‘But surely she would be before we leave?’ Francesca asked, the slight frown he was beginning to recognise as one of concern puckering her forehead.
‘Yes, and although I do have other volunteers come out here to work, we like to have the same team on hand for the whole cycle of taking the eggs through to implantation, then confirmation of pregnancy.’
‘Or confirmation that it didn’t work that time,’ Fran said, remembering her three thwarted attempts.
‘That too,’ Steve said, his voice sombre. ‘It’s the main reason I like the team to stay until we know, one way or another. At least then we can talk to the couple about what they would like to do next. Whether they want to try again later—explain the options, talk it all through with them.’
He’d really thought about it, Fran thought, studying the man who seemed to understand just how devastating a failed IVF treatment could be. But couldn’t they still work with the sixth couple? Hadn’t Andy said...?
‘But rather than have them miss out, couldn’t we stay a little longer?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure Andy said that it could be longer—six weeks he might have mentioned. Wouldn’t that give us time?’
Fran realised she was probably pushing too hard—especially as a newcomer. But it seemed inconceivable to her that a woman would get this far into treatment then be told they couldn’t go ahead until Steve could return or someone else could come over.
Steve shook his head, but it wasn’t the headshake that bothered her, it was the look on his face—discouragement?
‘And if six weeks isn’t long enough?’ he said quietly.
‘Then we’d just have to stay on,’ Fran declared. ‘I know you must feel guilty about leaving your own practice longer than necessary, but a few days? Surely we can’t just ignore this couple as if they’re nothing more than names on a list.’
She waited for a reply, but all Steve did was look at her, studying her as if she was a stranger.
Had she let emotion seep into her words? She knew, better than anyone, that she had to separate her emotion from her work—that she had to be one hundred per cent focussed on whatever job she was doing—no room for emotion at all. But hadn’t her argument been rational?
‘Let’s wait and see,’ he finally replied, but he was still watching her warily.
Assessing her in some way...
Wondering if he’d made a serious mistake in asking for her...
He turned and walked away, leaving her with all the red markers in her hands, no doubt remembering she’d said she wanted to sort the separate colours into packs. Well, she did intend to do that. Keeping track of everything in the laboratory was of prime importance, and as far as she was concerned, the laboratory’s responsibility stretched across every sample taken. So she settled on a stool, marking syringes, specimen jars, test tubes, specimen dishes—everything—with coloured stickers or tape or even paint for things that wouldn’t hold the coloured tape.
But her fingers stilled, and she looked towards the door through which Steve Ransome had disappeared.
Was it because he thought as she did about fertility treatments, or because he obviously cared so much about his patients that she found him attractive?
She considered the word. Certainly he was tall and well built, with dark hair, and eyes set deep beneath thick black brows. Nice enough nose, good chin...
But carelessly dressed, unshaven—scruffy!
Scruffily attractive?
Work, she reminded herself.
Five couples, five colours—no, she’d do six. Mr and Mrs Number Six were going to get just as good treatment as the others. Red, green, blue, purple, yellow and brown—she never used black as somewhere along the chain someone might use a black pen to write a note on a sample and confuse things. From this point on she usually thought of the couples in colours—Mr and Mrs Yellow’s egg might be dividing beautifully, Mr Green’s sperm was very healthy.
It made sense, especially in a foreign country where the names might be difficult to pronounce, and it kept things clear in her mind. A psychologist would tell her she did it to prevent herself bonding too closely with the couples and that was probably true as well, but her main function was to run the lab efficiently so every couple had the best chance of success. She packaged up what would be needed for each coloured couple, turning her mind now to all the questions she hadn’t asked Steve.
Normal questions, like did they add a little serum from the mother’s blood to the media in which they’d place the egg, and was serum extracted from the blood on site or at the hospital? It was a job she could do and she had a feeling adaptability was an essential attribute when working here, but was this lab purely for the fertilisation and maturation process or was it multi-purpose?
She finished her packages, two for each colour, one for use by the nurses and doctor interacting with the couples, and one for lab use, and went in search of Steve, wandering around the little clinic first, checking the procedure room, the ultrasound machine Steve would use to measure the size of the women’s follicles to see if an egg was ready for collection, then use again to guide him when collecting them.
He’d lamented not having a laparoscope and perhaps when she returned home she could find an organisation willing to donate one.
‘Were you looking for me?’
He was so close behind her that when she spun around she all but fell against him, needing to put her hand on his chest to steady herself.
Something sparked in Steve’s eyes but she was too concerned with her own reactions to be thinking of his. The long-dormant embers of desire that an earlier smile had brought back to life flared yet again.
With nothing more than an accidental touch?
He mustn’t guess!
That was her first thought.
So cover up!
That was her second.
Although it was far too late. They’d stood, her hand against his chest, for far too long, the tension she could feel in her body matched by what she felt in his—something arcing through the air between them—pulsing, electric.
She stepped back, sure she must be losing her mind that such fantasy could flash through it.
Talk work!
‘I was thinking I could probably find an organisation or service club back home that could donate a laparoscope,’ she said, backing off as far as the doorjamb would allow.
‘It would come in handy, especially as a diagnostic tool,’ he said, ice cool for all she’d seen something flicker in his eyes, and felt the tension—sure she’d felt an accelerated pulse. ‘But since I started coming here, I’ve become adept at removing eggs with the ultrasound to guide me.’
‘Imagine going back to the days when women needed an operation to remove them, sometimes in the middle of the night, because ovulation wasn’t timed as well as it is today.’
This was good, carrying on a normal conversation with him for all the sudden heat and awareness flaring inside her.
‘There are some funny stories of those days,’ he said, smiling at her, although he seemed slightly surprised that she knew the history of IVF.
But, then, he didn’t know her history.
He didn’t know anything about her, which made her feel just a little sad as she walked with him across the courtyard towards their quarters.
‘So, if you’ve seen enough, how about I take you for a quick drive around the town and we grab something to eat down on the foreshore? There’s a great French restaurant on the front that most of the visiting staff use as a home away from home.’
‘But Zoe said that monster barbecue is yours—that you cook?’
He grinned at her, alerting all the bits she’d just damped down.
‘You make it sound somehow shameful,’ he protested. ‘I enjoy cooking—well, barbecuing—and patients bring us food so I feel o
bliged to cook it. Some of them have so little, yet they give whatever they can. But tonight there’s no free gift so we might as well eat out.’
He hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘You probably want to shower and change before we go. We’ll leave in an hour? Is that okay with you?’
‘I won’t need an hour to shower and change,’ she said. ‘Embryologists still get called out at night from time to time, so I’ve retained my get up and go skills.’
He smiled again, something she was beginning to wish he wouldn’t do because being attracted to a man she’d only just met was ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as reacting to something as simple as a smile.
‘Ah, but in our case, remember, we share the bathroom, and after a morning wrestling with a pelican I, too, need to use it.’
‘A pelican?’
‘I’ll tell you later,’ he said, and for some obscure reason it sounded like a special promise.
‘So the shower? You’ll use it first?’ he prompted, before adding with a teasing grin, ‘Unless, of course, we shower together.’
She didn’t blush—she hadn’t, even when she was young—but she knew if she was a blushing type she’d have been ruby red. Not that she could let him guess that reaction.
‘And wouldn’t the other staff view that as unprofessional behaviour?’ she asked, hoping she sounded far cooler than she felt.
‘Maybe they wouldn’t know,’ he replied, the teasing note lingering in his voice. ‘They don’t live in, you know.’
He wasn’t serious, she was one hundred per cent sure of that, yet there’d been an undertone in his voice that unsettled her even more than she was already unsettled.
An undertone she didn’t want to think about.
Except the conversation did suggest that he had felt whatever it was that had arced between them...
‘I just want to check something back at the lab,’ she said, turning on the spot and hurrying away, calling over her shoulder, ‘so you can have first shower.’
She was being ridiculous.
As if he’d be interested in her.
It was his way. Teasing and maybe a bit flirtatious—laid-back like the islanders—he was that kind of man.
Could she flirt back?
The idea excited her but deep down she knew she couldn’t play that game. She’d never been able to flirt.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, what was she doing, standing in this makeshift lab having a mental conversation with herself about flirting!
CHAPTER TWO
SHE STALKED BACK to the little apartment and shut herself in the bedroom where she stared at her ‘casual’ clothes and realised just how different the concept of ‘casual’ was here in the islands. Thinking of photographs she’d seen of Pacific islands, she’d thrown in one long, silky shift, not as voluminous as the muumuus all the women seemed to wear, but at least it would look more relaxed than slacks. It was pretty, too, a mix of blue and green in colour, a gift from a friend who’d claimed she’d bought it for herself before she realised the colours didn’t suit her.
It was still unworn because it was then that Fran had found out about Nigel and Clarissa—such a cliché that had been! Coming home from work early because she wasn’t feeling well! Desperately hoping it was a sign that she was pregnant—the test kit in her handbag—and Clarissa in her bed!
To make it a thousand times worse, the test strip had been, like all the others, negative...
So the lovely new shift had been inevitably tied to that devastating day and had been consigned to the back of her wardrobe.
At least now she could laugh about it—almost!
‘Bathroom’s free!’
Damnation! Even the man’s voice was unnerving her. But as long as he didn’t realise the effect he was having on her, it wouldn’t matter, would it?
She had a shower and pulled on the dress, brushed her hair and turned to the mirror so she could twist it into a neat knot on the top of her head, but upswept hair didn’t go with the neckline of the dress and she let her hair fall so it brushed her shoulders and hung softly about her face.
Yes, it went with the dress this way, but was the woman in the mirror really her? And if not, was she being someone else because she was going out to dinner with an attractive man?
An attractive stranger, she reminded herself.
The questions racing through her mind left her as nervous and uncertain as a teenager on her first date, and it was that thought which brought a return to sanity.
It was not a date, she was not a teenager. Steve was a colleague, nothing more. She swept the brush through her hair again, hauling it back, but the restraining rubber band she’d been going to use to hold it while she twisted it into a knot had slipped from her fingers and as she bent forward, searching the floor for it, she heard a knock on the far bathroom door and heard Steve’s voice.
‘Hour’s up,’ he said, and although she was fairly certain he was teasing and not desperate to get going, she opened the door, her hair still held up in her hands.
‘Lost the band,’ she explained, ‘but I’ve more in my luggage. Won’t be a minute.’
‘Leave your hair down—you’re in the islands,’ he said. ‘The expression “hang loose” belongs in Hawaii rather than Vanuatu, but it’s just as pertinent here. Everything’s fluid—time in particular—and once you get used to the fact that a ten o’clock appointment might arrive at eleven-thirty you’ll be surprised how relaxed you become.’
The idea of an appointment being more than an hour late horrified her, but maybe she could get used to it.
Maybe.
She’d think about that later. In the meantime...
‘And this has what to do with my hair?’
‘Let it hang loose,’ he suggested, producing the gentle smile that melted her bones. ‘Let it hang loose and we’ll find a flower to put behind your ear.’
There was a longish pause, during which she actually let go of her hair, running her fingers through it so it fell without tangles, wanting to tell him she wasn’t a flower behind the ear kind of person, but before she could say anything he spoke again.
‘Of course it will be up to you to decide which ear,’ he said, leaving Fran so bemused she fled to her bedroom, muttering something about fetching her handbag while her mind searched for the source of the little ping it had given when he’d spoken of flowers and ears.
It did mean something, but in her befuddled state she had no idea what. She’d just have to hope they didn’t find a flower so she wouldn’t have to make a fool of herself doing the wrong thing.
* * *
She was stunning.
Steve watched her beat a hasty retreat into her bedroom, the long, silky dress clinging to the curves of her body, her hair, darkish but shot with light, bouncing on her shoulders.
This was the second time he’d seen her in the bathroom doorway with a brush in her hand, yet this time...
Maybe it was the dress. This time, with her arms raised to hold her hair, she’d reminded him of a painting he’d once seen, or a statue, something of spectacular beauty that had stuck in his mind, yet she seemed totally unaware of her allure.
Which made her all the more attractive...
There had to be at least a dozen reasons why he shouldn’t get involved with this woman. At the top of the list was the probability that she wasn’t interested in him, then the fact that they worked together, and he wasn’t in the market for a serious relationship just yet, and he was fairly certain she was a serious relationship kind of person.
Although...
Experience told him that it was rare to be drawn to a woman who wasn’t interested in him—attraction as strong as he was feeling was almost always mutual and although Francesca Hawthorne had given no hint of interest in him, he could put that down to th
e fact that women were more reluctant to reveal how they felt, as if being physically attracted to a man was somehow shameful.
Particularly, he guessed, women like Francesca.
Or was he kidding himself?
There was only one way to find out. He headed into the garden in search of a flower...
‘Which ear?’ he asked when he returned, brandishing the bright red hibiscus in front of Francesca.
‘What do you mean, which ear?’ she demanded, causing him to wonder if she would be bossy in bed?
The thought was so irrelevant—so irrational—he shocked even himself, yet he couldn’t help a surge of anticipation as well.
‘Availability,’ he explained, coming closer to her, breathing in the scent of woman beneath a light, flowery fragrance that might be nothing more than hair shampoo. ‘It’s an age-old custom—right ear for available women, left ear if you’re taken. Left because it’s closer to the heart, and in truth it’s probably a tourist legend, not a local custom at all.’
He was too close. Fran’s nerves were skirmishing with her brain, urging her to move closer, while her brain yelled for restraint.
Restraint!
It was practically a byword in her life, preached by her mother, confirmed by her husband, restraint in everything.
Not that her ex-husband had shown any restraint when it came to Clarissa...
Did that explain this sudden urge to fling it all away? To move out of the confining bounds of the life she’d always led? To forget the stupid guilt she’d felt when her father had left her and her mother, and the restraint she’d imposed on herself since that day.
Don’t rock the boat had become her motto.
Foolishly?
‘Definitely not taken,’ she muttered, disturbed as much by the memories and the fight within her as the closeness of the attractive man.
‘Good,’ he said quietly as he slid the flower’s delicate stem behind her right ear, letting his fingers brush against her jaw as he withdrew his hand, his eyes holding hers, sending messages she didn’t want to understand.
A Miracle for the Baby Doctor Page 3
