He plopped into his desk chair and tried desperately to get her crystal-blue eyes and especially her gorgeous mouth out of his mind. Damn. And after several moments of wrestling with his thoughts, he resolved to keep Grace at arm’s length. For his own good.
He’d given up beautiful women, had only dated stable potential-mother material after his first failed relationship on moving to London four years ago. He’d gotten himself involved too soon with one of the Hunter Clinic nurses right off. That had turned into a disaster with the nurse leaving the clinic rather than work with him once they’d broken up. So far the process of sticking with mommy material had been a huge failure, but he’d keep on. It was the only way. Nothing would stop him from finding a proper mother for Mia.
But knowing Grace was on the other side of their adjoining office wall would make deleting her from his personal life as difficult as—he fished around on his desk for the surgical referral of his next patient—making Mrs. Evermore look twenty years younger, which was her surgical goal on the application for a face-lift.
Grace spent the afternoon with Lexi on a tour of the two state-of-the-art hospitals where she’d be authorized to perform surgery. The Lighthouse Children’s Hospital was merely ten minutes away, and Princess Catherine’s was beautifully placed alongside the Thames with magnificent views from most patients’ rooms.
Lexi was a natural conversationalist so Grace didn’t feel pressured to talk much.
“If you’d like, we’re meeting for drinks at Drake’s wine bar after work tonight,” she said. “I’m bringing pictures of my dream dress for my wedding day. Now all I have to do is find a way to pay for it!” She laughed.
“Well, I can’t miss that, now, can I?” Thinking about the pristine and lonely apartment, Grace agreed to meet at the wine bar, as Lexi had described it.
“Great. We’ll go together.” They got into an elevator with a glass wall to allow the full view of the river Thames all the way down. “Oh, and the shoes I’ve got in mind are to die for. Of course, I might have to pawn the ring to buy both.” She beamed and poofed her hair.
Grace smiled, adoring the lady’s spirit.
Before she left the hospital, Grace met the man who’d be the lead surgical nurse on her team, Ron Whidbey, a middle-aged man of African descent who’d been born and raised in England.
Her first case—reconstructing a face, status post-cancer resection—was one that Mitchell would be involved in as well, as the twenty-five-year-old woman would need new lips. Apparently, that was his specialty. As for herself, she’d concentrate on reconstructing the nose and cheeks and recreating a philtrum in preparation for Mitchell’s side of the operation.
Tomorrow, during surgery, she’d be so focused on her patient she’d probably not even notice Mitchell was there. A girl could hope anyway.
After a long discussion with Ron about what instruments and setup she preferred and how she liked to approach reconstructive surgery, she felt they were both on the same page and had a firm understanding of how it would be working together. He promised to meet her in O.R. Six at Kate’s, as the locals liked to call Princess Catherine’s, at 6:00 a.m. sharp with the room set up and ready to go per her orders. Then off he went to have a meeting with his nursing team.
At 6:00 p.m., having not seen hide nor hair of Mitchell for the rest of the day, Grace heard a tap at her door. It was Lexi, keeping her promise to take her to Drake’s wine bar, at the Regent’s Park end of Harley Street. Within fifteen minutes she was sitting in what resembled a classic Victorian chamber with crystal chandeliers and overstuffed benches and booths, amidst dark colors and dim lights.
Surrounded by several of her new colleagues, she’d been served a glass of crisp, unoaked Chardonnay, and as happy as a lark she munched on crackers, cheese puffs, veggies with hummus dip and mixed nuts.
Across from her, Lexi’s fiancé, Iain, a fellow reconstructive surgeon who’d been working at the Hunter Clinic for the last few years, draped his long, muscular arm about Lexi’s hip and the woman seemed to no longer need a drink. Several of the nursing staff were also there. A chestnut-haired woman sidled her way between Edward North, the stiff but gifted micro-surgeon, and another nursing colleague, then introduced herself to Grace as Charlotte. They chatted about the weather and the surgeries the clinic undertook. Since Grace had been watching and waiting for Mitchell to show up, she said a little prayer of thanks for the welcome distraction with Charlotte.
Next, Lexi gathered all the ladies at one end of the bar. Grace joined them.
“Look what I’ve got.” Lexi whipped out a picture of a divine designer dress torn from a fashion magazine. “Isn’t it gorgeous? This is what I intend to wear the day I get married.”
A couple of nurses squealed over the dress. Charlotte was one of them. Grace had to admit the pink chiffon with ribbon waistband and decorative sequins was a sight to behold. She glanced at Lexi, who was transfixed, along with the nurses. She obviously liked pink, judging by the dress she’d worn today, and pink was certainly her color.
“Now the only problem is hunting down a good knockoff because there’s no way on earth I can afford this one.”
“If anyone can do it, you can, Lexi,” Charlotte said.
Grace smiled. “Good luck. Something tells me you’ll find your dream dress at the right price.”
“From your lips to the shopping goddess’s ears,” Lexi said. Once she’d put the picture away, the nurses went off to the ladies room, and Grace followed Lexi back to the Hunter Clinic corner of the bar.
Glancing around the extremely attractive group of people, Grace thought good looks might be part of the job requirement to be employed at Hunter Clinic, but then wondered why she’d been hired.
Though the clinic group seemed tight knit, they went out of their way to make her feel a part of things. She’d just about finished her drink and was feeling relaxed, and as she was performing surgery in the morning decided she wouldn’t have another. She asked the server to bring her a glass of water and just as she looked up, in walked Mitchell. Their eyes locked briefly, long enough to set off flutters in her chest, and he went straightaway to the bar to order a drink.
Every time she saw him her heart stumbled over beats. How could a guy like that not be involved with anyone? She watched the door for a lady to follow him inside, but no one came. Just about the time her water arrived, and another Hunter Clinic surgeon named Declan Underwood was deep into explaining rugby to her, Mitch swaggered up with a beer in hand.
“Evening, all,” he said.
Everyone called out some greeting or other.
“Lips!” Iain said, and Grace wondered if it bothered Mitch to have such a nickname, though she did understand men loved to gibe each other like that. In fact, in her psychology classes in med school she’d learned that kind of behavior was a sign of affection—something most men would never be caught dead admitting.
She found it hard to concentrate and simply nodded hello when Mitch approached.
“May I sit here?” he asked, pointing to the barely six inches of padded bench next to her.
“Of course,” she said, scooting closer to Lexi. Avoiding Mitchell Cooper was out of the question now, so she decided to get used to it right off. Crammed in next to her, she felt the warmth radiate from his body, and caught the scent of the same tangy, expensive aftershave that had lingered in the cab the other night. What should she do now?
“How was your first day?” he said.
“Fine. After the shock wore off.”
He caught his lower lip with his teeth and nodded. “There’s a lot of names and faces to put together,” he said, not letting on he’d understood her true meaning of “shock,” which had nothing to do with meeting the staff.
“Yes. That’s for sure.” How inane could their conversation get? It had flowed so easily last night, when they’d been strangers. She longed for the clock to turn back twenty-four hours.
He reached for a handful of nuts and crammed them in his mouth. So much
for continuing the conversation.
Lexi appeared in front of them. “Iain and I are leaving early,” she said to Grace.
From the way the couple had had their hands all over each other, Grace didn’t need to be told the reason why they wanted to leave early. She smiled.
“Can we drop you off?” Iain asked.
Grace waited for Mitchell to offer to take her home, but after half a beat, when he hadn’t volunteered, she stood.
“Thanks, I’d love that,” she said. “Good night, everybody. It was great to meet all of you.”
“You’ll see everyone else at Friday’s staff meeting,” someone called out, but she was so distracted by Mitch and now her leaving that she wasn’t even sure who’d said it.
“See you in surgery tomorrow, Mitchell.”
He nodded.
Everyone else smiled and cheered her off, while Mitchell still chomped on his mouthful of mixed nuts, watching, looking clueless and disinterested, and nothing like the adventurous pod person she’d met last night. At least he’d kept his word—from now on theirs would be a strictly business relationship.
The next morning, at a quarter to six, Grace scrubbed in. It was a process she preferred to do by herself, since the short-sleeved scrub top revealed a large portion of her scars. But gowning was different. She needed help to do it properly. Grace caught the quick, surprised glimpse in the scrub nurse’s eyes as she helped her don the sterile gown and gloves, and tried to act as if nothing was unusual.
Once her mask was in place, she used her shoulder to push the plate for the automatic door opener to the surgical suite. Happy to make eye contact with Ron right off, she saw him nod, and from the squint of his dark eyes above the mask, she knew he smiled beneath.
She assessed her O.R. A quick check of the instruments satisfied her strict stipulations. The anesthesiologist began to put the mildly sedated patient completely under right after Grace had introduced herself. Two nurses were on hand to assist with the operation, and once she’d done the lion’s share of the surgery, Mitchell would step in to create the actual lips for the young woman. She hadn’t seen him this morning, but had been told he was on the premises and would wait to enter the O.R. until needed. It relieved Grace, knowing he wouldn’t be looking over her shoulder. She couldn’t allow a single distraction in her O.R.
Cancer had claimed most of the patient’s face, and after the dermatologist had made wide resections of the mass, very little was left of her nose or upper lip. It broke Grace’s heart, suspecting the twenty-five-year-old patient felt more like a monster than human with a hole for her nose, and gums showing where her upper lip should have been. When Grace had first been burned, before the multiple skin grafts, she’d felt like a monster, too. Her job today was to put the woman back together again. The young woman’s face would never look as it once had, but at least she’d have a face she wouldn’t be ashamed to show in public.
Grace would have to borrow cartilage from her ears to rebuild portions of the bridge and nose tip, and take bilateral transpositional flaps from her cheeks to cover the nose, reconstruct the natural curvature of the nasal rim, and create the missing upper lip. After she’d finished the general rebuilding, Mitchell would make a more natural-looking mouth by using treated fat transfer from the patient’s abdomen.
“Let’s give Julie Treadwell a beautiful new face, shall we?” she said. Everyone present nodded. “Scalpel,” she said, then made her first incision.
An hour and a half later, up to her elbows in blood, cartilage and skin flaps, one lone straggler entered the O.R. She knew it wasn’t the circulating nurse, because she hadn’t requested anything. She’d just made two small labial folds on either side of the nose flap, and had asked for the small curved needle and sutures to stitch everything in place.
She glanced up. It was him.
Knowing Mitch Cooper was there made her hand tense slightly, but only for a brief second. The patient deserved one hundred percent of her attention. She waited until she’d recovered her concentration to put the finishing touches on her portion of this two-stage surgery.
When she’d finished, she handed the patient over to Mitch then prepared to step outside to watch him work his wonders.
“Stick around,” he said. “You might learn something.”
She smiled at his teasing—now, that was more like the guy she remembered. “Wouldn’t want to get in the way.”
“You won’t. Besides, I might need to pick your brain on some of the trickier parts. From the looks of Ms. Treadwell, you’ve done a fantastic job, Miss Turner.”
Why his compliment meant so much, she couldn’t fathom, but it did. Going against her instinct to leave the good surgeon to his work, she accepted his invitation and stuck around.
Mitch took his time making sure everything was exactly as he needed it to be. Grace had already laid down the framework preserving the intraoral mucosal lining. Now he worked to maintain the oral aperture. The entire procedure would require a three-layer closure of mucosa, muscle and skin with tiny drains inserted. It couldn’t be rushed.
He’d originally planned on making a traditional mouth—a serviceable mouth. Anything would be better than the completely missing lips that the patient currently had. But since Grace had blown into town, he couldn’t get a certain styled mouth out of his mind, and he thought he’d give that style a go. The classic and beautiful Grace Turner mouth. If all went well, he’d duplicate it on Julie Treadwell.
Mitch worked his wonders, creating a cupid’s bow for the upper lip, then using the autograft flap from the donor site—the delicate radial forearm epidermis—for best match to the facial skin. If the patient desired more color to her lips, he’d suggest she have them tinted once everything was healed. But that was down the line. His job today was to create the size and shape of the lips.
He glanced up over his surgical magnifying glasses at Grace, but realized he’d have to work completely from memory as she wore her O.R. mask.
“Pass the syringe,” he said, once everything had been accomplished as planned. His surgical nurse knew exactly what he wanted and handed him the syringe with the treated fat from Julie’s abdomen. Meticulously, he injected the material along the path he’d just created with the tender fasciocutaneous flap, and carefully manipulated it into place. Everything had to be just so to form the perfect amount of plumpness, and he couldn’t waste any of the prepared fat. He would continue until every last bit of it had been used.
If all went well, tomorrow morning Julie Treadwell would be the proud owner of a replica of Grace Turner’s luscious lips.
Over the last hour, Grace had developed new respect for, and maybe a tiny crush on, Mitch Cooper and his skills as a cosmetic plastic surgeon.
When the surgery was complete, she complimented him then rushed off to dispose of her surgical gown and headed for the women doctors’ lounge. Pride made her do it before Mitch had a chance to see the angry scars on her arms, chest and neck.
They met up later at the patient’s bedside, after she’d left Recovery and was back in her room. Grace was dressed in a pale blue long-sleeved turtleneck underneath a gray pinstriped vest and matching slacks—scars safely covered, so no one would know. “How’s our patient doing?” she asked Mitch, who’d beat her there.
“Really well.” He finished rebandaging Julie’s face. “No excess bleeding. No early signs of infection. Minimal edema. All drains intact.” He glanced up at her. “The reconstruction is really superb.”
There was admiration in those intense green eyes, and Grace fought off the urge to puff up her feathers. “That’s great. I’d hate to make you unwrap her again, so I’ll take your word for it. But tomorrow I get first dibs at the bandages.”
“Roger that.” He casually saluted above the sleeping patient. “Now, if you’d like, follow me, and I’ll show you the staff cafeteria.”
Did she want to spend time alone with him again? Her first reaction was no, it would just make her wish things were differen
t. But Mitch was already heading toward the door, and truth was her stomach had grumbled just before she’d entered the patient’s room. She was hungry. He knew where the food was. She’d be stupid not to follow him.
Before she left Julie’s bedside, she took the young woman’s hand in hers and squeezed it. “You were a great patient today, Julie. I’m so happy how things turned out.” She spoke knowing that, even though the patient looked asleep, hearing was the last of the senses to go under and the first to wake up. Julie lightly squeezed Grace’s hand back and it made Grace smile. Julie had heard every word she’d just said.
Grace gently brushed a few errant tendrils of hair away from the bandages and looked hard into her covered face. She imagined how much better Julie would look when next she gazed into the mirror, and smiled. “Get some rest, Julie. It’s been a long day and the worst is over.”
Julie mumbled something but was already pushing through to the other side of consciousness.
Grace glanced up and noticed an odd expression on Mitchell’s face. She smiled, and he gave a reverent nod.
The ride down in the elevator was awkward. After running out of compliments to give each other for the successful surgery, there wasn’t much else to talk about as she chose to keep things strictly professional with Mitchell. As had he, which was obvious from his actions last night.
She saw him start to say something, or at least she thought that was what he’d meant by taking a quick breath and opening his mouth. But he bit his lips closed, as if thinking better of starting any kind of casual conversation. Again, they were on the same page. Two adventurous pod people long forgotten. Finally, they arrived in the basement and as soon as the doors opened the aroma from several different dishes had her stomach growling happily in response.
Fortunately, several other doctors were in the cafeteria, and after she and Mitch got their food, they sat in two completely different spots at the large table. When Mitch had introduced Grace, a handful of the other doctors greeted her and engaged her in conversation. Only occasionally did her eyes drift Mitch’s way, and from time to time their gazes connected. Each time they both quickly glanced away, but not before a small burst of something happened in her chest.
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