The Heart Surgeon's Baby Surprise
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further for me to walk through the park then from your
place to the hospital where my car is than it is to walk
from here. I’ll see you home.’
Definitely suspicious but although her lips—he
really had to stop looking at her lips—opened to protest,
they closed again, and she didn’t shake off his hand
when he put it on her elbow to guide her across the road
and in through the park gates.
Grace had seen the park in daylight but had not had
time to explore it, although someone on the team had
mentioned ponds with ducks and geese, and riding
trails and dog exercise areas. None of which had much
relevance for her, so she’d not taken much notice. And
certainly no one had spoken of the romantic pos-
sibilities of the area, although as they walked along
well-lit paths, in and out of patches of shadows cast
by huge old trees, the park assumed a very romantic
atmosphere.
Romantic atmosphere? What was wrong with her?
MEREDITH WEBBER
45
One devastatingly embarrassing meal with a colleague
and she was thinking romance?
‘Peaceful, isn’t it?’Theo remarked, as they wandered
along the path through a particularly dense bit of
shadow.
‘Yes, very!’ she said quickly. Peaceful was a much
better description than romantic!
‘You’ve settled into your flat?’ her companion asked,
and once again she was grateful. Perhaps he’d forgot-
ten her stupidity at dinner.
‘Yes, although I need to find a supermarket and do
some proper shopping, and probably find a means of
transport to get to and from the shops. I assume there
are buses.’
‘There are buses but I could drive you. You’ll prob-
ably have a lot of stuff to get and bringing it home in
the car is easier than carting it home on a bus. After
work tomorrow? We’d better check with Jean-Luc as
he’ll probably need to find a supermarket as well.’
Why was he doing this? Making arrangements that
meant he would see more of her? Theo puzzled over
this dilemma as they exited the park, a little part of him
feeling regret that they’d not taken advantage of the
night-time romantic ambience.
He must be crazy, although Jean-Luc would prob-
ably be with them the following day.
Jean-Luc? Grace was living in a flat above him.
Surely he’d have been a better candidate for a sperm
donation.
‘Why not Jean-Luc?’ Theo asked, as they waited for
traffic to clear before crossing the road to the big old
house that had been divided into flats and was kept by
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THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE
the hospital for visiting medical personnel. She turned
to him, hesitated an instant, then offered him a smile
that was only marginally better than a grimace. They
crossed the road before she answered.
She turned to face him on the footpath outside the
house. ‘Believe it or not, I did consider it.’ There was
enough honesty in her voice for him to know it was the
truth. ‘But how embarrassing for both of us if he felt he
didn’t want to do it,’ she continued, ‘and probably worse
if he did agree. No, it had to be someone a little more
at arm’s length, if you know what I mean. Anyway,
thanks to your common sense I’ve realised I was being
unduly optimistic and definitely irrational in thinking
I could do it my way. I’ll get in touch with an IVF clinic
here and find out what’s involved in getting on a pro-
gramme.’
Clinics, hospitals, how impersonal a way to conceive
a child. In his mind he pictured this beautiful but basically,
he suspected, shy woman, sitting in a waiting room with
other anxious women, talking to the professionals, trying
to act nonchalant while burning up with embarrassment.
‘Look,’ he said, aware he should be running a mile
yet caught up in her situation against his better judge-
ment. ‘Don’t do anything just yet. Your father’s
birthday’s not until the end of the year, you said. There’s
time. Let me think.’
She turned towards him, frowning now.
‘I don’t want you doing anything for me out of pity,’
she snapped. ‘I know I’ve made a fool of myself this
evening but that doesn’t mean I can’t organise my own
life. And the conception of my own child, should I
decide to go ahead.’
MEREDITH WEBBER
47
He had to smile and without thinking he reached up
and brushed the last of the flowers out of her short, fair
hair.
‘I thought that was just what you couldn’t do,’ he
teased, but so gently he was sure she wouldn’t take
offence.
Which she didn’t—just standing there, staring at
him, the blue eyes brighter than ever.
With unshed tears?
He couldn’t tell and he certainly wasn’t going to
ask.
But neither did he want her going into her empty flat
so obviously upset. For some obscure reason this prac-
tical, efficient, usually composed woman brought out
all his protective instincts.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll shop. You organise it
with Jean-Luc—ask if he wants to join us.’ He hoped
talking practicalities would help and, indeed, she did
seem better, for she straightened up and nodded, then
agreed she’d speak to Jean-Luc.
As he strode away up the road, Grace leant on the
rickety wooden gate, watching him go, waiting for the
stupid tears that had gathered in her eyes to go away
before she went inside.
She hadn’t taped him as a kind man, but that’s what
he’d turned out to be. Unfortunately, kindness was
something she couldn’t handle very well. She was OK
when she was being kind. In fact, she liked helping
people—even people who didn’t realise they needed
help, her father said—but being on the receiving end,
that unnerved her, made her suspicious, wondering
what the person being kind might want of her.
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Not that Theo would want anything. From the little
she knew of him, she sensed he was one of those people
who were sufficient unto themselves, not needing
outside entertainment, or company, or even a close com-
panion.
She pushed open the gate, aware she was making as-
sumptions that had absolutely no basis in fact. How
could she be making such a judgement on a man she
barely knew?
But he had been kind…
CHAPTER THREE
THEO sat by Scarlett Robinson’s crib, watching her
chest rise and fall, trying to work out how much of the
work her lungs were doing and how much the machine.
She’d seemed stronger earlier today and he’d adjusted
the flow through the ECMO machine, knowing her
>
heart and lungs would grow stronger if they had to do
the work themselves.
But had he made too big an adjustment?
Were the drugs she needed already affecting other
organs?
Was fluid collecting in her abdomen?
It didn’t seem so. According to the monitors she was
doing well, but for how long?
‘It always seems terrible to me that we have to wait
for another child to die so we can save one.’
He turned, startled by the voice in the night-quiet of
the PICU, and even more startled by whose voice it was.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded, as Grace
pulled a chair close so she, too, could sit and look at
Scarlett.
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THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE
‘Can you ask that question when you told me you
were coming back up to the hospital to get your car?’
She didn’t look at him, her gaze focussed on the
baby, not hungrily but with so much longing Theo had
to wonder again if she was being totally honest with
herself, or with him, talking of the baby she wanted as
a gift for her father.
He turned so he could see her face and she lifted one
shoulder in a shrug.
‘It’s a habit of mine. Early on, when I first worked
paeds, my supervisor told me in no uncertain terms
that to get too attached to the babies and children was
a sure way to lose focus on the work.’
She sighed, then continued, ‘And I think he was
right to a certain extent, but I found I needed to know
them better—to know them as people rather than bed
numbers or HLHSs or whatever—so I got into the habit
of coming in at night to check on them, sometimes sit
with them for a while.’
‘Coming in at night so you didn’t spoil your emo-
tionally detached image?’ Theo queried, and she
straightened up and shot him a glacial look.
‘I can take an interest without becoming emotion-
ally attached to a patient. It’s just that someone, seeing
me here, might think the way you obviously do and I
don’t want people getting the wrong impression. It’s so
hard to get into paeds cardiac surgery, especially as a
woman, that I can’t afford to put a foot wrong.’
‘And being an unmarried mother wouldn’t be putting
a foot wrong?’
‘These days?’ she scoffed. ‘I think intelligent people
have moved beyond such prejudice. But that’s what’s
MEREDITH WEBBER
51
so good about getting pregnant while I’m in Australia.
Here I’m a stranger so no one knows my personal back-
ground and even if they do find out about the pregnancy
they will assume it’s something to do with an ongoing
relationship back home. And going home pregnant,
well, that’s the easy part. People will assume I had a
love affair in Australia and while they may be surprised
that such a thing happened to a person like me, it will
be a nine-day wonder then another bit of gossip will
take its place and life will go on.’
Theo stared at her.
‘Are you really so detached? Do you believe the
things you say? Believe you won’t be hurt by gossip
and innuendo?’
She turned to face him, her defiance easy to read, but
he suspected that behind it lay pain—pain that she’d
learned to hide.
‘I won’t be hurt,’ came the fierce reply. ‘Neither
will my child.’
He believed her about the child—she’d be like a
lioness in protecting her offspring, but it was almost as
if she accepted the hurt she might suffer herself.
Because she’d suffered hurt before?
That was the likely answer, but would he ever know?
She was a strange woman.
‘She needs a heart soon, doesn’t she?’
The remark signalled the end of the conversation, but
although he was willing to admit that this was hardly
the place to be discussing personal matters, he wasn’t
finished with this conversation. Sitting with this
woman, watching her with the very sick child, he could
almost feel her longing for a child of her own.
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THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE
‘It’s not just for your father, this baby, is it?’ he
asked, and she looked at him again.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said. ‘Don’t you
realise I feel a hundred kinds of fool already, just asking
you? If you don’t want to do it, that’s fine, and I hope
you find it in you to keep it to yourself that I did ask,
but if you want to spread it around the hospital, well,
I’ll live with that.’
She stood up, and began to move away, but he caught
her hand then dropped it as a nurse came in to do
Scarlett’s obs.
He followed Grace out to the lift foyer, standing
beside her, trying to work out what must have happened
to this woman to make her so defensive, yet so expec-
tant of hurt. Except she’d deny that gossip about her
would hurt—she already had, telling him she could live
with it.
Which meant she’d had practice—but why? She was
beautiful and intelligent—a little abrasive maybe, but
many doctors and even more specialists had abrasive
tendencies.
‘I haven’t said I won’t do it,’ he told her, as they
entered a—thankfully empty—lift.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean I want to get to know you better. You may
be thinking of me as an anonymous donor, but I don’t
want to father a child who might be neglected, or ill
treated, not that I think you’d do that, but you must
admit, your reason for wanting a child—as a present for
your father—is a bit suspect.’
She stared at him, opened her mouth, no doubt to
protest, then shut it again and shook her head, frowning
MEREDITH WEBBER
53
so fiercely he wondered if he’d completely squashed the
idea. But again that valiant side of her he thought he’d
seen before rallied.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You’re right. It would be ir-
responsible of you not to check, although I imagine if
you donated sperm at a sperm bank you’d only have
their word that the child would be going to a good
home.’
His turn to frown.
‘I have no intention of donating sperm to a sperm
bank,’ he growled, wondering how this woman could
tie him into knots so easily.
‘Of course not,’ she said, exiting the lift on the ground
floor, ‘but the analogy is there, surely. You’d have to
trust that the people at the sperm bank would do their
homework and act responsibly. So what do you want?
I’ve references with me, both personal and professional,
and I’ve a plan for child care. Margie, the woman who
helped my father care for me, still lives in my home and
although she’s now too old to care for an infa
nt full time,
she’ll be an ideal granny and she has a niece who trained
in child care and has nannied all around the world. I
know she’d like to come home so I thought I’d use her,
but I want to be a hands-on mother as well, so as far as
possible I’ll work around the baby and later the child.’
Grace stopped and looked at Theo, wondering if this
was what he wanted, feeling acutely uncomfortable—
well, that was natural considering the conversations
they kept having—but a little bit hopeful as well.
‘Is that the kind of thing you want to know? Or fi-
nancial things? I could get my bank to contact you. I
have my own home, no mortgage.’
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He made an exasperated noise, grabbed her by the
elbow and all but dragged her outside, guiding her
through the car park and finally stopping by a silver
four-wheel drive.
‘No, that’s not the kind of thing I want to know,’ he
muttered. ‘Didn’t you hear yourself, rattling off the
perfect upbringing for a child, totally devoid of any
emotional input at all? That’s what bothers me—the
idea of a child conceived for the sole purpose of being
a gift, brought up according to rules and books. Oh, I
don’t doubt he or she will have a perfect life, but where
does love come in?’
‘Love?’
The word faltered from her lips, his question so
bizarre she could only stare at him.
‘Have you never felt love? Or if not love, at least
lust?’ he grumbled. ‘Never felt some kind of emotion?’
And with that he drew her closer, put his hand to the
back of her head and bent to kiss her. Or was it a kiss?
Their lips certainly met, but his were hard and angry,
hot and demanding, dragging a response from her so
her mouth opened and his tongue invaded it, as bold as
a conqueror taking a foreign land.
Was she really thinking such weird thoughts?
And why was she responding?
Because her body wasn’t answering her brain’s
commands. Her brain was certainly telling her to push
him away, to move, to run if necessary, but her body
seemed to be enjoying the assault.
Eventually it was he who moved, lifting his head and
breathing deeply, looking up at the night sky, not at her,
the only sound from him a contemplative ‘Hmm’.
MEREDITH WEBBER
55
After which he unlocked his car, opened the passen-
ger side door, said, ‘I’ll drive you home,’ and waited for