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Though not in surgery …
‘Thanks, Keanu, I can hop from here,’ he said, waving away the man’s assistance, his traitorous mind thinking of the last person who’d helped him inside the building.
Maybe it was lemons, not vinegar—or something a little tarter …
Limes?
Hobbling up the two steps, his foot still in pain, he shook his head at his stupidity. Sarah had made her feelings clear when she’d let fly about his behaviour, neither could he have failed to feel the contempt in her words.
Deserved contempt?
Probably!
Forget the woman!
Easier said than done.
Women usually lingered pleasantly in his head, small, special moments of past relationships stored neatly away like boxes in a storeroom in his brain.
But this woman …
No way she’d stay in a box!
Perhaps because they hadn’t had a relationship.
They’d been nothing more than ships that had passed in the night!
She’d been pregnant. She obviously had a family—husband and child—or at least the child.
So why the job of flying surgeon?
She’d be home, what, one week in four or five? Hardly a good arrangement for family life.
And none of his business …
Sarah loved operating in the small but brilliant theatre at Wildfire. Double-glazed windows let in natural light while allowing the room to be airconditioned, and through them she could see the tangle of treetops and vines in the rainforest that ran up the hill behind the hospital.
Added to which Sam was an excellent assistant, competent in his own right to perform routine operations but unable to take time out of his busy schedule to do regular surgical work. Hettie, the head nurse, and Caroline both enjoyed theatre nursing so, with Ben, she had a great team.
The patient was sedated, breathing through an endotracheal tube, and Sarah was about to begin when she sensed, rather than saw, another person enter the room.
Sensed who it was, too.
‘Glad you felt well enough to come up,’ Sam said cheerfully to the newcomer, who was still somewhere behind Sarah as she lifted a scalpel off the tray, ready to begin. ‘It’s not often we can show off our theatre to someone who’s seen the best.’
‘Thank you for inviting me.’
The deep voice reverberated down Sarah’s spine, and she had to focus on the lines she’d drawn on the patient’s neck and breathe deeply for a moment to steady her nerves.
Sam glanced at her, the retractors in his hand, ready to begin, while Hettie shifted a little impatiently, ready to cauterise tiny blood vessels.
Sarah began, although a tiny portion of her mind was protesting that it was her theatre right now and she could ask him to leave.
When the hospital boss had invited him?
She focussed fully on the patient, cutting into the throat in a crease in the woman’s neck so the scar would be next to invisible. The parathyroid glands lay directly behind the thyroid, so at the forefront of her mind her brain was locating and isolating them so they wouldn’t be damaged.
The area was also filled with important nerves and blood vessels, not to mention the larynx, just above the gland, so it was easy to lose herself in the meticulous work, excluding all outside factors.
Three hours later the glands had been removed and Sarah was checking they’d cauterised all the blood vessels in the incision.
‘I’ll close for you if you like,’ Sam offered, and, knowing how much he enjoyed being part of the surgery, Sarah stepped back, only too happy to let him finish the job.
‘Do you want a drain in place?” he asked, and she checked the open wound again.
‘No, it’s clean,’ she said. ‘Good job, team.’
She crossed the theatre towards the washrooms, stripping off her gloves and gown and dumping them in a bin by the door. Still clad in the highly unflattering green hospital scrubs, she turned to push her way through the door, finally catching sight of the unexpected onlooker.
He’d obviously been masked as he’d stood outside the sterile area of the theatre. Now the white strip of paper hung around his neck, resting on the collar of a dark blue polo shirt that clung to a chest any athlete would be proud to display.
And just why had she been looking at his chest?
To avoid looking at his face?
Probably!
But what was it about the man that drew her eyes?
More than her eyes … Her senses.
Forget him!
She felt strongly about his opting out of the world of paediatric surgery. From all she’d seen and read, he’d been truly gifted.
And he’d made her cry!
Twice!
So why was she even thinking about him?
She stripped off her clothes, showered, and pulled on a pair of white slacks and a black and white striped tee that was old and faded but very soft and comforting. Pushing her feet into sandals, she went out the back door of the changing room and along the corridor to the rear of the hospital, heading for her villa.
Ben was in charge of their patient now, and would keep an eye on her in the recovery room. Sarah would see her in the morning.
The first thing she saw as she walked into the villa was the jug from Harry’s bure—the jug she’d carried away with her as she’d fled the man’s taunt.
Well, he was up at the hospital with Sam right now, so she’d duck down to the resort and leave it outside his door. She grabbed her hat, a large droopy-brimmed black creation, off the hook by the door.
The ducking down to his island home would have worked if he hadn’t overtaken her as she strolled down the track, admiring the beautiful, lush gardens and isolated bures.
Finding he’d lost interest in the hospital once Sarah had departed, Harry made his way across the airstrip and onto the track that led through the resort.
The figure striding ahead of him was instantly recognisable despite the floppy black hat covering her glorious hair.
Glorious hair?
He really was losing it with this woman …
This woman he’d hurt when he’d hit out at her.
Unforgiveable, really.
‘Going my way?’
She started at his voice, but perhaps because it was such a corny thing to say she also smiled and held up the jug.
‘Returning your property, but now you’re here I can give it to you.’
She turned towards him, pushing the jug into his hands, their fingers touching, time suspended.
‘Have lunch with me?’
The invitation coming out like it had startled him, and apparently was so unexpected Sarah could only peer up at him from under the hat.
What did she see?
His regret?
Or had she heard a hint of desperation in his voice? She thought for a moment then said yes.
She seemed as startled as he’d been by the acceptance, but he couldn’t hide his pleasure, smiling as he took her elbow to walk her down the track.
His foot still pained him but he tried to hide it, then wondered if was kindness because he was limping that had made her say yes and hadn’t shaken off his hand.
Probably!
Harry’s light touch on her elbow was causing Sarah’s body all the same manifestations of attraction she’d first felt as she’d helped him out of the water the previous day.
The same manifestations that had so confused her she’d ranted at the man about his life choice!
He didn’t speak until they’d reached his island home. He walked her through the room where she’d given him first aid and out to a trellis-covered deck.
He waved his hand towards a cushioned cane chair, then sat down opposite her, looking at her, studying her as she pulled off the hat and shook out her hair—studying her as if to really look at her was the sole reason he’d brought her there.
The strange part was she didn’t mind, not when it gave her time to study him—to try to work out just what was at play here.
A subliminal link from the past—back when both their lives had been so different?
Or something more basic, even earthy … Simple attraction?
Was attraction ever simple?
And not having experienced it for so long, how could she be sure that’s what it was?
‘Cold drink? Juice?’ he finally asked, and Sarah wondered if she’d imagined that brief moment of mutual interest.
‘Cold water would be great,’ she said, then sank thankfully back into the chair as he disappeared inside.
Relief washed through her but it didn’t entirely release the inner tension she was feeling—or the strange, almost magnetic force this man exerted over her.
Saying yes to lunch—sitting staring at him—this wasn’t her. Sarah Watson was practical, organised, totally self-contained, and content with the new life she’d made for herself.
He reappeared carrying a large tray, the jug she’d just returned set in the middle of it, surrounded by platters of sliced tropical fruit, curls of finely cut meat, chunks of cheese and a cane basket filled with soft rolls and bruschetta.
‘One moment,’ he said, disappearing inside again, then reappearing with plates, glasses, cutlery, napkins and a smaller tray containing little dishes of butter and relishes.
‘Wow? You did all this in a matter of minutes?’ Sarah said, looking up at him as he checked they had everything they needed.
‘Minions,’ he said briefly, placing a plate and glass in front of her. ‘The resort staff bring me a lunch this size every day, although I keep telling them there’s only one of me and I can’t possibly eat it all.’
‘So you asked me to lunch to help you out?’ Sarah teased, looking up at him.
He held her gaze for an instant then shook his head.
‘Heaven only knows why I asked you to lunch,’ he growled, a puzzled frown drawing his dark eyebrows together. ‘It just seemed to come out of me, but as both Sam and Caroline have ripped strips off me for upsetting you, maybe my conscience made the call.’
So Sam had seen her crying as she’d left the bure, and Caroline had definitely seen she’d been upset in the ER yesterday …
But tearing strips off him?
She concentrated on the lunch, forking some sliced fruit onto her plate, taking a piece of bruschetta, some cheese—
‘You obviously know my recent history, but what happened to you?’ he asked, his voice gentler now, his eyes on hers, not on the plate already filled with meat and cheese that he was holding in his hand.
She frowned at the intrusive question, selected a piece of melon, didn’t answer.
‘You don’t have to answer, of course, but I’ve obviously upset you, and I wouldn’t knowingly do that. Not for the world.’
She had to look at him now, and she saw not only concern but empathy in his eyes.
It would be so easy to tell him, to excuse her rudeness to him by revealing why remembering the night they’d first met had caused her so much pain.
Yet still she hesitated, until he moved his chair closer, lifted the plate from her hands and set it on the table, then took one of her hands in both of his and looked deep into her eyes.
‘What happened to your ambition to practise paediatric surgery, to the child you carried? What was so terrible it sent you halfway across the world to take on the itinerant work you do?’
His words were almost hesitant, so much so she knew it wasn’t curiosity but some deeper need to know.
