Steph closed her eyes and prayed, though for Harry this time, as well as Fanny.
The figures disappeared into the room, then she heard Brad’s excited cry of, ‘Bingo!’
It wasn’t an arranged signal, but Steph knew what it meant. She was out of the car and racing across the driveway at the back of the motel, reaching the door of the unit as Harry came out, a small, blonde-headed bundle held snugly in his arms.
Steph snatched the burden from him, but even as she pressed Fanny close to her chest, she glared at the man who’d rescued her.
‘You could have been killed,’ she muttered angrily at him, then her gaze feasted on her child, scanning every inch of skin to assure herself it was Fanny and she was alive and well.
Fanny opened sleepy eyes and smiled.
‘Oh, Mummy, you’re back. I’m so glad. Stella is so boring. Did you see my picture on TV? Was it because I cut the ribbon they kept putting it on?’
She snuggled closer to Steph, who closed her eyes and gave thanks, not only for the safe return of her child but to Stella as well, who had somehow managed to make the whole ordeal boring rather than traumatic for her child.
Then the agony of the past few days caught up with her, and relief weakened her knees. She sagged and would have collapsed if Harry and Bob, both hovering by her side, hadn’t caught her and helped her to the car.
The young policeman drove them home, where Bob picked up his car and departed, eager to tell Doreen the good news.
Determined to keep things as normal as possible for Fanny, Steph put her into her own bed, read her a story and watched her fall asleep before the first page was finished.
‘Now, bed for you, too,’ Harry said. ‘I’ll stay. I’ll watch her.’
‘You can’t,’ Steph told him, though she was now so tired she could barely talk. ‘You have to sleep yourself. You’re operating tomorrow.’
He reached out and grasped her shoulders, looking down into her eyes.
‘I’ve asked someone else to do it,’ he said.
‘But you can’t do that. You came home to do these operations—it was your dream, Harry.’ Tiredness lifted enough for her to protest.
‘Dreams don’t mean much when you’re faced with the reality we’ve all faced this last weekend, Steph,’ he said gently, his dark eyes soft with anguish. ‘It’s a terrible thing for a man to realise he can’t protect the woman he loves, but at least I could be here for you. I couldn’t not do that. And I won’t leave you now.’
He touched her softly on the cheek, then smoothed his finger between her eyebrows where she knew frown marks must be settling in.
‘Don’t worry. As soon as you’re rested, I’ll catch up on a bit of sleep, then take over from the primary surgeon this afternoon. We’d worked out we’d need to do shifts.’
Steph knew she was too tired for her thoughts to be making sense, but she certainly wasn’t worrying about Harry’s part in Ty’s operation. In fact, she wasn’t sure what she was worrying about—but it had begun when she’d seen him walk into that motel room…
She woke with a start, leaping off the bed and racing to Fanny’s room, seeing not her daughter but a tousled, slept-in bed that reassured her the previous night’s events hadn’t been a dream.
Fanny was in the lounge, sitting on Harry’s knee while he brushed her hair.
‘I got dressed all by myself, but I couldn’t do my hair,’ Fanny announced, and Steph felt tears rush into her eyes. Fanny was all right!
She lifted her daughter into her arms and hugged her, then, as Fanny announced she could get her own breakfast and departed to the kitchen, Steph turned to Harry.
‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling for what seemed like the first time in months.
‘I don’t need thanks, Steph. You know that.’
Harry stood up and she saw the tiredness in the way he moved, but when he took hold of her shoulders she felt his quiet strength, and when he looked into her eyes she saw the love he felt for her.
‘I know you need to spend some time with Fanny right now,’ he said gently. ‘But when you’re feeling more secure—when you’ve convinced yourself she’s safe—would you take a little time to think about us? About you and me and whether there’s a future for us—together?’
He sighed then kissed her gently on the lips.
‘I know Martin betrayed your trust, and this horrific incident has put further dents in it. I’d love to promise you’d never suffer unhappiness again, but there are no guarantees in this world, Steph. All I can promise is, whatever happens in the future, I love you and will always be there for you.’
He turned away before she could think of a reply—before she could explain that she was so mixed up right now that love was the last thing on her mind.
But when she thought over what he’d said, she realised Harry must have known that. He’d told her how he felt and was leaving the rest to her.
Steph spent the week at home, knowing Fanny needed to get back into her normal routine but unable to be far away from her, even going so far as to sit in her car outside the kindy, watching over the child she’d so nearly lost.
Rebecca reported regularly on Ty’s progress. The operation had been a success, he was out of the ICU and doing really well. The test would come when the bandages came off and the lad tried to move his jaw.
Harry was seeing patients—busier than he’d expected to be because once Fanny had been found Bob had turned his attention back to work and had milked the ‘free’ operation for all the publicity he could get.
Inevitably, some of this spotlight shone on Harry, and referrals for facial surgery were coming in at a steady rate.
But as Steph’s stress levels dropped, and life began to fall back into its normal pattern, she began to wonder why Harry hadn’t called or come to see them.
Because he left it up to you to make the next move, she reminded herself. He’s offered you his love—and left you to decide if you want to take it.
Left you to decide if you trust that love…
She pondered it on the Friday—the first day she felt secure enough to leave Fanny at kindy and actually drive home. But not secure enough to get back into her work routine.
Brad had called on Wednesday evening. Stella had admitted seeing the publicity about the hospital opening. Apparently, she’d been four months pregnant by Martin when he’d died, but had lost the baby. The publicity brought back her pain and grief and loss, and with them an overwhelming sense of injustice.
She hadn’t so much planned to kidnap Fanny as gone looking for an opportunity to do harm. She’d bought supplies so she could hole up in a motel somewhere, still thinking more of ruining the opening ceremony then getting away, not considering taking the child.
But Fanny had looked so like Martin that her control had broken. She’d followed the guests’ cars to the Quayles’ house, then had mingled with the guests. She’d stayed in the house with Martin many years earlier when his parents had been overseas, so knew her way around, and when she’d found Fanny sleeping, it had seemed so easy just to pick her up and carry her down the back stairs and out the door that led to the service gate.
Brad suspected she’d planned it more thoroughly than she admitted as her car had been parked near that exit, but she was adamant that taking Fanny had been a spur-of-the-moment decision.
In reply to Steph’s question of what would happen to Stella now, Brad had shrugged, explaining it would be up to the courts, but he guessed they would recommend a psychiatric evaluation.
Steph, now Fanny had been returned to her, felt pity for the woman who’d been cheated of everything she’d ever wanted. And though she’d vowed to put her bitterness and anger towards Martin behind her, she couldn’t help but lay the blame for Stella’s actions at his door.
And thinking of Martin, she had to think of Harry. To think about ‘us’, as he’d put it.
Was she ready to put her happiness into someone else’s hands—her own and Fanny’s happiness?
Was she ready to trust again?
Forget Harry, think about a job, she told herself when no answer to her queries about that part of her future popped obligingly into her head.
But it was still too soon to consider going back to work. She was, with difficulty, giving up her post outside the kindy, but leaving Fanny while she went to work seemed too big a hurdle to contemplate just yet.
Maybe in a little while…
Bob arrived that afternoon as she was still pondering the options. He was more understanding now, and though he hadn’t pushed her to return to live with them, today’s offer wasn’t that far off.
‘Let me pay off the house for you and give you an allowance,’ he said. ‘Then you won’t have to work.’
‘But I enjoy work,’ she explained to him. ‘And I need to do something. I can’t sit at home on my own all day, worrying about Fanny. As well as going nuts myself, I’d probably do her irreparable psychological harm by being an over-protective mother.’
‘Will you go back to work for Harry?’
Steph shrugged.
‘I don’t know if the job’s still on offer,’ she admitted. ‘And, to be honest, women with dependent children aren’t the most dependable of employees. Surgeons can’t back out of an operation at the last minute, but if Fanny was sick, I might have to do just that.’
Bob nodded.
‘Though Doreen could pick up a lot of the slack at times like that if you let her. I know she’s been a weak reed to lean on since Martin’s death, but Fanny’s disappearance has changed all that. She hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol, and she’s doing volunteer work at the hospital.’
He touched Steph gently on the shoulder.
‘She needs to be needed, Steph.’
This time it was Steph who nodded, but having Doreen available to mind Fanny if Tracy was at college made a range of jobs now possible.
Forget jobs and think about Harry!
In the end, she went to see him. Collecting Fanny herself from kindy then later leaving her with Tracy for the first time since her daughter’s disappearance, Steph set off for the hospital.
First stop was the new, sparsely populated surgical ward to visit Ty, who was in good spirits and already moving his jaw experimentally, although it was still heavily bandaged.
Then on to Harry’s rooms, where she hesitated before opening the door.
It was late enough for Rebecca and the new junior Rebecca had employed to have left, but the fact that the door was unlocked suggested Harry would still be there.
She hesitated outside the closed door of his consulting room.
‘Harry?’
No answer, but she heard a shuffling sound, then the door opened and he was standing there.
‘You look terrible,’ she said, seeing the lines strain had etched in his face and the pain and tiredness in his eyes.
‘Harry!’ His name slipped out again, this time as a protest. ‘What’s wrong?’
He tried a smile but it was a dim, exhausted effort.
‘It hasn’t been the best week I’ve ever had, Steph,’ he said, not moving to invite her in, not reaching out to touch her.
‘Ty? Is it Ty? Are there complications?’
She was so anxious she reached out herself, grasping his forearm, feeling his muscles contract as if he’d flinched at her touch.
She took her hand away, then stared at it, wondering how a pale palm, four fingers and a thumb could cause offence.
Beyond Harry’s shoulder she could see X-rays in the viewing boxes and, seeking a bit of normality in what had suddenly become an unreal situation, she stepped past him, saying, ‘Are these Ty’s? Are they the latest? Are you happy with the way things went?’
She knew he’d followed her into the room because the skin on her back was prickling with awareness of his presence.
‘Very happy,’ he said in a voice more suited to a funeral than a celebration of success. ‘See here, where we pinned new bone, if you look closely you can see it’s already starting to grow.’
He came closer to point to the section he wanted her to see, and her body throbbed with being so close, yet not close enough. Throbbed with uncertainty as well, because this Harry seemed completely oblivious to her as anything other than a fellow doctor.
She turned away from the films—she wasn’t concentrating on what he was saying anyway—and rested her hands on his shoulders. Again she felt that stiffening, but she’d come to say things and wasn’t going to be put off.
‘Harry, I’ve thought about what you said—about us.’
‘And?’ he prompted, and she saw wariness in his eyes as if he feared bad news. ‘Is there an us?’
‘I think so,’ she said softly, ‘but it would help me be sure if you kissed me.’
She saw the veil of tiredness lift from his face and the glow of love light his eyes, then she was in his arms, clinging to him as if she’d been adrift on a wind-tossed sea for far too long.
Then his lips met hers and she gave in to the sheer bliss of being in Harry’s arms—or kissing Harry.
A long time later they stopped for air, and she snuggled up against him.
‘You’re sure about this?’ he said, his voice betraying a mix of awe and hope.
‘Absolutely,’ Steph said. ‘That morning, after Fanny came back, you talked about guarantees. I’m not asking you for any guarantees. I’ve already figured out they’re not possible. But loving you, and knowing you love me—that’s enough for now. All last weekend, while Fanny was missing, I kept telling myself that getting her back would make my life complete. I thought it was all I could ever wish for.’
She studied Harry’s face, so familiar—so dear.
‘And getting her back was like a miracle. Even though I was still fearful, and obsessively over-protective, I could at least breathe normally again. Then, as the week progressed, I realised breathing wasn’t enough. I was alive, but not really living, Harry. Believe me, I know the difference. I’ve been like that for nearly five years, and enough’s enough.’
Harry’s arms closed more tightly around her.
‘There is one guarantee I can give, Steph,’ he said, as his gaze roamed her face, feasting on the so-familiar features like a starving man on food. ‘And that’s my love. For you, for Fanny, for any other children we might one day have. My love is yours—I guarantee it.’
Then he bent his head and sealed the words with a kiss.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-5750-7
THE SURGEON’S SECOND CHANCE
First North American Publication 2003
Copyright © 2003 by Meredith Webber
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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