Tempted By The Brooding Surgeon: Tempted by the Brooding Surgeon / From Fling to Wedding Ring

“Will do.”

Relieved that the baby’s blood pressure had normalized but still keeping a careful watch, the surgery took one hundred percent of Annabelle’s focus. Two more hours passed until finally Daniel had the wound closed and secured, with Luciana helping to finish the bandaging. When they were ready, Annabelle removed the IV lines and slowly awakened the infant.

Daniel snapped off his gloves and pulled down his mask. The slow, deliberate way he lifted off his scrub cap showed he felt as dead tired as Annabelle did, which was hardly a surprise since it was almost 4:00 a.m. Despite the lines and shadows etched around his eyes, their brown depths looked elated as his gaze met hers for a long moment before turning to the nurse. “We did it, ladies. Luciana, great job assisting. Where have you worked?”

“I’ve been a surgical assistant at two different hospitals in Lima for a long time. But Huancayo is my hometown, so I was happy to come here to help get the clinic open again.”

“Is there another nurse who can come here tomorrow to help care for him post-op?”

“I don’t know. I’ll see if I can find someone, but I’ll take care of him if I can’t.”

“I’ll also talk to Eduardo to see if he has anybody. There’s no way you can take care of this little guy and deal with more patients all by yourself once the clinic is open. Not to mention you’re going to need some sleep.”

“All of us do,” Luciana said with a tired grin. “But for tonight I’ll stay here with him.”

“No, we’ll stay. Or I will, at least,” Daniel said. “Do you have a place close by you can sleep?”

“I have relatives here, and have been staying with my mama since I arrived. I want to thank you both again for coming so fast. For being here at all. The little one might not have lived long if you hadn’t decided to open the clinic. It’s been closed for such a long time. I can tell you the people here appreciate it more than you can imagine.”

Daniel’s eyes met Annabelle’s for a long moment, and she saw they were lit with emotions. Satisfaction. Appreciation. And a slight smugness that told her that he was remembering what he’d said to her when she’d been so angry about being sent off to this place to work. That when her time here was finished, she’d be glad to have taken care of the patients in need, and whether she did it at the other clinic or here didn’t matter.

And, yeah, she couldn’t deny she was glad.

“I need to call the parents. Do you have their number?”

Luciana recited it, and Daniel went into the other room to speak to them. Annabelle could hear his low, lilting Spanish and let herself enjoy the cadence of it, the warmth she hadn’t noticed enough before.

She and Luciana again checked the baby’s IV lines, oxygen, breathing and other vital signs, before finally stepping back and smiling at one another.

“Not out of the woods yet, but he seems to be doing really well,” Annabelle said. “He’ll have to be carefully monitored, of course, and I feel like we should stay part of the day tomorrow to help you.”

“I know you have surgeries scheduled at the other clinic, but a little time here would be good. But didn’t Dr. Ferrera say you were going to be here to work with Dr. Diaz at some point anyway?”

“I assume that’s still the plan, but we’ll see.” Maybe a certain arrogant and extremely talented surgeon was finally ready to acknowledge that she knew what she was doing, even during the most intricate surgeries.

On the other hand, maybe she should ask to come here after all. The peculiar feelings rolling around in her tummy whenever she looked at Daniel might mean working with Dr. Diaz would be a good idea.

“I told the parents there was no need for them to come back right now, that sometime in the morning would be fine as he’ll be sedated for quite a while,” Daniel said as he came back into the room. It seemed he was talking to both of them, but his eyes were on Annabelle.

“Isn’t it already morning?” Annabelle joked, trying to cover up the way her heart pitter-pattered at the way he was looking at her. Or how she imagined he might be looking at her. In a way she shouldn’t want him to be looking at her.

Or maybe she could, but for very good reasons she absolutely wasn’t going to go there if he was.

One side of Daniel’s mouth tipped up as he glanced at his watch. “Definitely morning. Just a couple of hours earlier than your usual wake-up time, Dr. Richards. Maybe not too early for some yoga to get you mentally centered for the day?”

“Only if you join me. I’ll teach you some moves that’ll help you with that grouchy controlling streak of yours.”

“Moves?”

“Yoga moves,” she hastily supplied, her face heating at the way the other side of his lips curved at the same time one eyebrow rose. Who would ever have thought the grim and ultraserious Dr Ferrara would make a quip like that? “A few of my favorite asana poses, then we’ll end with the corpse pose to relax you.”

“Corpse pose? What doctor dealing with life and death would want to do that?” He stepped closer. “Isn’t there any yoga that would energize me? Because that’s what I need right now.”

Annabelle’s stomach quivered at the teasing glint in his eyes. What in the world was happening here? Had she fallen into some alternate universe where Daniel was like a normal man and not the intense perfectionist who was always so serious?

Luciana looked from one of them to the other, obvious confusion on her face. “You wish to do yoga? I have some extra blankets in the back if you want to put them on the floor.”

“No, no, Dr. Ferrera and I are just kidding. Probably. We’re both half-delirious from lack of sleep.”

“Yes, we all need a little sleep,” Luciana said, smiling again. “There is just the one bed here, with clean sheets I put on today. Dr. Richards, you are welcome to come home with me. My mother’s house is small, but we will be honored to have you take the bedroom.”

Thinking about the last few minutes of strangeness, Annabelle had barely listened to what Luciana had said. Until the words one bed finally seeped into her brain, making it stumble in panic. No way was she sleeping in a bed with Daniel!

But she wasn’t going to take Luciana’s only bedroom either, and trying to get checked into a hotel room in Huancayo at 4:00 a.m. didn’t seem too appealing or practical as a third option.

“Thank you so much for the kind offer but Dr. Ferrera and I will figure out the sleeping arrangement here. Don’t worry about us.” Though suddenly she was worrying plenty. “I guess we’ll see you sometime tomorrow?”

“I just need a few hours’ sleep to feel alert enough to care for the bambino. When did you say Dr. Diaz is coming here?”

“I need to double-check to see how long he thinks the travel will take,” Daniel said, his expression now impassive. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

“Adios, then. See you about nine o’clock.”

“Give yourself until ten. Still not enough sleep, but we have a pretty big patient load back at Ayllu, and we’re already behind so we’ll all have to work a little tired.”

“Of course. Thank you again. Buenas noches.”

With Luciana gone, the room seemed to shrink to the size of a broom closet, the sound of the baby’s oxygen machine loud and rhythmic. Daniel’s eyes met hers with a magnetic pull so intense she nearly swayed forward.

“We need to get a little sleep while the baby’s sedated,” he said, stuffing his hands in his scrubs pockets. “The monitor will wake us up if something changes in his vital signs.”

“The monitor you yelled at me about.” She wanted to get back to their usual status quo. Sparks flying from arguing instead of sparks caused by something else entirely.

“I never yell. I simply pointed out that we’ve done more surgeries than I can count without one here.” His lips curved in a slow smile that was so not status quo. Darn it. “But since you refuse to let the subject drop, I’ll admit it. I’m glad we have it here, and it’s been useful at the other clinic, too. You were smart to bring it.”

She dramatically slapped her hand to her forehead, partly to hide the surprised little glow his words put in her chest. “I feel a little faint. Did you say I did something right, and that you were wrong?”

“Saying it’s good we have it doesn’t mean I was wrong.”

“Of course not. Because you’re never wrong.”

His smile widened at the sound of disgust that came from her lips with her retort. “Rarely wrong. But there is one thing I was wrong about. You are an excellent anesthesiologist, and more than capable of taking care of the sickest patients during the longest surgeries. I’m impressed you caught the blood loss problem tonight, and instantly took care of it before I had to say something. So I apologize that I told you that I didn’t believe you were competent enough to be a heart surgeon’s anesthesiologist.”

All humor and discomfort and the sarcasm she’d been giving him disappeared. Her mouth dropped open slightly and she held up her hand, catching her breath before she could finally speak. “Wait a minute. So you’re saying that if you had it to do over again, you wouldn’t have kept me from getting the position I wanted in Philadelphia?”

“I did what I thought was right with the information I had at the time, which was that you’d made a critical error in the middle of a serious surgery. Something you can’t deny. So how did that happen?”

She looked down, not wanting to remember. Not wanting him to know any more of the details than he already did. After a long moment she forced herself to look into his eyes, steeling herself for what she’d see there. “You know it was my first month as an attending physician, wanting more than anything to get a permanent position at such an amazing hospital. It does so much good for every class of people, rich or poor, you know? It was my dream to work there. I...I wanted so much to prove myself. To impress everyone.”

She paused, swallowing down the pain of that terrible day. The deep disappointment in herself that she still felt all this time later. The horrifying proof that all the people who’d told her she’d never be good enough to become a doctor had been right.

He must have seen something of what she was feeling as he reached out to soothingly rub one hand up and down her arm as he spoke quietly. “Go on.”

“You might remember that they’d placed an anesthesia resident with me that day, and I felt I needed to give him an opportunity to actually make decisions instead of just watch or follow directions, the same way one or two attendings had done for me.”

“I barely remember the resident. Probably because I was concentrating on the surgery. But it’s also possible that I’d only noticed the beautiful new anesthesiologist who I knew had silky blond hair tucked under her cap, captivating blue eyes, and a body any man could easily get sidetracked by.”

“You noticed me?” she whispered, finding that incomprehensible. The thought made her heart beat hard in her chest. The anger she’d carried at him for all these years had pushed down the attraction she’d felt, too. Had tried to make her forget how often she’d caught herself staring at the tall, dark, cardiac surgeon with the muscular build tugging at his scrubs. Intrigued by the contrast between the all-business and often sharp man performing such detailed surgeries and the gentle doctor who’d appeared before and after when he’d spoken to his small patients and their families.

“Noticed you. Was attracted to you. Wanted to know more about you.” He closed the gap between them and took both her shoulders in his hands. “So you wanted to give the resident a chance to make some decisions. But I know it was you who administered the epinephrine.”

Briefly, she closed her eyes, hating to remember the biggest mistake of her career. A mistake that had nearly resulted in their patient dying. “Yes, it was me. I administered it. The resident gave me the wrong information and drew the wrong dose before handing it to me. I should have been paying closer attention, but stupidly I didn’t double-check. Didn’t see that he had it wrong. Until the child went into cardiac arrest, and through the flurry and panic you saved his life.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And in my anger toward myself, which I later projected toward you, I’ve never given you credit for that. So thank you for saving him. I can’t even imagine how it would have felt if you hadn’t.”

“Annabelle.” He squeezed her shoulders. “It was thanks to the whole team that we brought him back.”

Here he was, giving everyone credit when she’d been standing right there to see it had been his command of the situation that had brought the child back. That the way he’d immediately and expertly reacted, barking out orders to everyone, as he’d literally held the child’s heart in his hand and carefully massaged it to get it beating again had been the reason the child had made it. Thinking about her failure to monitor the resident and double-check the dose the way she should have made her feel sick all over again. Made her fall into the deep well of inadequacy she’d felt her whole life. That she’d fought so hard to climb out of to become the best doctor she possibly could be.

“It was my mistake,” she said looking into his eyes, her stomach knotting, knowing she’d see disdain there again. The condemnation she deserved. “My screw-up. The resident was my responsibility as much as the patient was. But I didn’t want anyone to know that, after all my hard work, I still wasn’t good enough. I...I did make myself admit it to the hospital administrators and senior anesthesiologist, hoping to get to stay on. To have one more chance to prove myself. I just never admitted it to you.”

Unexpected and very unwelcome tears stung her eyes, and she tried to swing away, hating to show that kind of weakness. She never cried. Had learned not to cry from the time she’d been little, because it just made people around you impatient or angry, and it never accomplished one thing other than to make your throat hurt and your nose run.

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