just—I wanted to—Um, thank you for the groceries. And the take-away. Don’t do it again, Dylan, I mean it. If you were planning to, that is. But please, please, don’t.’

  Crystal clear. Dylan didn’t have a tan line in front either.

  ‘Annabelle—’

  ‘Keep on with your lap swimming, and we’ll talk about it later.’

  He shrugged. ‘If you think there’s something to talk about. I put the take-away containers in the—’<
br />
  ‘I saw.’

  Still and aqua-tinted and completely translucent. Dylan himself probably didn’t realise quite how translucent. He had the western sun in his eyes, and the light bouncing into his face off the bright surface of the water.

  ‘Just come inside when you’re ready,’ she said. ‘I’m giving Duncan something else to eat tonight. And I’d better—’

  ‘Yes, go and feed him. I’ll be out in a few minutes.’

  He launched himself into a strong crawl towards her, his shoulders and arms breaking the water smoothly and his feet making it bubble like a volcanic hot spring behind. In between the shoulders at one end and the feet at the other, she saw the tight curves of the human body’s largest muscles. Nope. He really didn’t have a tan line at all.

  Duncan had finished eating by the time Dylan came in. He was dressed in the smart grey business trousers and shirt he’d been wearing before, but now the shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows and he’d left the top two buttons unfastened. His hair was damp, vigorously towelled and uncombed, so that it stood up a little messily on his head.

  He didn’t seem in a hurry to fix the problem, but Annabelle felt her own fingers itching to do the job. Just a little finger-combing back from his forehead, and a stroke or two down towards the water-cooled nape of his neck.

  I can’t afford to notice these things about him, she thought. I can’t feel like this. It’s stupid. The kind of complication I absolutely do not need!

  Duncan yawned, and she looked at the clock. It was after eight, and he was ready for bed.

  Dylan read the yawn and Annabelle’s glance correctly. ‘Yes, go ahead,’ he said. ‘Put him to bed, and we’ll eat afterwards.’

  She nodded. ‘He’s always happy to go, which I’m thankful for after some of the stories I hear from other parents about tantrums over b-e-d.’

  ‘All children have their redeeming features, as I understand it,’ he teased.

  ‘He’s great. You’re great, aren’t you, Duncan?’ she asked him, and he nodded happily.

  He was tucked up in bed, after a story about trucks, ten minutes later.

  This left Annabelle alone with Dylan, Thai food and wine at the table he’d set on the back veranda. About the only things missing were candles and flowers, but the lights by the pool, shining back through the tropical greenery and edging the white frangipani flowers with radiance, were a more than adequate substitute. The atmosphere was far more indulgent to the senses than Annabelle wanted it to be.