She stared at the line on the stick, checked the packet’s instructions to make sure she was reading it properly, checked the line again, then gave a whoop of joy.

She was pregnant! It had happened!

She couldn’t stop smiling. To have a baby—to have a child on whom she could lavish a mother’s love—the love she’d missed out on as a child. Yes, her father had been wonderful, but she knew instinctively a mother’s love was different.

Theo!

How could she be so excited when she felt, deep in her heart, Theo really didn’t want another child?

Although now they knew each other better, might things not work out?

Might she not be able to have Theo and a child?

But the excitement she’d felt when she first saw the confirmation failed to return. She might have fallen in love with Theo, but in no way had he indicated he had similar feelings for her…

At least she’d have his child…

Meredith Webber says of herself, ‘Some ten years ago, I read an article which suggested that Mills and Boon were looking for new medical authors. I had one of those “I can do that” moments, and gave it a try. What began as a challenge has become an obsession—though I do temper the “butt on seat” career of writing with dirty but healthy outdoor pursuits, fossicking through the Australian Outback in search of gold or opals. Having had some success in all of these endeavours, I now consider I’ve found the perfect lifestyle.’

Recent titles by the same author:

THE HEART SURGEON’S SECRET CHILD** CHILDREN’S DOCTOR, MEANT-TO-BE WIFE† THE SHEIKH SURGEON’S BABY* DESERT DOCTOR, SECRET SHEIKH* A PREGNANT NURSE’S CHRISTMAS WISH THE NURSE HE’S BEEN WAITING FOR†

**Jimmie’s Children’s Unit

*Desert Doctors

†Crocodile Creek

JIMMIE’S CHILDREN’S UNIT

The Children’s Cardiac Unit, St James’s Hospital, Sydney. A specialist unit where the dedicated staff mend children’s hearts…and their own!

THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE

BY

MEREDITH WEBBER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

SHE was tall, she was blonde and she was beautiful. Theo Corones watched from the back of the team meeting as all the men in the room, most of whom were married, registered this fact.

‘Grace Sutherland, paediatric cardiac surgeon, trained in Cape Town, South Africa, then further studies in the UK. My main area of expertise is paediatric heart transplants.’

‘Of course, you’re a South African and following in famous footsteps,’ Alex Attwood, the head of the paediatric cardiac surgery team at St James’s Children’s Hospital, teased gently.

Was it because he was still thinking how beautiful she was that Theo saw the puzzled look on her face? She was intelligent enough to know from his voice that Alex was teasing her, so it seemed she wasn’t used to being teased.

Theo thought back to the briefing notes he’d had on the two new surgeons. Jean-Luc Fournier was from France, thirty-four years old and already considered good enough to head up a new unit at a hospital in Marseilles, and Grace Sutherland, thirty-five…

Surely by thirty-five you’d got used to being teased.

The meeting proceeded and Theo turned his attention to it, but that expression on Grace Sutherland’s face was like a missed note in a piece of music, so it stuck in a corner of his mind.

‘Grace, you’ll be working on Phil’s team, while Jean-Luc will work on mine. This is only for the first three months, then you’ll swap over so you both have a chance to see the two of us at work. Not that you’ll be observers—no, you’ll be operating with us and, when we’re not available, for us. And for that reason it’s important you know the whole team. Maggie Park, Phil’s wife, usually works as my anaesthetist—take a bow, Mags—while Aaron Gilchrist is the anaesthetist on Phil’s team.’

Aaron waved his hand at the two newcomers, while Alex went on to introduce the other theatre staff, nurses, registrars and residents who worked with the team.

‘And so we come to Theo, who works on both teams. At the moment we only have the one bypass machine—well, we have three but two are being modified to different specifications. Theo is working with the engineers in what spare time he gets—so he works with whoever is doing a procedure that requires bypass.’

Theo nodded his acknowledgement of the introduction but as both newcomers turned towards him he saw Grace Sutherland’s eyes for the first time. A pale clear blue, like the aquamarine stone in a ring his mother wore—like morning sky after a night of rain had cleared the dust and smog from the city…

‘Theo!’

Alex’s voice wasn’t exactly sharp but it made it clear Theo had missed some part of the conversation.

‘Sorry, Alex, you were saying?’

‘I was telling Grace and Jean-Luc you also ran the ECMO machines and would walk them through the way we use both machines later today.’

‘I’d be glad to,’ Theo replied, annoyed with himself for missing this conversation the first time. He was always focussed on work. And to be distracted by a blonde with aquamarine eyes—impossible!

Grace studied the man who worked the bypass machines. She’d been intrigued by his background when she’d read the notes she’d been given—brief bios of all members of the team.

What was different about Theo was that while most perfusionists—people specially trained to run bypass and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machines—were from a nursing background, Theo had been—and still was, she assumed—a doctor. A surgeon, in fact, who, for reasons unmentioned in the bio had turned from operating on small children to running the machines that kept them alive, before, after and during delicate operations.

It was a puzzle and she didn’t like puzzles. She’d have to ask him about it.

And now she’d sorted that out, she should stop looking at him—looking at him wasn’t going to provide an answer. But looking at him had made her register that he was a particularly good-looking man, big without being bulky, black hair shot through with silver here and there, dark eyes below well-shaped eyebrows. Her father always kept his eyebrows tidy, bemoaning the fact that many men, as they aged, didn’t bother.

It was, she realised, even as she considered Theo Corones’s eyebrows, a totally absurd thing for her to be thinking about in a team meeting and, sadly, a reflection of just how unlike other women she was! Other women, she was sure, would be checking out the straight nose and the full, well-defined lips and the way his profile resembled that of old Greek statues, but not her—she’d picked on eyebrows as a feature in his favour.

She sighed, aware she was so unlike other women she needed a planet of her own. Men were from Mars, women from Venus, and Grace from a galaxy far, far away…

The meeting broke up, and Jean-Luc, who would be living in the flat beneath hers for the six months she would be working in Sydney, was chatting to Maggie Park. That was another thing about people from galaxies far, far away—they couldn’t chat.

‘Would you like to see the machines now?’

She was pondering her inability to chat and assuring herself, for perhaps the millionth time, that it didn’t matter, when Theo asked the question. He’d come from somewhere behind her so she’d had no warning of his approach, and, being unprepared, his deep, velvety voice had sparked a peculiar reaction in her skin—prickly, like mild sunburn making its presence felt at the end of a day at the beach.

‘I could come now but Jean-Luc looks as if he’s busy,’ she replied, checking out Theo’s eyebrows close up and confirming they really were wonderful—strong, but neat, and with a decided arch.

‘Then I will show you first and Jean-Luc some other time,’ Theo said calmly, putting out his hand as if to usher her ahead of him.

‘Isn’t that a nuisance for you?’

Grace had no idea why she was feeling unsettled, but she was—and even more unsettled when he added, ‘It will be my pleasure.’

He didn’t mean it in any other way than that he loved showing off his machines and twice was better than once, while his tone of voice suggested nothing more than cool politeness. She knew that, but the prickly sunburn effect continued as she left the room with him.

‘Why the switch from surgery to perfusionist?’ she asked as they entered the lift to go down a floor to see the infants on ECMO.

He looked at her for a moment, then smiled, his teeth very white against his olive skin.

‘Straight to the point,’ he said. ‘Are you always so blunt?’

Grace pretended to consider this—for all of two seconds—before replying.

‘I hope people don’t think of me as blunt but, yes, I do find asking questions is the easiest way to get answers.’

Theo ushered her out of the lift, nodding as he went.

‘Cuts out a lot of chit-chat,’ he agreed. ‘What’s the next question?’

‘Why aren’t you married?’

Oops! That surprised even her, although undoubtedly her subconscious mind had sorted through the list of staff, checked the bios and, like a good computer, come up with four possible candidates for her Grand Plan—which probably should be labelled Grace’s Silliest Idea Yet. Theo was one of these, Jean-Luc another. Living in the flat above his, she’d have ample time to check out Jean-Luc, but she wasn’t sure how often she’d come into contact with Theo.

Hence the question…

Not that he’d answered either of her questions, parrying the first with one of his own and ignoring the second! She hoped it was because they’d walked into the paediatric intensive care unit, not because he was so insulted he’d never speak to her again. She found it difficult enough to make friends—to trust people enough to let them into her life—without setting colleagues against her from the first meeting.

‘This is Scarlett Robinson. She was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome and although Phil and Alex at first decided to do the first-stage operation, she hasn’t been well enough and now they’re considering heart transplantation if we can get hold of a donor heart.’

‘Without doing even the first-stage op—a Norwood to connect the right ventricle to the aorta?’ Grace asked, looking down at the tiny baby girl and wondering, as she always did, why some embryonic hearts formed perfectly while others, like Scarlett’s, had a very underdeveloped left side.

‘She’s not tolerating drugs particularly well,’ Theo explained, ‘and after a lot of thought and consultation her parents, who live way out west in the bush, decided that rather than weaken her further with the first of the three HLHS ops, we’d list her for a transplant.’

Grace stared at the little girl, all alone in the hospital, and though she told herself Scarlett didn’t know she was all alone, and in fact she wasn’t, surrounded as she was by staff, Grace still felt a flutter in the region of her heart which could only be sympathy for the baby.

But the one thing she’d learned very early on in her medical career was never to show what she was feeling—especially not when babies were concerned. It was her job to be detached because, as numerous lecturers and professors and even her own father had told her, she could be more help to the patient that way.

So in case Theo had caught a glimpse of her momentary weakness, she spoke with cool, calm competence as she pointed out the downside of this.

‘And in the meantime, she’s on ECMO which could have devastating consequences on her other organs if she’s on it for too long.’

Theo turned to her and shook his head.

‘You certainly believe in telling it like it is,’ he said, but Grace thought she detected a smile behind the words. ‘You’re right, of course, but it was up to her parents to make the decision and now my job is to keep her alive on the least amount of support she can handle. Because of her condition she has to be on full support, so the machine is helping both her lungs and her malformed heart do their jobs, but by gearing it down as much as possible I’m hoping to avoid things like brain haemorrhages or kidney problems.’

‘Hard to get a heart small enough for her,’ Grace murmured, her eyes feasting on the tiny infant, thinking of other newborns she’d operated on—thinking of other infants.

Or one other infant…

One hypothetical infant…

Could she do it? Could she ask some man…?

‘But they do come up,’ Theo said, and Grace stared at him, struggling against the thoughts that kept intruding, thoughts she knew were stupid and sentimental and all the things she didn’t want to be—thoughts about a baby of her own…

She pulled herself together, hiding the moment of weakness behind a bland observation.

‘It’s usually women who are unrealistically optimistic,’ she said.

Theo frowned.

‘I don’t consider optimism a gender-based trait, and pointing out that small hearts do become available was stating a fact, not being unrealistic.’

As the words came out he realised he was being as blunt as his colleague—was it catching, this brusqueness of hers?

And as for the question he hadn’t answered earlier, what business was it of hers why he wasn’t married?

Ah! He’d answered his own question. He probably wasn’t getting as snappy as Grace Sutherland, but she’d prodded a sore spot he rarely thought about these days, and his brusqueness was reaction to her prodding.

‘Where are her parents?’

Another question but at least one he could answer.

‘Her mother was here. She flew down with the Royal Flying Doctor Service when they brought the baby to us. But she had to go home to the rest of the family—she’s hoping to get down again next week but even with really cheap accommodation available at the hospital, she still has to pay air fares and, I imagine, pay someone to mind the other children at home.’

‘Poor thing, it must be so hard to not be able to be with her baby,’ Grace murmured, but in such a way Theo had to look at her. Did she really feel for Scarlett’s mother or was she mouthing a platitude while thinking something else entirely?

He didn’t know this woman so he had no idea and, really, did it matter? Yet again he sensed a puzzle…

They’d moved away from Scarlett’s crib, out of the PICU to the lift foyer where they met up with other members of the team waiting to go down.

‘Grace and I are barely settled in and, speaking for myself, I need to shop before I can eat,’ Jean-Luc said, joining his and Grace’s names in a way that suggested a relationship, although as far as Theo knew they’d only met since their separate arrivals in Australia. ‘Is there a good restaurant close by?’

‘Scoozi!’

Jean-Luc had spoken to Aaron who was standing beside him, but the reply was chorused by most of the team.

‘It’s the other side of the park,’ Jasmine Summers, one of the PICU nurses added as they all stepped into the lift. ‘Some of us are going there now, so do come along. You’re coming, aren’t you, Theo?’

He had intended going home to do some work on a wood-fired oven he was building in his tiny courtyard, but he had to eat.

And Grace Sutherland, for all her blunt questions, intrigued him…

‘Oh, do come, Theo.’ Now she added her entreaty, and though he had the strangest—and strongest—feeling he was being manipulated, he agreed.

Out of curiosity, he told himself, and in part that was the truth, because there was something about Grace Sutherland that didn’t quite ring true—some mystery inside the beautiful packaging.

That she was physically attractive to him was a secondary matter, or so he assured himself. He didn’t get involved with work colleagues so the physical attraction would never be explored, but the intrigue? It wouldn’t hurt to investigate that, surely…

The group walked in a straggle of twos and threes down the road that ran alongside the park towards the restaurant. Grace walked in the lead with Phil, Theo behind them with Maggie and Aaron, and though he was listening to the conversation about titration rates of drugs during open-heart surgery in very small infants, he wasn’t taking in as much of it as he usually did.

She walked with a peculiar grace—what a stupid thing to be thinking about a woman called Grace!—but the way she strode along, her pace matching Phil’s, suggested an athleticism that wasn’t often seen in specialists of either gender, most of whom were too busy to get to the gym with any regularity or to work out in other ways.

The staff at Scoozi, seeing the mob from the hospital arrive, pushed together a number of tables, but was it chance that Grace sat next to Theo, who had taken the chair at one end?

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said, answering his own query—the seating arrangement had not been chance.

‘Question?’ he parried, although he knew full well what she’d asked. But now, rather than consider the woman’s grace, he was considering her lack of it. And her lack of good manners! It was none of her business why he’d switched from surgery to perfusion.

‘Why aren’t you married?’

He’d forgotten that one! He stared at her, aware his disbelief was probably written on his face. It must have been for she looked embarrassed, but only for a moment, recovering her composure beautifully and smiling an apology.

‘I know that’s personal, but I’m only here for six months and if I want to get to know everyone in the team, then I have to ask questions.’

That kind of made sense—or did it?

‘Do you really want to get to know everyone in the team? After all, as you say, you’re only here six months, after which you’ll go back to South Africa, send emails for a few months, Christmas cards for a few years, then forget the lot of us.’

‘Probably not Christmas cards, I’m not good with them.’ She looked embarrassed, as if he’d been spot on in the reading of her character. Not that she was going to let him get away with it. She shifted slightly in her chair then continued, ‘But professionally it’s good to keep in touch with people, especially those with more experience, because you never know when something comes up you haven’t personally experienced before, and you can always ask.’

She hadn’t answered his question, but her comments made him wonder even more about this woman. In his life, women were the ones who kept the strands of friendship sewn together, his mother and aunts keeping in touch with the family’s friends, while his ex-wife had been forever on the net, talking to one friend or another, and had turned the sending out of Christmas cards into a kind of ‘who gets the most’ contest. But, then, Lena was like that…

‘You’re thinking about some woman now,’ the exasperating South African said, her clipped accent seeming to turn the remark into a rebuke.

‘You can’t know that!’ Theo growled. ‘And if there’s one thing I hate, it’s someone—usually a woman—telling me what I’m thinking.’

‘Well, you were scowling,’ Grace replied, totally unabashed. ‘The kind of scowl that suggests bad thoughts, and as you’re hardly likely to be thinking bad thoughts about your bypass machine, or the menu that’s in your hands, I guessed it must have had something to do with my question.’

He scowled some more and began to read the menu, although he knew it by heart and always ordered the Creole pizza and out of sheer politeness should have passed it to Grace, had she not annoyed him so much.

‘I’ll have the Creole pizza,’ she announced, Jasmine, on her other side, having handed her a menu. ‘Chicken, banana, sweet chilli sauce and sour cream—Italian purists must be turning over in their graves but it sounds delicious.’

Now what was he going to order? If he ordered the Creole she’d think he was copying her and probably read something into it—like he might be interested in her.

Which he was in the way a scientist was interested in a new specimen that appeared under his microscope, but no more than that, for all the unexpected tugs of attraction he was feeling.

Heaven forbid!

He ordered a steak and a glass of the pinot grigio the restaurateur, Anna, imported from Italy. Someone further down the table had ordered a plate of garlic bread and another of brushetta before anyone was seated, and these arrived as the orders were taken, the plates of bread being passed around.

‘No, thank you,’ Grace said to both.

‘Dieting?’ Jasmine asked, and Theo watched, wondering just how Grace would respond.

‘No, I never diet,’ she said, with the supreme confidence of a woman with a great metabolism.

End of conversation, although Jasmine had obviously meant it as an opening gambit.

‘Lucky you,’ Jasmine told her, not willing to let the subject go just yet. ‘I’m always dieting. I’ve tried just about every diet ever written.’

‘Oh, but surely you don’t need to diet, Jasmine.’

Other women might have said the same reassuring words without Theo even noticing, but to him it sounded as if Grace was making an effort to be nice—as if social chatter didn’t come easily to her.

Jasmine, too, must have sensed something strange for she smiled uncertainly, conveying enough apprehension for even someone as seemingly insensitive as Grace to see.

‘I didn’t mean to sound critical of diets or people who diet,’ she added quickly. ‘But research has shown that dieting fads can do more harm than good.’

For Theo it was like watching an act in a play and he waited to see if Jasmine would be mollified.

Apparently she was, for she smiled at Grace.

‘I know,’ she said with a big sigh. ‘I’ve read that too, but I think I’m addicted to diets.’

It was said as a joke, but, sensing it would go straight over Grace’s head, Theo plunged in.

‘Like I’m addicted to good pizza,’ he said, forgetting he’d just ordered steak. ‘Which is why I’m spending all my off-duty time building a wood-fired oven in my already too small courtyard.’

‘Is the pizza no good here that you didn’t order it?’

Of course Grace had picked up on his error.

‘No, the pizzas are great, I just needed a change,’ he assured her. OK, so she’d zeroed in on him again, but at least discussing food likes and dislikes was better than discussing marriage—or his lack thereof. And Jasmine was off the hook—she’d turned to talk to Aaron on her other side, so Theo took another slice of garlic bread and relaxed.

‘So, are you in a relationship?’

Had he heard correctly? He stared at the woman he thought had asked an extremely impertinent question and she gave an embarrassed shrug.

‘I told you I asked questions—I explained why,’ she said. ‘And you didn’t answer about why you’re not married, so I wondered…’

Theo studied her a moment longer, sensing something he couldn’t quite pin down behind the brash manner.

Something uncertain?

It sounded that way, but surely not!

Given the attraction he felt towards her, he knew he had to keep his distance, not find excuses to learn more of her.

‘Why?’ he asked, cool and distant again. ‘Why are you wondering—why do you need to know? As you said, you’re here for six months. I could work with people for six months and not need to know about their personal lives. In fact, there are people at this table— No, that’s not right, the team mostly know the surface things about each other’s lives, although the fact that I am single is enough for most of them to know. No one in the eight months I’ve been here has ever asked me why.’

‘Yes, well…’

She pursed her lips—lush, full lips which, when pursed, looked extremely inviting and turned the tug into a more insistent feeling—and studied him in turn, then shook her head.

‘I’m sorry! I’ve been far too intrusive. My father was always telling me that, right from when I was a small girl, asking questions all the time and not differentiating between acceptable questions and personal ones. Although—’

She stopped, and Theo forgot he was trying to keep his distance and was intrigued enough to prompt her.

‘Although?’ he echoed, and she smiled and shook her head, the blue eyes looking…sad? Vulnerable?

Vulnerable? This super-confident woman?

Super-efficient, too, he suspected.

Vulnerable was the last word he’d use…

She’d gone too far. Again! Grace knew that, but somehow the switch that turned her off before she pushed that extra bit further had always been missing from her genetic programming. She should never have asked him about his marital state in the first place, then pushing when he didn’t answer…

Terrible!

But he’d be ideal. She’d known that from the moment she’d seen him, recalling his bio in the team info sheets she’d read. He was intelligent, well-built, good-looking—although she knew that shouldn’t be a prerequisite—and apparently available. Not that she needed available—she wasn’t intending to have an affair with him.

All she really wanted was his sperm…

She felt a blush stealing into her cheeks and was furious with herself. She might be blessed with a good metabolism so didn’t need to diet, but she’d have preferred a tendency to run to fat than this terrible blushing thing she had.

Had Theo seen the colour in her cheeks that he lifted the bottle of cold water off the table and offered to pour her a glass? How embarrassing!

Surely this was the time to ditch the Grand Plan—to forget all about it and just get on with her life. She’d lived with the ache for a long time—she could live with it a little longer…

She thanked him and watched his concentration as he poured the water, then noticed the back of his hand as he passed her the glass—long slim fingers and a slight scattering of dark hair at the wrist—and for some strange reason the heat of embarrassment left her, and a shiver travelled up her spine.

Looking at a man’s hand couldn’t make you shiver, so maybe she was sickening for something.

Not that she ever got sick…

‘Although?’ he said again, and it took her a couple of seconds to go back far enough to pick up the prompt.

She smiled. Father had told her when she was very young that she had a beautiful smile and that you could never go wrong with a smile.

‘I can’t tell you the “although”,’ she said, wondering if this was flirting. ‘But I am interested.’

Duh! Blushing again. Who would have thought it would be this hard?

‘In me?’ Theo asked, and she felt her blush deepen so she must be scarlet-cheeked by now.

‘In everyone on the team,’ she said.

‘Oh!’ His dark brown eyes lit up to match his delighted smile. ‘So you’ll ask all of them about their relationships? Actually, I can fill you in on some of them. Jasmine’s just got engaged, Phil and Alex and Aaron—with Aldo added we have a lot of As, don’t we? Anyway those three are all happily married—’

‘Stop! You’re making me more and more embarrassed. It is none of my business.’

Theo stopped, but only because she sounded genuinely distressed, although he was pretty sure Dr Grace Sutherland didn’t often do distressed. But it was there again, that note of uncertainty in a person who gave off such positive vibes, and he was interested in spite of himself.

In a purely professional way, of course.

‘I’m not in a relationship,’ he said, under the cover of the noise as meals were delivered to the table. ‘And I was married, but my wife and I split up seven years ago.’

Wrong thing to tell her. That interested look was back in her eyes.

‘Do you know the number of weeks, days and hours as well?’ she asked, spearing a shard of red-hot pain dead-centre into his heart.

‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ he said, his voice as cold and as curt as he could make it. His meal was placed in front of him and he looked at it and shook his head, aware he’d never eat it, although, thinking now of Elena, he wouldn’t have eaten the pizza either.

He didn’t look at Grace again in case he was inveigled into thinking her vulnerable again. Vulnerable as a full-grown crocodile! So he cut his steak, and pretended to eat, shifting things around on his plate so it looked as if some of the food had disappeared.

‘I know that trick,’ his colleague said, leaning a little closer so she could speak quietly, a drift of a very feminine perfume—orange blossom?—assailing his nostrils. ‘I’ve done it myself many a time. I’m sorry if I upset you, asking about your wife. I didn’t mean to. It was just the way you said seven years—it sounded as if you’d been counting. That means it must have hurt.’

He’d been determined to ignore her, but from the very formal way she spoke he guessed apologising was rare for her, and one look into the crystalline blue eyes confirmed that she was upset.

And so was he, but for more dubious reasons! Those eyes held the same fascination as her pursed lips had earlier and he definitely didn’t do relationships with colleagues.

Although she was only here for six months—

No! He had to stop this!

Now!

‘We had a car accident, our daughter died, my wife blamed me, but it is my daughter’s death that’s imprinted on my mind, not my wife leaving me.’

Grace reared back in her seat, feeling as winded as if he’d struck her with his hand.

How did she get herself into these situations?

Because she had a one-track mind, that’s how!

Why couldn’t she do normal chit-chat, like other women?

Theo had pushed his plate away and was standing up, and much as she’d have liked to stand up with him, to follow him wherever he was going so she could apologise, she knew he’d revealed his pain to a virtual stranger for one reason and one reason only—to repel her.

She watched him, aware everyone at the table must be wondering what the South African woman had done to upset him.

‘Eat your pizza, act normal—that’s if you know how to!’ he muttered to her as he bent to push his chair back into place. Then he straightened and faced the rest of the gathering. ‘Sorry, folks, not feeling the best.’

He walked away, stopping to talk to the waitress who’d served them, money changing hands.

‘He must have been feeling a bit off all along,’ Jasmine said. ‘Ordering steak when he always orders the Creole pizza.’

Grace looked at the pizza growing colder on her plate and understood why he hadn’t ordered it. But he’d been right, she had to eat some of it because not eating it would look suspicious. She picked up a slice and bit into it, recognising that the mix of flavours was indeed delicious, although the food seemed to be turning to sawdust in her mouth.

A car accident—losing a daughter. The poor man! And for all he was so perfect, she’d have to cross him off the list.

Although…

She thought it through, looking at the idea from all angles, finally coming to the conclusion that maybe what she was offering was just what Theo needed.

In the back of her head she heard her father warning her that her solutions might not always be what was best for other people, but that had been when she’d been dealing with some of the poor families at home, ruthlessly reorganising their lives into some semblance of order.

This was different.

A child that was yet wasn’t his.

No responsibility.

No need to get emotionally involved.

With either her or the child…

Yes, it could work.

‘Does he live somewhere nearby?’ she heard herself ask Jasmine, then, in case the question was too obvious, she added, ‘Perhaps someone should call in and see if he’s OK.’

Jasmine looked at her, then smiled.

‘He’s OK and even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t want anyone fussing over him,’ she said. ‘He’s a very private man, our Theo. I’d better tell you that he never gets involved with colleagues. Believe me, many have tried but none have succeeded. It’s kind of like a golden rule with him.’ Well, really! Grace thought, annoyed with Jasmine for assuming—quite correctly—that she was intersted in Theo, and horrified with herself for being so 0bvious about it.

‘It’s a good rule,’ she managed, realising some response was necessary. ‘Relationships at work can get very messy.’

‘Or can work brilliantly,’ Jasmine said, nodding towards Maggie and Phil, who were laughing together at the far end of the table. ‘We had three couples fall in love within the unit only last year, so don’t think you’ll be immune to love while you’re here in Oz.’

She paused and studied Grace for a moment.

‘Unless, of course, there’s a very special man back home in South Africa?’ she teased.

Grace thought of the very special man back home and smiled.

‘Oh, yes, there is,’ she said, but she didn’t add that it was because of him—well, partly because of him—that she was interested in Theo. Someone like Jasmine, recently engaged to the man she loved, would never understand Grace’s plan or the means by which she hoped to implement it…

CHAPTER TWO

THEO watched as Grace attached the PVC tube from the bypass machine to the cannula inserted into the right side of little Adelaide Matthews’s heart. She worked quickly but carefully, her movements so precise and economical he had to admire them.

With the ingoing tube attached to the cannula already inserted into the aorta, she stepped back to let Phil get closer.

‘On pump,’ Phil said, the order crisp and quiet, and Theo started the machine, watching closely to see that the heparin given to thin the blood had been sufficient to prevent clotting, watching the pressure—Adelaide was three and needed more pressure than a baby but less than a five-year-old—watching for anything to go wrong.

‘Plege on.’ Now Phil fed the cardioplegia—a potassium poison—into the heart to stop it beating. When it worked, in a matter of minutes, he could begin.

The operation, to correct a problem with the coronary arteries which had been repositioned during an earlier operation for transposition of the great arteries, shouldn’t have been difficult, but scans had shown that one of the coronary arteries had grown through the wall of the heart, like a hose going in through the side of a bucket then back out again, and needed total repositioning.

Aware it could take some time, Theo was overly conscious of his patient’s status, checking the monitors constantly, noting the various pressures, the ECG, coagulation values, blood gases and electrolytes. But mainly it was controlling the pump that absorbed him. Too little blood flow and the patient could suffer oxygen deprivation to her brain, too much and it could blow her delicate little blood vessels apart.

Why did a surgeon turn to this job? Grace had asked, but the satisfaction he found in getting a patient through an often long and complex operation in as good a condition as possible, was a source of enormous satisfaction, and already some of his refinements to the bypass machine were being used worldwide.

Why not?

He looked across at Grace—well, at the hooded, gowned, bespectacled figure he knew was Grace—and was sorry he hadn’t answered that particular question.

Wouldn’t have an opportunity now, having spoken so abruptly to her the previous evening…

‘Theo?’

Knowing what Phil was asking, he recited all the information he had to hand, adding that Adelaide was doing very well.

‘So why change from surgery?’

Three operations later, he’d just emerged from the shower in the theatre changing rooms, a towel wrapped around his waist, when Grace, in bra and panties—her figure was superb—asked the question he’d decided she would never ask again.

He stared at her, debating whether to answer, but as everyone else was gone—he always stayed back to ensure personally that the machine was properly sterilised and sealed—there was really no reason why he shouldn’t tell her.

Particularly as she was pulling on a crisp white shirt, buttoning it up, drawing his attention to her breasts in a way that was totally out of order—he changed with women all the time and never looked at their breasts!

‘I injured my hands—for a while I couldn’t operate—but the world of paediatric cardiac surgery had been my focus as I trained, through basic surgery, then cardiac surgery. I’d finally made it as a registrar on the paeds cardiac team and I didn’t want to leave it. Probably out of pity, my old boss, the chief surgeon at the hospital, suggested I have a go at perfusion while my hands healed. I did a course, learned even more from the woman who had run the machine for our team, then began to see possibilities of improving the system, which was when I became hooked. To me, keeping a child as stable as possible while on pump—and even more importantly while on ECMO—has become my obsession.’

‘So much so you never considered going back to operating?’

He paused, looking at his hands.

‘My hands were burnt, the tendons damaged, and although they healed, it worried me that they had probably lost some sensitivity.’

He paused, remembering the pain of those years—so much pain, the least of it physical.

‘I wondered if I would still have the feel you need to put a stitch the size of a pinhead into a vein with the diameter of a hair. I decided I couldn’t take the risk.’

‘That’s an incredibly honest answer,’ she said, looking puzzled again.

‘Did you think I’d lie?’ he demanded angrily, his emotions already stirred up with memories. And on top of that, it was the puzzled look he caught on her face that gave the impression of vulnerability despite suspecting she was about as vulnerable as a slab of concrete.

Although more shapely…

She grinned at him, totally disarming him.

‘No, I suppose not, but it’s the kind of thing I might have said and I’m forever being told I should pretty things up more. Too blunt, too abrasive, too intrusive—I’m all those “toos”!’

‘You are too,’ he said, suddenly liking her, for all the intrusiveness and abrasion. Although she didn’t smile at his feeble joke and he wondered if he could really like someone with no sense of humour.

Grace knew she should have smiled, but it was a feeble attempt at a joke and she had just put him back onto her list of possibles again. In fact, it was hardly a list—his being the only name on it.

‘And being blunt and abrasive…’ she said, deciding it was better to get things out into the open as soon as possible. That way she’d know where she stood. ‘I wondered if I could ask you something.’

‘You didn’t ask if you could ask before asking me all kinds of personal questions yesterday,’ he reminded her, leaning back against the doorjamb in a way that made all the muscles of his chest stand out so all of a sudden he was an extremely sexy man as well as a colleague.

Sexy man? What was she thinking?

She forced her mind back to her problem.

‘Well, this is really very personal to me and very private so I have to believe that if I ask, you won’t repeat it.’

He didn’t answer, which she took for assent, but the words she needed were jammed in her throat.

Not easy words to say in any circumstances and she’d got off on the wrong foot with this man…

Make amends first?

‘Are you finished for the day? I feel after last night I owe you a meal. I ruined your dinner, firstly by ordering your favourite pizza, although you could still have ordered it, then by asking intrusive questions. Could we go there again—or somewhere else—and I’ll pay?’

What was with this woman? Theo watched her as she pulled on a skirt, tucking the shirt she’d put on earlier efficiently into the waistband. Even the way she dressed said a lot about her—neat, classy in an understated way, yet still…prim was the only word! But the questions she’d been asking didn’t go with that image any more than the classic but boring clothes could successfully hide her sexy body.

Although if he hadn’t seen her nearly naked, might he have been quite so aware of it?

And was it because of the sexy body or because of the inconsistencies he kept finding in her that he heard himself agreeing to have dinner with her?

‘An early dinner—I want to spend some time at the hospital later this evening.’

He wasn’t sure why he’d added the stipulation. True, he liked to spend time at the hospital but he often came late at night when the unit was quiet and most of the parents were sleeping as fitfully as their hopes and fears for their child would allow.

‘Now?’

He studied Grace. Of course he knew why he’d added the stipulation! He was suspicious of her—and doubly suspicious of her interest in him. Most women, even in these enlightened days, were happy to let the men make the running in a developing relationship—and most women were adept at reading the ‘not interested’ sign he hung around himself at work.

So what was with Grace? Was she so inexperienced—at thirty-five?—that she didn’t know the rules, couldn’t read the signs? Or did she have some agenda of her own?

Well, yes to the latter, she’d told him as much, but she wasn’t giving off ‘I’d like to get to know you better’ vibes, so what other agenda could it be?

‘Of course now, if that suits you,’ he said, wondering what he was getting into, suspecting his assumption of her inexperience might be true and intrigued in spite of himself. ‘I was always curious.’

She gave him a sharp, assessing look—no fool, this woman—then shrugged.

‘I don’t mind that,’ she assured him. ‘In fact, it might be a point in my favour.’

Not smiling so it wasn’t a joke—but a point in her favour? In favour of what?

‘Shall we continue this mysterious conversation all evening, or should we discuss something else—there’s always work—until we’ve eaten?’

Now she did smile, and although the expression held a degree of uncertainty it confirmed his initial reaction to her—she was beautiful.

But beautiful women usually radiated confidence, and although Grace gave the impression of being in control, and certainly seemed confident in her work, he kept getting the feeling that her personal confidence was something she’d manufactured, like a cloak, that she wrapped around herself to protect the person she really was.

Or was he being fanciful? Seeing something of his own self-protective instincts and habits in her?

They left the hospital and walked down the road, bypassing Scoozi by unspoken but mutual consent and wandering towards a little brasserie, far enough from the hospital to be less populated by medical people.

‘Is there pizza on the menu here?’ Grace asked, hesitating on the footpath beside the trellised outdoor garden.

‘I don’t only eat pizza and, in fact, this place does the best moussaka outside my aunt’s house in Melbourne.’

Grace glanced at him and he waited, expecting more questions, but none came and he realised that although she was looking at him, her mind was elsewhere.

On the question she wanted to ask?

It was looming larger and larger in his mind, so surely it was swooping around inside her head.

‘We’re going in?’ he asked, and she nodded, though she indicated the outdoor area with a wave of her slim, thin-fingered hand.

‘Could we sit outside?’

He was still thinking about her hands—he’d noticed them in Theatre, where, even gloved, they’d looked… aristocratic somehow.

‘Of course.’

The waitress seated them at a corner table, close by a rambling vine that drooped tiny purple flowers, dropping them when the wind rustled through the leaves so a vagrant few rested in Grace’s golden hair like tiny amethyst gemstones.

Theo opted not to tell her, sure she’d be annoyed by such frivolous beauty and brush them out.

‘I’ll have the lamb,’ Grace announced, one minute’s perusal of the menu enough for her to make up her mind. The decisiveness fitted what he knew of her. He ordered moussaka—wondering if she could tell as much about him from his order. A man of habit—that’s about all she’d gather.

‘So, the question?’ he prompted when the waitress had disappeared to the kitchen with their orders.

She seemed startled, then, to his surprise, she blushed.

‘It should be easy for a person as blunt and plainspoken as I am,’ she muttered, looking more embarrassed by the second, ‘but it’s not that kind of question.’

‘Oh?’

He wasn’t going to help her. He was already regretting agreeing to this dinner. Getting even mildly entangled with a particular member of the team wasn’t on his agenda. His private life was just that, private, and he wanted to keep it that way.

‘It’s personal—very personal—and you’ll think I’ve got a cheek, a terrible cheek. And presumptuous—very presumptuous.’

She stopped and tried a smile that failed dismally, although something about the pathetic attempt struck Theo as brave—valiant.

‘Perhaps if I explained, just a little about myself—no, that won’t work, it’s better just to ask. The thing is, you see, I badly want a child. I’m thirty-five and running out of time, and while I’m here in Sydney is the ideal time to get pregnant and I wondered, if you’d mind—if you had no objections and I know it’s a totally outrageous thing to ask, but you’re everything that would be fantastic—I wondered if I could use…’

The floundering stopped as suddenly as it had started and, scarlet-faced, she stared at the far corner of the courtyard, swallowing convulsively.

‘Don’t mind me,’ she managed a little later. ‘I’m an idiot! Let’s just forget all about it and eat.’

‘Except our meal hasn’t arrived,’ he told her, speaking quietly and gently for he could see she was genuinely upset. Somehow she’d convinced herself that whatever it was she wanted to ask was OK, yet when it came to saying it, she’d baulked.

What could have been so outrageous?

He tried to remember what she’d said, but the words, spoken so quickly in her crisp South African voice, had all run together and he’d been more interested in watching her face and seeing her mounting embarrassment to really listen.

‘Moussaka?’

‘Mine,’ he told the waitress, then watched as she placed the lamb dish in front of Grace.

‘Perhaps a bottle of wine, the Newnhams Shiraz,’ he suggested, more to the waitress than Grace. Neither of them would be involved in Theatre the following day, and the alcohol might help Grace relax.

Though why he was worrying about her, he didn’t know. She was a self-confident, thoroughly together woman—and very capable of getting her own way. His presence in this restaurant right now was evidence of that.

Had he ordered the wine to dull the impact of dinner with her? Grace wondered, thinking how idiotic she must have sounded, words somersaulting out of her mouth, tumbling over each other and making no sense at all. She couldn’t even remember how far she’d got, her embarrassment so acute her cheeks had been burning!

She tried to concentrate on her meal, which looked and smelled delicious, but she was afraid her hands would shake when she picked up her knife and fork.

‘Ah, wine. Try this. It’s not well known—in fact, the restaurant gets it from a small producer so you won’t find it in bottle shops. You do drink wine?’

Even if she’d been a lifelong and committed teetotaller she’d have agreed to try it. Anything to stop this man thinking she was a complete klutz!

She nodded and watched as he poured the ruby-coloured wine into her glass, then she picked the glass up and lifted it towards him, trying desperately to behave normally, although despair had taken over every cell in her body as she’d finally realised just how stupid her idea had been.

‘To your stay in Australia,’ he proposed, and Grace acknowledged the toast with a dip of her head. Tiny flowers fell forward onto the table and, realising they must be in her hair, she lifted a hand to brush them out.

‘Don’t,’ he said, reaching out his free hand to catch hers in mid-air. ‘They look so pretty.’

‘Pretty?’ she echoed, the despair finding voice in bitterness. ‘That’s the last thing anyone’s ever called me.’

Still holding her hand, he brought it down to the table, where he rested it, leaving his lying negligently on top of it.

‘The flowers are pretty—they’re pretty in your hair,’ he said, and her bitterness deepened. ‘But you, you’re way past pretty—you’re beautiful.’

He raised his glass again then took a sip of the wine, but she was too flabbergasted by what he’d said to even think about sipping hers.

Beautiful?

He must want something.

She was good-looking, she knew that, even attractive most of the time, but her mouth was too big and her nose too long for beauty and she was too tall…

She shook her head, denying his assertion, and sipped some wine, then wiggled her hand out from under his and tucked it under the table where she had hoped it would stop remembering the feel of the weight of his and the texture of his skin.

Eventually!

‘Eat!’ he ordered, and by now she was too confused to do anything but obey him.

The meal was delicious, the wine smooth and mellow, slipping down so easily he was filling her glass before she realised she’d emptied it. They talked of the hospital, of the genesis of the paediatric surgery unit at the hospital called Jimmie’s, its future, and the people in the team. Doctors and nurses, Theo classified them all for her, every one of them good in their own way but each with special talents.

‘And your future—after your time in Sydney?’ he asked as the waitress took her plate and she’d said no to dessert. She sat back to enjoy the rest of the wine in her glass, more relaxed than she could believe possible.

‘I’ll go back home. I’ve been offered a place on a similar team in Cape Town. My father lives there and as he’s not getting any younger I want to be near him.’

‘Family’s important,’ Theo agreed, and whether it was the wine, or that simple statement, or just that she really, really needed to find out if he was the one, she found herself explaining once again.

‘My father is to me,’ she said. ‘He brought me up. My mother died when I was too young to remember her, and though he was a busy man—he was an orthopaedic surgeon—he always had time for me, time to read me a story at bedtime, and to listen to my worries and concerns, and to encourage me to do better, and to help me with my studies.’

She paused, wondering what effect this sudden outpouring of information was having on her companion, but Theo was leaning back in his chair, sipping his wine, if not absorbed in her conversation at least listening politely.

So she barged on, anxious to get it said once and for all.

‘It’s because of him I want a child—well, partly because of him. He’s seventy at the end of the year and I know a grandchild isn’t a normal kind of birthday present, but you have to understand my father. He can trace his family back for generations—back to the Scottish Jacobite rebellions, and further, even to the Vikings who conquered parts of Scotland from time to time. His grandfather emigrated to South Africa, but my father has always been interested in his Scottish heritage—in family. But with my mother dying, and him not marrying again, he was left with an only child and one who, at the moment, looks like being the end of the line. I know he’s proud of all I’ve achieved, and he’d never think less of me for not having a child, but deep down I feel I’ve let him down by not producing one—not producing someone to carry on his bloodline.’

She sneaked another look at Theo but he hadn’t fallen asleep neither was he yawning with boredom.

‘As I said, I’m thirty-five so I haven’t got much time, quite apart from his milestone birthday being this year. Which is what I wanted to ask you—being single and not in a relationship and all. I considered IVF but I don’t really want an unknown donor and there’d be no responsibility on your part, of course, it would be like you gave at the sperm bank—’

‘Grace!’

He didn’t yell her name but he said it with enough force to stop her in mid-flight.

‘Yes?’

He’d abandoned his wineglass and his relaxed pose and was leaning forward across the table, frowning fiercely at her.

‘Are you for real? Are you honestly sitting there, asking a virtual stranger—we only met yesterday, after all—for some of his sperm? Why not ask some hobo out in the street? For a few dollars you’d probably get all you need. Better still, go down to the beach and ask some of the board-riders—they’re outdoors all day, healthy—’

‘Stop! What you’re saying is ridiculous. Of course, what I asked was ridiculous as well, but you’re a doctor, you should understand. If I know where it’s come from I have some idea of genetic qualities. Yes, I know it was stupid to ask you when we’ve only just met, but I’ve thought about—about getting, you know, into a kind of relationship with someone so I could do this, but I’m not good at flirting and I’m a disaster with relationships, and anyway going to bed with someone I didn’t like just to get pregnant seemed wrong somehow, quite apart from the fact that if I did get pregnant I’d feel guilty, as if I’d stolen something from him.’

‘And asking a man for some sperm over dinner seemed OK?’ His voice, crisp with disbelief, seemed to echo around the outdoor space. She knew she was blushing fiercely again and that made her even angrier—mostly with herself, but surely this man could have been just a little more understanding!

‘Of course it’s not ideal but when would be? Think about it—halfway through a team meeting can I say, “Would one of you guys mind obliging?” And, anyway, most of the team are married and having a biological child by someone other than their wife, even if they didn’t acknowledge it, could cause problems in their marriage. I’m not totally insensitive!’

‘No?’ He was smiling now, the rat! Taking absolute delight in her embarrassment. ‘I must say it would enliven team meetings no end for you to suddenly come out with a request for a sperm donor.’

‘It’s all very well for you to joke,’ Grace snapped, hating him more and more for she’d never found it easy to deal with teasing. ‘But this is a serious problem for me.’

She sank back in her chair, swigged down the rest of the wine, and sighed.

Theo looked at her, reading the dejection in her pose, the embarrassment that lay behind it, and seeing also, behind the façade of confidence, the motherless little girl who wanted nothing more than to please the father she obviously adored.

It was the little girl who sneaked through his defences, although when he replayed Grace’s rationale in his head he suspected there was more to her wanting a child than she’d said. Oh, it had sounded very sensible—but was she using her father’s desire to see the family line continued to hide her own longing? He’d seen her at the hospital—seen the way she looked at the small patients—and wondered if she felt it would weaken her somehow to admit she wanted a child for herself?

He sighed.

‘Look, I’m sorry for teasing you, and I do see how difficult it must be for you, but if you’ve thought this through at all, you must realise that the chances of you getting pregnant right off from one…er, donation are very slim. What are you going to do then? Ask someone else?’

She stared at him, such horror in her eyes he knew immediately she hadn’t considered the possibility of not getting pregnant straight away.

‘But I ovulate regularly and I’ve been tested and I’m still producing viable eggs so if I time it right, why not? People get pregnant accidentally all the time, so surely if I stick to the right date, so will I.’

Theo shook his head at her desperate protest.

‘Are you really such an innocent?’ he demanded, then was sorry when he saw the colour creep into her cheeks again. And although he found her blushing attractive he was sure she hated it, so he regretted he’d embarrassed her.

‘Of course not!’ she said indignantly, but he heard a lie in the words. Then she shrugged her shoulders.

‘You must think I’m stupid—stupid for not realizing. Even more stupid for having such a pathetic idea—a baby for a birthday present…’

She stood up, adding, ‘Let’s go. I’m paying,’ in the kind of voice he heard from her in the hospital—cool, efficient, in control.

But not totally in control for her handbag had fallen from her lap, spilling its contents on the floor.

She bent to gather things, obviously flustered, and he bent with her, picking up a lipstick tube, thinking how attractive she was when her mask of self-control slipped. And suddenly the idea of being a sperm donor for this woman didn’t seem such a bad idea, although…

‘There, I think that’s it,’ he said, pressing a small pack of tissues into her hand, touching her fingers, looking into her clear eyes, the full lips so close he could have kissed them.

Tension he didn’t understand built between them, growing stronger by the second until he had to diffuse it—or kiss her!

He let her pay the bill, and as they left the restaurant she turned back towards the hospital.

‘Aren’t you living on Kensington Terrace?’ he asked.

She nodded, as if still afraid to speak in case she said something more she’d regret.

‘Then you don’t have to go back to the hospital. We can walk across the park.’

‘Do you live in that direction?’ she asked, studying him now, suspicious…

‘I don’t, I live closer to the city, but it’s not much further for me to walk through the park then from your place to the hospital where my car is than it is to walk from here. I’ll see you home.’

Definitely suspicious but although her lips—he really had to stop looking at her lips—opened to protest, they closed again, and she didn’t shake off his hand when he put it on her elbow to guide her across the road and in through the park gates.

Grace had seen the park in daylight but had not had time to explore it, although someone on the team had mentioned ponds with ducks and geese, and riding trails and dog exercise areas. None of which had much relevance for her, so she’d not taken much notice. And certainly no one had spoken of the romantic possibilities of the area, although as they walked along well-lit paths, in and out of patches of shadows cast by huge old trees, the park assumed a very romantic atmosphere.

Romantic atmosphere? What was wrong with her? One devastatingly embarrassing meal with a colleague and she was thinking romance?

‘Peaceful, isn’t it?’ Theo remarked, as they wandered along the path through a particularly dense bit of shadow.

‘Yes, very!’ she said quickly. Peaceful was a much better description than romantic!

‘You’ve settled into your flat?’ her companion asked, and once again she was grateful. Perhaps he’d forgotten her stupidity at dinner.

‘Yes, although I need to find a supermarket and do some proper shopping, and probably find a means of transport to get to and from the shops. I assume there are buses.’

‘There are buses but I could drive you. You’ll probably have a lot of stuff to get and bringing it home in the car is easier than carting it home on a bus. After work tomorrow? We’d better check with Jean-Luc as he’ll probably need to find a supermarket as well.’

Why was he doing this? Making arrangements that meant he would see more of her? Theo puzzled over this dilemma as they exited the park, a little part of him feeling regret that they’d not taken advantage of the night-time romantic ambience.

He must be crazy, although Jean-Luc would probably be with them the following day.

Jean-Luc? Grace was living in a flat above him. Surely he’d have been a better candidate for a sperm donation.

‘Why not Jean-Luc?’ Theo asked, as they waited for traffic to clear before crossing the road to the big old house that had been divided into flats and was kept by the hospital for visiting medical personnel. She turned to him, hesitated an instant, then offered him a smile that was only marginally better than a grimace. They crossed the road before she answered.

She turned to face him on the footpath outside the house. ‘Believe it or not, I did consider it.’ There was enough honesty in her voice for him to know it was the truth. ‘But how embarrassing for both of us if he felt he didn’t want to do it,’ she continued, ‘and probably worse if he did agree. No, it had to be someone a little more at arm’s length, if you know what I mean. Anyway, thanks to your common sense I’ve realised I was being unduly optimistic and definitely irrational in thinking I could do it my way. I’ll get in touch with an IVF clinic here and find out what’s involved in getting on a programme.’

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