Unlocking Her Surgeon's Heart

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Everything’s so far from okay it’s not funny. Could he tell her the real reason the Victoria had sent a surgeon to Turraburra? Tell her that if he didn’t conquer this communication problem he wouldn’t qualify? That ten years of hard work had failed to give him what he so badly wanted?

For the first time since he’d met her he saw genuine interest and empathy in her face and a part of him desperately wanted to reach out and confide in her. God knew, if he’d unwittingly upset a patient and been clueless about the impact of his words, he surely needed help.

She’ll understand.

You don’t know that. She could just as easily use it against me.

He’d fought long and hard to get this far in the competitive field of surgery without depending on anyone and he didn’t intend to start now. That said, he’d noticed how relaxed she was with her patients compared to how he always felt with them. With Bec Sinclair, she’d explained everything he’d been doing, chatting easily to her. She connected with people in a way he’d never been able to—in a way he needed to learn.

He had no intention of asking her for help or exposing any weakness, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t observe and learn from her. Don’t give anything away. Leaning back, he casually laced his fingers behind his head. ‘Do you have any other fat pregnant women coming in today?’

Wariness crawled across her high cheekbones. ‘There is one more.’

‘Do you concede that her weight is a risk to her pregnancy?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Good.’ He sat forward fast, the chair clunking loudly. ‘This time you run the consultation, which means you’re the one who has to tell her that her weight is a problem.’

She blinked at him in surprise and then her intelligent eyes narrowed, scanning his face like an explosives expert looking for undetonated bombs. ‘And?’

‘And then I’ll critique your performance like you just critiqued mine. After all, the Victoria’s a teaching hospital so it seems only fair.’

He couldn’t help but grin at her stunned expression.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_0e08ef68-6d10-5493-b781-3dd764eb56e9)

LILY TURNED THE music up and sang loudly as she drove through the rolling hills and back towards the coast and Turraburra. As well as singing, she concentrated on the view. Anything to try and still her mind and stop it from darting to places she didn’t want it to go.

She savoured the vista of black and white cows dotted against the emerald-green paddocks—the vibrant colour courtesy of spring rains. Come January, the grass would be scorched brown and the only green would be the feathery tops of the beautiful white-barked gum-trees.

She’d been out at the Hawkers’ dairy farm, doing a follow-up postnatal visit. Jess and the baby were both doing well and Richard had baked scones, insisting she stay for morning tea. She’d found it hard to believe that the burly farmer was capable of knocking out a batch of scones, because the few men who’d passed through her life hadn’t been cooks. When she’d confessed her surprise to Richard, he’d just laughed and said, ‘If I depended on Jess to cook, we’d both have starved years ago.’

‘I have other talents,’ Jess, the town’s lawyer, said without rancour.

‘That you do,’ Richard had replied with such a look of love and devotion in his eyes that it had made Lily’s throat tighten.

She’d grown up hearing the stories from her grandfather of her parents’ love for each other but she had no memory of it. Somehow it had always seemed like a story just out of reach—like a fairy-tale and not at all real. Sure, she had their wedding photo framed on her dresser but plenty of people got married and it ended in recriminations and pain. She was no stranger to that scenario and she often wondered if her parents had lived longer lives, they would still be together.

Although her grandfather loved her dearly, she’d never known the sort of love that Jess and Richard shared. She’d hoped for it when she’d met Trent and had allowed herself to be seduced by the idea of it. She’d learned that when a fairy-tale met reality, the fallout was bitter and life-changing. As a result, and for her own protection, and in a way for the protection of her mythical child, she wasn’t prepared to risk another relationship. The only times she questioned her decision was when she saw true love in action, like today.

Her loud, off-key singing wasn’t banishing her unsettling thoughts like it usually did. Ever since Noah Jackson had burst into Turraburra—all stormy-eyed and difficult—troubling thoughts had become part of her again. She couldn’t work him out. She wanted to say he was rude, arrogant, self-righteous and exasperating, and dismiss him out of her head. He was definitely all of those things but then there were moments when he looked so adrift—like yesterday when he’d appeared genuinely stunned and upset that his words had distressed Bec Sinclair. She couldn’t work him out.

You don’t have to work him out. You don’t have to work any man out. Remember, it’s safer not to even try.

Except that momentary look of bewilderment on his face had broken through his I’m a surgeon, bow down before me facade, and it had got to her. It had humanised him and she wished it hadn’t. Arrogant Noah was far more easily dismissed as a temporary thorn in her side than thoughtful Noah. The Noah who’d sat back and listened intently and watched without a hint of disparagement as she’d talked with Mandy Carmichael about her weight was an intriguing conundrum.

She braked at the four-way intersection and proceeded to turn right, passing the Welcome to Turraburra sign. She smiled at the ‘+1’ someone had painted next to the population figure. Given the number of pregnant women in town at the moment, she expected to see a lot more graffiti over the coming months. Checking the clock on the dash, she decided that she had just enough time to check in on her grandfather before starting afternoon clinic.

Her phone beeped as it always did when she drove back into town after being in a mobile phone reception dead zone. This time, instead of one or two messages, it vibrated wildly as six messages came in one after another. She immediately pulled over.

11:00 Unknown patient in labour. Go to hospital.

Karen.

11:15 Visitor to town in established labour in Emergency. Your assistance appreciated.

N. Jackson.

‘What have you done with the Noah Jackson I know and despair of?’ she said out loud. The formal style of Noah’s text was unexpected and it made Karen’s seem almost brusque in comparison. The juxtaposition made her smile.

11:50 Contractions now two minutes apart. Last baby I delivered was six years ago. Request immediate assistance.

NJ.

12:10 Where the bloody hell are you?!

N.

‘And he’s back.’ Although, to give Noah his due, she’d be totally stressed out if she was being asked to do something she hadn’t done in a very long time. She threw the car into gear, checked over her shoulder and pulled off the gravel. Three minutes later she was running into Emergency to the familiar groans of a woman in transition.