The Surgeon’s Gift Read online

  With a sigh Rachael stood up, desperate for a moment’s privacy, and headed for the IV cupboard, the one place on the ward that offered it. Hardly a cupboard, it was, in fact, a large room with rows of metal trolleys containing various flasks, the walls lined with IV poles and pumps, the perfect place to take five, to bite back the tears that seemed to be threatening more and more these days.

  Damn Hugh Connell, she inwardly cursed as she blinked rapidly. Damn him for interfering. If he hadn’t said anything she wouldn’t be here now, hiding in an IV cupboard, struggling to keep it all together. Seeing him breeze past on his way back to Theatre, his wide shoulders obviously not carrying a care in the world, Rachael felt her threatening tears turn instead to anger. Stepping out into the carpeted corridor, her rubber soles didn’t make a sound, but though she didn’t raise her voice even a fraction, the sharpness of her words were enough to stop Hugh as he approached the lift.

  ‘Dr Connell.’

  ‘Rachael.’ He smiled as she walked towards him, then turned his attention back to the lift, watching the numbers light up as it worked its way towards them. It was only then that Rachael realised he thought she was just saying hello, that Hugh thought she was waiting to catch the lift with him, and with a bit of a jolt she also realised that her unfriendly tone hadn’t surprised him in the least.

  ‘I was hoping to have a word.’

  ‘What have I done now?’ He gave a slight grimace. ‘Or, rather, what haven’t I done? I don’t know where I’m at this morning. Helen just wiped the floor with me for not signing off on one of my drug orders.’

  ‘Actually, it’s not about a patient.’ Rachael swallowed, her cheeks burning as he turned and looked at her more closely. ‘Well, not directly anyway.’

  ‘Oh.’ She could hear the surprise in his voice but he held her stare. ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘I’d rather not go into it here.’ She watched a frown mar his perfect features but as the lift pinged and the doors slid open, all of a sudden the wave of courage, the explosive anger that had assailed her just moments before seemed to be vanishing at a rate of knots. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m sure it will keep. You’d better get back to Theatre. I’ll catch you later.’ Turning, Rachael walked off, furious with herself for not following through with her intentions, yet relieved all the same. She would tell him exactly what she thought, but later, when she had calmed down.

  ‘You’ve got me intrigued now!’ Rachael nearly jumped out of her skin as she realised he had followed her into the IV cupboard.

  ‘I thought you were in a rush.’

  ‘They can wait,’ he said haughtily, but it was softened with a smile. ‘They’re hardly going to start the operation without me. So come on, Rachael, what’s the problem?’

  ‘You are actually.’ And though she wasn’t looking at him, though Rachael was concentrating on restacking an already neat row of IV flasks, she just knew the easy smile had vanished from his face. ‘What on earth made you think you had the right to give a patient such personal information about me? Not only have you made things very awkward for me, you’ve made Hailey feel uncomfortable. She’s spent the last three days avoiding me.’

  ‘As opposed to you avoiding her,’ Hugh said without a trace of contrition.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You’re a great nurse, Rachael. You’re professional, knowledgeable and you’re also very friendly and personable—at least with patients,’ Hugh added. ‘And someone sitting in bed, recovering from an operation, hasn’t much else to do but watch the staff. How do you think Hailey would have felt if she’d seen you being nice to all her fellow patients and then running a mile every time she tried to strike up a conversation with you?’

  ‘I’d have handled it,’ Rachael said through gritted teeth.

  ‘By avoiding her,’ Hugh said, unmoved by her obvious fury. ‘The same way you handle your colleagues—running a mile every time someone tries to talk to you about anything that isn’t a patient or a drug.’

  ‘How dare you make such an assumption? You hardly even know me—’

  But Hugh cut her off in mid-sentence. ‘I dare to, because it is just that—an assumption. That’s how we form our opinions of people. I’ve seen you sitting on your own in the canteen at lunchtime, I’ve noticed how you’d rather scald your tongue drinking boiling coffee in the staffroom than, heaven forbid, actually relax on your coffee-break and talk to your colleagues. From that, therefore, I assume you’d rather not get too close to your co-workers.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Rachael flared, her mind racing for a crushing answer. But none was forthcoming and she had to settle for a second, but less emphatic, ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘Then have lunch with me.’ He gave a small triumphant smile as Rachael practically jumped out of her skin. ‘I’ve only two quick patients left on my theatre list, so I should be finished by midday. I can page you when I’m done and we can share a very questionable version of hotpot together in the canteen.’

  ‘I hate hotpot.’ It was a stupid response, pathetic actually, but it was the best Rachael could come up with at such short notice.

  No notice at all, in fact. Hugh’s invitation had caught her completely unawares. The hospital canteen mightn’t be the most exotic of locations but, given her fragile state, he might just as well have been asking her to fly off to Fiji.

  ‘Fine, then we’ll throw caution to the winds and try the ham salad.’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve got things to do on my lunch-break. I have,’ she insisted as he raised an eyebrow. ‘My car’s being repaired, I need to phone the garage and—’

  ‘It’s OK, I get the message, Rachael.’ His pager was bleeping, Theatre was waiting—everyone wanted a piece of him, but still he stayed.

  ‘I hope you do. I hope this will be first and last time you try to look out for me. I don’t need your help, Hugh. I don’t need anyone’s help and I certainly don’t need the patients knowing my business. It’s hard enough as it is, without telling all. If that’s going to be the case, I might just as well walk around with a ‘‘fragile, handle with care’’ label around my neck.’

  ‘What would be so wrong with that?’ Hugh asked. ‘Why shouldn’t you be treated a bit more gently, given all that you’ve been through?’

  ‘I’d far rather be treated normally,’ Rachael retorted, not quite with a snarl but with a definite curl at the edge of her top lip. ‘For your information, I actually prefer it when people don’t know what’s happened. It’s strangely refreshing to get through an entire conversation without people lowering their voices.’ Clearing her throat, Rachael adopted a rather po face as Hugh stood there patiently digesting her outburst, listening as she lowered her tone and adopted the voice of a social worker. ‘‘How are you, Rachael?’’ No, that’s not quite right,’ she corrected herself. ‘It’s more like, ‘‘How are you, Rachael’’ or, and this one’s my favourite, ‘‘How are you coping, Rachael?’’

  ‘People are allowed to ask Rachael. They’re just being nice, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Rachael shrugged. ‘But I’ll tell you this much, Hugh. Right now I’d settle for being treated like a normal human being.’

  ‘Normal human beings eat,’ Hugh ventured, his smiling demeanour such a contrast to Rachael’s surly expression.

  ‘You don’t give up, do you?’ A very reluctant smile was starting to soften her frown.

  ‘Only when it’s a lost cause.’ His pager was bleeping incessantly now and Hugh turned it off impatiently and read the words on the small screen with a frown. ‘I was wrong. It looks like they are prepared to start the operation without me.’

  ‘Then you’d better go.’ Green eyes were looking at her, dark green eyes that weren’t judging or patronising, the kind of eyes that might even make the canteen’s hotpot palatable, the kind of eyes it would be so easy to open up to.

  It was the longest few seconds of her life.

  ‘Go,’ Ra
chael said again, jerking her face away, terrified he might somehow sense the sudden shift in tempo, hear the contradiction of her spoken word, because surely her eyes must be saying otherwise?

  Going was the last thing she wanted him to do.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  KELVIN was very young, very distressed and, Rachael guessed as the paramedics helped him onto the bed, very scared. The nature of his injury meant that speech was difficult but he still more than managed to put his point across with the help of a pad and pen the staff at Warragul had thoughtfully provided.

  ‘He wants a mirror,’ Bill, the paramedic, said as Kelvin scribbled furiously and handed the note to Rachael with a shaking hand.

  ‘Have you seen your injury yet, Kelvin?’

  He nodded, writing rapidly as he did so.

  ‘‘‘Briefly, at the factory. It’s bad, isn’t it?’’’ Rachael reread the note out loud to be sure she’d got his question right. ‘Kelvin, it’s not for me to say. I haven’t even seen it and I don’t want to take the dressing down until Dr Connell gets here—he’s the one who’ll be able to asses the extent of your injury and what he can do for you. I’m going to do a set of obs on you and then I’ll page Dr Connell and let him know that you’re here.’ The paramedics hovered as Rachael checked Kelvin’s observations, following her outside once she had finished.

  ‘‘Struth, I hope this Dr Connell of yours is good,’ Bill said, scratching his head. ‘I got a look at it over at Warragul when they were dressing it and it’s a hell of a mess, poor kid.’

  ‘He’s not my Dr Connell.’ Rachael grinned. ‘But by all accounts he is very good.’

  ‘He’ll need to be.’

  But as good as Hugh was reputed to be, there wasn’t a lot he could do from Theatre. Rachael recited Kelvin’s obs efficiently without small talk, realising he was in the middle of a procedure with the theatre nurse holding the telephone to his ear. ‘He’s in a lot of distress,’ Rachael finished.

  ‘I can imagine. They’ve loaded him with antibiotics already, but are you happy to give him a stat dose of 10 mg IM Valium? I’ll write it up when I get there.’

  ‘Sure, so long as you repeat the order to Helen.’

  ‘Thanks. If that settles him enough I’ll repair him up on the ward in the treatment room, otherwise the poor guy’s going to have to wait until tomorrow. The theatres are full and they’re not going to free up one for a lip repair.’

  Rachael frowned into the telephone. ‘I haven’t seen it yet, but from the notes it’s pretty extensive.’

  ‘All the more reason to get it sorted. I don’t want him lying there all night, imagining the worse. Anyway, it will take a while and I’d rather spare him a long general anaesthetic if I can help it. I’ll know more when I get up there. Tell him I’ll be about an hour, and make sure you get a coffee in now—it might be a long job.’

  ‘I’m off at four,’ Rachael said quickly, too quickly, the thought of spending a couple of hours with Hugh unsettling to say the least. Realising she had overreacted, she offered up an excuse. ‘As I said, my car’s being serviced and I have to be there to pick it up by five, so I really can’t stay. One of the late staff will probably do it.’ She was still frowning, still not quite convinced Hugh realised the severity of Kelvin’s injury. ‘I’ll pass you on to Helen for the valium order.’

  The poor theatre nurse’s arm must have been in spasm with cramp because he nattered away to Helen for a couple of minutes, and whatever he was saying made her laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Rachael frowned as Helen hung up.

  ‘He just asked me to set up the treatment room.’

  ‘Hilarious,’ Rachael muttered as Helen swiped her card and let them into the drug room. There was a slight edge to her voice and even Rachael couldn’t fathom why Helen’s little tête-á-tête with Hugh had irked her so much.

  ‘We were just having a joke. He asked me to give him a nurse with personality then corrected himself, said he must have thought for a moment that he was back in the private wing.’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ Rachael responded dryly as she checked the ampoule.

  ‘You really don’t like him, do you?’

  ‘I don’t have to like him,’ Rachael pointed out. ‘I just have to work with him.’

  ‘Or maybe you do like him,’ Helen said, pulling up the Valium then pretending to concentrate on flicking the air bubbles out of the syringe. ‘Maybe that’s what the problem is.’

  ‘Where did you get that from?’

  ‘Well, whatever your reaction has been, blasé certainly isn’t how I’d describe it.’

  Rachael gave an incredulous laugh. ‘Believe me, Helen, you’re miles off the mark. Hugh Connell is the last person in the world I’d like.’

  ‘But he’s gorgeous. Any woman would give their right arm to court him.’

  ‘This is the twenty-first century Helen.’ Rachael grinned. ‘People don’t ‘‘court’’ any more, they date. And if I’ve been over the top where he’s concerned, if you must know it’s because he gets on my nerves.’

  ‘Why?’ Helen wailed. ‘He’s lovely.’

  ‘He’s opinionated, over-confident and he thinks he’s God’s gift to the medical profession.’

  Tossing a couple of alcohol swabs into the kidney dish along with the medication, Helen gave a cynical snort. ‘Whatever you say, Rachael. And for your information, I might be a bit past the dating game, but I’m not so out of touch I can’t pick a honey when I see one, and Hugh Connell is just that.’

  ‘Helen …’ Rachael caught hold of her friend’s arm as she went to leave. ‘Stay out of it, I mean it. Maybe Hugh is the ‘‘honey’’ you say he is, and maybe, just maybe at a different place and time I might have even been the tiniest bit interested. But this is here and this is now, and I’m simply not. I’m up to here with men,’ Rachael said emphatically, jabbing at her neck with her hand. ‘And even if one day in the way distant future I surface from my self-imposed seclusion, good-looking plastic surgeons are way, way down on my list of the perfect man. I’ve been there and done that, remember.’

  ‘So you’re not interested in dating?’

  ‘Not remotely.’

  ‘Good.’ Helen gave a cheeky grin. ‘So can I put you down for a night shift in a few weeks? It’s a Saturday night so I can’t get anyone.’

  Rachael rolled her eyes. ‘Anyone with a life, you mean.’

  As Hugh pulled back the gauze, Rachael had to make an actual physical effort to keep her face impassive. The entire middle section of Kelvin’s lower lip simply wasn’t there any more. By contrast, Hugh seemed positively laid back, giving his patient an easy smile.

  ‘Don’t worry, Kelvin, you’ll look fine. So fine, in fact, that I’m going to get Maurice here to take a few photos of you—he’s a medical photographer. I’d like to get a few before and after shots for my scrapbook. You’ll need some documentation, too, I would think. Is that all right with you?’

  Nodding, Kelvin picked up his pad again. The writing wasn’t quite so furious, thanks to the Valium, but, picking up his shakily written note, Rachael deciphered it for Hugh. ‘‘‘How Fine?’’’

  ‘Good question.’ Hugh smiled. ‘It will take a bit of getting used to from your point of view because you’re so familiar with your own face, but to someone who hasn’t met you, apart from a small, fine scar it will be barely noticeable, if at all.’ His clear eyes shifted from Kelvin and met Rachael’s. ‘Is the treatment room ready?’

  Rachael nodded but her hesitancy didn’t go unnoticed, and with the tiniest motion of his blond head Hugh gestured her to the corridor outside.

  ‘Problem?’

  Well he certainly didn’t believe in wasting time with small talk. Taken back by the directness of his question, Rachael gave a dismissive smile. ‘No, not at all.’ Which wasn’t strictly true, but Rachael knew her place. A professional she might be, but questioning a plastic surgeon as to his surgical technique was way out of her league. Hugh, though, seemed to invite de
bate and pushed further.

  ‘You just seem a bit unsure about things. If you’ve got any doubts I’d rather hear them now and hopefully put your mind at ease. Kelvin’s going to be looking to you for reassurance, and I’d like it to be genuine. Come on, Rachael, what’s on your mind?’

  ‘I just think we should be a bit more cautious in our optimism,’ Rachael started carefully. ‘I know I haven’t done any plastics, but it’s an horrific injury. I think ‘‘fine’’ is just a touch dismissive. Maybe it would be more prudent to explain things now.’

  ‘And worry him unnecessarily?’

  She waited for a few sharp, superior words, but Hugh’s stance remained casual and his eyes carried on smiling. Although the confrontation was enough to account for her accelerated heart rate, Rachael couldn’t for the life of her fathom why butterflies were fluttering in her rib cage as she awaited his response.

  ‘Lips have an excellent vascular supply. They heal amazingly well and though you may not have done plastics I’m sure you’ve heard about collagen.’ He waited for her to nod before continuing. ‘That’s just one of the options. When the swelling’s gone down Kelvin and I will have a chat about the others. The scar will be very fine, barely noticeable, but he might opt to have a small tattoo to even out his lip line and if the lower lip is still markedly smaller, a more permanent solution might be to temporarily insert a small balloon which can be inflated gradually to stretch the skin. From there we can do a small tissue implant. So, you see, there are lots of options.’

  Rachael gave a grudging nod. She believed him, but still found it hard to fathom that it could all be so simple.

  ‘Shame you won’t be there to see it. You might have a bit more faith in me then.’

  ‘Promise not to shoot the bearer.’ Helen was bearing down on them and, despite her foreboding introduction, she was smiling broadly. ‘The garage just rang.’

  ‘No doubt to tell me I need a new engine and while they’re at it a new set of wheels wouldn’t go amiss.’