‘He doesn’t seem upset,’ Alex said, but Will was more concerned about the futility of having a bird as one’s only protection.
‘You should get a dog,’ he told Alex, who laughed.
‘And leave the poor thing on its own all day? I’d have to get a dog-walker and a vet and Buddy mightn’t take to him and then where would I be?’
‘Safer, if it was a big dog,’ Will growled, but he knew it was a losing battle and changed tack—thinking of the weekend ahead of them.
‘Can I see you tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘I’m on call again so Mum’s taken Charlotte up the coast to my sister’s place. She has three little ones and Charlotte adores them. We could have an early surf, the tide would be in, and the waves are forecast to be small but curlers. Then we could finish with breakfast at the surf club.’
‘You and Dave were always surfing. You still surf?’
Will met her eyes.
‘It’s the one thing that kept me sane after Elise died,’ he said, and Alex understood.
How often, way back then, had she taken the children to the beach to explore the rock pools while Dave and Will had surfed and Isobel had sat on the veranda of the surf club, reading, until it had been time for them to join her for breakfast.
Thinking back to that time, she realised that playing with the children and their innocent, non-judgemental love for her had been a huge part of her recovery from the trauma and torment of that time. As surfing had obviously been for Will…
Lecca, the twins had called her, and rarely had ten minutes gone by without one or other of them, often both, flinging themselves into her arms for a hug.
‘Lecca, we love you,’ they would say, and slowly their love had made her whole again.
Could she revisit that time again?
With another child?
Not yet!
Not until she was really sure she could handle a relationship—not make a botch of it, ruin it, possibly hurt the child…
But she could go to the beach! Could explore the rock pools and remember more good things of the past.
‘I’d love it. I’ll meet you there. What time?’
CHAPTER SEVEN
MEETING HIM THERE meant he wouldn’t have to drive her home, come back into the house and thus put them together in close proximity of a bed. Will saw that immediately and supposed it was wise.
Not that he felt very wise, mostly frustrated, not sexually frustrated—well, that too—but frustrated that his usually intelligent brain couldn’t seem to work out how to handle his attraction to Alex.
‘Six-thirty too early? You’ll surf?’
She laughed.
‘Will, don’t you remember when you and Dave tried to teach me to surf? Didn’t I tell you then that the river was my watery habitat, like the surf was yours? But I love the rock pools, the sea anemones and little, brilliantly coloured crabs. I’ll be very happy there while you brave the waves.’
He smiled and pulled her close, intending just a brief, goodbye kiss, but she kind of melted against him and he was lost, claiming her mouth again, seeking to know her through the touch of lips and tongue.
They were both flushed—he could feel the heat in his cheeks—and breathless when she eased away from him.
‘Doesn’t seem to be going away, this attraction, does it?’ she said, trying for casual, but her voice too huskily intense to carry it off.
‘We’ll work it out,’ he assured her, pulling her back to where he was beginning to feel she belonged—right there in his arms.
She nestled there and he held her, breathing in a faint lemon scent from her shampoo, and woman smell, the scent of Alex.
Once again it was she who broke the embrace.
‘Six-thirty in the morning,’ she said, and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
She stood in the doorway as he left, and he couldn’t help glancing up the road, pleased to see the big four-wheel-drive had departed.
Although now he remembered what had brought him to follow Alex home this evening, he began to wonder if perhaps she did need someone to keep an eye on her—or at least her house—overnight. She’d waved as he’d got into his car, then disappeared inside, shutting the door behind her. He knew she’d lock it, but the thought of someone attacking her house while she was in it made him feel extremely uneasy.
Feeling foolish, he turned his car and drove up the road, as if he was driving away, then turned around and passed the house again, now only lit on the river side—Alex had obviously gone up to her bedroom. He parked where the man he’d thought might be Tony had been parked, and sat for a while, contemplating what he knew was foolishness.
The buzz of his pager stopped further speculation, and lights going on at the front of Alex’s house suggested she, too, had received a message.
Rather than use his mobile he returned to Alex’s house and knocked on the door. He could hear her voice so she must be just inside. The door opened, the phone still in her hand. Not wanting to interrupt her call, he listened as she spoke, although the words ‘…if you get an anaesthetist there to do a TOE. I’m on my way’ weren’t very revealing.
Finishing the phone conversation, she turned to him.
‘Patient I haven’t seen yet, Paul Wilcox, fifty-nine, apparently phoned the ambulance with ripping, tearing pains in his chest, going through to his back. He’s one of Mal’s patients and I glanced through his file—suffers from hypertension and Mal suspected an aortic aneurysm but the bloke hadn’t got around to having the tests Mal ordered—or he’s had them and there were no results in the file. Ambos report shortness of breath, sweating, weaker pulse in one side and some paralysis. They gave him morphine for the pain and beta blockers to slow his heart rate, and he’s due at the hospital about now.’
‘I’ll drive,’ Will said. ‘If there was an aneurysm and it’s ruptured, he’ll have bled out before we get there.’
It sounded harsh but the empathy in Will’s voice told Alex he was simply stating an unnerving fact.
‘Or it’s an aortic dissection and, depending where it is, we’ll need someone to operate,’ Alex guessed. ‘You were paged?’
She knew it was an unnecessary question, but she was trying to switch fully to medical mode, something that used to be so easy back when Will hadn’t been around.
Will nodded, but he was either concentrating on getting them to the hospital in the shortest possible time or he, too, was switching to his medical persona.
‘What will you do?’ he asked.
‘They’ll do a CT scan as soon as the ambulance unloads him. If something shows up on the scan—a problem in the ascending aorta—we’ll do a TOE when we get there to get a clearer picture of just where it is and how bad it is, always given the first scan shows dissection. I’ve asked for an anaesthetist to be on standby for the TOE—oh, I suppose that’s why they paged you.’
‘The transoesophageal echocardiogram, that magic invention,’ Will said. ‘You know the Americans call it a TEE, like the thing you put under a golf ball, because they spell oesophagus with an “e”. I’m always amazed how close we can get the probe to the heart.’
It was conversation, and Alex, focussed on her patient, didn’t reply, too busy wondering just what facilities the hospital had and how easy or otherwise it would be for them to operate on the patient tonight.
They’d paged Will, so presumably—
She had to ask!
‘If it’s a type-A dissection in the ascending aorta, is the hospital equipped for an emergency op? For cardiopulmonary bypass? Do they have a cardiovascular surgical team? Would they have a synthetic graft, say, to help with the repairs? Could they rally enough people in to manage the whole complex procedure?’
Will didn’t answer immediately, too busy driving carefully onto the ferry, but once he’d switched off the engine he turned to her.
‘Hey, they didn’t open a cardiovascular surgical unit to play around with angiograms and cardioversions that even docs like you can do,’ he teased. ‘W
e’ve got the lot and an absolutely fantastic staff who all know they are permanently on call—mainly because of the young lad who needs the new heart. It’s a regional centre of excellence, so the hospitals in nearby coastal and inland towns send their patients here.’
‘Patients who would previously have gone to Sydney,’ Alex mused, still considering the complexity of the operation that might lie ahead for Mr Wilcox.
She could understand Will’s pride in the service the hospital offered when they arrived to see the efficient machine already gathering pace. The patient was in Theatre, the CT scan up on a screen, a radiologist ready to do the TOE, which, once done, clearly showed where the aorta had formed into two channels.
Will introduced her to Norm Wright, the cardiovascular surgeon.
‘You’ll assist?’ Norm asked, before heading off to change and scrub.
‘Love to,’ Alex assured him.
‘And, Will, you’ll play number two to the anaesthetist?’
‘When don’t I?’ grumbled Will, then he turned and smiled at Alex. ‘The hospital board’s been advertising for a new anaesthetist, and, though we’ve a couple of trainees, for jobs like this they hook me in.’
He smiled as he finished the explanation and Alex’s heart skipped a beat.
You can’t go into Theatre with heart skips, she told herself firmly, and by the time she was gowned, masked and scrubbed, she actually believed it.
The team was just as efficient as Will had said it would be. Once in Theatre, he introduced her to the perfusionist, who would run the heart-lung machine, monitor the patient’s blood, and administer the drug to stop the heart while the actual operation took place.
The anaesthetist, a woman, was at the head of the table, Will beside her, their eyes already trained on the monitor, trays of equipment were in place, and the assisting doctors and nurses were talking quietly as they waited for orders.
A younger surgeon opened the patient’s chest, Alex falling easily into place in the team, responding to requests to cauterise small vessels, twisting clamps to hold the chest open.
The perfusionist worked neatly and swiftly to connect the patient to the bypass machine, and on Norm’s nodded command injected the cardioplaegic solution that slowed down the heart to near stopping but kept it alive with rich nutrients.
The bulge where the dissection had taken place was clearly visible, but Norm checked all around it, making sure no other vessels were affected. Alex watched the way his gloved fingers moved, so deftly, so surely, and listened as he talked the team around him through the whole procedure.
With the tear repaired, Norm slipped a polyester sleeve around the damaged part of the big blood vessel, checked there was no more obvious damage anywhere, and nodded to the perfusionist to stop the cardioplaegia. It was always a ‘hold the breath’ moment. If the heart didn’t start on its own, it would need a shock to get it going, but, to everyone’s relief, it began a steady beat.
Next step in the procedure was to check for blood leaking from the damaged artery, but the repair was secure and the job of closing the patient’s chest began.
Norm left the theatre as his assistant was closing, and the anaesthetist handed the patient over to Will.
Alex, too, stayed, assisting with the closure, waiting until the patient, accompanied by Will, was wheeled into Recovery.
Knowing he would stay there until the patient regained consciousness, Alex made her way to the locker rooms, where she showered and changed back into civilian clothes.
Felt in the pockets of her slacks for her car keys then remembered she’d driven in with Will.
She poked her head into the recovery room, and was surprised to see Will handing over to a younger man.
‘Saved by the wonderful Dr Turner,’ Will said. ‘A very virtuous young intensivist who’s early for his shift.’
Relief and tiredness mingled in his smile, and Alex was surprised to see it was after five o’clock. It had been late when they’d started, probably close to midnight, so it had been a five-hour op—tiring for anyone.
‘You’re not tired?’ he demanded, apparently disconcerted that she was still on her feet.
She smiled at him. ‘I will be now I know how long I’ve been standing up in there,’ she told him. ‘What next? Do you stay?’
He shook his head. ‘No, it’s over to Dr Turner now. I’ll look in on him again before I leave the hospital, and then he’ll be my patient once he’s in the ICU, but I wouldn’t think they’ll move him there for some hours yet.’
Another smile, this one a better effort.
‘Breakfast at the surf club?’
‘They wouldn’t be open,’ Alex protested, although the mention of breakfast had made her realise she was hungry and if she wanted to sleep she’d need to eat first.
‘They will by the time I’ve showered and dressed again,’ Will said, standing up and touching her lightly on the arm. ‘Do you mind waiting?’
She shook her head, even so light a touch rendering her momentarily mute.
‘So I’ll see you down at the car in half an hour, okay?’
Was it the smile or the light touch on her arm that had ignited her nerves again?
Or just plain tiredness?
Alex sighed. She knew it wasn’t tiredness…
But was it love?
How could she tell?
She’d thought she’d been in love when she’d got engaged. It had only been later she’d realised that love hadn’t really come into it. A certain amount of attraction, for sure, and liking, and friendship, and all kinds of good things, but love?
Love felt like a foreign country and right now, if what she was feeling for Will was love, it was a very confusing country where she knew neither the language nor the customs.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE SUN WAS coming up over the ocean, colouring the world with a golden sheen. The low waves Will had forecast curled onto the beach in a froth of whiteness then receded, leaving shining wet sand behind. A few surfers were out on boards, but for once Will didn’t envy them. Sitting here with Alex had filled him with a sense of peace he hadn’t felt for a long time.
The operation had gone well, which added to his feeling of well-being, but it was the woman opposite him, the sun glinting off the gold of her hair, her blue eyes shining as she took in the scene and breathed in the air, that made him feel…complete?
It was okay! It would work. He’d make it work.
‘You look very serious.’
Her teasing smile filled him with warmth the sun itself couldn’t match.
‘Very,’ he said, with an answering smile. ‘I was deciding that we’ve got to stop dithering about the past and look to the future—see where whatever it is between us takes us, with no hang-ups, no doubts, no looking back.’
She reached out and took his hand, her face aglow with what he’d like to think was love but which was probably just the morning sunlight.
‘Yes, let’s,’ she said, and, for the moment, that was enough, until she added, ‘But cautiously—there’s Charlotte, remember, and she shouldn’t be hurt.’
A shadow crossed his contentment because he knew Alex was right. If they got too close and things didn’t work out, his daughter would be hurt. It was a thought not very far from his mind at all times.
But that was for tomorrow—for now, surely, they could explore today!
He tackled the breakfast the waitress had placed in front of him—the surf club’s renowned ‘big’ breakfast.
‘Can you eat all that?’ Alex asked, looking up from her tasty-looking scrambled eggs.
‘Just watch me,’ Will challenged. He began on the sausages—small sausages—pushing Alex’s fork away when she sneaked it over to pinch a slice, although he did—later—drop a slice on her plate.
Silly stuff, but the tension, not only of the operation but of the last, well, four years really drained out of him and he relaxed, listening to Alex talk about her work in Glasgow—where the sun never came up ov
er the ocean for breakfast—and telling her a little of his own life since he’d moved back to Heritage Port.
Getting-to-know-you stuff, but here, on his favourite beach at sunrise, it took on a special significance, as did the woman with whom he was sharing the experience.
Will was in an odd mood, Alex decided, but obviously a happy one. Every now and then he smiled for no apparent reason. She sneaked glances at him as he ate—almost total concentration on his breakfast at first—and it seemed as if the faint lines in his face had smoothed out, and a tension she’d sensed since first meeting him again had eased from his body.
Because he’d put the past behind him?
Because he was coming to the end of his grieving?
Hadn’t he said something? Something about how surfing had helped him heal after his wife had died?
But he’d also said he was afraid of love…
Could anything less than love work?
And what did she know of love?
Vague uneasiness stirred inside her, but she pushed it aside, ate her eggs, and decided Will was right—she would look to the future.
Just because her past relationships had failed, it didn’t mean…
He looked up and caught her watching him. He smiled and blew a kiss, and this time the stirring was completely different, and, tired as she was after a night without sleep, she began to hope he’d stay when he’d driven her home.
Although—
‘I came back to town with you but I can get a cab home,’ she told him. ‘That way we can both have a sleep and maybe get together later.’
‘Or better yet, we both go to my place for a sleep and I’ll drive you home later?’
The roguish gleam in his eyes told her exactly how much sleep he expected they’d have.
‘We go to your place for a sleep?’ she repeated, and he laughed and squeezed her hand.
‘We could have a sleep later,’ he suggested, but whether it was tiredness or the doubts that had sneaked in about grieving and love Alex suddenly felt it was all going too fast.
‘Much more sensible that I get a cab home and see you later,’ she said firmly, although she softened the words with a smile and a return squeeze of his fingers.
The One Man to Heal Her Page 10
