Daredevil, Doctor...Husband?

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The needle slid in and out of flesh smoothly and the wound was closing nicely but Zac wasn’t feeling the satisfaction of a job being done well. He was in the same emotional place he’d been left in last night, when Summer had virtually dismissed him and walked away without a backward glance.

If it wasn’t beyond the realm of something remotely believable, he might have decided that it was Summer who’d initiated that kiss but the way she’d jerked back in horror had made it very clear that hadn’t been the case.

He felt as if he’d been duped. Manipulated in some incomprehensible way. Pulled closer and then slapped down. Treated unfairly.

The final knot of the deep sutures was pulled very tight. The snip of the scissors a satisfying end note.

Okay…he was angry.

He needed to put it aside properly before it had any chance of affecting his work. At least he was in the emergency department today. He was due for another shift on the helicopter tomorrow but maybe he’d find time to ring the base manager later and ask if he could juggle shifts.

With a bit of luck, he could find another crew to work with, without having to tell anybody why he couldn’t work with Summer again.

The call-out had been more than welcome.

‘Big MVA up north.’ Her crew partner today was Dan. ‘You ready to rock and roll, Summer?’

‘Bring it on.’

It was very unfortunate for the people in the vehicles that had collided head-on at high speed on an open road, but Summer had been suffering from cabin fever for several hours by now. She needed action. Enough action to silence the internal conflict that seemed to be increasingly loud.

The usual distractions that a quiet spell provided hadn’t worked. She should have made the most of the time to catch up on journal articles or do some work on the research project she had going but, instead, she’d paced around. Checking kits and rearranging stock. Cleaning things, for heaven’s sake.

A bit like the way she’d acted when she’d got home last night and couldn’t settle to cook or eat any dinner because she kept going over and over what had happened on the beach.

Trying to persuade herself that that kiss had been all Zac’s idea. That she hadn’t felt what she had when his lips had touched hers.

She was still experiencing those mental circles today and, if anything, they were even more confusing, thanks to that conversation she’d had with Kate late in the evening.

Of course he’s charming. Why do you think Shelley fell for him so hard?

But it was more than a surface charm designed to lure women into his bed on a temporary basis.

Zac cared. About elderly patients. About small boys who might have been washed off a rock and drowned.

Small boys. Children. Presumably babies. And if he cared about other people’s children, it just didn’t fit that he’d abandoned his own. The story was getting old now. Maybe she hadn’t remembered the details so well. Kate had been happy to remind her.

Yes…of course he knew Shelley was pregnant. That was why he tried to push her down the stairs.

So why hadn’t Shelley pressed charges or demanded paternal support?

She was too scared to have anything more to do with him. And she planned to terminate the pregnancy, remember? Only, in the end, she didn’t…

And Zac had been on the other side of the world by then. And Shelley had had one health issue after another. Always at the doctor’s or turning up at the Hamilton emergency department Kate still worked in. Things hadn’t changed much, either—except now it was her son who always seemed to be sick or getting injured. The whole family had to focus on supporting Shelley and little Felix and sometimes it was a burden.

‘Are you going to tell Shelley?’ she finally had to ask.

God, I don’t know…I might have a chat to her psychiatrist about it. The new meds seem to be working finally, at the moment. It might be bad news to throw a spanner in the works…