Hearts of Gold: The Children's Heart Surgeon

‘Did Maggie tell you why she didn’t want to stay with you?’

‘No, though I guess it could be something to do with sharing with two men. She might have imagined she’d have to do all the cooking and housework.’

‘Mmm.’

Alex waited for an explanation and when none was forthcoming asked, ‘That’s it? Mmm?’

‘It was a considering kind of mmm,’ Annie explained. ‘An “I’m not sure enough to say anything” kind of mmm.’

‘About what?’ Alex persisted, realising Annie’s conversation, first about the dogs and now about something to do with Maggie, was actually relaxing him quite nicely. It seemed so normal somehow, to be walking like this with Annie and talking trivia.

‘About Maggie,’ Annie now said, and Alex found he was intrigued. He liked Maggie and greatly appreciated the contribution she made to his work. A good anaesthetist was essential in all operations—but even more critical when working on hearts that could be as small as plums.

But they’d reached the restaurant, and his first whiff of the garlic-scented air turned his thoughts from staff to food.

And once again he made Annie laugh, his indecision over what sauce to have with his penne delighting her. Her laughter filled his heart with a heady gladness that went beyond the attraction he felt for her, and filled his mind with a resolve to continue this rather strange courtship.

‘It’s all very well for you,’ he grumbled. ‘You probably cook delicious sauces every day of the week. Once I’m past curry, it’s steak or steak. Not that you don’t have great steak out here in Australia, but it gets a bit boring after a while.’

‘You can buy prepared sauces then all you have to do is boil the pasta and heat the sauce and voila`, an Italian meal.’

‘Voila`’s French,’ he said, still grumbling, but now because Annie had slipped off the jacket of her suit, revealing a dark green blouse that made her eyes seem greener. And just as he was comparing the colour of the eyes to her blouse the top button popped, revealing a glimpse of a deep shadow between her breasts, so lust replaced the gladness in his heart, while an inner voice—a mean-spirited voice, sharp with jealousy—wondered if she’d had her jacket on or off at the meeting that morning.

‘The waitress asked if you’d decided,’ Annie said, indicating a young woman who’d materialised by his side.

‘I’ll have the Matriciana,’ he said, and silently congratulated himself on his recovery.

‘It’s about the only pasta sauce not on the menu. How about you try the Alfredo?’

Annie was just being helpful, but he glowered at her anyway, knowing he couldn’t ask what she’d had on at the meeting, suspecting he might be seriously love-struck to be thinking this way, and, as the wine waiter approached, wondering if it would be totally improper behaviour if he reached across the table and did up the wayward button.

He didn’t, asking Annie instead if she had a preference in wine, and when she settled on a glass of the house Chianti, he told the waiter he’d have the same. Thankfully, the man departed.

Which left him with Annie, and the revealing neckline of her shirt, which kept drawing his attention as surely as seagulls were drawn to fries at a picnic.

His silence must have stretched a fraction too long.

‘You’re frowning again. Is it Jamie, or are you still worried about Amy?’

Annie’s question—so work-oriented when his mind had been so far away—made him smile.

‘If I confess I was thinking of seagulls…’ not entirely true but close enough ‘…would you think I was totally mad?’

‘Not totally,’ she said, a smile lighting up her face and twinkling in her green-today eyes.

She sat back, obviously waiting for him to explain, but of course he couldn’t. Neither could he think of any logical thoughts he might have been having about seagulls.

Apart from them liking fries!

‘Jamie came through really well,’ he said, reverting to work as an escape from dangerous territory. ‘It’s hard to tell how older children will react. I think because they understand the concept of an operation, and have some knowledge of what’s happening to them, they can be more fearful. I don’t know of any studies that have been done to see how that affects recovery, but it would be interesting to test the theory. I had a teenage patient once, and though he was used to having catheters stuck up an artery or vein from his groin, and knew all the process, and watched the screen to see the tube travel to his heart, he told me, years later, how much he’d hated it and how he’d far rather have been knocked out before the procedure took place.’

‘Why wasn’t it an option?’ Annie asked, and Alex smiled to himself. He’d mentioned the case as a diversionary tactic but Annie was so eager to know things he enjoyed these discussions nearly as much as—

Boy! He’d nearly thought ‘the popped button’ and pulled himself up just in time.

‘A lot of older children enjoy being part of their treatment, and we’d assumed that was the case with this youth. However, him telling me how much he hated it was a wakeup call for me, because I’d made an assumption on his behalf. Early on, we did all catheterisations for testing and small ops while the patient was sedated slightly but not out of it, mainly because we didn’t have the mild, short-acting anaesthesia we have today. And though we knock the infants out, we’d continued doing the older children with just sedation.’

‘Until someone protested?’

Alex nodded. ‘Bad medicine, that!’ he recalled. ‘We should have asked. I always do now, and I make sure the cardiologists—they do most of the caths these days—know how I feel about it. I even gave a paper on it once.’

And as he said the words he remembered where and when he’d given that paper. At the congress at Traders Rest five years ago…

CHAPTER EIGHT

ANNIE knew from the way he looked at her exactly where and when he’d given that paper. And suddenly it was the right time to say something. Not a lot, but enough for Alex to decide if he wanted to keep seeing her or not.

Though it shouldn’t be his choice. She should decide. And she knew what that decision should be!

But her heart longed for the love she felt might be on offer, while her mind reached out for companionship and her body—well, her body just plain lusted after his!

So she had to say something!

She reached out and placed her hand over his, so they both rested on the table. Gave his fingers a squeeze because this could well be the last time she touched him.

Then she withdrew her hand and used it to grip her other one—tightly—in her lap beneath the table so no one could see them twisting anxiously.

She looked at Alex, at the grey eyes that seemed to see right into her soul, and with a heavy heart blurted out the words that needed to be said.

‘You’ve probably guessed I was with someone at the congress. My husband. I left him that night. I haven’t seen him since. I started divorce proceedings eighteen months ago, but as I haven’t heard from the lawyers I don’t know if it’s gone through so I could, technically, still be married.’

Alex seemed to be waiting for more, his eyes fixed on her face, then he smiled.

‘Are you telling me this in case I have strong feelings about dating married women? Believe me, Annie, if you haven’t lived with the guy for five years, I don’t think you count as married any more, so you can’t escape me that way.’

The teasing tone in his voice warmed all the cold places in her body that thinking about Dennis had produced, but as she replayed all the words—both hers and his—in her head, she realised she was still a long way from explaining exactly where things now stood between her and Dennis.

Not that she knew for certain…

Alex was talking again and she shut away the sudden tremor of fear.

‘Annie,’ he said gently, ‘you must know there are plenty of places in the States where divorce is cheap and easy. Maybe he’s divorced you.’

‘Maybe,’ she said, though she doubted it. When the first of the private investigators had called her father—only two days after she’d left Traders Rest—her father had said Annie was in the US and as far as he knew still with Dennis. Her father had also supplied the man with the name and contact details of the family’s solicitors and asked that all contact be made through the firm, which meant there’d always been an address available for the service of papers or for information about a ‘quickie’ divorce.

‘Well, as I said, it doesn’t matter,’ Alex reiterated. ‘Now, would you like to put your hand back on the table? I think on a first date, even in Australia, we’d be allowed to hold hands.’

Annie smiled at the weak joke, but as her fingers were now icy from remembering, she was happy to rest her hand back on the table, appreciating the warmth of his when he placed it on top of hers.

He gave her fingers a squeeze, thanked the waiter who’d brought their wine and then said, ‘My mother always said to show interest in one’s companions—ask about their jobs and so on. But I know all about your job and you know about mine, and we’ve already talked about the pets and the food, so I guess we might be up to families. Is it just you and your father in yours? Having had my sister visit last year, I can only see that as a blessing, although I suppose it’s been fun having her around. She was an afterthought, my sister. Three boys, then when the youngest was eight along came Frances. I was thirteen, old enough to understand the basic sex education we’d had at school, so you can imagine how horrified I was to realise my mother and father must have done that to have produced Frances! Totally grossed me out for a long time!’

Annie laughed.

‘I can imagine!’ she said, but though her laughter sounded genuine, Alex could still read strain in her face, and the cold fingers nestling beneath his suggested that telling him even the bare bones of her story had upset her.

She lifted her other hand up to pick up her wineglass, tilting it towards him in a toast.

‘To the new unit!’ she said.

Alex lifted his own glass and clinked it against hers, although he’d always thought the gesture corny.

‘Not to the new unit, Annie, but to us!’ He raised it higher, then moved it to his lips and took a sip. ‘This is a date, remember.’

A slight smile trembled on her lips.

‘I’m out of practice at dating,’ she said. ‘This is the first in a very long time, and I’ve probably already blown it with a confession about my dubious marital status, and now I’m feeling envious of you, growing up in a family with four kids. You asked if it was just Dad and me in our family, and it is. My mother died when I was eleven, so he and I are closer than most fathers and daughters.’

‘Nothing to feel envious about,’ Alex assured her, although he felt sorry for anyone who hadn’t experienced the kind of upbringing he’d had, and he couldn’t imagine not having the close connections he’d retained with his siblings. ‘After three boys my mother had always prayed for a girl so she’d have female support within the family, but when Frances came along Mom swore she was more trouble than the three of us put together.’

He could feel Annie’s fingers growing warmer and could see the tension draining out of her face. His imagination had provided him with a vivid image of her travelling to the US with her husband, separated from her father—the only close family she had—by an ocean. No mom at home to phone when things were difficult, no supportive letters like the ones he still received from members of his family—though now they were emailed, not posted.

The waitress set their meals on the table. Annie thanked her then took back her hand so she could handle her fork and spoon for some spaghetti-twirling.

‘I always order pasta in pieces because I’ve never mastered that art,’ Alex confessed, after admiring her expertise for some time.

‘Student meals!’ she said. ‘I trained in—in a city and Dad was posted in the country at the time, so I shared a flat with three other students. I think we lived on spaghetti for four years. When we were flush we had sauce on it, other times olive oil and garlic.’

She paused then grinned at him.

‘Come to think of it, I didn’t have many dates back then either!’

Alex knew she was doing her best to keep the conversation light, but her hesitation in mentioning a particular city struck him as off-key and he remembered other times she’d caught herself in conversation.

Were things not finished between herself and her husband in other ways—apart from the divorce? Was she fearful of him finding her?

Mental headshake. OK, so some men did get hung up on ex-wives or ex-partners—you read about it every day in the paper—but Annie had been at the congress with her husband—a congress of cardiologists and cardiac surgeons. Yes, there were ancillary services represented, and a clutch of representatives from drug companies, but to think of any of these people as…

Dangerous?

Annie was talking, about the food and some place at the beach that sold fresh pasta and a variety of sauces.

‘It’s really delicious, and well worth the drive.’

‘We could go together on Saturday—if all’s well at work,’ Alex suggested, then knew from the arrested look in Annie’s eyes that she’d mentioned the place as offhand conversation. And he knew, in her mind, this wasn’t just a first date. It was a final one as well.

But why? He tried to get inside her head. To work out what might have happened to make her so determined not to get involved with him when it was equally obvious she liked him.

And, from her response to his kisses, felt an attraction towards him.

She’d had a bad experience with marriage—that was obvious—but that wasn’t at all rare these days. People he knew had been married three or four times and had very few hang-ups about it. He didn’t think that kind of short-term arrangement would suit him, but still…

He considered how things must have been. Marrying fairly young then travelling to the US where her husband had been her sole support—probably, if she hadn’t worked, her sole contact with the outside world. If things had been difficult between them, she’d have been truly isolated. Living in the most civilised country in the world, yet so alone she may as well have been on the moon.

The waiter appeared to ask if he’d like more wine, and he realised he’d been sipping at his glass, emptying it, as he thought. He thanked the man and was about to wave him away when he realised Annie’s glass was also empty.

‘Would you like another glass of wine? Don’t stop because I did. I’m always aware I could be called in, so I usually stop at one—on rare occasions two.’

She shook her head and the waiter went away, then she smiled the slightly mischievous smile that made her eyes sparkle.

‘Just because I didn’t have a mother, it doesn’t mean I wasn’t warned about drinking too much on a first date. I think my father, having been on the other side of the dating game, probably knew more about it than any woman ever would. He typed up lists of warnings he not only read out to me before I went out the door but also taped all over the place.’

Alex chuckled at the image of fatherly concern.

‘How did it start? Boys are only after one thing?’

Annie relaxed for the first time since they’d sat down and Alex had mentioned the paper he’d given at the congress.

‘That was the first, fourth, sixth, eighth and eleventh, if I remember rightly. It was something he repeated with such regularity it confused me more than it helped. To begin with, I thought the “one thing” was a kiss, so for my first three years at high school, on the rare dates friends arranged for me, I refused to let any of the boys kiss me. Then the story went around that I had some terrible lip disease—far worse than herpes—and I didn’t have to worry about saying no because no one ever asked me.’

Alex laughed, and Annie felt absurdly pleased that she could make him laugh.

‘Did your father spread the rumour?’ he asked, and Annie joined in his laughter.

‘I often wondered,’ she admitted, and with the tension eased between them they finished their meals, refused coffee and set out to walk home through the park.

‘Terrible lip disease all cleared up now?’ Alex asked, slowing their pace as they drew near a patch of shadow beneath a spreading, leafy tree.

‘I think so,’ Annie said, allowing him to turn her in his arms, wanting his kiss so badly she refused to think past the here and now. ‘And if it isn’t,’ she added softly, moving closer so he’d know she wanted to be kissed, ‘you’ve already been contaminated.’

He bent his head until only a breath of air separated them.

‘Not contaminated, Annie,’ he whispered into that tiny space. ‘Addicted.’

Annie’s lips responded first, remembering delight imprinted on them from the previous kisses, then her body warmed and heat glowed within it, and the longing grew so strong she knew there was no way she could resist a second date and then a third and whatever all of this was leading to.

And though doubt and guilt still existed in her head, what was happening in other parts of her enabled her to ignore them, offering up feeble excuses about Alex only being here for a year, and wasn’t it time she got some pleasure out of life, and why shouldn’t she enjoy his company for a while?

‘Ah,’ Alex said, a long time later, lifting his head and taking a deep breath. ‘I thought I’d lost you there for a while, but once you put your mind to a kiss, Annie Talbot, I can only say you do a first-rate job.’

He smoothed her hair back from her face, cupped his hand around her jaw and cheek and looked into her eyes, though she knew it was too dark for him to see more than a blurred outline of her face.

‘I’ve stopped kissing you and I’m making this ridiculous light conversation, because if that kiss had gone on for much longer, I’d have had to ravish you right here beneath this tree. And while I don’t know about Australian customs, public exhibitions of lovemaking are not looked on kindly by the police in most places where I’ve lived.’

‘No,’ she said, though not sure if it should have been a yes. Not that Alex seemed to care because he took it as an invitation to kiss her again, this time on the forehead, and temple, and on her eyelids now she’d closed them to enjoy the sensation of his lips against her skin.

‘So, where do we go from here? And I’m not talking about tonight, I’m talking about our dating, which, as I pointed out to you this morning, is going to get more complicated once Maggie moves in.’

His statement reminded Annie of his reaction to the news that morning, although what difference having Maggie in the house would make she wasn’t sure.

Unless, as Annie had once suspected, Maggie was interested in Alex. And why wouldn’t she be? He was good-looking, a top surgeon and, as far as Annie could make out, very nice. No signs of ruthlessness so far!

He was also a man, and he’d been in Melbourne for six months and busy at the hospital so most of the women he’d met would have been at or through work. Had he dated Maggie?

If he had, it could certainly get awkward!

‘Why will it get more complicated?’ Annie asked, thinking a direct question was the most tactful way of sorting things out.

Because she was still wrapped in his arms she felt rather than saw Alex’s shrug.

‘I don’t know exactly, except that relationships between colleagues can sometimes turn sour, then that leads to disharmony in the team.’

‘But if it’s things turning sour that worries you, then you and I shouldn’t be seeing each other at all, and Maggie living at my place makes no difference whatsoever.’

‘No, I put that badly.’ Alex pulled her closer. ‘I’ve worked with too many husband-and-wife teams that work perfectly to ever denigrate them. And, anyway, it was just an excuse—a stupid, thoughtless excuse. My bad reaction to the news was a man thing—the thing your father wrote so often on your list. It’s not all I want from you, Annie, you must know that, but, yes, one day I would hope our relationship progresses to a sexual one and, being a man, I think in practical terms of where that will take place.’

‘And you’ve got Phil at your place, so my place was the obvious answer, but now I’ll have Maggie at my place and it will be awkward.’

Annie put his thoughts together in the only way that seemed logical, but there were still holes large enough to drive a bus through.

‘But I have Dad at my place anyway,’ she began, then light dawned and she drew away from him.

‘You don’t mind Dad knowing you’re staying over at my place, but you don’t want other members of the team to know we’re seeing each other? Or is it that you don’t want them knowing we’re having sex?’

Alex tried to draw her close again, but when she stiffened he immediately released her.

‘Annie, it isn’t that. Well, I guess it is, but I was thinking of you as well as myself. I was wondering how you’d feel about me emerging from your bedroom and running into Maggie in the bathroom.’

‘I have my own bathroom,’ Annie snapped, angry with him but also understanding the problem and angry with herself for causing it.

But she couldn’t have not offered Maggie a place to stay!

‘Well, in the hall, or anywhere, just as it could be awkward for you running into Phil at my place. It’s an embarrassment factor, nothing else.’

He put his hands on her shoulders and applied just enough pressure to let her know he wanted to hold her. And this time she let him draw her close again.

‘I do understand,’ she muttered. ‘I’m just cranky that it’s all so muddled.’

She snuggled against his body.

‘Anyway, it might never happen. I like you, Alex—a lot—but for all kinds of reasons, including the bathroom scenario, this should be a first and last date. I’m really not a datable person. Too much baggage, too many secrets, and if there’s one thing I’ve carried with me from my father’s lists of behaviour, it’s the one about not having secrets in a relationship. I’m not talking little secrets, like being scared of snakes, but big secrets.’

She sighed, so happy in his arms, so sorry it couldn’t be for ever—or even for a year—but knowing it couldn’t.

Shouldn’t!

‘Apart from snakes, I doubt there’s much you’re scared of, Annie Talbot,’ he murmured, pressing kisses against her hair and her ear, teasing at the lobe, making Annie’s body squirm with delight.

But hearing the name that wasn’t her name—hearing the gentle way he spoke the words ‘Annie Talbot’—reminded her that what she’d said was right, and this relationship shouldn’t—couldn’t—be.

Until he kissed her lips again, seducing not only her body but her common sense as well.

It took a long time to walk home, and even longer to say goodnight in the shadows of the camellia bush.

‘I really must go,’ Alex said at last. ‘I want to slip up to the hospital. I know they’d page me if they needed me, but in a new situation, with staff that don’t know me and might worry about disturbing me, I like to check things for myself.’

‘Like whether the tubes and wires are all in the right place,’ Annie teased, knowing how insistent Alex was about the particulars of patient care.

‘Exactly,’ he said, lifting her hair and finding a new place to kiss, just beneath her ear, where the nerves must be connected directly to her nipples as they peaked in an exquisite agony of delight.

‘Go,’ she said, ‘or we’ll be embarrassing ourselves on my front porch.’

‘I could come back,’ he suggested, his voice hoarse with need, but without much expectation.

‘Best not,’ Annie said. ‘My father’s list didn’t exactly say “don’t put out on a first date” but I’m sure it was implied somewhere there.’

She spoke lightly, hoping Alex would accept it as a joke, but in her heart of hearts she knew that if she took this relationship with him any further she’d be lost—so under his spell, or the spell of the attraction between them, she’d never be able to push him away.