The Heart Surgeon's Secret Child

Once she had trembled in his arms, but this reaction—this was pain or fear or something else he couldn’t understand.

He cursed himself for upsetting her so badly at the beginning of a working day, but why was she so upset?

‘Sorry, Alex, I know I’ve got to stop blaming jet-lag but I was distracted again. Would you please tell me the child’s name once more?’

Jean-Luc forced himself to set all thoughts of the past aside and concentrate on what Alex was saying—after all, these would be his patients very shortly. An operation was only the beginning of some children’s relationship with their cardiac surgeon—follow-up visits might go on for years.

‘Cain Cardella. He was brought to the hospital with aortic stenosis. A balloon catheterisation at the regional hospital failed and we did an open-heart op to repair the aortic valve. There were complications with his coronary artery as well, but he came through the op well and now he’s back for a twelve-month check-up.’

Alex passed the file to Jean-Luc, who opened it and began to read, surprised to see that the ‘complications’ Alex had spoken of so casually had been quite complex, with the left coronary artery having to be repositioned.

‘It was quite a long operation,’ Alex said, apparently reading Jean-Luc’s surprise. ‘Very tricky, but as you will see, Cain’s done surprisingly well.’

Coffee arrived and the three of them continued to work through the patient files, Alex giving Jean-Luc a précis of each patient’s problem while Lauren added information about the families of the children.

‘Now, this one,’ Alex said, when they’d reached the final file, ‘will be yours. Unless Annie has the baby early, I’ll still be here, but I’ve been reading of your success with the latest septal occluder. We’ve never used this particular device so we’d all like to see how you use it and to learn why you prefer it. We’ll discuss it further at a full unit meeting prior to the op, but for now the patient, Jeremy Willis, is four years old. The specialist who was seeing him over at the Children’s Hospital had already decided he’d need to do a closure, then he heard you were coming and contacted us to ask if we’d get you to do it.’

Alex passed the file to Jean-Luc and as the new unit member took it in his long, slender fingers and began to read through the information, Lauren seized the opportunity to study this man who had, so suddenly and surprisingly, announced he’d known her in India.

Not that she hadn’t studied him—surreptitiously—earlier. Her reaction to his smile—his touch—had been so extreme, she’d taken every opportunity she’d had to have a good look at him, trying to work out why he affected her as he did.

Was it the scarring here and there on his cheeks—an accident at some time, which would explain his limp—that added an extra something to the man’s appeal? Made him look more attractive?

Fascinating!

Manly!

She shook her head. Theo was a manly man—gorgeous, in fact—but he didn’t raise goose-bumps on Lauren’s arms when she brushed past him, or make her stomach feel squirmy and uneasy just sitting next to him.

Perhaps it was some fragment of memory in the bit of the past that had never come back to her that made Jean-Luc so appealing.

Had he known her well, or simply met her in passing? Surely it must be the latter, or he would have said more when they’d met the previous day.

Had he been, perhaps, one of the backpackers she’d written about in her emails home—young people who’d sometimes called in and spent a night at the mission, doing jobs around the place in return for shelter and food?

Or had he been something more?

Fear, apprehension and despair all gripped her heart, squeezing it hard enough to cause physical pain in her chest.

Though, doing the maths, Jean-Luc Fournier would have been in his late twenties ten years ago and there was no way such a man—a worldly, handsome, French man—would have looked twice at the lanky, freckly, immature twenty-one-year-old she’d been.

The fear subsided though apprehension remained, useless anger building from despair that she couldn’t remember!

‘So, are we ready? Can I buzz Becky and ask her to send the Cardella family in?’

Alex’s question interrupted Lauren’s tortured thoughts, and she thrust away the nightmare of a past that was a total blank to concentrate on the present.

‘I’ll go out and bring them in,’ she said, hoping movement would ease the tension in her body and help her mind focus on her work. Even better, she could show them in then take an unobtrusive seat at the back of the office, away from Jean-Luc and his disturbing physical presence.

Jean-Luc watched Lauren leave the room, surprised that the way she moved, treading lightly and lithely, should still be so familiar to him. Surprised that his body could still react to that movement.

‘She’s a first-class nurse.’

Startled out of his reverie, Jean-Luc turned back to Alex, trying to read what lay behind the casual comment. Had Alex seen something more than casual interest in Jean-Luc’s observation of Lauren? Or was Alex, as word in the paediatric cardiac surgical world had it, omnipotent?

Alex’s face revealed nothing—in fact, he was no longer looking at Jean-Luc, but at Cain Cardella’s file.

Zut! You must forget Lauren and concentrate on what you are here for, Jean-Luc reminded himself, pulling Jeremy Willis’s file from the bottom of the pile and opening it, needing something on which he could focus his full attention.

Then Lauren was back with the patient and his parents and the consultation fell into such a familiar pattern Jean-Luc was swept along, listening, talking, asking questions, learning all he could of each and every patient and the problems the team had been called upon to fix.

‘Jean-Luc will be the major surgeon for Jeremy’s operation,’ Alex explained to Rosemary Willis two hours later when the consultations were drawing to a close. ‘I will be assisting but Jean-Luc has more experience with the new type of closure we are anxious to try.’

Rosemary frowned as she looked from Alex to Jean-Luc.

‘I don’t want you doing experimental things on Jeremy,’ she said, speaking quietly so the little boy, whom Lauren had drawn into a corner to play with blocks, didn’t hear. ‘You must have tried and true ways of closing this hole, so why would you use something new?’

‘In the past,’ Alex explained, ‘in a case like Jeremy’s, we stitched the hole up, or put a patch in there. We cut the patch from some other tissue in the patient’s body so that made another wound that had to heal. In order to get in there, we had to do a major operation, opening the patient’s chest, then putting him or her on the heart-lung bypass machine and opening the heart. With the new occluders, it can be done through cardiac catheterisation, which is much less invasive surgery.’

‘He’s had cardiac catheter stuff already,’ Rosemary said, turning from Alex to Jean-Luc. ‘They put a tube up from his groin into his heart to see the hole when he was a baby. If you can do this now, why didn’t they do it then and save him all this trouble?’

Jean-Luc smiled at her.

‘You would think it would have made sense,’ he said, speaking gently for he could feel the woman’s agitation and understood it. ‘But quite often these defects will right themselves during the first three years of a child’s life—in fact, about eighty per cent of them close of their own accord before the child is two. You must see it would be better if Jeremy’s body had fixed the problem than if we interfered too early.’

Rosemary nodded, but her eyes strayed to her son, who was knocking down the towers of blocks with great gusto.

‘It is such a worry,’ she murmured.

‘Of course it is,’ Jean-Luc said, although his mind had been diverted for a moment as Lauren had lifted the little boy onto her knee and had bent her head close to his, whispering to him—making him smile. Lauren’s dark hair had fallen forward and the image of the woman and child reminded Jean-Luc of a stained-glass window in the cathedral near the hospital back at home.

What was he thinking?

How could he be so easily diverted?

He turned his full attention back to Rosemary.

‘But you must realise the operation we plan for Jeremy will be far easier on him than a full open-heart operation, and in France we have been using this occluder for several years now. In America there are others which have also been used successfully, so you can be sure Jeremy is not being used as an experiment.’

But if he was expecting instant approval he was disappointed. Rosemary studied him for a moment then turned to Alex.

‘You agree this is best?’ she asked.

‘Not only agree but recommend it. In fact, I would choose that option and do the catheterisation myself but with Jean-Luc here we have someone who has performed it many times, and I am anxious to watch and learn from him.’

‘What do you think?’

Rosemary directed her query at Lauren this time.

‘A catheterisation is so much less invasive than open heart surgery, it’s a no-brainer,’ Lauren responded. ‘We do caths in the lab beside the ward all the time, it doesn’t even need the theatre, although for Jeremy I would think they’ll use a theatre because there’ll be a full team on hand as everyone is anxious to learn.’

‘You’re really such an expert?’ Rosemary demanded, turning back to Jean-Luc.

He smiled at the anxious mother.

‘Modesty should prevent me saying so but, yes, in this particular procedure I am,’ he said, knowing she needed reassurance more than anything. ‘I use a yardstick—that’s the right word?—to judge operations before I suggest them to a parent. I ask myself, would I do this—use this method or that treatment—on my own child, and if I can answer yes, then I know it is the right thing to do.’

‘Oh, you’ve got children yourself? That’s so good to know!’ Rosemary said, reaching out and taking Jean-Luc’s hand in both of hers and squeezing it. ‘Then I will trust you to do what’s right for Jeremy.’

It was only when Jeremy wriggled off her knee that Lauren realised she’d been holding the little boy too tightly, her hands unconsciously tightening their grip when Jean-Luc had mentioned children.

Of course he’d have children—didn’t most men in their late thirties? She’d already figured that out.

And why should she care?

Because she found him attractive?

Or because he knew her from the past?

Surely she hadn’t been thinking he might be the one…

She shook her head at the appallingly ridiculous thought. He was French, sophisticated, gorgeous—hardly the kind of man who would have been smitten by her young self!

‘I’ll see Mrs Willis and Jeremy out,’ she said, getting up and taking Jeremy’s hand, then adding to Rosemary, ‘Becky will make the appointment for Jeremy’s procedure and give you all the information you need for his hospital stay.’

She’s escaping, Jean-Luc thought, then he wondered why he would think such a thing, and what there was to escape? ‘T’es fou!’ he muttered to himself. He must stop thinking about Lauren—or letting thoughts of her divert his mind from the work he was there to do.

‘Do you spend this much time with all your patients and their families? If so, how do you find time for your other work?’

‘We find time spent with patients and their families preop pays off in the long run. These kids are going to be put through terrible trauma and it’s agonising for their families. The more the families know what to expect, the better they seem to handle it, so it’s time gained in the long run. Of course, parents are still very distressed when they see their child post-op, but if they understand as much as possible about the procedure they are able to accept that, of course, it knocked their infant around.’

Jean-Luc nodded. He could understand the thinking, but most of his experience had been in major hospitals where time taken to talk to parents was a luxury they sometimes couldn’t afford.

‘It is a system I would like to set up in the new unit at home,’ he said. ‘And I like the idea of the nurse being there. Rosemary turned to Lauren for further reassurance before she agreed, and if it is Lauren who will care for Jeremy before and after the procedure, then there is already a small bond formed which will make it easier.’

Alex nodded.

‘All the nursing staff are good with the parents, but Lauren seems to have a special talent in winning confidence. Perhaps because her own child has heart problems, although only the families who get close to her would learn about that. Other people must just sense it.’

Alex’s explanation echoed in Jean-Luc’s head, making no sense because his brain had been blocked by three words—‘child’and ‘heartproblems’. Little Joe had heart problems?

Heart defects were not uncommon in children with Down’s syndrome, so why was he upset?

Because it was another burden Lauren had to bear?

Surely not!

CHAPTER THREE

THE consultations over, Lauren headed home, distracted by the idea that the new surgeon on the team had known her in India. The irritation of knowing so little and needing to learn so much more niggled at her as she tried to sleep, and distracted her later as she talked to Joe about his day, and helped him make plans for the local Cubs’ sock drive. Together they drew a map of the places he could visit. Many of the houses in the area were divided into flats, so without going too far afield Joe could knock on a lot of doors. But with that done, the thought of Jean-Luc Fournier living just up the road began to burn inside her.

It was no good—she had to know more. Had to! Had to talk to the man to see if he could unlock the secrets of the past.

Would he be at home? It was eight o’clock. Would he have had his dinner?

Didn’t Europeans eat later?

Certainly they’d eat later than people with nine-year-old boys in their family.

Although he had children himself…

She phoned her mother who lived in the flat above hers, far enough away for her and Joe to lead independent lives but close enough to be there for Joe when Lauren was working.

‘I’m just going down the road, Mum,’ she said. ‘Something I need to talk about with the new surgeon. Can you watch Joe?’

Her mother agreed to come down, used to the fact that, with the strong medical contingent in the neighbourhood, people popping in and out of each other’s houses was quite normal.

Lauren let her mother in and was about to walk out the front door when she realised she was still in the old clothes she’d pulled on when she’d got home from work.

So?

She shook her head but raced back to her bedroom where she grabbed her favourite jeans and a dark green top that Theo had told her made her eyes look greener.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. The words echoed in her head as she showered and rubbed herself dry. They grew louder as she brushed her hair until it shone, and louder still as she smeared foundation over her freckled skin, and touched lip-gloss to her lips.

But what was wrong with looking as attractive as she could?

She had no answer, although the excitement that had begun inside her when she’d decided to visit her new neighbour was now turning to a fluttery feeling in her stomach.

More akin to panic than excitement.

The make-up was for courage, she decided as she let herself out of the house and headed for number 26.

But make-up or not, her footsteps faltered and doubts grew like mushroom clouds in her mind.

He probably won’t be at home.

She pushed her feet along the pavement, her reluctance now mixed with fear.

He might not know.

That was what was really worrying her.

For ten years that part of her life had been a blank—retrograde amnesia caused by a hit on her head. And though most of her memory had returned over time, the period immediately preceding the injury—six weeks, her mother had told her—remained tantalisingly hidden away.

What puzzled the doctors was that it was such a long period of time. It wasn’t uncommon for memory of the twenty-four or even forty-eight hours preceding a head injury to be lost, but six weeks?

It might be due to some earlier trauma just before she was buried under the bricks, they suggested, but to Lauren that was hardly reassuring.

Now here she was, about to talk to someone who had been there. But did she really want to find out what happened—did she want to fill in all the blanks?

She did and she didn’t…

She had to!

Pushing open the gate to 26, her hands trembled.

‘Of course you want to know—you need to know,’ she told herself, angry that she was becoming so emotional about it. ‘And, anyway, he might not be able to tell you much—he might only have been passing through.’

‘Ah, so you still talk aloud to yourself.’

The voice made her turn, to see Jean-Luc, green supermarket shopping bags dangling from his fingers, standing right behind her. She stared at him, unable to take in not the sight of him but the words he’d spoken. It wouldn’t have been more shocking if the camellia bush by the path had spoken.

‘You know that?’ she whispered, stiff with fear and a weird reluctance.

‘Come on, move along, don’t block the path!’

A woman’s voice! The tall, blonde beauty was right behind Jean-Luc, so Lauren had no choice but to step off the path and let the couple pass by with their groceries.

She looked behind them, expecting to see the trailing two point four children but none appeared, although knowing the new surgeon was married was a very different thing to supposing he would be.

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