Melting the Argentine Doctor's Heart / Small Town Marriage Miracle

by Meredith Webber / Jennifer Taylor

  ‘I wanted to keep his heel if possible as it would give him more stability, but the blood supply to the foot is so poor it might not be possible.’

  It was an exercise in patience and precision and Caroline could only watch in wonder as Jorge probed and cut. She was kept busy swabbing and flushing, doing all she could to keep the intricacies of the wound clear for his scalpel. Juan reported the monitor findings—the man’s blood pressure was stabilising, his temperature coming down.

  ‘It’s tricky,’ Jorge said, ‘because of the way the calf muscles hook onto the heel, but the smaller muscles hook further forward so they get better leverage. You have to balance the amount of bone you keep—all surgeons think more is better—against the amount of support the bone will get. I’m taking it further back towards the heel so he’ll have good fleshy support but it means sacrificing some of the tendons.’

  It was easy for Caroline to see that he was totally immersed in the surgery and it made her wonder just where his new life would take him.

  ‘Have you seen many of these injuries or have you been reading up on amputations?’ she asked, her fascination in the operation taking precedence over all the emotional stuff she’d been battling since she arrived.

  ‘Making mud bricks, building and reading,’ Jorge said lightly. ‘That’s been the pattern of my life lately.’

  Then, as if sensing that she wasn’t going to accept so easy a reply, he looked up at her.

  ‘I’ve been reading widely,’ he admitted, ‘across a multitude of medical disciplines. I know myself well enough to know that whatever I do next, it will have to be a challenge—a real challenge.’

  He carefully attached a tendon to the tarsal bone, saying, almost under his breath, ‘I don’t think this will do much good.’

  That done, he straightened for a moment while Caroline swabbed and flushed.

  Working with her like this, Jorge decided, was exciting somehow. The agonising emotions her sudden arrival had stirred back to life were set aside more easily while they worked as professional colleagues. And probably because of this professional closeness, he found himself telling her things he’d only, at this stage, discussed in his head.

  ‘Given the state I was in when I returned home, I suppose it was natural I looked at psychology first, working my own way through the change in my life and wondering if it was in me to help others.’

  He glanced up and saw the interest in her blue eyes—interest only, not a hint of pity. Was he wrong in thinking that was what she’d feel? Had he been wrong all along?

  No! This was definitely not the time to be distracted by ‘what ifs’ so, resolutely, he turned his attention back to the probing and stitching.

  ‘Burns, naturally, seemed a good idea, but so much good work is already being done in research and development there, particularly in growing new skin from the patient’s own skin cells. Surgery had always interested me, and with landmines still littering the ground in many countries, I knew I could always be useful there.’

  ‘Hence your knowledge of foot amputation,’ Caroline put in. Although he couldn’t see her mouth because of the mask she wore, he knew she was smiling as she spoke for the smile shone in her eyes and lilted in her voice, a perilous distraction.

  Caroline!

  Her name sighed through his head and whispered in his heart, so it took all his attention to focus once more on his patient, although once he was back on track with the operation, he could continue his conversation.

  ‘I’m thinking genetics. I know it’s the buzz word these days, and it’s an infinite field, but I would like to tie it into racial differences. We’ve known for a long time about some genetic abnormalities in particular races and scientists have been working to change the genes that cause these but I’m more interested in the genetics of our indigenous population—the similarities and differences. We are in a unique situation as there are pockets of indigenous people who have never intermarried with the migrants who settled here.’

  It made sense, Caroline decided, but knowing how well Jorge interacted with patients, she knew that shutting himself away in a laboratory would be, in some ways, a loss to medicine.

  ‘It would also give me time to spend among these people,’ he added, looking up at her, the twinkle in his dark eyes telling her he’d guessed what she’d been thinking.

  Again.

  But the discomfort she was feeling had nothing to do with his prescience, more to do with the twinkle that had sliced through her professional façade as easily as a scalpel through flesh. One glimpse of smiling eyes and she was thrust back into the emotional storm she’d been determined to hold at bay.

  It fanned the embers of her anger that he could slide beneath her poise so easily. She should be stronger than this, more in control of her feelings, but how could she remain detached when every moment in his presence held reminders of what had been between them, even the very professional conversation they’d been having? His interest in every aspect of the medical world was one of the things that had drawn her to him, fascinated by the breadth of his knowledge and his determination to keep adding to it.

  ‘There, I think I’ve got all the infected tissue, but I’ll leave a new drain in place, higher up this time, just in case.’

  He stepped back and Caroline read pain in the way he moved and tried to straighten.

  ‘I’ll sew it up,’ she said, telling him, not offering. ‘Needlework was my best subject at school.’

  She moved so she was closer to the table, closer to Jorge as well but now was not the time to be considering closeness or the manifestations of it. Right now she needed to do her best to make the truncated foot as neat as possible, to close the wound tightly to prevent new infection, yet to sew it up in such a way that their patient would have some padding beneath the bones, and be able, in time, to learn to walk on it.

  Jorge had stepped back to give her room, and although in some inner corner of her mind she continued to be aware of his presence, she concentrated on her job, pleased when, more than an hour later, Jorge said, ‘Well done, that’s a splendid job. Let’s hope this time it will begin to heal.’

  He touched her lightly on the shoulder, guiding her away, telling her that he’d dress it and help Juan take their patient back to the small ‘ward', but Caroline was reluctant to move.

  Once out of the small treatment room, all her concerns and worries about the future would return. It was all very well for Jorge to talk of taking them to Buenos Aires, but what then? The way Jorge spoke, his father could be a problem in some way and on top of that there’d been no indication from Jorge by either word or deed that she was important to him except as the mother of his child.

  So she couldn’t stay on for ever in his father’s house. She’d have to find a home nearby for herself and Ella. She’d have to find a job because she loved her work and believed she should continue it.

  She’d have to—

  ‘There is something wrong? You’ve left something in the wound? We’ve forgotten something? ‘

  Jorge’s questions brought her abruptly out of her thoughts and she turned towards him.

  ‘Nothing in the wound—I was just thinking …’

  Was she frowning that he touched her gently on the arm?

  ‘Juan and I will take care of him from here. There is food in the hut, maybe not much variety but certainly eggs if you would like to make an omelette. I will wait with our patient until he comes out of the anaesthetic and possibly relieve Juan from duty tonight. You will be all right in the hut? ‘

  The twinkle was long gone from his eyes but Caroline thought she read anxiety there in its place. Was he worried that she’d been standing feeling lost while he and Juan prepared to shift their patient?

  Or concerned about abandoning his role of host? Although she understood, after this setback, why he’d want to remain with the patient.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she told him, and she hurried away, cursing herself for the muddle in her mind, for the mess s
he seemed to have landed in by jumping on a plane in such a rage and not thinking far enough ahead to at least have some kind of plan.

  Back home it had seemed so easy. In her mind, Jorge, badly injured and fearing her pity, had rejected her with enough cruelty to convince her he hadn’t ever loved her. Seeing the scars in the picture, she’d immediately decided he’d rejected her out of pride, hence her anger and the mad flight to Argentina. She’d had enough functioning brain cells to realise her assumptions could be wrong, but had decided that working with him for a month would be enough time to suss that out.

  What she hadn’t expected was to have so little time alone with him. Neither had she expected to be swept off to his father’s house and into a wider web of complications in a situation already complicated enough, given that every moment in his presence was a kind of torture.

  The moon was out and she paused to look up at it, nearly full, shining through the branches of a tree, a stark, spiky, possibly unattractive tree, although in the moonlight it had a peculiar beauty.

  She sensed rather than heard Jorge’s approach.

  ‘I thought I should see you safely settled back at the hut,’ he said quietly, moving up beside her where she was gazing at the tree.

  ‘I can manage,’ she told him. ‘I know where things are. But what is that tree?’

  ‘It’s a thorn tree, a native of the Grand Chaco where the Toba people come from. There are two or three in the settlement, the seedlings brought out of sentiment, I suppose, by families when they came south.’

  ‘I should have guessed,’ Caroline replied. ‘They’re very similar to the thorn trees in Africa. I’ve always liked them, so persistent, growing where it seems nothing much should grow.’

  He’s like those trees, she thought to herself as she continued to admire the bare black branches outlined against the deep purple of the sky. Prickly, thorny, keeping people at bay, yet there’s a strange beauty in the trees, especially when seen in silhouette, and Jorge’s inner beauty won’t have changed. He just doesn’t realise it.

  Jorge watched the woman, her hair more silvery than ever in the moonlight, studying the thorn tree as if it was giving her some message.

  He smiled to himself. Of course she’d like the thorn trees for she was equally persistent.

  Music blasted from a nearby dwelling, the rich, vibrant notes of the tango, turned up, perhaps, so someone could dance, and the moonlight, the thorn tree and the music took him back.

  ‘Remember?’ he said quietly, and even as he said it, although remembering was what he was doing most of the time, he knew this remembering could be fatal, for this remembering meant touching her, holding her.

  She turned to him, her face lit by an inner radiance—or maybe just the moon.

  ‘When you taught me the tango? By moonlight? Near the thorn tree? ‘

  She came into his arms as easily as if she’d never left them, as if he’d never pushed her out of them, but he knew that had been before, not now—knew they were both back in the past, in happier times.

  If only for a few minutes.

  He held her to his chest, for the Argentine tango was chest to chest—the only real tango in his opinion—and she followed his steps, their feet kicking up dust from the street as they swept back and forth, letting the music thrum through their blood, carrying them to another place—another time.

  Then, as abruptly as it had started, the music stopped. For a moment it seemed to Jorge as if his heart, too, had stopped, for he’d been lost in the delight of holding Caroline in his arms, of feeling his body come to life with an urgency he’d forgotten could exist. Desire had pounded, hot and heavy, in his blood, the music driving his need and memory feeding it.

  ‘Gracias,’ Caroline whispered to him, but she didn’t move away. Maybe because his arms still held her, chest to chest, kissing close—more than kissing close.

  To kiss her would be worse than dancing with her. His head retained enough composure to remind him of that, yet would it be so wrong to touch his lips to hers?

  Just once?

  ‘And thank you too,’ he said, and because he knew once would never be enough, he dropped his arms, stepping back out of temptation’s way, returning to the clinic, his idea of seeing her safely into the hut, maybe organising some dinner for the pair of them forgotten, or at least set aside while he fought temptation on his own.

  But the beat continued to course through his body, rattling his brain so when Juan asked him a question about their patient, Jorge had to shake his head to clear it before he could reply.

  ‘Go home,’ Juan said to him. ‘You have done all you can for the man. Go home and feed your woman.’

  ‘She is not my woman.’ The denial was automatic, but saying the words made him wonder.

  Could she still have feelings for him?

  Yes, she’d come so Ella would know her father—knowing Caroline he believed that implicitly—but was it possible that he hadn’t killed the love they’d shared?

  In one part of his brain he was aware that even thinking of these things was putting his defensive structure in danger—he could all but hear the walls he’d built around his emotions cracking—yet he couldn’t help but wonder.

  And wondering he left the clinic, not going home to his woman but drawn to be where Caroline was.

  It was too much! She couldn’t go on with this—being with Jorge, near him, working with him, living in his house and pretending all the time she felt nothing for him. It was just too darned hard. Caroline sat in the comfy old armchair, her elbows resting on her knees, her head in her hands, despair in her heart.

  She’d survived without a father, so surely Ella could!

  Dancing with him had been the last straw. Being held in his arms, being carried back with the music to such blissful times, moving with him, feeling his body against hers, longing to be lost in it, longing for the touch of love, a gentle kiss perhaps, something—anything—to show he still felt something for her.

  Could it be one-sided, the burning heat of desire that swept through her body when they touched, that had all but melted her brain when he’d taken her in his arms?

  She’d stayed there, unable to push away, thanking him, wanting more, wanting so much to kiss him or be kissed that she was surprised her need hadn’t been visible in a cloud of steam above her head.

  And all he’d said had been, ‘Thank you.’ Then he’d dropped his arms and she’d stood there like a big galoot with her desire, and need, and wanting.

  She’d go away, go back home, go tomorrow, for this pretence was killing her. Jorge didn’t want her, that was obvious, and if he didn’t want her then for sure he didn’t love her, and if he didn’t, perhaps he never had.

  Her thoughts floundered, maudlin self-pity, something she abhorred, sneaking dangerously close.

  Action, that was what she needed. She’d thanked Mima and sent her home as soon as she’d come in. Now she’d look in on Ella, find something to eat, and if Jorge returned she could leave him with Ella and go for a walk—a promenade.

  That might not be a sensible idea at night in a strange place, although from what she’d seen everybody promenaded so it wasn’t as if she’d be walking deserted streets.

  She’d straightened in the armchair as she pondered these decisions so wasn’t sitting slumped in despair when Jorge walked in.

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  The question was so abrupt she peered at him but the lighting in the hut was dim and she couldn’t read any expression on his face.

  Not that she cared any more what he was thinking or feeling, she told herself, and answered just as abruptly, ‘No.’

  ‘I will fix us an omelette,’ he said, and moved into the kitchen where the light was slightly better so she could see that, although he was fighting to carry himself as upright as a soldier on parade, there was a tilt to his shoulders and a slight slump to his back.

  She closed her eyes against the emotion that seeing his pain had caused, then reminded hers
elf she was done with emotion.

  ‘I can do omelettes,’ she said, standing up and joining him in the kitchen. ‘You sit down. We walked for hours by the river, you carried Ella, you were bent over your patient for another ninety-minutes, it’s obvious your back’s giving you hell.’

  She put her hand on his chest and gave him a slight push, not much but enough to get him down onto a stool.

  ‘Just tell me what you want in it, the omelette, then you can tell me about your health. Just how badly are you still affected by your injuries?’

  She’d lifted the big cast-iron frying pan from the open shelves and set it on the gas ring as she spoke, then added a little oil and reached for a bowl and the basket of eggs.

  He hadn’t answered so she turned her attention from beating eggs and looked at him.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded.

  ‘There are peppers in a basket under the gas ring, and brown onions, and I think in the refrigerator you’ll find a chorizo to slice and throw in.’

  ‘Very helpful!’ Caroline snapped. ‘But that wasn’t the real question and you know it.’

  She said no more, assembling the ingredients he’d suggested and beginning to peel and chop. The oil sizzled in the pan and she added the eggs, pushing them in at the sides so the omelette would thicken.

  ‘Your injuries,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Are my business,’ he said, so coldly she knew immediately she should stop probing, but her despair of earlier—the no-kiss despair—had stirred her anger again, and although she wasn’t angry she definitely wasn’t full of sweetness and light or about to be put off by coldness.

  ‘Of course they are,’ she said, as she tipped the colourful mix of vegetables and sausage into the pan on top of the eggs. ‘You’re lifting Ella, carrying her, driving her. Does pain immobilise you at times? Are you on strong painkillers? What should we avoid—long walks, or standing for any length of time? You’re a doctor, you must realise I’m not asking you because I’m sorry for you—heaven forbid—you’re the most self-reliant, self-contained, self-confident man I’ve ever met, the last man in the world anyone could feel sorry for.’