Unwrapped by the Duke

by Amy Ruttan

  The hurt it would cause her if her father died before she had made peace with him. It was something he had to bear daily.

  Charles might not survive this surgery. Something the three of them were all aware of, but they hadn’t spoken to each other about. After he was in his scrubs he grabbed Charles’s file and went over the angiosarcoma images. He closed his eyes and tried to picture it in the heart, planning where he would cut and how he would he would attack it.

  “Mr. Ashwood?”

  Thomas turned to see his scrub nurse, Margaret, standing there.

  “Yes, Madge?”

  “Dr. Collins is in the operating theater and ready.”

  Thomas nodded. “Thank you, Madge. I’ll be there in a moment. Take the scans and make sure they’re loaded somewhere I can see them.”

  “Of course, Mr. Ashwood.”

  Margaret left and Thomas closed the file. He put on his scrub cap and readied himself to head to the operating theater.

  “Where is he?”

  Thomas turned around to see Geraldine and even though it had only been a few hours and she had hurt him so much, his heart skipped a beat. She looked done in, apprehensive, by the way she was wringing her hands. He’d never seen her like this before.

  “Your father is in the operating theater and being put under at the moment.”

  Geraldine worried her bottom lip. “You’re going to do the surgery now?”

  “I am. A theater became available and your father was insistent on it being done now.”

  She nodded. “He didn’t call me.”

  “He did. You weren’t...home.”

  A flush tinged her cheeks, because only a couple hours ago they’d been together and then the unpleasantness had occurred. The argument that still stung.

  “I need to speak with him.”

  Thomas shook his head. “I wish I could allow that, but you know that’s not possible. He’s being put under general anesthesia and I can’t have you contaminate the sterile field.”

  “But I—”

  “You what?” Thomas snapped.

  Tears stung her eyes and she brushed them away quickly. “It can wait.”

  Of course it could.

  He was hoping she was going to show some kind of emotion. Admit that she cared for her father. Cared for something. Even cared for him. But instead she stood there with no expression on her face. Just a few tears.

  “I have to go now.”

  He turned his back on her.

  “Thomas?”

  He turned around.

  “Please. Save him.” It was sincere. She was asking for another chance, the chance he’d never got with his father, and his heart melted.

  He couldn’t help but smile at her and he did something that he’d never done in his entire career as a surgeon. “I promise.”

  And he hoped that he could keep his promise to her.

  He planned to keep that promise to her. He would make sure Charles pulled through this surgery.

  As he scrubbed in he couldn’t help but think of the chance he hadn’t had with his father to say what he’d felt. How he’d hated that he had been isolated as a child after his mother had died. How his father had resented him.

  How lonely he’d felt.

  How he’d needed his father, but had never had one.

  Even Zoe hadn’t really had their father, though he’d tolerated her more, but she had been so young when their father had died. She didn’t have the same feelings of disconnection or resentment that he had. Instead, he’d stepped up to be the father theirs had never been.

  Charles had wanted to be a father, but had been denied that chance and Geraldine wasn’t giving it to him. Wasn’t allowing him to be a father. So he was damn well going to make sure that Charles pulled through so that there was a chance for them.

  When he entered the operating theater he was gowned and gloved. His instruments were ready and Margaret was waiting for him.

  Charles was under general and everything was ready to go.

  He took a calming breath and closed his eyes. He emptied his mind of everything. Including Geraldine. All he could see was the heart, the organ he knew so well, visualized for him in his mind.

  And he thought of where the angiosarcoma lay.

  He knew where to begin the point of attack.

  “Scalpel.”

  Margaret handed him the scalpel and he went to work. As he worked he could feel he was being watched and glanced up at the gallery. He didn’t think that anyone would be in there because it was the middle of the night, but Geraldine was there. Standing, watching pensively.

  He nodded at her in acknowledgment.

  And she returned the nod.

  Even though she shouldn’t be watching her father undergoing this surgery he knew there was no way she was going to budge. Geraldine was here for the long haul.

  As was he.

  He turned his attention back to Charles and put Geraldine out of his mind. He told himself she wasn’t even there, because right now he had to stay focused. He was going to save his friend, his mentor. The man who was a bit of a father figure to him. If he failed in this endeavor he knew all would be lost with Geraldine. Even though she’d hurt him deeply with her words, she’d been right to say them. Just as she’d run from surgery, he too had run from finding any kind of happiness. From allowing any kind of love to enter his heart, using the excuse of his father and a genetic condition to decide his destiny.

  They were the same, try as he may to deny it in his own mind. He was in love with Geraldine Collins, because she saw him for who he really was when he couldn’t even see it himself.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “DR. COLLINS?”

  Geraldine woke with a start, her body cramped because she’d been curled up in a chair in the gallery. The last thing she remembered was watching Thomas performing surgery on her father. It had been a long surgery, as most heart surgeries of this nature were. They had been trying to remove a tumor that was growing inside her father’s heart.

  She’d watched for as long as she could, all the while praying her father would pull through.

  Geri had watched as Thomas’s hands had worked so diligently to save her father.

  To give her a second chance of knowing her father. There was beauty in Thomas’s surgical skill, the way he moved. She hoped one day to return to the operating theater herself. She had to stop running. She had to try again.

  Thomas had been working so hard to save her father when she had treated him so poorly. And when she’d been standing in her father’s home last night, staring at the words he’d written to her mother, she’d realized that she was doing exactly the same thing as her mother had done to her father. She had been pushing him away.

  Geri had never thought she was like her mother. She’d striven so hard not to be like her mother, yet she was. When it came to matters of the heart she was just as cold and emotionless as her mother was.

  She’d come to the hospital to make amends and when she’d seen her father wasn’t in his room, it had been more than she could bear. And she’d been worried that she’d missed her chance. So she’d begged Thomas to make a promise she knew it was impossible to keep, because one never knew when doing a surgery of this nature. It was a promise surgeons didn’t make to patients, yet he’d looked down at her, his expression soft, and he’d made her that promise.

  “I promise.”

  Thomas’s words ran through her head during the surgery and she’d closed her eyes, praying that she would be given a chance to right the wrongs she’d done.

  She’d blown it with Thomas, but if her father pulled through there was a chance that she could make it right with him. Geri swore she would make it right.

  “Dr. Collins, the surgery end
ed an hour ago.”

  “What time is it?” Geri asked the nurse who had come to wake her.

  “It’s seven in the morning. There’s a class of medical students coming in and they need the gallery. They’re going to view a cholecystectomy.”

  She got up. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to delay the surgery.”

  The nurse smiled. “It’s quite all right. You haven’t delayed anything.”

  “Where is my father?” she asked with some trepidation.

  “He’s in the intensive care unit.”

  Relief washed over her. “He survived?”

  The nurse smiled. “He did.”

  Geri got up out of the chair and headed out of the gallery. Her body was stiff and she felt a bit like death warmed over, but she had to go and see her father. She was going to start making things right.

  When she got down to the intensive care unit she paused at the door. Thomas was in the chair, charting. Her father was unconscious and pale. As if sensing her presence, Thomas looked up from his charting and stood up.

  “Geraldine, are you...? How are you?” he asked. “I was wondering where you were.”

  “Fine. I was sleeping in the gallery.”

  He winced. “That sounds uncomfortable.”

  “It was.” She worried her bottom lip. “How is my father?”

  Thomas nodded. “He’s good. He did very well coming off bypass.”

  Geraldine nodded. “Good.”

  “I was able to removed ninety-five percent of the tumor. The five percent that’s still there is small and we’ll start a very intensive chemotherapy and radiation routine. He’ll probably need more surgery, but perhaps we can slow the growth of the angiosarcoma.”

  Tears stung her eyes. “That’s...that’s wonderful.”

  Thomas nodded. “I’ve finished his charting. I’ll...leave you with him.”

  As he walked past Geraldine grabbed his hand. He glanced over his shoulder at her as she held it tight and whispered, “Thank you.”

  He didn’t say anything, just nodded and then left the room.

  Geraldine’s knees knocked together and she took the chair that Thomas had just vacated. It was so quiet in the room, except for the sounds of the monitors, but she never really noticed those sounds. Those sounds were comforting to her.

  Those sounds meant that her father was still alive. That she would have another chance with him. A chance to make it right and get to know him. She took her father’s hand in hers and squeezed it tight.

  “I read the letter,” she whispered. “The one that’s taped behind the picture of you and Mother. I’m sorry, I think I misjudged you.”

  Her father’s eyes opened. Just briefly, then they met hers and lit up with recognition. He tried to open his mouth to say something, but winced.

  “Don’t try to speak,” Geraldine said.

  “How?” he croaked out.

  “How did it go?”

  He nodded very slightly.

  “It went well. Thomas got ninety-five percent of the angiosarcoma. You’ll need intensive chemotherapy and radiation therapy, but it went well.”

  Her father smiled and relaxed, squeezing her hand.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” she whispered.

  His eyes opened again, a questioning expression on his face.

  “I was cold to you. I was angry with you for not being there all those years.”

  His expression softened and he opened his mouth, but she shook her head.

  “Don’t speak. Please, just let me talk. I know you didn’t know about me, but that didn’t matter to me. I just pushed you away, but I know... I know how Mother hurt you. You tried to reach out to her. You sent her a letter to a Glasgow address, that’s where I grew up. We were there. She lied to you and me. I swore I would never be like her, but I was. I was pushing you away when you were just trying to get to know me. I don’t know you, but I want to. I want a chance before it’s too late. I’m so sorry, Father.”

  She leaned her head on his arm and let the tears pour out of her. His hand touched the back of her head, stroking her hair, and when she looked up she could see tears in his eyes too.

  “I’d like that very much, Geraldine.”

  Geri clung to her father. She was going to make things right.

  She was going to make everything right in her life, no matter how long it took.

  * * *

  Geraldine took a seat in Lord Twinsbury’s reserved first-class train compartment. He’d graduated from Cambridge and had a long-reserved standing seat at King’s College Chapel for their Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols that was held every Christmas Eve.

  She hadn’t particularly wanted to leave London and come to Cambridge for this, but her father and Lord Twinsbury had insisted that she attend.

  “Not everyone gets a chance to attend,” her father had argued. “Lord Twinsbury is offering you one of his seats. Take the chance and go. It’s spectacular.”

  Her father was going to be in the hospital over Christmas. She was going to be spending Christmas morning at the hospital with him. And since she was going to be alone on Christmas Eve, she’d decided to take her father’s advice and attend the Cambridge event.

  Since Jensen had the night off, she was taking the train to Cambridge and planned to stay overnight at a small inn near the university. Jensen had promised to pick her up tomorrow morning because he had plans to visit her father too.

  So she sat, watching the world pass outside her train window. People bustling along the platform, carrying brightly colored packages and greeting loved ones. She envied them.

  Though she had her father now. And that was something. She was going to make the most of every moment they had.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  Geri was surprised to see Thomas standing in the doorway of Lord Twinsbury’s first-class compartment. He didn’t wait for her to answer and shut the door, sitting across from her.

  Her heart skipped a beat, seeing him. There was so much she wanted to say to him but she didn’t know how to say it. “I don’t believe it’s taken.”

  Thomas grinned. “Good.”

  “I thought you didn’t like to come to these things?” she said as he leaned back against the seat. “I mean, this is going to be televised.”

  “Yes, well, I thought I would make an exception this time.”

  “Really?”

  Thomas nodded. “Yes. It’s time to start making a big deal about Christmas, I think.”

  “I’m very glad to hear about that.” She nodded. “It’s the one time of year I truly love.”

  “Yes. I know.” He grinned. “You’ve made amends with your father, I see.”

  “I have,” she said. “And with myself. I’m afraid I’m going to have to find our practice a replacement cardiologist.”

  “Why?” He frowned.

  “I’m going to return to surgery. I’m going to be a surgeon. I only had one year left. I’ve let fear drive me for so long. I’ve pushed people out and run away when things got too hard. Just like my mother always did. I suffered for it. I wanted to be a surgeon and I really see no other choice. I want to be a surgeon.”

  Thomas smiled. “I’m pleased. I knew you wanted to be a surgeon.”

  “Yes, well, don’t look so pleased with yourself.”

  “I think I will gloat a bit.” He grinned.

  “You were right about it all and I’m...I’m sorry for the things I said. I was completely wrong about you.”

  “No, you weren’t,” he said, and she was confused.

  “Of course I was.”

  “No, because I did the same as you. I pushed you away.”

  “I think we both pushed each other away,” she said.

  “I thi
nk I pushed the hardest. I was scared of a genetic condition that might not amount to anything. I pushed people away, afraid to suffer loss like I did as a child. I guess I didn’t feel worthy enough to have love.”

  “You have Zoe,” she whispered. “You have plenty of love.”

  Thomas nodded. “I do, but I don’t have you.”

  The words caught her off guard and she wasn’t sure that she’d heard him correctly. “Pardon?”

  “You, Geraldine. It’s you I love. You saw me for more than my title, which was all Cassandra and the women I had brief affairs with saw. My father saw me as a reminder of my mother. Only Zoe could see me for who I really was, but then you came along and you were so unimpressed by everything. All you saw me as was the surgeon. The only thing, except for my sister, I loved and had left in this world. You saw me.”

  “I didn’t see you, Thomas. How could I when I didn’t even see myself?” Her voice hitched.

  “You did, though. You pushed through the walls I’d built for so long to protect myself. Just as I broke through yours.” He took her hand and placed it across his chest. “You are my heart and soul. You made me realize I want to risk it all. I love you.”

  A tear escaped from her eye and rolled down her cheek, because there was no sense in hiding what she felt. “I was so afraid of love. No one ever loved me. I thought Frederick did, but I was wrong. I didn’t know what love was until I met you. You infuriating man. I love you too.”

  Thomas moved beside her and touched her face gently, wiping away the tears slipping down her cheeks and kissing her in the private compartment, while people buzzed and milled about outside, trying to find their own trains or seats.

  Normally this would bother her, people seeing her like this, but she didn’t care as she clung to Thomas. She’d thought she’d ruined her chance with him. Her chance at love, because she’d been so afraid to chase after it.