The Surgeon's Family Wish (9 page)

‘No, you didn't. The verdict might have been much more serious and what would you have done then? Told me? Or still tried to keep it quiet? I'll have a word with the consultant when I see him, just to make sure there isn't anything else we need to know.'

Why was it that the women in his life didn't want him to know what ailed them? he thought when his mother had gone up to bed. Thanks to Annabel, he now knew what was wrong with her, but he was no wiser regarding what the problem was with Annabel.

He felt instinctively that something had gone badly wrong in her life recently and understood if she didn't want to discuss it further. He would feel the same. After he'd lost Eloise he had no more been able to talk about the tragedy than fly. It had hurt too much.

But it didn't alter the fact that he would dearly like to know what was wrong with the woman who'd saved his daughter's life. What was it that was hurting her?

But he could be a patient man when something mattered as much as this. Just as long as Rick or someone like him didn't get to her first. He sensed that she was attracted to him, but there was no likelihood of Annabel rushing him to the altar, unlike the petite blonde school teacher, who'd done everything short of propositioning him while they'd been together that morning.

T
HE
next morning Aaron sought Annabel out before his busy day got under way. He found her on her way to Theatre and she looked at him anxiously as he fell into step beside her.

‘You were right about my mother,' he said. ‘She
had
been to see the cardiac consultant at the Infirmary. I hadn't been told because she didn't want to worry me. Me! A doctor! Living in the same house and I didn't know she was seeing two others of my kind on a professional basis. Our GP and the heart specialist.'

The anxiety was still in her glance but there was relief in her voice as she said, ‘So I didn't do wrong in telling you what I knew.'

‘No. Of course not. I'm indebted to you, Annabel.'

‘And your mother? Is
she
angry with me for butting into her private affairs?'

‘No,' he repeated. ‘She was dumbfounded when I faced her with it but is now relieved that I know what has been going on. The good news is that it could have been a lot more serious. The chest pains she's been having are apparently due to coronary artery spasms and the consultant has put her on a nitrate drug.'

‘Thank goodness for that!' she breathed. ‘That the problem isn't as serious as it might have been...and that I haven't done the wrong thing again.'

‘I'm not with you.'

He watched the colour rise in her pale cheeks as she
replied, ‘Well, I never seem to get it right when we're together.'

‘You did once...for a short time. That night at your flat.'

They had reached the operating theatre and she was thankful that the clock above the door indicated that there was no more time to talk.

He smiled. ‘I know. We both have a busy day ahead, but before we go our separate ways, I saw you talking to Richard last night. What did
he
want?'

He was butting into her private affairs yet again now, but he had to ask. His friend had only to smile and he had the women eating out of his hand.

‘He saw me pulling out of your drive and thought he'd do a sales plug,' she said briefly.

‘I see.'

He was only partly convinced but time was pressing and as he turned to go he said, ‘How about lunch in the staff restaurant if we can make it coincide? There are a couple of things I'd like to discuss.'

‘Possibly,' she said, her hazel eyes widening. ‘But I'm not sure when I'll be free. We have a long list today.'

Aaron nodded.

‘I know that. You always have. And I have an outpatients clinic that will be filling up at this moment. So we'll see how we go, eh?' And off he went.

* * *

Annabel had hardly slept after her visit to the Lewis house. Her thoughts had been dominated by the spectre of Aaron's mother being ill and herself being the one to make him aware of it.

But with the morning the outlook appeared brighter, especially if Aaron wanted her to lunch with him. Though with what she and the other surgeons had facing
them, a lunchtime break might just be the dream it so often was.

So he'd seen her talking to his neighbour, she thought as she scrubbed up. He shouldn't have had to ask what they were discussing but he had. Aaron had warned her that Richard Clements had lots of women friends and it seemed as if he thought she might be willing to be charmed by him along with the rest.

If he did think that, he was mistaken. After her experience with Randy she would be able to spot a shallow type a mile off.

But this wasn't the time to be looking back. It was the future she was concerned with at that moment. Not her own, but the future of the little ones who would be receiving surgery in the hours to come. When minutes later she looked down on to her first patient of the day, a tiny baby with a serious congenital abnormality, all other thoughts were banished.

Shortly after birth the nursing staff had found little Phoebe to be frothy at the mouth, in need of frequent suctioning. The previous day they had tried to pass an orogastric tube to relieve the problem, but had been unsuccessful because of an obstruction in the oesophagus area. It had turned out to be a fistula and today Phoebe was to be operated on to remedy the problem. At the same time Annabel intended to make a gastrostomy so that feeding could commence.

It was a serious condition and surgery was imperative to prevent acidic gastric contents affecting the lungs. The baby had been seen by Aaron in his neonatal capacity and both he and Annabel were of the opinion that the condition would become life-threatening if not treated.

I couldn't do anything to save
my
baby, but I'm going to do my very best for you, little Phoebe, she silently
promised the tiny red-faced infant, and from that moment everything but the needs of the child on the table ceased to exist.

Lunch had been and gone by the time Annabel was finished in Theatre and she resigned herself to having to wait to hear what Aaron had to say to her. He wasn't in his office when she went to seek him out and his secretary told her that he was chairing a meeting of community paediatricians about support for the families of children with serious illnesses.

‘If you see Dr Lewis before I do, will you tell him that baby Phoebe came through the surgery all right and should soon be able to feed normally?' she told the secretary.

The middle-aged woman smiled.

‘Yes, I'll do that. If that lovely wife of his hadn't died, I feel he would have had more children. I don't think he ever intended little Lucy to be an only child, but none of us know what life has in store for us, do we?'

Annabel nodded. She couldn't argue with that. But as she went off duty she was thinking that people like herself made their own grief while others had it thrust upon them. According to his secretary the departed Eloise had been ‘lovely'. Obviously a hard act to follow!

* * *

When she got back to the flat there were flowers outside her door, cream roses. Just the sight of them brought tears to her eyes and she laid her head against the doorpost and howled when she read the card that was with them.

‘Thanks again for taking the time to come to see me last night. It couldn't have been easy. Best regards. Aaron.'

It wasn't the words. They were brief and polite. It was
the thought behind them that was making her cry. She was in love with him, yet was afraid to show it in case she got a rebuff.

The thought had occurred a few times that she needn't tell him about the past.

And then there was the small matter of Aaron not returning her feelings. It was possible that
was
the case. Even though they had had one moment of magic in each other's arms, she'd spoilt it because of her guilt.

She sometimes thought that losing her baby had been a punishment, because she'd been stupid enough to assume that her relationship with Randolph had been strong and that he would be pleased if she conceived. A lot of women in an unmarried state would have been glad to be rid of such a responsibility, but no one could accuse her of those sorts of feelings.

After she'd had her meal, Annabel picked up the phone to thank Aaron for the flowers. A woman's voice answered and it wasn't his mother's.

‘Could I speak to Aaron, please?' she said.

‘I'm sorry,' the strange voice said. ‘He only came in a few moments ago and is under the shower. Once he's changed we're leaving immediately for parents' night at his daughter's school. Can I give him a message?'

‘No. I'll speak to him in the morning,' Annabel said, having recognised the voice at the other end of the line.

As she replaced the receiver she was thinking that it was carrying the parent-teacher business a bit far when he and Nicola Edwards were going to parents' night together. In his absence the woman was making herself at home in no uncertain terms.

Was she a regular visitor to Aaron's home? she wondered. They'd been chummy enough on the tour of the wards the previous morning.

So much for the new warmth that his flowers had kindled in her heart. They had been just a gesture. She'd been quick to make sure that any attraction he had for her was put into cold storage, and if he'd turned to a warmer creature than herself she had only one person to blame.

* * *

As he was knotting his tie in front of the mirror Aaron was wishing that he hadn't got himself embroiled with Lucy's teacher again, but a phone call to say how much she'd enjoyed the visit to the hospital
and
his company had been followed with the news that her car had developed a fault and could she possibly ask for a lift to parents' evening?

‘I know you might be pushed for time,' Nicola had said, ‘but I only live a short distance from you and could walk round to your place if that's all right.'

He'd said of course he would give her a lift, but had wished she hadn't asked. The signs were all there. He was being pursued and sooner or later he would have to give out signs that he wasn't interested in her.

His mother had gone to visit a friend and Nicola was chatting to Lucy when he went downstairs.

‘Did I hear the phone?' he asked casually.

‘Yes,' she replied. ‘As the call came at an inconvenient moment I thought you wouldn't mind me answering it.'

‘Not at all. Who was it?'

‘She didn't say, but it sounded like Dr Swain. I asked if she wanted to leave a message but she said it would keep until tomorrow.'

Drat! he thought. Not only had he missed lunching with Annabel, he hadn't been there to take her call. Why was it that she always seemed out of reach while the
woman passing on the message was beginning to seem forever under his feet.

‘Are we ready, Daddy?' Lucy asked, and as he looked at his daughter his frustrations were blotted out in a rush of thankfulness. This night could so easily have meant nothing to him if Lucy hadn't been brought back to health and strength. If his relationship with Annabel never progressed any further, he would always bless her for that.

* * *

It was late when her doorbell rang and Annabel wasn't expecting it to be Aaron. Not after Nicola had told her that she and Aaron were going to Lucy's parents' evening together.

But it
was
him standing outside. He asked if she'd checked to see who it was before opening the door.

‘Yes, of course,' she told him, as she stepped back to let him in. ‘I never open up to anyone unless I can see who is out there. But the situation rarely arises as my visitors are few and far between.'

She was whingeing again, she thought as soon as the words were out. Why couldn't she greet Aaron with some sparkle just for once? But Miss Goldilocks had put the dampener on her earlier and he was the last person she'd been expecting to call round.

‘I'm sorry I couldn't take your call when you rang earlier,' he said. ‘I'd just got in and rushed upstairs for a shower. Nicola Edwards was keeping an eye on Lucy while I got ready as Mum was out, and it was she who answered.'

‘Yes, I gathered that.'

‘She had a problem with her car and rang to ask if I would give her a lift to the school and back. I've just
dropped her off and Mum is putting Lucy to bed, so here I am.'

‘I rang to thank you for the flowers.'

‘I guessed that was it, but I still wanted a word with you and once we get bogged down at the hospital it isn't easy to find a spare moment. Like today, for instance. And talking about today, how did the little Phoebe come through the surgery?'

‘Very well,' she told him. ‘I asked your secretary to let you know but I presume you haven't been back there. I left Phoebe in Recovery and when she wakes up hopefully she'll be able to have her first proper feed.'

‘That's good. I hate to see tiny babies in distress.'

Annabel could feel the familiar lump forming in her throat and turned away.

‘What is it?' he asked. ‘What's wrong?'

‘Nothing,' she said, with tears glistening on her lashes. ‘Just a moment of weakness.'

‘Why, though? We see sick babies all the time.'

‘Yes, I know we do.'

‘So why are you so emotional over Phoebe?'

‘It's not just Phoebe that I'm crying for.'

‘I see.' And into the silence that followed he said, ‘For someone who's never had a child herself, you have great compassion.'

She closed her eyes, trying to fight off the painful memories that were crowding back.

A voice was saying awkwardly in her mind, with the nasal drawl that she never wanted to hear again, ‘I know I should've told ya, honey, but somehow the right moment never came. I have a wife and kids back home.'