The Surgeon's Convenient Fiancée (Medical Romance)

by Rebecca Lang

  All this went through Deirdre’s mind as she and Marge went to room one, which was set up for general surgical emergencies.

  ‘You get scrubbed, Deirdre,’ Marge said, ‘while I open up the packs. What size gloves do you take?’

  ‘Six and a half, please,’ she said, pausing at the scrub sinks, which were just outside the door of room one, to put on a disposable surgical mask over her nose and mouth, to tuck stray hair under the paper cap that she wore and to put on a pair of plastic goggles that she kept in her pocket. Quickly she started the scrub procedure, taking a sterile nailbrush, lathering her hands with liquid soap from a special container that was operated by a foot pedal, opening the taps, which had levers on them so that they could be turned off with the elbows at the end of the scrub procedure.

  In the operating room she put on a sterile gown, while Marge tied up the back of it, then she put on her gloves. Marge had opened up packs of drapes and instruments for a major abdominal operation, as well as large gauze sponges and sutures.

  A calm descended on Deirdre as she surveyed the equipment in front of her, aware that she knew exactly what to do, step by step. She would prepare her set-up in the order in which the surgeon would need to use the instruments and equipment. In that way, the scrub nurse was always ready, always at least one step ahead of the surgeon, even if she had only minutes to scrub before he scrubbed himself. First, they had to prep the skin of the patient with a disinfectant iodine solution…

  Quickly she collected her thoughts and went to work, the adrenaline running through her bloodstream, as Myra had predicted it would. That, she hoped, would compensate for her tiredness, for not having slept that day. She felt that sense of rather sick excitement that she always felt before an operation as she geared herself up mentally to meet the challenge. She gave a passing thought to Mungo and Fleur, sleeping peacefully, she hoped, in their granny’s house.

  Myra had arranged for a porter to transport the patient, a young man, on a stretcher from the emergency department. Deirdre heard when they arrived outside the room. Moments later the senior surgical resident, Dr Ross Chandler, and the surgical intern, Dr Eleanor Chan, came into the room. They looked tired, with that drawn, pale look of the chronically overworked. Deirdre felt for them.

  ‘Howdy, all,’ Ross Chandler said laconically, his voice matching his tall, thin body. ‘Nice to see you all again.’

  ‘And we just love to see you, too. How sure are you about this diagnosis, Ross?’ Myra asked the resident. ‘I want to get some idea of how long we’re likely to be here.’

  ‘Pretty sure,’ he said. ‘Shay agrees.’

  ‘That’s enough for me.’

  The double doors to the room were pushed open and the anaesthetist, Dr Chuck Burns, came into the room, pushing the patient ahead of him on the stretcher.

  The young man on the stretcher looked pale and sick and scared. Myra moved into high gear, talking to him to ease his fears, explaining all that would happen to him, helping him shift over onto the operating table, while Dr Burns filled in during the pauses, telling him what he proposed to do next.

  Deirdre glanced quickly at them, then away again, getting on with the task of setting up her instruments, tearing open packets of surgical catgut. Marge had given her a card that listed all the sutures that she would need to prepare for Shay and Marge had stuck the card up on the wall with sticky tape.

  To say that Deirdre felt nervous was putting it mildly. It had been quite a while since she had scrubbed for such a case, but it was something that one did not forget. More to the point, she wondered what Shay would think when he saw her there, a nurse barely out of orientation.

  Then suddenly there he was, coming into the room, tying on his surgical mask.

  ‘Good morning, everyone,’ he said quietly, going over to the side of the operating table to talk to the patient. It did not take long for the anaesthetist to have the patient under the influence of an anaesthetic, at which point Shay turned his attention to her, to see who he had as a scrub nurse.

  ‘Deirdre! Is it you?’ he looked at her closely. ‘What are you doing here in the middle of the night?’

  ‘Um…the flu epidemic,’ she said, feeling suddenly tongue-tied. ‘I…was asked to fill in.’

  Their eyes met and they smiled at each other, the interaction not particularly noticed by the others in the room in the midst of all the activity in getting the patient positioned on the operating table. ‘Ah, yes, the flu,’ he said. ‘I’ve been doing all I can to avoid getting it, but there’s no sure-fire way. Anyway, it’s great to see you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Are you ready for me?’ he asked. ‘I’m going to scrub now.’

  ‘Yes, I’m ready,’ she said.

  ‘I’m going to need a corrugated rubber drain at the end,’ he said, ‘as there’s going to be fluid to drain out to prevent abscesses forming in the abdominal cavity. And I’ll probably need a Haemovac drain as well. You know all about that, don’t you, Deirdre?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but thanks for reminding me.’

  Before too long the skin had been prepped, the patient covered with sterile drapes, the tables and trays of instruments and sponges in place. She stood on the opposite side of the operating table from Shay. He smiled at her over the top of his surgical mask. ‘Scalpel, please,’ he said.

  As the operation got under way, Deirdre had a sense of dissonance for a few moments. How odd it was that she should be here, doing this job, with this man, so soon after she had not been able to get off a bus, had been so low in spirits that she had not known what to do with herself, had looked at the hospital notice board to see jobs available. It seemed amazing that it had all happened, that here she was in the middle of the night, working with a man she had fallen in love with. She was by no means in control of her life, yet somehow the work had lifted her out of despair. Here she was doing something for which she was trained, something she was good at.

  * * *

  Somehow she got through the night. All at once, it seemed, the morning had arrived and it was time to go off duty. Somehow the three of them had got through the necessary routine work and the emergency operations as well. Awash with tiredness, she was happy when Myra and Marge let her go off duty a little ahead of time, before the day staff came on. In the deserted coffee-lounge she made herself a cup of tea, going automatically through the motions of dipping a tea-bag in a mug of boiled water.

  She sipped the hot liquid standing up, fearful that if she sat down she would fall asleep. It had been a long time since a cup of tea had tasted so good. There were a few moments of quiet before the day staff came en masse through the door to get their morning coffee.

  There was no sense of surprise in her when the door opened and Shay came in, only a sense of inevitability. ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he said simply. ‘Will you have breakfast with me at my apartment? I’m going to take the morning off, get some sleep. Please, come.’ He looked as exhausted as she knew she must look.

  ‘All right, I will come,’ she said softly. ‘I would like to have a shower. I’m so exhausted, I ache all over.’

  ‘You can have a shower at my place, if you would like to,’ he offered.

  ‘All right. Thank you.’

  ‘Finish your tea, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet you in the main lobby in about ten minutes, then you can follow me in your car. It’s not far.’

  Deirdre nodded, as her voice seemed to have deserted her. After all, it had not been difficult, she mused as he went out as silently as he had come in. It had been almost matter-of-fact, his face serious, no banter, no embarrassment, nothing coy about it. In a way, she was glad of that. She was about to become his lover, he was ready for her and she for him. They were both tired, each wanting the comfort of the other. Perhaps it was good that they were both exhausted; that was maybe more sobering and serious than a wet Monday morning would have been, she thought.

  Slowly and deliberately she changed into her out
door clothes in the locker room, brushed her hair, picked up her bag and left. Outside the main lobby she put through a call to Fiona to make sure that all was well there, to find that they were all up, having breakfast.

  Shay appeared then, and she went up to him so that he could take her arm. ‘Show me where you’re parked,’ he said.

  Moments later she was following him out of the parking lot in her car. The small apartment block where he lived when he needed to be in the centre of the town, exclusive and charming, was in a quiet residential area, no more than a mile away from the hospital. It was a small ivy-covered building of red brick, surrounded by gardens that were now covered in light snow.

  ‘I’m on the ground floor,’ Shay said to her as they emerged from their cars in the covered parking area. ‘What do you like for breakfast?’

  ‘Oh…just a glass of orange juice would be lovely,’ she said. ‘I’m not hungry—just very thirsty.’ As she walked side by side with him it all felt so right to her, yet strange at the same time, as though it were somehow predestined and her free will had been taken away from her. She felt an odd equanimity, which surprised her. Even so, she found that she could not look at him.

  A heavy-looking oak door at the entrance led into a wide hallway, then another private door led into a smaller quiet corridor, where his apartment door was the only one. Inside the apartment, all external sound was cut off—traffic noise, the sound of the wind in the trees—and they were in a quiet world of their own.

  ‘Let me take your coat,’ Shay said, his hands on her shoulders, and she let him help her shrug out of her heavy wool coat, sensitized acutely to his touch. Then she divested herself of her hat, scarf and gloves in the quiet dimness of his hallway, which smelt of lemon furniture polish and fresh flowers.

  His touch on her was almost unbearable and she shivered. The need to go into his arms was one that she could not put off much longer, and she turned to him, waiting.

  ‘Would you like your orange juice now?’ he asked softly, taking off his own coat and flinging it on a chair in the hallway. ‘Or would you like a shower first?’

  Deirdre detected a certain humility in him, a sense that he did not take her for granted, and the love she felt for him threatened to overwhelm her. ‘I…’ she said. Then she went into his arms, putting her arms up around his neck, touching his neck, pulling his head down to her. ‘Shay… kiss me.’

  With a groan of longing he pulled her hard against him and crushed her mouth with his, while she held him to her, her fingers in his hair.

  When she pulled back from him her lips felt swollen and bruised, a sensation that she had never experienced before. ‘Show me where I can have a shower, please,’ she said huskily. Deep down she was trembling, wondering if it showed on the surface. More than anything she wanted to lie beside him, be in his arms, then sleep with her limbs entwined with his…

  Fantasy and reality were two different things. Now in reality, she felt very, very shy.

  In the spacious bathroom off the main bedroom he gave her a towelling bathrobe. ‘Here’s a toothbrush you can use,’ he said. ‘I’ll get your orange juice. Take your time, love.’

  ‘I like it when you call me “love”,’ she whispered, taking the things from him.

  ‘I like saying it to you,’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘I have another bathroom, so you don’t have to hurry. I’ll bring the juice.’

  It was wonderful to get under the jets of hot water, to shampoo her hair with Shay’s shampoo, to lather her body with his soap. She was glad that he had not suggested they take a shower together. He was respecting her privacy and not presuming a spurious intimacy at this stage.

  An arm appeared around the edge of the opaque shower curtain, holding a large glass of orange juice. Carefully, she took it from him, then he was gone. ‘Thanks,’ she called out.

  It tasted so good, cool and pleasantly sweet to her parched throat. What a night it had been, she thought, a baptism of fire. After the ruptured appendix had been dealt with, they had had a man with multiple stab wounds. Usually such cases went to the larger hospitals, but it had happened locally. That had taken care of most of what had been left of the night.

  Shyly she emerged later into the large bedroom that was pleasantly dim, where the curtains, of deep green velvet, were drawn against the winter scene outside. The whole room was decorated in various shades of green, making it like a bower. Her hair was still damp. She found that she was not questioning what she was doing, just going on instinct, living in the moment. It was not a conscious decision, she realized, it was just something that was happening. It was almost as though she were standing outside herself, observing her own behaviour, wondering exactly what she would do next.

  Shay came in a moment later, dressed in a dark blue robe, his hair damp and slicked down. In his hand he carried a towel and a hairbrush. ‘Let me dry your hair,’ he said, touching her hair to feel its dampness. ‘I do have a hairdryer, but this is nicer. Sit down.’ When she sat on the edge of the bed, he gently put the towel on her head and began to rub it dry. The gesture was strangely intimate and loving, so that her throat felt tight and she wanted to cry and yet giggle at the same time. It had been years since anyone had dried her hair. For someone who did not trust love, he could be very tender and gentle, she was discovering. Then he brushed her hair back away from her face with soft, slow strokes of the brush, so that she closed her eyes with the pleasure of it.

  ‘There,’ he said, putting aside the towel and the brush. She opened her eyes to look at him, seeing his eyes blazing with the desire that he felt for her. ‘Deirdre, do you want to be here with me… like this? I have to be sure.’

  ‘Yes…yes. I do,’ she said softly, hardly able to meet his gaze. ‘But I am sort of…sort of…’

  ‘Unrelaxed?’ he offered softly.

  ‘Yes. This isn’t—believe it or not—something that is common in my experience, being here like this with a man I don’t know very well. Although I do feel that I know you more than most. As I said, I do want to be here.’ She sat demurely, her hands in her lap, her feet bare, enveloped in the huge robe that belonged to him, feeling small and very feminine, and cared for in a way that had eluded her for a long time. The tension of attraction between them was so intense that she wondered how she could bear it, and she swallowed the nervous lump in her throat.

  ‘I understand,’ he said.

  Sitting there beside her, so close, he looked so attractive. With his damp hair smoothed down, it accentuated the angular bone structure of his face and the sensual curve of his very masculine mouth, she thought when she glanced at him quickly and away again, not wanting him to see the vulnerability in her eyes, the longing for him. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him smiling. I guess I don’t fool him for a moment, she thought. He knows everything about me.

  When he slipped the robe off one shoulder, to caress her skin with his warm fingers and his lips, she closed her eyes and let out a sigh, and she kept them closed when the robe came loose and she felt the cool air of the room on her skin. She held her breath as his hands smoothed over her shoulders, the sensation so exquisite that she thought she would faint. Automatically she reached for him, her arms going around his neck.

  They both subsided sideways onto the bed in each other’s arms and Deirdre began to laugh. It was such a relief to find that she was not awkward with him. ‘This must be the breakfast that you promised me,’ she teased.

  Shay smiled down at her, propped on one elbow so that he could lean over her. ‘Are you hungry? If you prefer toast,’ he said, smiling, ‘just say the word.’

  She shook her head. ‘I am hungry, but I know I couldn’t eat anything. I…I’m too nervous.’

  ‘You don’t have to be nervous. Do you like the smell of lavender?’ he asked softly, leaning over her, his lips inches away from hers.

  ‘Mmm. Love it.’

  He reached for a small blue bottle on the bedside table. ‘I keep lavender oil here so that I can br
eathe in the scent of it when it seems that all the scents of the operating rooms are still in my nostrils,’ he said.

  ‘I wish I’d thought of that.’ She laughed.

  She watched him while he poured some of the oil into the palm of his hand and then smoothed it over her shoulder. Her eyes closed of their own volition as the lovely, delicate scent of the lavender filled her nostrils and she felt herself relaxing. ‘Mmm…that’s wonderful,’ she murmured. When she was lying full length on the bed, he eased the robe from her. Moments later she felt Shay’s hands moving warmly, sensually over her back as she turned over onto her stomach, the lavender oil making her skin smooth and supple under his touch.

  For a long time his hands moved over her, from her shoulders down over her hips, smoothing away her aches and tensions, kneading the muscles and stroking her skin so that it felt like silk, while the scent surrounded her like a cocoon.

  Gently he moved her over onto her back, moving his hands slickly over her breasts, very gently, barely touching her. ‘Oh, Shay…’ she whispered. His hands moved lower, over the delicate swell of her stomach. The scent felt like a drug in her nostrils. All that mattered was the delicate movement of his fingers on her skin.

  He kissed her then, his lips moving caressingly on hers, the weight of his body coming down on hers as his hands caressed her. Languorously she put her arms round his neck, holding him against her. As he had said, she did not have to be nervous. A peace moved over her, a wonderful sense of being loved, albeit in the arms of a man who did not trust love, the ‘twenty-four-seven man’. At that moment he was very much with her, giving her his full attention. That was all that mattered. I love you, she wanted to say, but she kept silent. Sufficient unto the day…