The Nurse's Christmas Gift

by Tina Beckett

  ‘Are you done with your meal?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Would you mind coming with me for a minute?’ He threw some notes onto the table, and, without even waiting for the bill, got to his feet.

  She swallowed hard, wondering if he’d had enough of this conversation. Maybe he even had his signed divorce papers back in his office. If so, she hoped she wouldn’t burst into tears when he presented her with them.

  But he’d just told her she wasn’t a loose end. And he’d held her hand in a way that had been so familiar it had sent a sting of fear through her heart.

  So she picked up her coat and followed him through the pub, weaving through tables and people alike. When their waitress made to stop them, Max murmured something to her. She nodded and disappeared back among the tables of customers.

  At the door, Max helped her into her coat and they went out into the dark night. It was chilly, but it wasn’t actually as cold as she expected. When Max kept on walking, rather than stopping to let her know why they’d left the restaurant, she remained by his side. She had no idea where they were going, but right now she didn’t care.

  A taxi stopped at the kerb. ‘You looking for a fare?’

  ‘I think we’re okay.’ Max glanced at her as if to confirm his words. She gave a quick nod, and the cab driver pulled away in search of another customer. The bar was probably a perfect spot to do that, actually, since anyone who’d had a few too many drinks would need a way to get safely back to their flat. Putting her hands in her pockets, she waited for him to tell her why he’d brought her out here. Maybe something was wrong with him physically. Could that be why he’d come home from the Sudan?

  A few minutes later, she couldn’t take not knowing. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘It’s still there, isn’t it, despite everything?’

  She frowned, moving under one of the street lamps along the edge of a park. ‘What is?’

  ‘That old spark.’

  She’d felt that spark the second she’d laid eyes on him all those years ago. But he wasn’t talking about way back then. He was talking about right now.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  She wished to hell it weren’t. But she wasn’t going to pay truth back with a lie.

  ‘Anna...’ He took her hand and eased them off the path and into the dark shadows of a nearby bench.

  She sat down, before she fell down. His voice... She would recognise that tone anywhere. He sat beside her, still holding her hand.

  ‘You’ve changed,’ he said.

  ‘So have you. You seem...’ She shook her head, unable to put words to her earlier thoughts. Or maybe it was that she wasn’t sure she should.

  ‘That bad, huh?’

  ‘No. Not at all.’

  He grinned, the flash of his teeth sending a shiver over her. ‘That good, then, huh?’

  Annabelle laughed and nudged him with her shoulder. ‘You wish.’

  ‘I actually do.’

  When his fingers shifted from her hand to just beneath her chin, the shiver turned to a whoosh as all the breath left her body, her nerve endings suddenly attuned to Max’s every move. And when his head came down, all she felt was anticipation.

  * * *

  Max wasn’t sure what had come over him or made him want to leave the safety of the bar, but the second his lips touched hers all bets were off. The fragrance of her shampoo mixed with the normal sterile hospital scents, and it was like coming home after a long hard day.

  His fingers slid up her jawline, edged behind the feminine curve of her ear and tunnelled into her hair. Annabelle’s body shifted as well, turning into him, her arms winding around his neck in a way he hadn’t felt in far too long. Or with any other woman.

  The truth was that simple. And that complicated. No woman would ever be able to take Anna’s place—so he’d never even tried to find one.

  He deepened the kiss, tongue touching her lips, exulting in the fact that she opened to him immediately. No hesitation.

  They’d always been good in bed, each instinctively knowing what the other wanted and each had been more than willing to oblige. Soft and sweet or daring and adventurous, Anna had always been open to trying new things. Until it had become all about...

  No. No thinking about that right now.

  Not when she was clutching the lapels of his jacket as if she could tug him into her very soul.

  He angled his head, thrusting a little deeper into the heat of her mouth. Maybe they should just forget about the cold park and head back to the warmth of his cottage and the heat they’d find in his bed. There were taxis on practically every corner.

  That was what he wanted: to have her. In bed. Skin to skin. With nothing between them but fire and raw need.

  Just as he was getting ready to edge back enough to ask her to go with him, the sound of voices broke through the haze of passion.

  Not Anna’s voice, but someone else’s. Close enough that he could tell they were man and woman.

  Annabelle beat him to the punch, pulling back so suddenly that it left him reeling for a few seconds. She glanced at him and he looked back at her. They both smiled. Young medical students caught necking. It had happened before, when they’d been dating. Only that had been a police officer, who’d not been quite as amused by their antics.

  ‘Caught again,’ he murmured.

  ‘So it would seem.’

  He looked over to see who was walking past and his smile died, icy fingers walking up his spine. It was indeed a man and a woman, but they were pushing a pram. Bundles and bundles of blankets were piled on top of what had to be a young infant. And their faces.

  God. They were happy. Incredibly happy.

  His gaze went back to Anna’s to find that all colour had drained from her skin, leaving her pasty white. The young man threw them a smile and a quick hello.

  Somehow Max managed to croak something back, but the mood was spoiled. He could tell by Anna’s reaction that she’d been thrown back to the tragedy that had been their shared past. At least that was what he took her stricken gaze to mean—the way her hungry eyes followed that pram as it went past and disappeared into the darkness.

  His teeth gritted together several times before he had the strength to stand up and say what needed to be said. ‘I think we’ve both had a little too much to drink. Maybe it’s time to call it a night.’

  Anna’s one glass of wine and his two weightier beverages did not constitute drunkenness by any stretch of the imagination. Unless you considered being drunk on memories of the past as over-imbibing. It had to be all the reminiscing they’d done in the restaurant and the way her face had softened as she’d looked across the table at him. He’d always had trouble resisting her, and tonight was no exception. After one smile, he’d been putty in her hands. But he’d better somehow figure out how to put a stop to whatever was happening between them before one of them got hurt.

  He’d opened his heart to her once before only to have it diced into tiny pieces and handed back to him. Never again. He would do whatever it took to keep that stony organ locked in the vault of his chest.

  Far out of reach of her or anyone else.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘I JUST HEARD. There’s a heart. Get to the hospital.’

  It took several seconds before a still-groggy Annabelle realised who was on the phone and what he was talking about. Once she did, she leaped to her feet, glancing at the clock on her nightstand to see what time it was. Three a.m.

  Once a donor organ was located time was of the essence. It had to be transplanted within hours. ‘I’m on my way.’

  Scurrying around as fast as she could, she found clothes and shoved her limbs into them, not worrying about how she looked other than a quick brush of her teeth and puttin
g her hair up into a high ponytail. Then she was out of the door and on her way to Teddy’s. It was pitch black as she pulled her car out onto the roadway, and there were almost no other vehicles out this late. Blinking the remaining sleep from her eyes, she thought about the tasks she needed to do once she arrived.

  Max evidently wasn’t at the hospital yet, since he’d said he’d just heard. Which meant they’d tracked him down at home. Wherever that was.

  Last night after that disastrous kiss, he’d seen her home in a taxi, before giving her a tight wave as the driver pulled away. What had she been thinking letting him kiss her?

  Letting him? More like her yanking him to her as tightly as she could. Once his lips had made contact with hers, he’d have been hard pressed to get away from her. She’d been that desperate to have him keep kissing her on into eternity.

  Only that hadn’t happened.

  She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. No, that couple with the baby had walked by ruining everything. It hadn’t been their fault, nor could they have known that Max’s face had hardened instantly, reverting back to the mask she remembered from the end of their marriage. Was he remembering how badly he’d wanted what she couldn’t deliver? No, he’d told her he no longer wanted children—maybe he didn’t want to see reminders of what could have been.

  And the way he’d looked at her after the young couple had walked away...

  As if he couldn’t wait to get away from her. He’d pulled her up from that bench so fast her head had spun. And no mention of when they would see each other again.

  They wouldn’t, obviously. Not outside the hospital. Or outside surgical suites. Last night had been a mistake. A remnant of embers long since extinguished. Except for one tiny spark...

  Wasn’t that what he’d called it? A spark?

  Why had he even called her about the heart? He could have operated on Hope in the middle of the night, and she would have known nothing about it until the next morning. Had he been worried about how upset she would be that he hadn’t told her?

  Or was it simply the courtesy of a doctor to another member of a patient’s medical team?

  That was probably it.

  Well, it didn’t do any good to think about it now. This call was what Annabelle had been waiting for during the past two weeks. News that this particular baby might have a chance to live and grow.

  She could put aside any discomfort working beside Max might bring. He and Sienna were both top in their field. She halfway wondered if the other doctor would be performing the transplant surgery. But Sienna had turned the case over to Max. Which meant he would be doing it.

  Would he let her in the operating room? She wasn’t a surgical nurse, but she had done a rotation in the surgical suite. And she wanted to be there for Hope, even though the baby would have no idea she was there. And wouldn’t care.

  She reached the hospital and made her way to the staff car park area. From the looks of the empty spaces, people still hadn’t recovered from the virus. Hopefully Max would be able to find enough healthy bodies to be able to perform the surgery in the middle of the night. Well, by the time things were all prepped, it would probably be closer to six o’clock in the morning. Still early, but not so far out that it would be hard to talk people into coming in to assist.

  Hurrying to the main entrance, she was surprised to find Max waiting for her. ‘I thought you’d be in prepping for surgery.’

  ‘We’re still waiting on the medevac to get here with the heart.’

  She walked with him, his long steps eating the distance. ‘Do you know anything about it?’

  ‘It typed right for Hope. The donor was an infant...the victim of a drunk driver. The family signed off just a few hours ago.’

  Signed off. Such an impersonal term for what was a very personal decision. That baby had been someone’s pride and joy. Their life. She’d mourned the foetuses she’d miscarried. But how much more would she ache if she’d held those children in her arms only to have them taken away by a cruel set of circumstances?

  Kind of like the devastation her sister had experienced when she’d tried to adopt. But at least that child was still alive somewhere in the world.

  A telltale prickle behind her eyelids warned her to move her thoughts to something else. Like the way Max had sounded saying Baby Hope’s name.

  Max had always been good at making sure parents knew that he thought of his tiny patients as people, painstakingly remembering even the names of extended family members. It was one of the things she’d truly loved about him. How special he made people feel.

  It was what had drawn her to him when they’d first met. He’d acted as if she were the most beautiful girl in the room. Well, Max had certainly been the best-looking guy she’d ever laid eyes on, and when he’d said her name it had made her—

  ‘Anna? You okay?’

  She scrubbed her eyes with her palms. ‘Still fighting the last bits of sleep, but I’ll be fine.’

  It was a lie. Annabelle was wide awake, but she was not going to tell him that she’d been standing there remembering the way they’d once been together.

  ‘Well, you’d better finish waking up. We have a lot of work to do before that heart arrives.’

  ‘Were you able to assemble a transplant team?’

  He nodded, looking sideways at her as they continued down the brightly painted corridor. Annabelle had always loved the way Teddy’s was so cheerful, almost as if it were a wonderful place for kids to laugh and play rather than a hospital that treated some of the most desperately ill children in the area.

  ‘You’re part of that team.’

  Annabelle stopped in her tracks. She’d hoped he would include her in some way, but to put her on the actual team... That strange prickling sensation grew stronger. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have said it if I weren’t.’

  ‘Thank you. You don’t know what this means to me.’

  ‘I think I do.’ He smiled, no hint of awkwardness in his manner, unlike Annabelle, who could barely look at him without remembering what had happened last night. ‘But I didn’t put you on it out of some sense of pity. I need you. You know Hope better than probably anyone else here at the hospital. I want you monitoring her, letting me know of anything out of the ordinary you see as we get her ready. And I want a sense of how she is when the surgery is finished, and she’s coming out of the anaesthetic.’

  More beautiful words had never been spoken. Max acted as if it were a given that the baby would survive the surgery and actually wake up on the other side. As if there were no question about it. Done for her sake? Or because he really believed it? ‘You’ve probably studied her case as much as I have.’

  ‘I’ve studied it, but you’ve lived it, Anna.’

  She had lived it. Some of it joyful, like when Hope opened those sweet blue eyes of hers and stared into Annabelle’s. Some of them terrifying...like the day before yesterday when she had gone into respiratory failure. Annabelle had thought for sure those were the last moments of the baby’s life. And now this. The sweet sound of hope...for a precious baby who was fighting so hard to live.

  And now she just might get that chance.

  ‘Thank you. For letting me be a part of it.’

  Max started moving again, his steps quicker, more confident. ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

  * * *

  ‘Ready for bypass.’

  Max glanced back at the perfusionist seated at the table across from him, its myriad tubing and dials enough to make anyone nervous. But Gary Whitley—an expert in his field, Max had been told—was at the helm, his white goatee hidden beneath the surgical mask. ‘Tell me when.’

  Once they put Baby Hope on the bypass machine, the race with time would begin once again. The sooner the donor heart was in place and beating, the
better chance the baby had for a good outcome. The risk for post-perfusion syndrome—the dreaded ‘pump head’—grew the longer a patient was on bypass. Most of the time, the symptoms seemed to resolve after a period of weeks or months, but there were some new studies that suggested the attention and memory problems could be long-reaching for some individuals. Hopefully the baby’s young age would preclude that from happening.

  ‘Let’s start her up.’

  Gary adjusted the instrumentation and looked up just as the centrifugal pumps began whirling, sending the blood through the tubes and over into the oxygenator. ‘On bypass.’

  Max then nodded at Anna, who noted the time. She would keep an eye on the maximum time allowable and notify the team as they arrived at certain critical markers: one-quarter, the halfway mark and the three quarters mark, although he hoped they didn’t cut it that close.

  Using a series of clamps and scalpels, they finished unhooking Hope’s defective heart, and, after checking and double checking the great vessels, they removed the organ from the opening in her chest wall.

  ‘Ready for donor heart.’ The new organ carefully changed hands until it reached Max. He checked it for damage, despite the fact that it had already gone through rigorous testing. He preferred to inspect everything himself...to know exactly what he was dealing with.

  Was that one of the reasons he’d asked Annabelle to be involved in the surgery? Because he knew what to expect when they worked together?

  Yes. But it was also because he knew this patient meant so much to her. Leaving her out after all the time, effort, and—knowing Annabelle—love she’d put into Baby Hope seemed a terrible act. Almost as if he were discarding her once she’d served her purpose.

  That thought made him wince, but he quickly recovered.

  Everything looked good. He measured the new heart for fit on the patient’s left atrium and trimmed a tiny bit of tissue to ensure everything went together as it should. Then he set about the painstaking process of suturing it all back together.