The Legendary Playboy Surgeon

by Alison Roberts

  So why hadn’t he been able to expunge the image of Kate Graham from his mind over the last few days?

  Because he felt bad, that’s why. It had been a mean thing to say, telling her that she needed to get a life. Adding that her white coat looked ridiculous had been nothing more than childish. And also mean. Connor was not a mean person. The only justification for the way he’d attacked her was that he had been in the middle of a fairly devastating emotional experience.

  Connor scrubbed harder at his hands with the soap-impregnated brush. Under his nails. Between his fingers. Hard enough to hurt.

  He’d been to young Liam’s funeral only yesterday and even during the service he’d been thinking about Kate. A distraction, maybe, from memories that had the potential to wreak havoc in his life even now.

  He’d thought about the way her face had changed when she’d realised what had actually been going on. The reason he’d done something as outrageous as taking a huge, dirty motorbike into a children’s ward. She’d gone so pale. Been so lost for words and...when he’d thought about it later there’d been something in her eyes that had suggested she was all too familiar with the kind of pain life could dish out sometimes.

  How did she know that? What had happened to her?

  Something big enough to make her the way she was? As if she didn’t want to connect with people. Almost as though she was afraid of the good things life could offer.

  Why?

  It wasn’t as if she was a wimp. It took guts to see a medical degree through. And brain power. And...she wasn’t that bad looking. If she undid those buttons and took off those glasses and let her hair do something remotely natural, she could be a different

  person.

  Connor found himself grinning as he angled his reddened but virtually sterile hands under the stream of warm water that he activated with the foot control. He was fantasising about a scene where Kate was the cliché librarian or secretary who loosens her clothing, sheds the spectacles and then shakes out a magnificent mane of hair to transform from a prude into a total vamp for some bemused but appreciative guy.

  Like him.

  The grin became a grimace. What was he thinking?

  Just as well the cute new nurse was there to tie the strings of his gown. She could line up with at least half a dozen of his previous girlfriends and be like a pea in a pod. Great looking and great fun to be with, at least until they got ideas about it meaning more than it did.

  This afternoon’s case was a long and complicated one. A pillion passenger on his big brother’s bike, fourteen-year-old Dillon had such badly broken bones in both his legs and one arm it was going to be a considerable challenge to restore normal function for the teenager. The bones needed precise alignment, using external fixation, and there were tendons and ligaments to patch together. There were also quite long periods when Connor had to step back to allow other specialist surgeons to work their magic with the nerves and blood vessels that needed major repair.

  Just the kind of opportunity he knew how to take advantage of. The new nurse was being used as a gofer as she got used to her new working environment and there were times when she wasn’t required to fetch or carry anything so she was standing around watching as well.

  Connor stood beside her.

  ‘Hey... You’re a new face.’

  A bit of a new face anyway but Connor had seen her disappearing into the female changing room so he’d seen the long blonde hair that was now covered by a disposable hat. The lower half of her face was covered by a mask now too but he’d already seen her smiling at the nursing staff she’d arrived with. Having only her eyes visible made them even more appealing. Very blue they were. Reminded him of...hell, any number of women probably.

  ‘I’m Bella,’ she whispered. ‘This is my third day at St Pat’s.’

  ‘Connor,’ he murmured back. ‘Delighted to meet you, Bella.’

  Her eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘I’ve heard about you.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘All good things, I hope.’

  ‘Depends on your definition of “good”.’ Bella giggled and earned a disapproving glance from a senior nurse.

  The anaesthetist glanced up with a resigned sigh. ‘Give it a rest, Matthews. You’re not actually obliged to pick up every new nurse, you know.’

  ‘Hey...I’m just trying to make Bella here feel welcome.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ another nurse said. A ripple of laughter went through the theatre staff.

  Connor grinned along with them but made a mental note to point out to his anaesthetist colleague, Mike, that the pot shouldn’t be calling the kettle too black. Maybe they’d be able to get a game of squash in this evening and they could discuss it then.

  He didn’t get another chance to try and chat Bella up. Partly because he was too busy with his work but also because she got sent out of Theatre. Maybe it wasn’t really her fault that the accident had happened. Technicians were moving some heavy gear and she got in the way somehow and was almost knocked off her feet. Fortunately, she managed not to fall into the sterile field but nobody was thrilled by the explosive disruption of the heavy metal object she’d been carrying hitting the floor. Bella didn’t look too thrilled either, because the collection of used surgical instruments destined for the steriliser had landed on her foot and she was limping quite badly as she slunk out.

  She wasn’t limping when he spotted her later, having finally escaped the intense surgical session. She was sitting on a couch near a set of lifts, her shoe off, rubbing at her foot.

  ‘Broken bone?’ Connor suggested hopefully. ‘Do you need the services of an orthopaedic surgeon perhaps?’

  Bella scowled at him. ‘You don’t need to rub it in. I already feel like a complete klutz. It’s just a bruise.’ She glanced at her mobile phone as a text-message alert sounded. ‘Darn...I was hoping to get a ride home but it looks like I’ll have to find a bus.’

  It was obviously painful to try and put her foot into her shoe. And no wonder, the high heels weren’t exactly practical.

  Connor couldn’t resist a maiden in distress. ‘Don’t force it,’ he advised. ‘Leave it off and get some ice on your foot when you get home.’

  ‘That’ll be a good look, running for the bus in bare feet.’

  ‘You could call a taxi.’ Connor wasn’t going to leap in to the rescue if it wasn’t welcome.

  Bella shook her head firmly. ‘No way. I’m saving up to head overseas. Every penny counts.’

  ‘In that case, please let me offer to be of service with no scalpel in sight. I have an extra helmet in my locker.’

  ‘Helmet?’ Bella’s eyes brightened. ‘You ride a bike?’

  ‘Sure do.’

  Her glance was curious. ‘You’re an orthopaedic surgeon and you just spent hours putting a teenager back together after he fell off a motorbike. Are you nuts?’

  ‘Probably. Want a ride home?’

  Bella grinned. ‘Sure.’

  * * *

  It was all a bit too easy, Connor decided, following Bella’s directions to one of the nicer city suburbs. He should be delighted. Here he was, riding his bike with the arms of a beautiful girl wrapped around his waist. A perfect girl, given her liking for motorbikes and the willingness to take a bit of a risk. Taking her home where she’d probably ask him in for a coffee or something and he could offer to check out her foot and one thing would inevitably lead to another and...

  There was no challenge here.

  The sacrilegious thought that the predictability could be boring was unexpected. Disturbing, even.

  So disturbing that Connor suppressed his intention to decline the offer to go inside the rather lovely old house he took her to. He must be tired or something, he decided. Maybe the loss of one of his young patients had affected him more than he’d realised. If an even
ing with Bella didn’t perk him up, he’d know there was something seriously amiss.

  ‘Nice place,’ he said, pulling off his helmet.

  ‘It belongs to my aunt,’ Bella told him. ‘I’m just living with her while I’m working at St Pat’s. She works there, too. Come on in. You probably know each other already.’

  It was quite possible. Connor was friendly with a lot of the older members of the nursing staff. It was a bonus that Bella wasn’t living with a bunch of nurses close to her own age. Even with his current ambivalence about taking this acquaintance any further, it would be rather awkward if an old girlfriend was lurking.

  He had time to look around as Bella hobbled up the hallway ahead of him. The house was even nicer on the inside. The aunt clearly had good taste. She could cook, too, judging by the very appetising aroma that was coming from the area Bella veered into at the end of the hallway.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ he heard a woman’s voice say in concern. ‘Why are you limping? What have you done to yourself this time?’

  This time? Was Bella accident prone? Maybe she needed looking after.

  ‘Someone moved an X-ray machine in Theatre and I wasn’t expecting it,’ Bella was explaining as Connor entered the room. ‘I lost my grip on this bucket of stuff for the steriliser. It wasn’t my fault.’ She twisted her head. ‘Was it, Connor?’

  But Connor couldn’t say anything in Bella’s defence. He hadn’t seen the incident in the first place and right now it was the furthest thing from his mind. He wasn’t even looking at Bella. He was staring at Kate Graham.

  At least, he thought it was Kate.

  Maybe it was the good twin? This woman looked like Kate but couldn’t look more different, which made no sense. His head was spinning. The good twin was wearing jeans. Not just any old jeans. These were beloved old, soft, faded jeans with frayed knees and bare feet beneath them. There was a pale, grey T-shirt that was way too big. Big enough for a bare shoulder to be peeping through the neckline. She had no glasses on and her hair hung in a black curtain almost to her waist. A damp kind of curtain, as though she’d just jumped out of a shower.

  Or into a movie scene. The prude versus vamp one. To his horror, Connor felt something remarkably like a blush stirring under his skin.

  Bella was looking at him and then at Kate. Back and forth as if she was watching a slow-motion tennis game.

  ‘I thought you guys would know each other,’ she said. She gave an exasperated huff. ‘Kate, this is Connor. I can’t remember his last name. He’s a surgeon at St Pat’s. Connor, this is my aunt, Kate Graham. She hangs out in Pathology.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess St Pat’s is bigger than I thought so maybe your paths never cross.’

  Connor was grappling with a new sensation.

  Acute embarrassment? Probably. He couldn’t escape the impression that he was seeing something he wasn’t supposed to be seeing. As if he was some kind of voyeur peeping through a gap in a curtain. This was even worse than the bit of leftover guilt from the knowledge of how rude he’d been to her the other day. On top of both those unpleasant sensations there was also something he didn’t want to identify that had to be blamed on the absurd flight of fancy whilst scrubbing in this afternoon.

  He cleared his throat. He had to say something. Kate was doing that totally-lost-for-words thing again.

  ‘They’ve...um...crossed,’ he muttered.

  ‘Oh, good.’ Bella gave Kate a quick hug on her way towards the fridge. ‘Have we got any ice? I think I should put some on my foot. Connor was kind enough to give me a ride home when I found I couldn’t fit my shoe back on.’

  ‘Three days,’ Kate muttered, her tone faintly incredulous.

  ‘What?’ Bella looked up from the depths of the freezer. ‘You think I need to ice my foot for three days?’

  ‘I... No, of course not. If it’s still that sore and swollen tomorrow, you’d better get an X-ray. You might have broken something.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Connor said. ‘Heavy things, those buckets. Especially when they’re full of the kind of surgical gear we use for rearranging bones.’

  Bella had a bag of frozen peas in her hand. ‘Can I use these? Much better than ice blocks.’

  ‘Sure. Just don’t put them back in the freezer so we eat them by mistake.’

  ‘Speaking of eating...’ Bella lifted a lid on a pot. ‘Ooh, yum. This smells divine.’ She grinned at Connor. ‘My aunt is the best cook in the world.’

  ‘I can believe that.’ Connor couldn’t help licking his lips.

  Bella took another look in the pot. ‘There’s heaps here. Connor could stay and have some dinner with us, couldn’t he, Kate?’

  ‘I...uh...’ Kate had no idea what to say.

  This was an appalling situation. Nobody from her work had ever been into her home. Her private life was exactly that. Private. She didn’t want anyone here. She especially didn’t want this man. St Pat’s playboy doctor. The one who thought she was buttoned up and needed a life. She had exactly the life she wanted. Private and...and safe.

  Until now.

  Good grief, she was only just out of the shower and her attire could hardly be deemed presentable. And even if she’d still been in her work clothes she would have felt half-naked with that look he’d given her when he’d come into the room. For heaven’s sake, he’d brought Bella home. What did he think he was doing, looking at her like that?

  And why did it give her the most peculiar ripple of sensation in places she was barely aware of?

  She’d known Bella would be capable of discovering the most desirable of any available men at St Pat’s and she had imagined her arriving home on the back of Connor’s motorbike. But she’d given it a fortnight. Three days had be breaking some sort of record, surely? And did she want to sit and watch this embryonic, going-nowhere, purely sexual relationship develop under her gaze? In her own home?

  No, she damn well didn’t.

  Connor was looking just as uncomfortable at the prospect but somehow that didn’t mollify Kate in the least.

  ‘I can’t stay,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I’ve got—’

  He didn’t get time to finish his sentence because Bella had turned around with the bag of peas in her hand to head for a chair but when she put weight on her foot, she gave a cry of pain and looked like she was about to fall. Connor stepped forward with commendable speed, caught Bella and practically lifted her bodily onto the kitchen bench.

  ‘That foot needs looking at,’ he said firmly. ‘Sit still.’

  Bella sat.

  Connor pulled a kitchen chair close and perched on the edge of it so that the injured foot was close to eye level. Then he put his hands on it.

  ‘Ouch,’ Bella said.

  ‘How much ouch?’

  ‘Lots.’

  ‘You’ve certainly got a good bruise coming up. Good thing you missed a direct hit on your toes. Can you wiggle them all?’

  Bella wiggled.

  Kate watched. There was indeed a large bruise on the top of Bella’s foot and it probably hurt a great deal. How crazy was it to be feeling...what, envious of her niece right now? No. She was feeling frustrated, that’s what it was. She wanted Connor out of her kitchen. Out of her house. Preferably out of her life.

  Connor had his hand under the foot. ‘Try and push my hand away.’ He rested his hand gently on the top. ‘Pull up against my hand.’ Then he began carefully but thoroughly to palpate all the tiny bones Kate knew a foot contained.

  ‘Don’t think anything’s broken,’ he said finally. ‘But the only way to know for sure is to get an X-ray. Maybe I should run Bella back to A and E.’

  ‘No need,’ Kate said crisply. ‘I can take her. I don’t think riding a bike with a potentially broken foot is the best idea, do you?’

  She didn’t mean to sound like some pri
m school teacher but it certainly came out that way. She saw the look that Connor and Bella exchanged. Her niece was smiling.

  ‘Don’t take any notice,’ she told Connor. ‘She’s a sweetheart, really.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Connor murmured, sounding anything but. He backed away. ‘Let me know how it goes,’ he said by way of farewell.

  Kate flicked off the controls on her stove. Dinner could wait. Her appetite had deserted her in any case.

  ‘Come on.’ She helped Bella down from the bench. ‘You can sit a bit closer to floor level while I go and make myself presentable. Then we’ll go and see what the damage is.’

  The rest of the damage maybe. Something felt very odd about her home right now. As though something indefinable had been broken. Connor was gone but she could still feel his presence in her house.

  And she didn’t like the feeling one little bit.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘CONNOR! What are you doing here?’

  Good question.

  Connor wasn’t quite sure of the answer, mind you. He should be playing squash with Mike the anaesthetist. Having a beer after the game and chewing the fat with the lads. He should, at least, be having his dinner.

  But here he was in the emergency department of St Pat’s. In a cubicle where Bella was lounging on the bed and Kate was sitting beside her, ramrod straight against the back of the chair.

  No. This was Dr Graham sitting here. Connor sighed inwardly, knowing that this was largely why he had found himself drawn in this direction.

  It was nearly an hour and a half since he’d left Bella sitting on the kitchen bench and he’d been out on the motorway, with the night air rushing past, while he’d tried to sort out the puzzle in his head.

  The puzzle that Kate Graham represented.

  The split personality.

  Dr Graham. Prim and buttoned up at work. Closed off.

  The house fitted with that image of her. Tasteful and perfect and so damned tidy. Like she was now, with her hair scraped back again and her glasses back in place and wearing a skirt and jacket that looked like the female equivalent of a business suit.