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Leo sighed. ‘If it continues, we might all have to rethink whether you can continue in your current employment.’ He eyed Abbie. ‘You’ve been a full-time mother for months now. If that’s more important to you than your career then we’ll find a way to work around it, but you need to be up front with us.’
‘I am being up front with you.’ Abbie’s voice was shaky. ‘And I’ve never considered choosing to give up my work. My daughter is the most important person in the world to me but I know how brilliant the childcare system at the Lighthouse is. We’d always planned to juggle our careers and family life to allow us to both continue working.’
Rafael felt something tighten inside his chest. He remembered those planning sessions. Lying on the bed beside Abbie, admiring the increasing size of her belly. Keeping his hand resting lightly on her skin so that he could marvel at the movement he could feel beneath it. Imagining them both collecting their baby from the crèche and taking her home for family time.
Life had been so perfect back then. So full of exciting dreams for the future.
How had it all turned to dust? He wanted it back. All of it.
But Abbie wasn’t even looking in his direction again now. She was facing her employers here at the clinic. Fighting for her career.
‘Then the issue is simply whether you can continue working together.’ Both Ethan and Leo shifted their gaze from Abbie to Rafael. Abbie also turned to look at him.
‘I can,’ she said.
There was determination in her eyes. And something more.
Hope that this could be a way through the enormous barrier that still lay between them?
Or was that wishful thinking on his part?
Whatever. It was a first step.
Rafael smiled. ‘So can I,’ he said. ‘I look forward to the privilege of working with you again, Abbie.’
CHAPTER FOUR (#ua36f27db-9446-5b77-a1c2-01538fd92dea)
SHE HADN’T EXPECTED THIS.
She’d been in perfect agreement with Leo and Ethan during that meeting this afternoon. Okay, she was partly to blame because she’d consciously chosen to let Rafael see the MacDonalds as part of his outpatient list but he’d had no right to push her out of being involved with Angus MacDonald’s first surgery. He’d actually told them she was unavailable?
Abbie scrubbed harder. It had been a long time since she’d been through this routine and her skin wasn’t liking the stiff bristles of the soap-impregnated brush. It stung as she spread her fingers and scrubbed between them and then moved on to the backs of her hands and the insides of her wrists but she didn’t lighten the pressure. The physical pain was an echo of the simmering anger she was prodding.
Rafael had been unprofessional. What had stopped him from popping his head into her office and just asking whether she wanted to be involved? He hadn’t needed to, though, had he? She’d already told him that it was another case she’d love to do.
Being pushed out like that was also confusing. And hurtful.
Wasn’t he the one who was so good at maintaining a professional distance that he could put his own emotions aside to make life and death decisions for his own daughter?
Why didn’t that automatically apply to his wife?
Because he hated her that much now? So much that his desire to avoid working closely with her was enough to make cracks appear in that ability to distance himself?
So much for thinking that they might be able to repair their marriage.
It was proving difficult enough to repair a professional relationship.
Not that others seemed to see that. The nurse who was waiting with a sterile towel held in a pair of tongs was smiling.
‘It’s so good that you and Mr de Luca are going to be working together again. Everybody’s really excited about it.’
Not everybody, Abbie thought grimly. But she smiled back as she took the towel to dry her hands.
‘It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?’
‘It’s never quite the same without you. Nobody else can work with Mr de Luca like you can. He gets quite cross sometimes.’
Abbie’s eyebrows rose as she pulled on her gown and then turned so that the nurse could tie it.
It made her feel a little better to know that no one else could partner Rafael in Theatre as well as she could but it wasn’t really a surprise, was it?
Their professional relationship had been astonishingly good from the moment they’d first shared an operating theatre together nearly two years ago.
Had any two surgeons ever clicked like that from the get-go? Complemented each other so perfectly it was as if one surgeon had suddenly doubled their skill set. And not only that. They worked in such a similar way that they could anticipate what the other was thinking or about to do. A silent form of communication and co-operation that had quickly become a talking point in their professional circle.
They’d been dubbed the ‘dream team.’
And they’d loved that.
But that had been then. The nurse’s comment had been a boost but she’d disappeared with an armful of dirty linen back into the changing rooms, and without her enthusiastic support the thought of working side by side with Rafael in Theatre was enough to make Abbie’s heart race and her mouth feel dry.
‘Get a grip,’ she ordered herself sternly, as she pulled on a pair of gloves.
She’d faced far harder things than this in the last few months. She’d had to make decisions and take actions with nothing more than her instinct to guide her at some points. And she’d had to do it firmly and swiftly. Because she’d had to do it alone.
So she could handle this.
Even if she hadn’t expected a challenge like this to appear so fast after Ethan’s edict that they work together—or face the consequences.
It was only 11:00 p.m. on the same day, for heaven’s sake.
A child had been brought in by helicopter for emergency surgery. Unrestrained, the six-year-old had been ejected from a car in a smash. She had multiple injuries, including two broken arms and major facial trauma.
She needed the best surgeons the Lighthouse had to offer.
Abbie was one of them, so that she could deal with the initial repair of the facial tissues and skin in the hope of a result that wouldn’t be too disfiguring in the future.
Rafael was the other surgeon and he would be able to handle anything that Abbie couldn’t. Thanks to his experience as a general paediatric surgeon before he’d specialised first in oncology and then in reconstructive surgery, there was nothing that could happen in an operating theatre that he couldn’t manage, at least in an emergency situation.
Knowing that had always made her feel safe.
Confident.
All she needed to do now was to tap back into that background confidence. And remind herself of just what she’d achieved with Ella’s treatment without that umbrella Rafael could provide.
She could do this. Even if Rafael didn’t really want her in there.
Taking a deep breath and pressing her lips together in a grimly determined line, Abbie crossed her arms in front of her body and turned so that she could use her back to bump open the swinging doors that led into the brightly lit operating room.
* * *
Rafael saw Abbie enter the theatre from the scrub room, holding her gloved hands crossed in front of her body, with only her eyes visible between the bottom of her hat and the top of her mask. He watched only until her gaze met his. He held the eye contact for a heartbeat and then nodded once, turning back to the task ahead. It was a simple gesture but one that had become significant to them both in the past. It conveyed satisfaction. Gratitude. Confidence. There was a difficult job to be done. He needed her to be here. She had arrived.
Things were as good as they could be for the moment.
Had he really thought it would be better if they tried to keep their professional lives as separate as their personal lives had become? At least until things had settled down? Thank goodness Ethan and Leo had taken them both to task and made it a professional duty to start working closely together again or it could have been a very long time before he’d had the bonus of having Abbie by his side like this again.
And he did need her. Rafael had been shocked when he’d met the helicopter crew in the emergency department as they’d transferred the care of little Lucy to his team. She’d been stabilised as far as possible in the rural area where the accident had occurred but there were bigger challenges ahead. The first had been dealt with in the emergency department with the help of a specialist paediatric anaesthetist. Securing a definitive airway had been extremely difficult due to the level of facial trauma but at least it had given him time to get used to the horrific injuries. He just wished he’d had more time to warn Abbie before she arrived in Theatre.
‘Oh, my God...’ He could hear the way Abbie’s breath caught in her throat as she whispered her first reaction.
‘It’s actually not as bad as it looks,’ he told her quietly. ‘The jaw’s broken in three places and she’s lost several teeth. Cheekbones are both fractured and displaced. As is the nose. One ear has been partially amputated but there’s no skull fracture or brain haemorrhage. And I think her eyes are okay. It will be easier to see what other damage there is when we get these parts of her face back where they should be. It’s the soft-tissue damage that’s making things look so bad. The scans are up over there if you want to have a look.’
‘Is there a photograph available?’ Abbie’s initial shock had worn off commendably fast. ‘Of what she used to look like?’
‘Yes. The grandmother emailed one through. It’s been printed out and is beside the viewing screens.’
‘Thanks.’ Still holding her crossed arms carefully in front of her to avoid any potential contamination and need to rescrub, Abbie moved to examine the images of both the damage and what the little girl’s face should look like. It was several minutes before she came back to the table but that was fine. Rafael had a lot of work to do before there would be an area ready for Abbie’s delicate touch in repairing delicate vessels and skin tears.
And he needed to concentrate. It wasn’t easy, trying to manoeuvre tiny titanium rings into position to try and fix fractured bones back together.
‘What’s been said about her arms?’
‘Colles’ fracture on the left. Spiral fracture of the radius and ulna on the right. Looks like she put her arms out to break the fall and then hit the ground face first. Not pretty but it may have saved her from a bad head injury or internal damage.’
‘What’s been done for them?’
‘The arms?’ Rafael didn’t need this distraction. ‘Just support with back slabs until orthopaedics can come in. It’s well down the list of priorities.’
‘Do we have the X-rays?’
‘They’re on digital file. Why?’ Rafael needed Abbie to focus on what was more of a concern right now—putting this little’s girl’s face back together.
‘Look at this.’
‘I can’t.’ Rafael was waiting for his senior theatre nurse to suck blood away so that he could see where to place the ring he was holding in his forceps. ‘I could use some help here, Abbie.’
But Abbie ignored him. ‘Scalpel, thanks,’ she ordered a registrar. ‘And someone throw some antiseptic on this arm.’
Rafael gave up on the ring and looked up, incredulous. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Opening this arm.’ Sure enough, Abbie waited only until a nurse had hurriedly swabbed the skin of a small forearm and then she was slicing into it with her scalpel. Rafael’s jaw dropped. He’d never seen her act like this.
Ever.
Seconds later, Abbie dropped the scalpel, having left a long, deep incision in the small arm. She reached for the hand still lying on the table and pressed one of the small fingernails.
‘Capillary refill’s slow but at least it’s there now.’
‘It wasn’t there before?’ Rafael was frowning now. This was the child’s right hand, which many might consider even more important to her future quality of life than how her face looked. Had there been a major problem with circulation that had been missed due to his focus on her face? Yes. He could see the unhealthy dark colour the fingers still had. How puffy they were.
‘You can still see the swelling in her arm. The fingers were cold and blue. There was no radial pulse.’
‘Compartment syndrome...’ Rafael took a deep breath. That was why Abbie had incised the muscle casing so decisively. If she hadn’t, the result could have been catastrophic. Lucy might have lost her whole hand, let alone the efficient use of it. ‘Thank goodness you noticed.’
‘If it had started when she was conscious, the pain level would have alerted someone.’ Abbie’s gaze was in no way accusing. ‘It’s just lucky I came in late and wanted an overall picture before getting focussed.’
Rafael could only nod. This was not the time or place to tell Abbie that he was proud of her picking up on the complication. And taking control without waiting for his opinion.
Getting that overall impression was a characteristic that Abbie had much more noticeably than he did these days. She was always fastidious in gathering every piece of information she could about a case. Looking at a bigger picture that included things like family circumstances and relationships. A way of looking at a case that invariably led to the kind of emotional involvement in a patient that he preferred to avoid when possible. That was why they’d always made such a good team. Two halves of an amazing whole. The ‘dream team,’ as Ethan had reminded them only today.
But hadn’t he always been the unspoken leader of that team?
No longer, by the look of things. Abbie had changed since the last time they’d worked like this together. She’d become more decisive. More authoritative. More...independent? In here, that was a good thing. It would give him a partner he would enjoy working with even more. Out of here? That was another matter entirely. Persuading Abbie to forgive him and give their marriage another chance might be an uphill battle.
‘Call Orthopaedics,’ she was instructing a nurse. ‘We’ll need them here sooner rather than later. And someone find a dressing to cover this wound in the meantime, please.’ She stepped around the table to stand beside Rafael.
So close that their shoulders were touching.
‘Now...’ Abbie was peering into the area Rafael was working on to align the small jaw again. ‘Can I start debriding the cheek tissue? I’d like to get an idea of how much skin we’ve got left to work with. I suspect we’re going to need some grafts.’
Rafael absorbed the feeling of having her this close. He could hear the calm confidence with which she was now assessing the work she had come here to do. Suddenly it was easy to push anything personal and negative into a space that had no relevance in here. He knew without any doubt that within minutes he and Abbie would be working together seamlessly. The way they always had. His own confidence soared. They could do this. Between them they would get the foundation work done that would end up with little Lucy looking as close to the way she’d looked before the accident as was humanly possible.
He hadn’t felt this inspired—this happy in his work—since...well, since Abbie had left.
How had he not realised how much he’d missed this?
Because he had isolated himself emotionally from his work so effectively?
The way he’d isolated himself from his wife and daughter?
That was in the past. He’d learned his lesson. With the resolution that things were going to change from now on, Rafael didn’t dismiss the pleasure of having Abbie working beside him. Instead, he channelled it into making sure he did the best work he was capable of.
* * *
Talk about diving into the deep end.
Six hours later, Abbie all but staggered into the changing room where she’d stored her clothes in her old locker. The one beside Rafe’s.
She headed for the closest shower, which offered a private area that included a slatted wooden bench seat beneath a hook on which to hang her dry clothes. Having hung what she would change back into on the hook, however, Abbie didn’t immediately close the door or turn on the shower to let the water get hot. Instead, she sank down on the wooden seat and closed her eyes for a moment.
Everything ached. Her back and feet seemed to have totally forgotten their ability to stand in one spot for so long without major discomfort. She had cramp in her fingers from the fierce control she had exerted to make every one of the countless sutures she’d made as perfect as possible. Her eyes felt gritty, with a fatigue that was numbing her mind and making it impossible to think of anything but finding the energy to get up and turn on that shower.
And yet Abbie was smiling as she rolled her head in a slow circle, trying to get the painful kinks out of her neck.
How good had that been?
Challenging. Intense. But so satisfying. She hadn’t hidden her skills beneath a deep layer of rust like she’d feared. Even better, she and Rafael had worked together just as they always had. There’d even been at least one of those magic moments when that complete harmony had kicked in and it had felt like it was one surgeon who happened to have four hands.
