Surgeon Of The Heart

She gave him an enchanting smile, loving him all the more because he would have stopped. Some primitive instinct told her that with absolute clarity. Yes, he wanted her very badly, she could see that, but one word and he would have stopped. One word. She put her hand up to trace the outline of his lips, and he imprisoned it there, kissing the palm with breathtaking homage. He was waiting for her answer. One word.

‘Yes,’ she told him. She scarcely recognised the voice as her own; it sounded almost slurred with the blood-stirring response he was eliciting from her.

He moved over her then, to shower her with kisses, light, butterfly kisses at first, gradually becoming deeper and more insistent.

She had never seen anything so beautiful as the physical perfection of this naked man. Each limb brown and strong, all muscle and sinew. But there was softness behind the steely strength. Tenderness, too, in the way he spoke her name, over and over again. She kissed him back, with a fervour and a passion that matched his. She was flying, like a bird newly out of the nest. The wings she had never used before were unexpectedly simple to use. She matched each stroke, each caress, each seeking gesture with movements of her own. She had never been to bed with a man before, but she felt no fear, no hesitation, no embarrassment. It was as though the instinctive way she responded to him was being guided by some force stronger than she, stronger indeed than both of them. She knew a moment of sheer pleasure as she saw his face just before he moved in to possess her utterly. A primitive joy at the sensation of his fullness, dominating her completely, before the sharp and totally unexpected spasm of pain. She had forgotten, she had actually forgotten that it might hurt. She heard him exclaim, saw his face. . .not pleasure there now, puzzlement, yes, and—surely not?—anger. His movements became fierce and strong, tinged with a kind of desperation. He moved one last time with a sudden ferocity, and then she heard him groan, before withdrawing completely, and falling on to the bed beside her.

There was a brief silence, if you could count it as silence, when the raggedness of his breathing seemed almost to deafen her. She turned to him miserably, knowing that it should not have ended like this, feeling his mental as well as physical withdrawal, knowing, just from the forbidding set of his newly tense shoulders that he was very angry, but not knowing why.

When he turned over to look at her she almost recoiled from the pure fury that lit the dark eyes with a angry glow.

‘Dio!’ he swore. ‘You little idiot—how could you? How could you?’

She felt suddenly cold. ‘How could I what? Nico—what is it? What have I done?’

He moved as far away from her as he could, as though he could taint himself by mere proximity. He sat up, the rumpled sheet at his waist, still breathing heavily. ‘What a waste!’ he exploded. ‘Why in God’s name didn’t you tell me that you were a virgin?’

Why? Why indeed? If she told him the reason she would be able to add scorn to the contempt on his face. Tell him that she had never felt anything like that in her life before? That she had felt lifted almost on to a higher plane? That their lovemaking had had, for her, a spiritual quality that had ruled her response to him? Tell him that she had foolishly mistaken lust for love? ‘Was it—I mean, did you not. . .enjoy it?’

He swore violently under his breath; the words were foreign to her, but their meaning plain enough.

‘Enjoy it?’ he asked scornfully. ‘How could I enjoy it, knowing that?’ he spat out, then, seeing her look of puzzlement, he relented. ‘Oh, I achieved—satisfaction.’ His mouth curled in distaste as he spoke the word. ‘I should have stopped. . . I would have stopped, but——’

‘But?’

‘It was too late by then,’ he said bitterly. ‘Nothing could have stopped me.’

She knew one last surge of triumph, that the tide had been strong enough to sweep him, too, out of control, and then she sat up, hugging a sheet around her nakedness, willing herself to stem the tears, for now at least. ‘Well, at least you can be sure of not catching any disease—as you were the first!’ she cried.

She saw him glance at her quickly, as if recognising the vulnerability behind the attempt at bravado.

‘It shouldn’t be like that, you know,’ he said, quite softly. ‘Your first time. It should be special.’

It was special, she wanted to scream at him. For me, anyway! But she turned her head away.

‘I would have been more. . .less. . .more gentle. . .’ His words tailed off into an embarrassed silence.

And all at once she knew that she could not tolerate one second more of this humiliating post-mortem. With a shuddering sense of realisation she remembered that she was in a strange country and a strange house, with a man who was now as far away from her as a complete stranger, ever though he lay just feet away, even though he knew her body intimately. A vestige of the Ice-Queen returned as her pride’s saviour.

‘I’d like you to take me back now, please.’

To her shame, he didn’t even try to argue. He merely nodded and stood up, and she closed her eyes to blot out the sight of the body. She still, even now, longed for him to take her in his arms again, to make everything all right, as sweetly perfect as before. . .

They dressed in silence. This time round she noticed the car; she made herself obsessively observe details. The smell of fine leather, the dazzling array of instruments. Anything that would keep her tortured thoughts away from the subject of the man who had so summarily thrust her away from him.

‘Where are you staying?’ he asked at last.

Some last scrap of self-preservation made her lie to him. She mentioned the name of a hotel she had noticed in the adjoining street to her own hotel. The drive there seemed to take forever, and when he stopped the car he turned to her, his troubled eyes betraying that he wasn’t feeling as calm as his exterior suggested.

‘Catriona. . .’ he began.

So she was Catriona now. Not Cat. His Cat. The use of her proper name became the final straw, and she wrenched the door open. ‘Thanks for the memory!’ she said on a sob, before running away down the road, as if demons were on her heel, away, far away, where he could never find her.

CHAPTER TWO

‘ARE you all right, Cat?’

Cat turned from the mirror, where she had been adjusting her green theatre gown, her lacklustre eyes regarding Josey Betts, her fellow staff nurse, and a good friend. ‘Sure, I’m all right,’ she answered unconvincingly. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

Josey hesitated. ‘It’s just that you’ve been so—well, so strange since you’ve got back.’

‘Strange?’ echoed Cat dully. Perhaps it was true, then, perhaps sexual awakening could be seen in a woman’s eyes. Except that it hadn’t been much of an awakening in her case, more like an ongoing nightmare.

‘I mean, I know you were ill when you came back from Italy——’

‘Yes,’ agreed Cat calmly. III? It had been no disease that her doctor had heard of, that was for sure, but she had been unable to function normally. She had stopped eating and sleeping and laughing—as the stark reality of what she had done came home to her. She had lost her virginity to a total stranger. Her doctor had diagnosed depression, and she hadn’t had the energy to argue with him, and, besides, what would he say if she told him the truth? He would be disbelieving at first, and then, if she managed to convince him of the veracity of her statement, she could imagine the disbelief changing to distaste, disgust. Knowing that the Ice-Queen was no better than a slut.

Physically, the pills had made her feel better. Soon she had stopped taking them, and now she was functioning ‘normally’, except that there was a huge gap where her heart used to be. Mentally, she just didn’t know. How on earth did she go about coming to terms with doing something so completely out of character—and doing something which felt as though it had devastated not only her heart and soul, but her whole future?

She pushed one narrow foot into the white theatre clog. ‘I don’t suppose you know which list I’m down for today?’ she queried.

‘You mean, you haven’t looked?’ Josey gave an amused smile. ‘Well, this will really cheer you up—you’ve hit the jackpot this time, Cat!’

‘Jackpot?’

Josey clicked impatiently. ‘Will you stop repeating everything I say? It makes you sound all dopey, and you’re going to need all your wits about you. You’ve landed the new visiting prof!’

Cat wondered why Josey was doing an excellent imitition of a Cheshire cat. ‘So?’

‘So?’ Josey exclaimed, hitting her hand dramatically on to her forehead. ‘So, he’s a walking dreamboat. Sensational! I tell you, Cat—this one is the business!’

‘Really?’ Cat asked absently. ‘Well, then you’ll have to get to work on him, won’t you?’

Josey crinkled up her freckled nose. ‘Oh, sure,’ she said resignedly. ‘He’s bound to fancy you—they all do.’

Cat shuddered, feeling as though she’d been offered a poisoned chalice. ‘Well, he’s safe from me. I am off men completely.’ Natural curiosity got the better of her. ‘What’s he like?’

‘Italian——’ started Josey, and then stopped when she saw her friend’s white face. ‘Cat, what’s the matter?’

Cat shook her head. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’ No point in saying that even the gods seemed intent on compounding her misery. Everywhere she went she seemed to be invaded by images of all things Italian. Or was it simply that she couldn’t get Rome, and that dark, beautiful, cruel stranger out of her mind?

‘You can’t believe how good-looking he is,’ prattled on Josey excitedly. ‘Sister Henderson even said that he should have been a film star—and that, coming from her, well. . .’

Cat knew what she meant. Sister Henderson, only two years off retirement, had once been jilted by her fiancé, and had decided that the rest of the male sex should pay. Cat had always thought her a slightly ridiculous figure. Ironic that after what had happened to her in Rome she now felt she had more in common with the older woman than any of her peers. ‘Is he a good surgeon—that’s the question?’

‘He’s a professor—for heaven’s sake!’

Cat looked at her patiently. ‘You know as well as I do that people often get promoted because they’re brilliant fund-raisers and medical politicians. Some of them can’t operate their way out of a paper bag!’

‘Well, this one can,’ retorted Josey smugly. ‘Sister Henderson says she’s never seen such a wonderful technique. . .neat, yet fast—the ultimate combination!’

‘Good grief,’ said Cat sarcastically. ‘Has the idol got feet of clay, I wonder? Does he come complete with a halo?’

Josey’s eyes glinted. ‘The last thing he looks like is a saint, I can assure you.’

‘Sister Henderson isn’t seriously besotted, is she, Jo?’

This produced a fit of the giggles. ‘Probably. But it won’t do her the least bit of good—he’s decades younger!’

‘I’m surprised she’s put me in with him, if he’s that grand.’

‘Ah, well—you are the blue-eyed girl, aren’t you?’ asked Josey a touch bitterly. ‘Everyone knows they’ll make you sister soon.’

Was that true? wondered Cat as she made her way slowly towards Theatre One. Ironic that once she could think of nothing she’d wanted more, yet now the thought of promotion filled her with only a kind of mild curiosity. She shook her head very slightly, knowing that she was going to have to snap out of this mood very quickly indeed. Soon she would be on hand to use her skill as a scrub nurse in some of the most exacting operations known to medical science.

As she set about preparing her trolley she reflected that cardio-thoracic surgery—or heart surgery, as it was more popularly known—excited a very passionate response from the general public. All doctors and nurses knew that getting funds for this particular speciality was almost as easy as raising funds for the children’s ward. Perhaps the fact that the heart was seen as the very nub of human life was what made the public response to it so gratifying. And the heart was, of course, seen as the centre of the emotions, something which she had only recently discovered. For the first time in her life she found herself wishing that she worked on a ward, or in Out-patients, or in something, anything other than a job where the word ‘heart’ was spoken day after day, reminding her of all those terms that now seemed to accurately reflect her life, and her feelings. Heartbroken. Absolutely.

The theatre began to become a hive of humming activity. Cat had gloved and gowned up, and was placing the myriad fine instruments on to the sterile trolley. Her ‘runner’ scurried around, fetching more sutures and extra instruments. She was a student working three months in theatres, and had been dreading assisting Staff Nurse Bellman. Everyone knew that she didn’t suffer fools gladly—her high standards were the talk of the student nurses’ canteen. What she hadn’t been expecting had been someone quite so young as Catriona Bellman, or so lovely, either.

Systematically, in a routine which was now as familiar to her as washing her face, or brushing her teeth, Cat began to lay the instruments out in neat lines, in the order that they would most probably be called for. She glanced up at her runner.

‘Student Nurse Lloyd, could you find out if the professor favours any special instruments?’

‘Yes, Staff.’

She returned a couple of minutes later, bearing a set of Hanwright forceps, and opened the packets so that the contents fell out on to the sterile trolley.

‘Thanks,’ said Cat, and, seeing the girl’s keen expression, began to question her. ‘Have you done much theatre work?’ she queried. ‘I haven’t seen you before.’

‘I came while you were off sick,’ explained the student.

‘I see.’ Colour crept into Cat’s cheeks. She felt such a fraud for having been off with a sickness that was so patently self-induced—but she could never have worked in the state she’d been in, and it was only the second break for sickness she’d had in her entire career. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Melissa,’ answered the girl.

‘Well, Melissa, I’m pleased to have you on board. Have you done much running so far?’

‘This is my third time. The first two I was just observing, then today Sister Henderson said that I could help you, as we’re short-staffed.’

Cat nodded. They seemed constantly short-staffed, but she smiled encouragingly at the younger girl, recognising some of the same eagerness to learn that had first characterised her own ambition to work in Theatre. Theatre nurses were born, she had long ago decided, not made. ‘Well, Sister Henderson must be very pleased with your progress if she’s letting you run for a major operation at this stage. Well done!’

‘Why, thank you, Staff!’ Student Nurse Lloyd flushed pink with pride, thinking that this kind interest didn’t tie in with Staff Bellman’s reputation.

Cat knew immediately what the girl was thinking, her theatre mask hiding her wry expression, for yes, she had changed. She knew that she had. Work no longer seemed the prime motivating force in her life. She had tasted both pleasure and pain, and a newer, softer Cat had emerged. The question was whether or not she would ever be able to forget the man who had effected that change, or—more important still—would she ever be able to experience that fierce and overwhelming reaction with someone else?

‘Have you worked in Anaesthetics yet, Melissa?’

‘Not yet, Staff.’

‘Then I’ll tell you a little about it before the patient arrives, as we’re ready. At this moment the patient is being anaesthetised, and the anaesthetist is inserting lots of different lines into him, which will enable him to monitor his progress during the operation. What lines do you think he might use?’

‘A CVP line.’

‘Correct. The full name being?’

Melissa cleared her throat. ‘The central venous pressure line.’

‘Good. And do you know what that shows?’

‘Not really, Staff.’

‘Well, it gives us a clear indication of the state of the volume of fluids within the body. It would tell us, for example, if the heart was overloaded—by being raised. It is, as you can imagine, of vital importance, particularly as we’re operating on the heart itself. It will be removed when the patient is ready to leave the intensive care unit.’ She smiled at the student’s rapt expression. ‘And what other lines might we expect to find?’

‘A venous line?’

‘At least one,’ answered Cat. ‘Dr Crone prefers to use four, although he isn’t typical—as you might have already heard, Dr Crone is a law unto himself!’

‘Yes, Staff,’ smiled Melissa.

Further discussion was halted by the appearance of two surgeons—Phil Bennett and Morgan Crossland—Cat knew them well. These were the surgeons who would prepare for the arrival of the professor himself. The operation being performed was a coronary artery bypass graft—an inspirational procedure to any member of the profession. The coronary arteries—vital for supplying the heart with its own blood supply—having become furred and clogged up with arteroma, would be removed, then replaced with veins taken from the lower leg. Thus one surgeon would open up the leg to remove the leg veins, while the other opened up the chest wall, ready for the professor to carry out the swop itself.

Both men grinned when they saw Cat, Morgan, an out-and-out ladies’ man, frowning very slightly.

‘Been on a diet, Cat?’

‘No.’ She knew that her uniform was hanging in voluminous folds around her waist. The plain green theatre dress hid a multiple of sins, but even it couldn’t disguise the fact that ten pounds had fallen off her since her return from Italy.

‘You’re too thin,’ said Morgan critically. ‘It doesn’t suit you.’

Cat could see Melissa Lloyd listening to the interchange with interest, and decided to nip any speculation in the bud. ‘Nice of you to be so concerned, Morgan,’ she said sweetly. ‘But, speaking of diets—couldn’t you do with losing a little yourself?’

Morgan laughed easily, finding something other than total female capitulation quite refreshing. He knew perfectly well that Cat was the last person to fall for his well-worn chat-up lines, but that didn’t stop him trying!

Both men began to scrub as the patient was wheeled in, a man in his late fifties. Dr Crone and his scrub nurse accompanied him, the nurse compressing the ambi-bag, which was feeding oxygen into the patient’s lungs, until he could be connected to the ventilator in Theatre.

Also in the room was the theatre technician, who was responsible for working the bypass machine. The patient’s body needed to be cooled right down, and this was done by putting a cannula in the heart itself, running the patient’s blood through the bypass machine, which cooled it, to have it returned to the patient by an artery in the groin.

Phil started opening the leg, while Morgan began opening the chest, both chatting away, quizzing Cat about her time in Rome. The atmosphere seemed relaxed, but they all worked like clockwork, and the moment that any one of the team in the whole theatre expressed any degree of concern about the proceedings then a tight tension would grip the air.

In reality, Cat would be working for all three surgeons, so she would need to be right on the ball. It was a prospect that daunted a lot of theatre nurses.

‘So how was Rome?’ asked Morgan.

‘The conference was great,’ she said, her voice only slightly unsteady. ‘I learnt a lot. There were two people from the States who——’

‘Wouldn’t you just know it?’ exclaimed Morgan as she slapped a forcep into his gloved hand. ‘Only Cat could go to a country like Italy in the height of summer and come away talking about cardiology! What else did you do apart from the conference? Didn’t some dashing Italian sweep you off your feet?’ he teased, not noticing that she had blanched. ‘And, speaking of dashing Italians,’ he continued cheerfully, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve met our newest maestro?’

‘Morgan’s had his nose put out of joint,’ interjected Phil mischievously. ‘His position as number-one hospital heart-throb has gone. He’s finally been usurped.’

Cat didn’t trust herself to answer, just carried on, slapping instruments between the two, handing over swabs, and making sure that Melissa Lloyd kept a swab tally on the board at the back of the theatre.

She was aware when the professor came in, even though she had her back to him. A good scrub nurse was aware of every single thing that went on in her theatre, and there was always an imperceptible change in the atmosphere when the top man arrived. Jokes stopped. No words were exchanged. They took their lead from him. If the chief surgeon liked to operate while having Sibelius piped over the loudspeakers then that was fine. If his tastes ran to the Rolling Stones then that was fine too! Cat had often thought that it must be a bit like being minor royalty—the top surgeon was in such an awesomely responsible position. Scarce wonder that so many chiefs of surgery had phenomenally huge egos!

She could hear him washing his hands in the corner, and Melissa Lloyd went scurrying over to tie his gown for him. He moved towards the operating table. Out of the corner of her eye she noted that he was exceptionally tall.

‘Good morning, everyone,’ he said in a faintly accented Italian that sounded just a little unusual.

Unusual? Cat started. Now she was going crazy! It was because she had Nico on the mind.

The surgeon moved round the table to face her. ‘Ah, a new nurse?’ he queried softly.

Cat lifted her face, the smile frozen there into a ghastly grimace. Please no, she thought. Dear God, no.

Dark brown long-lashed eyes looked into gold-flecked green. She saw incredulous recognition become a tight anger, and with a resounding clatter she dropped the forcep she was holding on to the floor.

CHAPTER THREE

THERE was confusion for approximately three seconds. Morgan stared at her in stupefaction. ‘Are you OK, Cat?’ he queried.

She could understand his surprise. After all, why should someone who was famous for her sleight of hand and her unflappability suddenly behave like the most nervous and inadequate junior?

‘Cat?’ repeated Morgan anxiously.

At the repeated sounding of her name she heard Nico’s sharp intake of breath, and she met his eyes steadily. There was denial there, a question, and then they looked just exactly like cold chips of ice.

Morgan was speaking again. ‘Professor Rossi—this is Catriona—absolutely our best scrub nurse.’

The dark brows were raised imperiously, the voice was chilly. ‘Indeed? I’m afraid that I must beg to differ—or perhaps standards are different over here. In my experience good scrub nurses are not those who drop the instruments, and then stand there shaking, obviously not in control of themselves.’

With a sinking feeling of regret she knew that his words had a deeper, more insidious meaning. She had not been in control then, either. In Rome.

‘Perhaps you’d like someone to relieve you, as you’re obviously not up to it?’ he suggested.

She drew her shoulders up. ‘I’m fine,’ she said with a surprising firmness in her voice that she was eternally grateful for. ‘Are you ready to commence the operation—sir?’

‘Indeed.’

Things went on automatic pilot then. She forced herself to put every thought of him out of her mind—she had to. He was just a surgeon. Any surgeon. And she was assisting him. She watched as the long fingers gradually exposed the heart. Watched as he performed the breath-takingly dramatic act of stopping the heart with ice-cold water.

She did her best, but it was not her best. She was adequate, and that was about all that could be said. The qualities that separated her from the run-of-the-mill theatre nurses were sadly missing today. Oh, she didn’t commit another sin so grave as dropping an instrument, or anything so inept as forgetting to register a newly opened packet of swabs. She handed him every instrument that he needed, but that extra dimension was missing. Even though it was the first time she had worked for him, she normally would have anticipated his needs, rather than having to wait to be asked. Watching the motion between a good surgeon—and she could see that he was a very good surgeon, there was no doubt about that—and a good scrub nurse was like watching a perfectly choreographed ballet—the whole painstakingly intricate operation looking absolutely effortless. Today she felt worse than useless, and she was miserably aware that his barely concealed impatience with her performance had affected everyone around them. Even Morgan looked slightly miffed.