The Italian Surgeon

by Meredith Webber

  Children!

  For the first time in four years Rachel considered—rationally—the possibility of having other children herself. After all, if she was done with non-involvement, might not children be somewhere in her future?

  But to lose another baby?

  Go through that pain?

  She wasn’t sure it would be possible…

  Luca had been with the Archers the day after the op—the first time she’d peered through the glass windows into the small room to see how Bobbie was faring. Luca had brought in another chair and had been sitting in front of the couple, talking earnestly.

  Offering them money?

  The thought had made her feel slightly ill, though she’d known the Archers desperately needed help. But it was yet another reminder of Luca’s wealth that had churned inside her.

  He’d glanced up and seen her, immediately excusing himself to the couple and coming out.

  ‘It is you who should be in there,’ he said, studying her as if to gauge if she could take the emotional fallout. ‘They were thanking me for explaining things—apologising for their back-flip and saying how your words kept coming back to them. It changed their minds—the things you said about giving Bobbie a chance.’

  ‘I don’t think I need to talk to them again,’ Rachel told him, mainly because her heart, which she’d thought she’d brought under control with reminders about the difference in her and Luca’s respective lives, was behaving very badly, and a return to her non-involvement policy—with babies and with men—suddenly seemed a very good idea.

  ‘But they want to thank you,’ Luca protested, warm brown eyes smiling persuasively down at her.

  ‘I was only doing my job,’ Rachel told him, and she walked away. But later in the day she returned, drawn to the beautiful little boy, and so the friendship began, and thoughts of having babies sneaked back into her heart.

  Not Luca’s babies, of course.

  She was telling herself this as she walked to work a few days after Bobbie’s operation. She was on her own, as she wanted to get there early and Kurt was still in bed. Today’s list was long, and although some of the operations they’d perform were only minor, she still had to see all was in readiness, not just for the first procedure but for all the ensuing ones.

  Luca, standing at his window and looking out at the sun rising over the ocean, saw her leave her apartment building. Something had come between them in the last few days. One day the woman had been kissing him with such passion it would surely have led to bed, then suddenly she had withdrawn, talking, joking with him, but with an invisible barrier erected between them.

  Did she regret telling him of her child who died? Or had her involvement with Bobbie brought back thoughts of her ex-husband, who maybe, in spite of her protestations, she still loved?

  Even from this height he could see the easy way she walked, and he could picture her face, lifted to the wind that blew pink petals from the flowers on the trees that lined the road. But who could understand women? He had enough problems with Italian women, in spite of growing up with four sisters, but American women—sometimes it seemed they were a different species altogether.

  Yet he knew enough of Rachel to know he wanted her—physically, more than any woman he’d ever met.

  Beyond that? He had no idea, apart from the fact that she’d be an asset to his clinic. Was that a better reason to be pursuing her than lust?

  Surely it was. It had substance, and purpose and practicality all going for it, though a squirmy feeling in his guts suggested a woman might not see it in the same light.

  Especially a woman like Rachel.

  She disappeared around a bend in the road, and he walked away from the window. It was time to shower and dress and go to work himself.

  ‘Will you do the PDA on Rohan Williams?’

  Luca turned to find Alex behind him, about to enter the rooms they all shared.

  ‘Of course. I have his notes. Will Scott assist?’

  ‘Scott and Phil,’ Alex told him, ‘but I thought you might like to take the lead.’

  ‘I would indeed,’ Luca said, proud that he was considered enough of the team to take this position in a procedure—albeit a simple one.

  He realised it might not be quite so simple when he saw the theatre crammed with medical students and knew he’d have to explain every move he made.

  ‘Not afraid of operating with an audience, are you?’ Rachel whispered to him, her eyes alight with glee, the barrier he’d sensed apparently lowered for the duration of the operation.

  ‘More afraid of operating so close to you,’ he murmured back, so only she would hear him. ‘Such proximity between us can be very dangerous.’

  He knew she was smiling behind her mask, and he felt a surge of hope that everything would be all right between them once again.

  Then his mind leapt ahead, taking a giant stride as it conjectured that maybe one day this could be their life—working together to save the lives of infants. He hauled back on this flight of fancy. It was enough that Rachel was teasing him again!

  ‘I’m sure you all know,’ he said, addressing the students while Phil made the initial incision, ‘that the ductus arteriosis is a small duct between the aorta and the pulmonary artery that allows the maternal blood in a foetus to travel all around the body. This duct will normally close soon after a baby starts breathing.’

  Someone, presumably a lecturer with the group, had flashed up a diagram of a heart on the wall, with arrows showing normal blood flow and the small hole of the duct between the arteries.

  ‘Sometimes the duct doesn’t close, and we have to do it. The echo will show you more of what we need to do.’ Kurt was in charge of the echocardiogram machine and he manipulated the probe so a picture of Rohan’s heart, as small as a green peach, was flashed on another screen in the state-of-the-art theatre.

  ‘You will see it does not have clean lines like the drawing, but ligaments and blood vessels attached to it, and the pericardiac sac around it—plenty of areas for a mistake. So, first, after opening the pericardium and using small stitches to hold it in place—temporarily, of course—against the ribs so we get a good view, we separate out the tissues until we can clearly see the two arteries.’

  He was good, Rachel realised as she worked beside him as lead surgeon for the first time. His movements were neat and sure—no hesitation, no fumbling.

  But it was a relatively simple operation and, explaining every move, Luca completed it, then as Phil sewed up the incision, Luca gave the students a talk on how important sutures were, and how, by placing them precisely, at an exact distance apart, the surgeon gave the wound a better chance of healing without infection and, as a result, minimised any scarring.

  ‘You talk about me teaching!’ Rachel said to him when she caught up with him in the changing room late in the morning. ‘You handled those kids brilliantly. Do you deal with a lot of students in your clinic?’

  Luca, who, fortunately for Rachel’s peace of mind, was fully dressed, grinned at her.

  ‘I don’t have a clinic yet,’ he said. ‘Well, I have a clinic building, and some staff already appointed, and even a waiting list for procedures when I return and the clinic opens officially, but I have lectured students in hospitals were I worked and trained, and I enjoy imparting what I know to them. Especially the ones who are eager to learn—they are a delight to teach.’

  Rachel smiled to herself at his enthusiasm. Only a good teacher would enjoy his students so much. She would have liked to know more about the clinic as well—would have liked to ask—but she held back. She’d managed to put a little distance between herself and Luca over the last few days—mainly by avoiding him as much as possible, using the excuse of visiting Bobbie to not walk home with him and Kurt.

  Surely she wasn’t going to be tempted back to a closer relationship just because the man was a good teacher and surgeon? Surely the less she knew about Luca the better.

  She showered and changed, intending to
walk back to her flat for lunch, knowing the exercise would get the kinks out of her body and relax her muscles before the afternoon session.

  Had Luca guessed her intention that she saw him just ahead of her on the pathway leading out of the hospital?

  Two choices. Walk behind him all the way back to their separate apartments and be acutely embarrassed if he turned for some reason and saw her stalking him.

  Or call his name.

  She called his name.

  ‘You’re going home?’ he asked, slowing his pace so she could catch up with him.

  ‘I often do when we have two sessions in Theatre in one day. I find the fresh air clears my head and the walk helps me unstiffen.’

  ‘Unstiffen—I like that word.’

  Relief helped the unstiffening process. They were going to have a nice, neutral, non-involvement conversation. The distance she’d cultivated so carefully would remain!

  ‘I’m not sure it is a word,’ Rachel admitted. ‘But it does describe what I feel I need. It’s not that I’m tense during operations—well, not during most of them—but my joints seem to seize up and I need a brisk walk to shake them loose.’

  Luca laughed and put an arm around her shoulders.

  Casual as it was, it still did away with the nice, neutral, non-involvement idea.

  Maybe not from his side, but the heat skating along her nerves with silken insistence certainly had ruined it from her side.

  Would a wild romp in bed with Luca unstiffen all her joints as effectively as walking?

  Unstiffen something, she thought irreverently, then she chided herself for such an earthy thought.

  What was happening to her, that sex was so often in the forefront of her mind?

  Sex and babies, though of the two, the ‘babies’ part was infinitely more scary!

  Could she put it down to the long period of time where there’d been none of either in her life—when she’d avoided babies like the plague and hadn’t felt even mildly interested in a physical relationship?

  And, forgetting babies, could that be nothing more than a build-up of frustration, though she was reasonably sure she hadn’t felt frustrated?

  ‘Is it such a puzzle you are contemplating?’ Luca asked, when they reached the entrance to her building. She turned to him, eyebrows raised in query.

  ‘You are frowning—almost fiercely. I’m hoping I’m not the cause.’

  ‘Only in part,’ Rachel told him, smiling because it was the truth. For whatever reason, she was attracted to Luca—in fact, there had to be a stronger word than attracted, though she couldn’t think of it. And if the operation on Bobbie Archer hadn’t been called for that evening when they’d kissed, she knew there was a ninety-nine point nine per cent chance they’d have ended up in bed.

  And if that had happened, she’d no longer have been frustrated, and that would no longer have been a reason for how she was feeling.

  Luca was watching her as if trying to read her thoughts, and she was glad he couldn’t because if they didn’t make sense to her, they certainly wouldn’t make sense to him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THEY talked of the operation as they walked, and of Bobbie Archer’s progress, but beneath the conversation something else was going on. Like sub-titles in a foreign film, Luca’s body spoke to hers, and for all she tried to stop it, her body responded.

  ‘Well, here we are. I’m off upstairs for a quick peanut butter and jelly sandwich.’

  Luca’s face showed such disgust she had to laugh.

  ‘It’s comfort food,’ she said to him.

  ‘And you need comfort?’ His voice, deep and husky, and his eyes, suddenly hot with desire, told her just what manner of comfort he was offering.

  ‘Not that kind of comfort,’ she said, though her heart was beating erratically, and her breath coming fast and shallow. ‘Peanut butter and jelly—they’re reminders of home, and childhood—of simple things and simpler times when I didn’t know beautiful children like Reece and Bobbie could be born with heart defects.’

  ‘I, too, like simple things,’ Luca said, and Rachel hesitated. Should she invite Luca into her house? The fairy-tale that still fluttered around in her thoughts switched from Cinderella to Red Riding Hood, and though Luca was no wolf, he nonetheless represented danger.

  ‘Well, peanut butter, jelly and bread are the only things I know for sure we have in the pantry. Some days the refrigerator harbours cheese and ham and fruit, but on other days its shelves are bare, apart from mystery objects sprouting hairy blue mould.’

  ‘I need to collect some papers from my apartment,’ Luca said, and Rachel laughed.

  ‘Very subtle! In that case, I’ll see you later.’

  ‘You will indeed,’ Luca promised, then he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. Rachel felt a tremor of desire begin, not at the point of contact with Luca’s lips, but deep inside her belly.

  A barely heard whimper of need fluttered from her lips. Luca drew her close, hugged her tight, then stepped away.

  ‘It’s as well you only had peanut and jelly to offer. Had I come inside we might not have wasted time on food. I’ll meet you back here in twenty minutes, and we will walk decorously back to the hospital together.’

  He smiled and touched a finger to her lips. ‘So proper, though proper is not how I wish to be with you.’

  It was all too much for Rachel and she moved swiftly away, amazed she hadn’t melted with desire right there on the footpath.

  What would a puddle of desire look like? she wondered as she climbed the steps. And if a kiss could turn her boneless, what would making love with Luca do to her?

  Oh, dear!

  She unlocked her door and stepped into the flat. With her knick-knacks scattered around and Kurt’s jazz musician posters on the walls, it should have felt like home, but it still had the soulless feeling of rented space—of a temporary abode too long inhabited by people passing through.

  Was that what she was doing? Physically, she was making a sandwich—and, having found a fresh tomato, using that instead of comfort food—but was she just passing through life? Had the death of Reece and Jake’s defection turned her into an onlooker in life rather than a participant?

  It was a sobering realisation, and though she argued she actively participated in work and work-related matters, she knew as far as her social life went, it was true.

  ‘So?’ she asked herself as she walked back down the stairs.

  The word echoed in the stairwell but no one answered—the ghosts of those other people who’d passed through before her not offering any advice at all!

  Luca watched her walk out the front door. Long-limbed and lithe, she moved with an unconscious grace that he knew was as much a part of her as breathing. He also knew if he complimented her on it, she would be embarrassed rather than pleased.

  He had dated American women before, and had not found them so different, but this one? At times it seemed she was from another planet, not just another country.

  She did not like compliments or fancy restaurants and though she had kissed him with such passion—or perhaps because of it?—she then changed and held him some way apart, so he had no idea whether his pursuit was gaining ground or losing it.

  ‘You move beautifully, gracefully.’

  ‘Crikey!’ she said, then she laughed.

  ‘I knew you would laugh if I told you,’ Luca muttered at her. ‘Why are you so afraid of compliments? I wouldn’t offer false praise, but I see your grace and it feels right to speak of it.’

  She turned towards him and he could see her embarrassment not only in a high wash of colour on her cheekbones but in her expressive eyes as well.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not used to people telling me things like that. I don’t know how to react.’

  He took her hand and brought it to her lips.

  ‘You smile at me, and you say, “Thank you, Luca.” Is that so hard?’

  ‘No, I guess not, but if I accept your compliment—th
at I walk gracefully—I know for sure the next thing I’m going to do is trip over something and make a complete fool of myself. I’m not good at this stuff, Luca.’

  She had walked on and he kept pace with her.

  ‘Then let me teach you,’ he suggested.

  Silence, though he felt her body tense, and he knew she was thinking of lessons of another kind—as he was all the time when he was with her. Though they would teach each other in the bedroom—he was not vain enough to think otherwise.

  Then she smiled and he felt as if the sun had come out from behind clouds. Such a cliché, he thought, but what other way to describe a feeling that made the day brighter and his body warmer?

  ‘OK,’ she said, and he knew she understood the implications of both his suggestion and her own reply. Their relationship had moved in the right direction at last!

  But the afternoon was tough, and the final operation on an eighteen-month-old boy with coarctation of the aorta—a significant narrowing of the body’s main artery, preventing blood circulating properly through the body—became complicated when Phil, who was operating, discovered the little patient’s body had produced subsidiary vessels in an attempt to fix the problem and, rather than just removing the narrow part of the aorta and rejoining the ends, he had to find out where the new vessels led before he could move them.

  ‘Damn, that’s a coronary artery we’ve cut, Scott, not a subsidiary,’ Phil said, as blood spurted everywhere.

  ‘I’ll sew it up,’ Luca said calmly, ‘while you continue with what you are doing, Phil.’

  But the coronary arteries supplied the heart muscle with the blood they need to keep pumping, and without that blood the heart grew sluggish. Rachel could see the little organ swelling as blood collected within it.

  ‘Damn!’ Phil said again, while Rachel gently squeezed the bloated heart to help it pump.

  Luca, she knew, would be sewing swiftly, reconnecting the two ends of the severed artery neatly and efficiently. This was what being part of a team was all about.