The Heart Surgeon's Baby Surprise

by Meredith Webber

she could feel it, and feeling it wondered if he did want

  her to move out.

  Not that she could broach the subject—she didn’t

  dare to. The one thing she had decided, there beneath

  the shower, had been that she wanted to spend as much

  time as possible with him, to gather together a good

  store of memories to take with her, not only when she

  went but to hold to her heart through the rest of her life.

  ‘I’ll phone a gynaecologist I know at the hospital,

  he’ll tell me who’s the best OB man for you to go to.

  We want to see you get the best care from the begin-

  ning.’

  The statement came out of the blue and when Grace

  dropped her paper from in front of her face to look at

  Theo, she realised he’d folded his newspaper and set it

  down on the bedside table and was staring towards the

  window, wearing his ‘thinking’ face.

  ‘That’s terrific of you to bother but I don’t think ob-

  stetricians want to see any patients until they’re at least

  a couple of months gone.’

  ‘It’s not terrific of me, it’s my baby too,’ he said, still

  contemplating the window, which showed nothing but

  an expanse of blue sky. ‘I do have some responsibility.’

  Then he turned to her.

  ‘Do you know at what gestation stage they do the

  scans that show the sex? I’m thinking a boy would be

  best. Not that it matters, but for business I think it would

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  be less stressful for a man to manage business than a

  woman who might want to be juggling family and a

  career already.’

  Grace stared at him, trying desperately to make

  sense of what he was saying.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The baby. Best if it’s a boy, although of course we

  can’t do anything about it now.’

  He’d turned towards her and offered this second

  statement with the air of a man who’d made everything

  crystal clear.

  ‘Theo!’ Grace said, exasperation making the word

  far too loud. ‘What do you mean? Why should it

  matter?’

  He smiled at her and she had to push away the emo-

  tional involvement problem very forcefully because

  Theo’s smiles made her so warm and happy it was no

  wonder she’d become emotionally involved.

  ‘The baby.’

  ‘What about the baby? Why better if it’s a boy? Is

  this purely male chauvinism or what?’

  Theo shook his head and hitched himself back

  against the pillows, folding his arms across his naked

  chest.

  ‘No, I’ve been thinking about it, and it’s not all bad.

  Although I know females probably have more nous

  than males, I think because men usually have a woman

  backing them up, they are better able to handle major

  responsibilities.’

  It still made no sense to Grace.

  ‘Theo, this child, male or female, might be a chef,

  or a librarian, or a waitress or a labourer. Whatever he

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  or she decides to do, I’ll back it, and there’ll be no

  worries financially because he or she will inherit my

  money and my father’s and there’ll be enough there to

  set him or her up. But although there’ll be money,

  there’s not so much it would make for a major respon-

  sibility.’

  ‘Except for my money,’ he said.

  ‘ You’ve got money?’

  Grace hoped she didn’t sound as startled as she felt,

  but she couldn’t help looking around. Yes, Theo had

  made the little terrace house very snug but it hardly

  shouted major-responsibility-type wealth.

  ‘Quite a lot,’ he said, almost apologetically. ‘Though

  the bigger part of it is tied up in a trust for my child or

  children. My father died when I was still married but

  as he didn’t like or trust my wife, he left the major

  portion of his money to my issue. After the accident, as

  I had no intention of having more children, I’d resigned

  myself to it going to some fairly worthless cousins

  who’ve already gone through the money their father left

  to them. But then, when you started talking about the

  baby, I realised it was the perfect solution. Of course,

  because it’s quite a lot of money, I’ll probably have to

  be more involved in the child’s upbringing than you’d

  perhaps like, but to take on my father’s legacy, the child

  will need some special training in financial matters.’

  Theo thought he was explaining things rather well,

  but apparently something had upset Grace for she was

  out of bed, staring down at him with much the same ex-

  pression he thought he would be wearing when faced

  with a man-eating alligator.

  ‘You want this baby so it can inherit your father’s

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  money? You had this ulterior motive all along and didn’t

  think to mention it to me? And you accuse me of

  sticking pins in your bloody condoms! Oh, no, it was

  all Theo doing a big favour for Grace—getting the little

  woman pregnant—when all along you were conniving

  behind my back, plotting, planning. Did you never

  pause to think I might like to know these things? Did

  it never occur to you that I might not want my child to

  have some great inheritance hanging over his or her

  head?’

  ‘But how could you not want your own child to be

  wealthy?’

  He thought it was a valid question but all he got was

  a scoffing laugh.

  ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ she said, now pulling on

  clothes as fast as she could, picking them up from the

  tangle on the floor where they’d hastily discarded them

  last night. ‘It’s not only the wealth, it’s the secrecy

  thing. Here I’m thinking you’re doing this for me, and

  I’m under obligation to you, to say nothing of feeling

  gratitude, when all along you’ve had your own agenda.

  One you didn’t even consider sharing with me. How’s

  that for trust? I’ve been open and honest with you from

  the start, Theo Corones, and you’ve deceived me.’

  And on that note she stormed out of the bedroom,

  and out of the house minutes later, because he heard the

  front door slam.

  He stayed in bed, running the conversation back and

  forth in his head, wondering where he’d gone so wrong.

  Unfortunately, it all sounded quite rational to him so he

  put it down to Grace’s hormones being out of kilter,

  decided she would go back to the flat and he’d give her

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  time to calm down then call her later. After all, most of

  her clothes were here. She’d have to come back at some

  point.

  She didn’t.

  Though by Friday of that week, she’d run so short

  of clothes—having worn the same two shirts and skirts

  the previous four days—she actually wore the se
xy

  T-shirt to work.

  Theo watched from afar. He’d worked out by now

  that she’d got what she wanted out of him—preg-

  nancy—and that was that. She’d simply used the child’s

  inheritance as an excuse to get away from him. And the

  fact that she looked pale and wan he put down to the

  beginnings of morning sickness. Although inside his

  chest he felt a pang whenever he saw her, he refused to

  acknowledge it as pity because feeling sorry for her

  would mean he cared.

  And he didn’t do emotional involvement!

  But wearing the T-shirt to work was taking things too

  far. Most of the women on the team wore casual clothes

  to and from work as, during the day, their clothes were

  covered by a coloured coat, or their entire body was en-

  veloped in green theatre pyjamas. But, still, he wasn’t

  happy about her flaunting herself in the T-shirt—not

  happy at all—and he intended to tell her so. The ma-

  jority of the team were off to Scoozi for dinner and an

  unofficial rundown of the past week, but when she

  didn’t turn up there, he went to her flat, meeting Jean-

  Luc in the foyer.

  ‘She’s not home,’ he said, and suspicion, like a shiny

  green serpent, coiled in Theo’s belly.

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  ‘And you’d know where she is?’ he asked, wonder-

  ing if she was as close as being inside Jean-Luc’s flat.

  ‘Not a clue,’ Jean-Luc said casually, ‘but I knocked

  on her door a little earlier and got no answer.’ He hesi-

  tated, then added, ‘You two had a falling out?’

  Theo scowled at him.

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ he said.

  Jean-Luc agreed, then added, ‘I don’t gossip but

  living in the flat beneath hers I couldn’t help but notice

  that she’s rarely home. She mentioned that you and she

  were…together. Nothing more, and I’ve said nothing

  to anyone although I have kept an eye on her place

  when she’s not there. Am I right in assuming your

  affair is now over?’

  ‘No!’ Theo snapped, although he was beginning to

  wonder if it was.

  But Jean-Luc took him at his word.

  ‘Well, that’s good because I’m sure everyone in the

  team has seen how much Grace has relaxed in the last

  few weeks. I know she tries to come across as tough and

  always on top of things, but I think that woman has a

  very soft, perhaps even vulnerable core.’

  He walked out the front door, leaving Theo with no

  option but to follow. Jean-Luc turned left, away from

  the hospital, and Theo, not wanting to go home to an

  empty house that still smelt vaguely of orange blossom,

  turned right and trudged back to the hospital.

  She did have a soft core.

  She was very vulnerable.

  He couldn’t have been so wrong in his reading of her.

  Yet this action of walking away from him the moment

  she got pregnant made him wonder if he’d been totally

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  taken in. The stand-off continued, although it was

  strange because when they’d been together they’d been

  forever running into each other at work, often stretch-

  ing Theo’s restraint to its limits, wanting to touch her

  as they nodded in passing, or discussed cases, pretend-

  ing they were colleagues and nothing more.

  But as the days went by he realised that they’d prob-

  ably made opportunities to meet at work. That, or she

  was deliberately avoiding him now.

  It made her heart ache just to see him. Grace had

  realised this the first week of their separation. She re-

  membered telling Kelly that the heart didn’t really feel

  emotion, but something in Grace’s chest was aching

  almost constantly.

  At night, lonely in her bed in the sterile, almost

  empty flat, she played their final conversation over and

  over in her head.

  Was she wrong? Was she being pig-headed over the

  issue of him not telling her about the legacy? And did

  it really matter if her child ended up tremendously

  wealthy?

  No, she guessed not. He or she could give away any-

  thing not needed. It was the not telling her—the deceit—

  the fact that Theo had a reason just as strong as she did

  for having a child, and he hadn’t seen fit to tell her.

  Not that any of this mattered. When it came down

  to the absolute basics, the more she was with Theo the

  more—she was about to say emotionally involved but

  alone in bed she could say the real word, love—she

  would grow to love him, so leaving him when she had

  to go home would be that much worse.

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  Work proved her solace and her release. She was re-

  markably well, perhaps feeling a little nausea in the

  early morning but the uneasiness disappeared once

  she’d eaten and walked briskly up the road to work. So,

  by the time she arrived in their section, she could con-

  centrate on what had to be done.

  She was going to work early these days, wanting to

  see the babies, especially Scarlett, before Theo was

  likely to be around. Alex’s wife, Annie, had had her

  baby and Alex was on paternity leave, so Grace was in

  Theatre most days, working with Aldo and with Phil,

  having to use all her skills and showing them different

  techniques while she learnt new ones herself.

  She nodded to Theo in passing, and if her heart raced

  when he was in Theatre with her, she was professional

  enough to focus all her attention on the operation,

  ignoring the little signals his body still transmitted to

  hers.

  ‘We’ve got a heart!’

  Becky poked her head into the theatre, yelling this

  news from the doorway. Grace was closing, the

  Norwood operation on a little boy nearing completion.

  ‘It’s up the north coast, a hospital at Murwillumbah.

  Who can go?’

  Phil looked at the baby on the table, watched Grace

  put the final staple in his chest, then said, ‘Would you

  go, Grace? I know you’ve done heart retrievals—it’s

  your special field. I don’t want to leave young Sam here

  and Aldo’s on days off. Becky will arrange a team, an

  ambulance will take you to the airport—not the main

  airport but the one small planes use. From there, a vol-

  unteer will fly you up north. You’ll have to do the op-

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  eration then bring it back. Time wise…’ he glanced up

  at the clock on the wall ‘…we’d expect you back by

  midnight and we’ll have Scarlett all prepped and ready

  to go.’

  Grace felt excitement leap in her body. A heart for

  Scarlett! What could be better?

  ‘Of course I’ll go. I leave now?’

  Phil nodded.

  ‘Becky will organise transport at the other end, and co-

  ordinate with the pilot. Whoever s
he finds to go as

  surgical assistant will have all the gear, and Theo’s off-

  sider, Ryan Cooke, will do the perfusion and cardiople-

  gia.’

  He hesitated then added, ‘Good luck!’

  There was a chorus of good-luck wishes from the

  team, as the little girl who had struggled so hard to stay

  alive had won all their hearts, but the voice she’d wanted

  to hear—Theo’s deep-throated ‘Good luck’—was

  absent.

  Not that she had time to think of Theo. She stripped

  off her theatre gear and dragged on her clothes then

  hurried out to where Becky, Ryan and Jackie O’Connor,

  one of Alex’s surgical assistants, were waiting, Jackie

  holding a medical case and cool box.

  Grace took the time to check what was in the case—

  stitches and sutures, sterile gauze, retractor, sterile bags,

  lactate solutions—and in the cool box—ice.

  ‘Our ambulance is downstairs—it’ll be lights and

  sirens all the way so we’ll have to hang on,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Another ambulance will meet you at the Gold Coast

  airport. The baby’s being taken to Tweed Heads

  hospital and you’ll operate there.’ Becky took up the in-

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  structions. ‘Their ambulance will take you back to the

  plane, the pilot will let us know when he’s due to land

  in Sydney and we’ll have transport waiting for you.’

  Excitement built inside Grace, so much so that as the

  screaming vehicle sped through Sydney’s streets she

  forgot about the man who hadn’t wished her good luck

  and concentrated on what lay ahead.

  The operation to remove a donor heart was delicate.

  It was important to keep a good length of vein and

  artery attached to the heart so it would be easier for Phil

  to attach them to Scarlett’s vessels, and equally impor-

  tant to keep a reasonable length of the small vessels that

  came off the aorta and pulmonary artery to make attach-

  ment easier as well.

  A man called Ron was waiting at the airfield and he

  led the three of them to a plane so small she marvelled

  that it could hold an engine strong enough to keep it up

  in the air, but Ron exuded confidence so she put her

  trust in him and as they flew north towards the border

  between New South Wales and Queensland, she re-

  hearsed the operation in her head.

  She had done similar operations before and knew she

  was more than competent to do it, but was it being

  pregnant that made her feel extra sorrow for the parents