Reunited With Her Brooding Surgeon

She picked Lola out in the crowd. That was a mistake too. Lola had obviously seen Grace’s reaction to Marcus and was grinning wildly. At least she didn’t know the full story. Grace glared at her and looked for someone else in the crowd to focus on as she tried to ignore Marcus, who had stepped back with the other nephrologists. He was no longer front and centre, but that didn’t stop Grace from being totally aware of him. She imagined she could feel his presence even though she kept her eyes averted from him.

She took a deep breath and stepped up to the microphone as Elliot introduced her.

‘As you know,’ she addressed the crowd, ‘we have four surgeries scheduled here tomorrow, which would not be possible without the generous gift of organs from family and friends of those in need.’

Her job today was to raise awareness about organ donation and, somehow, she managed to get through her spiel and ignore Marcus, even though she could feel his eyes on her. Most of the eyes in the crowd were on her but she could feel Marcus’s piercing gaze more than most. There was an intensity about it and she knew she couldn’t afford to look his way. She’d definitely lose her train of thought.

‘The majority of Australians are willing donors,’ she continued, ‘so the problem we have is not a lack of interest but a lack of knowledge coupled with a lack of suitable organs. We need suitable organs and then we need permission to use those organs. If your family don’t know your wishes or don’t support your decision, we cannot use your organs. But, in some cases, living organ donations are a possibility and that is the case for the surgeries we have scheduled for tomorrow.

‘All these surgeries are part of the paired kidney exchange, where living donors are giving up a kidney to a stranger in exchange for a better matched kidney for a loved one in need. There are twelve surgeries scheduled across the country, which makes it the largest paired exchange exercise ever conducted in Australia.

‘Transplants using organs donated by the living have a higher success rate and you can imagine the freedom that this will afford someone—no more dialysis and fewer hospital visits. So thank you to those wonderful donors who are giving not just a kidney but the gift of a better life.

‘If you are interested in finding out more there is further information on the organ donation website, but please also remember to talk about this issue to your families and let them know your wishes in this very important matter.’

Grace stepped gratefully back into her place after her speech and planned to bolt as soon as the media questions ended but Elliot called her name as she turned to flee. She stopped in her tracks and took a deep breath. She knew what he wanted. He wanted to introduce her to the two new doctors. Only they weren’t both new to her.

She wondered if Marcus would remember her.

She pasted a smile on her face and turned around. Sure enough, Elliot was standing between Janet and Marcus. Grace tried to take control and introduced herself to Janet first, shaking her hand before looking up at Marcus.

He towered over her. Grace was tiny, only five feet two inches tall. Away from the hospital she liked to wear heels but they were impractical with all the running around she did and now, in her flat, sensible shoes, Marcus was easily a foot taller than her.

He stared down at her with a look that was far from friendly. She could only assume he remembered her. And not fondly.

She didn’t think she’d ever given him a reason to dislike her yet his jaw was clenched and tense and his lips were firmly closed. No welcoming smile there!

She remembered other kids teasing him. But she never had, she’d been too young, and she doubted that her brothers would have either, they hadn’t been raised that way, but Marcus certainly didn’t look pleased to see her. He looked as if he was daring her to say something about his past and she wondered what he thought she might say after all this time.

She couldn’t actually remember him leaving town. One minute he had been there, living in Toowoomba, going to school with her brother. The next minute he’d gone. Vanished. Just like his mother before him.

But now here he was. Fighting fit, successful and gorgeous.

So what was the story? She was desperate to know.

She put out her hand, waiting to see if he would say anything, wanting to know if he would divulge their shared past.

‘Grace... Gibson, is it?’

You know damn well it is, she wanted to say, but the look in his eye stopped her short and made her hold her tongue. Which surprised her. Holding her tongue had never been her forte.

Her hand hovered in mid-air until Marcus’s fingers curled around her palm. Perhaps he was just trying to make amends for his lack of manners but his touch flummoxed her. His tone was cool but his hand was warm. Warm enough to send fire through her fingertips. Her whole arm tingled and set her heart racing. Her breath caught in her throat and she barely remembered to nod her head in acknowledgement of his words.

What was he doing to her? How was he doing it? She was breathless, frozen to the spot, yet her body felt as if it was overheating. The colours around her intensified, making her feel dizzy, and sounds receded. She felt overloaded, as if her body couldn’t cope with too many sensations at once. Marcus’s touch was enough to cope with. More than enough.

What was wrong with her? She wondered if she was having a panic attack or if her system was shutting down. What had he done to her? She never lost her nerve.

She could feel another embarrassing rush of blood beginning to flood her body, only this time it wasn’t in her face. This time it was starting somewhere south of that but she knew her face would soon be bright red also. She pulled her hand away, severing the contact.

Her hand was trembling. She was trembling.

She stuck her hand in her pocket to disguise her tremor and looked at her feet, unable to maintain eye contact.

If Marcus had been daring her to say something, he’d won the dare. She was completely tongue-tied.

Elliot was still talking, apparently oblivious to the feelings that were raging through Grace and completely unaware of the electric undercurrents flowing between her and his new colleague.

Perhaps it was all in her head, she thought, but she didn’t really believe that.

‘You’ve read the patient histories?’ Elliot asked, and Janet and Marcus nodded. ‘Janet, I thought you could perform the kidney removal on Rosa. I will assist and, Marcus, you are more experienced, you can observe that surgery and then you will perform the transplant later.’

Grace had decided not to be such a coward and had lifted her eyes again now that the attention was off her and she saw Marcus’s small double take. He looked surprised by Elliot’s words—had he not been expecting that?

Elliot continued speaking. ‘Grace will have any other information you might need pre-op. If there’s anything more you need, you can liaise with her. I will do the other transplant, with Janet assisting, and Andrew Murray will take care of the second organ retrieval. Your patients were admitted first thing this morning—’

‘Already?’ Marcus interrupted.

Grace knew it was unusual. Normally patients were admitted as late as possible, sometimes only on the day of surgery, mostly as a cost-saving exercise, but she’d advocated strongly that admission be brought forward.

Elliot nodded. ‘Grace thought it would be prudent to get them admitted early to avoid the media circus that we’re anticipating, and I agreed. We don’t want to increase their stress levels by having reporters jostling for a comment as they arrive, and this also means we don’t have to worry about traffic delays and other things that might be out of our control tomorrow.’

Marcus looked at Grace. She thought he might be about to say something and she wondered if it would have been complimentary but his expression remained guarded. Janet had no reservations. ‘Great, I’ll go and introduce myself to Rosa.’

Elliot moved away and Janet and Marcus followed him without a backward glance. Grace stood and watched them go. Had he forgotten about her already?

She watched as his long strides quickly put distance between them. Her legs were incapable of moving. Her knees were still shaky and she felt light-headed. She stood still and took a couple of deep breaths, getting the air back into her lungs, remembering to breathe as she sorted through her mental list of tasks ahead of her.

She had plenty to do before tomorrow. Final physical checks of their patients had to be co-ordinated, she had to confirm the courier arrangements and continue discussions with the other renal co-ordinators in Brisbane, Melbourne and North Sydney hospitals. She had a lot of balls in the air and she couldn’t afford to drop any. She couldn’t afford to worry about Marcus Washington and about what he was thinking or where he’d been for the last twenty years. There were far too many more important things waiting to occupy her time.

But that didn’t stop her from immediately racing back to her office and checking her emails. There must have been one announcing the three-month appointment of Janet and Marcus. She couldn’t believe she’d missed it. She typed Marcus’s name into the search function and hit enter. An email from a month ago popped up. The heading gave no clue as to who the doctors were, and she was certain that if it had included his name that would have caught her eye. It was also in amongst dozens of emails relating to the paired kidney exchange, which would explain why she’d skimmed over it without even opening it.

She opened it now. She was eager to see what information it gave her.

She ignored Janet’s CV and clicked on the file pertaining to Marcus. He had graduated from university in Western Australia. Had he moved there from Toowoomba? Why? Who had he gone to? Had his mother moved there? Was she alive? But if she was, why hadn’t she taken him years before? Grace had more questions than answers.

She continued reading. He had spent some time in the US during his speciality years, returning to work in Perth. And now he was here. His career history was brief and, of course, there was no personal information included. Nothing to tell her if he was married, engaged, straight, gay—although she was pretty sure he was straight—or if he had a wife and kids back home in Perth.

She closed her email down. She didn’t have time to do a wider search on him. She had all the final pieces of the transplant puzzle to put in place. She had dozens of phone calls to make, she needed to check in with the other hospitals to make sure that all their patients were still well enough to undergo surgery and that no one had changed their minds. One hiccup could ruin the whole exercise.

She was glad she’d made arrangements for her patients to be admitted early. As Elliot had outlined, her reasons were valid. There were enough other logistical arrangements to be made once the kidneys had been harvested, without adding to the complications with things going haywire prior to the surgeries. It would only take one problem to snowball and potentially disrupt all the surgeries, and she wanted everything to run smoothly.

By the time she ended her final call to one of the Melbourne hospitals it was dusk outside. She should have clocked off but there was still more to do. Her schedule didn’t stick to regular nursing shifts any more, not since she’d become the renal co-ordinator. Her shifts supposedly ran from nine to five but it was not often that she stuck to those hours. Transplant patients could receive news day or night and she was often called back into the hospital to speak to the families of donors and to the transplant recipients. Plus, she had no reason to race out the door at the end of the day. She had nothing to race home for. No significant other, no children, no pets. If it wasn’t for work, her life would be a bit empty.

She switched off her office lights but, still in no hurry to leave, she thought she’d check one last time on the four patients waiting for surgery.

She got two patients with her first visit.

‘Gentlemen, how are you feeling?’

She greeted Rob and Paul, two brothers, one a donor, the other a recipient. Rob’s donated kidney was going to Brisbane in exchange for a kidney for his brother, as unfortunately their tissue types didn’t match. They were sitting together, chatting, when Grace entered Paul’s room. They seemed quite relaxed but Paul had been through this before so it was nothing new for him. His first kidney transplant, from a deceased donor, had lasted twenty-five years but was failing now. It was wonderful to think that the paired exchange programme could hopefully give him another shot at a successful transplant.

As Grace chatted to the two men she quickly revised her opinion of how they were feeling. Paul seemed far more relaxed than Rob.

‘Are you ready for tomorrow, Rob?’ she asked gently when Paul went to the bathroom, leaving the two of them alone for a moment.

‘I was told that the research shows that kidney disease most commonly affects both kidneys, is that right?’

‘That does seem to be the case. You’re worried about your remaining kidney?’ Rob’s nerves were not unusual in Grace’s experience. The donor was often more on edge than the recipient. Grace didn’t know if it was fear of the unknown or a lack of experience with hospitals or the fact that the donor wasn’t actually sick but was giving up a perfectly healthy organ. Rob was going from being a healthy, intact individual to one who would be minus an organ. Granted, he could do without it but that was assuming his remaining kidney continued to function normally. Hence his question. She knew he’d heard these answers before but her role as co-ordinator was often as much about counselling as co-ordinating.

‘We don’t anticipate problems, Rob,’ she reassured him when he nodded. ‘We wouldn’t let you do this if we thought it could create problems for you down the track.’

‘There’s no way I’m backing out,’ he emphasised firmly, ‘and my kidney only has to last long enough to see me out.’

‘Okay. Get some rest and I’ll see you in the morning.’

Grace made her way to Rosa’s room across the hall next. Rosa’s kidney would be going to Paul, not that either of them were privy to that piece of information, in exchange for a kidney for Rosa’s son in Melbourne. Despite being across the corridor from each other, Paul and Rosa wouldn’t meet.

Rosa was sitting beside her bed, knitting, the television on low volume. She was a widow with just the one son living interstate and Grace knew she was used to spending quiet nights alone. She’d told Grace she was fine as long as her hands were busy and she liked to knit. She seemed calm and only had a couple of questions for Grace, both of which had to do with her son’s prognosis. Rosa wasn’t worried about herself at all.

‘We have excellent results with kidney transplants,’ Grace told her again, happy to answer her questions. ‘Especially with living organ donors. Most kidneys will last ten years and some as long as twenty-five.’ She wished she could tell Rosa that her kidney was going to Paul and that he was one of the people whose first transplanted kidney had lasted twenty-five years but she couldn’t divulge that information, even though she knew it would make Rosa feel better. She said goodnight before popping into Connie’s room, her last stop for the evening.

‘Hey, Connie.’

Connie was the recipient of the spare kidney and even though in testing it had proved to be a good match there was a little bit of the unknown associated with this one, given the unexpectedness of the windfall, and Grace knew Connie was nervous.

Connie had moved to Sydney from the country eighteen months ago to have regular dialysis. She suffered from autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease and Grace knew she was finding things difficult. She was only able to work part time and her support group of friends and family were not close by.

Because of her illness and medical appointments her social life was limited and Grace knew that this transplant would make a huge difference to her quality of life. Grace’s sister-in-law had suffered from the same disease and had undergone a transplant five years ago, so Grace knew from personal experience how different Connie’s life could potentially be. Connie was only twenty-seven, the same age as Grace, and because of that and her circumstances Grace felt a deeper affinity for her than for some of her other patients.

‘Where is everyone?’ Grace asked as she looked around. Although they weren’t compatible donors, Connie’s family were providing support to her in other ways, and when Grace stepped into the room she was surprised to find that Connie didn’t have company. She knew her parents had come to the city to be with Connie for the surgery and the recovery.

‘Mum and Dad will be back later, they’ve just gone to get some dinner.’

‘How are you doing?’ she asked as she flicked through Connie’s chart, pleased to see everything looked stable and normal.

‘I’m not worried about the operation. Just worried about what will happen if it doesn’t work. I really want to be able to have kids. I need this to go well.’

Grace knew pregnancy was not out of the question for Connie if the transplant was successful but, as that was an unknown at this point, she couldn’t make any promises. Who knew what would happen? The only thing you could do in life was to hope for the best. All they could do in this situation was hope the kidney was a viable, healthy and suitable match for Connie. And no one could control any of that. It wasn’t her place to promise Connie things she might not be able to deliver.

‘Have you spoken to Dr Washington about this?’

‘OMG,’ Connie gushed, ‘thank you so much.’

Grace frowned. Connie’s train of thought had clearly gone off at a complete tangent to the discussion Grace had thought they were having. ‘What for?’

‘Dr Washington. He is hot.’

Grace wasn’t surprised that Connie had noticed Marcus, as he was difficult to miss, but she did not want to have this conversation. It felt inappropriate, even though she knew it was just chatter. She didn’t want to talk about Marcus but she wasn’t sure why. ‘Seriously? You’re about to have major surgery and you’re thinking about your surgeon?’

Connie grinned. ‘Thinking about him is proving to be a good distraction.’

‘I guess I can see your point.’ Grace could understand the fascination but she didn’t have time to discuss Marcus’s myriad attributes. She didn’t know if she could be completely complimentary. ‘But I really can’t discuss him.’

‘I just wish I didn’t have to be asleep when he operates on me,’ Connie sighed. ‘He is totally gorgeous. Do you know if he’s single?’

Grace had no idea. ‘You know it’s against the rules for doctors to get romantically involved with their patients, right?’

‘I won’t always be his patient.’

‘He’s only in Sydney for a few weeks. He’s from Perth and once you get through tomorrow you will need to focus on your recovery, not chase after your surgeon.’

‘But it would give me something to look forward to.’

This conversation was making Grace feel uncomfortable. She needed to end it. She turned her attention to a box of medical supplies that didn’t need tidying but which gave her something to focus on. ‘You shouldn’t be getting excited, you need to keep your blood pressure stable,’ she commented as she shuffled and sorted the small packets of wipes and dressings.

‘What’s this about your BP? It’s not raised, is it?’

Grace had her back to the door and the sound of Marcus’s voice made her jump. She didn’t need to see him; his voice was already instantly recognisable. Deep, quiet and purposeful, it was a voice that commanded attention. When he spoke you wanted to listen. At least, she did. Grace turned and caught the tell-tale sign of a blush sweeping over Connie’s cheeks as she greeted her surgeon.

‘Nothing. It’s all good,’ Grace replied hastily.

Marcus swivelled his gaze to her but said nothing. He picked up Connie’s chart and flicked through her records.

Grace bristled. Didn’t he believe her? Not that she’d checked Connie’s blood pressure herself but she had checked the chart. ‘I am a registered nurse as well as the transplant co-ordinator,’ she told him, deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he wasn’t aware of her qualifications. She’d only been the transplant co-ordinator for a few months but she was medically qualified and was gaining valuable experience all the time.

His gaze was cool and assessing when he looked at her again, his brown eyes imperturbable. He nodded once, but made no comment.

What was wrong with him? Did he have no warmth? Grace wondered, but then she recalled how her skin had burned when he’d held her hand. There was warmth in his touch but it was a pity it didn’t appear to extend to his character.

He put Connie’s chart away and perched on the edge of her bed and Grace watched as Connie’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.

‘Any last questions for me before I see you in the morning?’ He smiled at his patient and Grace felt an unexpected stab of jealousy. His smile was incredible, transforming his features from striking and exotic to jaw-droppingly handsome, and she wished desperately that he would smile at her like that.

‘Grace and I were just talking about what comes after the transplant. I really want to have children.’

Grace watched as Connie toyed with the ends of her hair and looked up at Marcus through her lashes. Was she flirting with him?

‘If everything goes according to plan, pregnancy shouldn’t be an issue after a transplant but it is recommended, and I certainly encourage my patients to follow this advice, to wait one year to ensure the transplant is functioning as we’d like and that your medications are stable.’

‘That’s okay. That will give me time to find a boyfriend.’

Yep, she was definitely flirting. She was all fluttering eyelashes and rosy cheeks. She certainly didn’t look like a person who was critically ill and about to undergo major surgery. Not that Grace could blame her. Marcus was gorgeous, but if he noticed Connie’s attempts to entice him, he didn’t take the bait.

‘You will need close monitoring during a pregnancy,’ he replied, leaving Connie’s comment well alone, ‘but you would be closely monitored anyway and we can discuss any other issues post-surgery.’

‘Great. If that’s all, we’ll leave you to get some rest now,’ Grace said, keen to usher Marcus out of the room before Connie could actually proposition him.

As Marcus stood and started to leave, Grace shot Connie a warning glance behind his back, but Connie just grinned and then laughed it off, making Grace smile back. At least she was in good spirits.

Grace followed Marcus out of the room. His strides were long and Grace found her gaze drawn to his hips. He’d removed his suit jacket, leaving the shape of his buttocks under his pants clearly defined as his legs ate up the length of the corridor. Grace forced herself to keep her eyes lifted. She didn’t want to be caught ogling him or running into something because her attention was elsewhere.

She got the feeling he was trying to put as much distance between them as possible. But she had no idea why. Her curiosity got the better of her and she hurried after him. She wanted to know what his issue was. Why he was so abrupt with her. She didn’t think she’d done anything to put him off, yet his aloofness was definitely directed at her. She had to admit he was an empathetic doctor with a good bedside manner and maybe she’d just have to be satisfied with that. But she still wanted some answers.

‘Dr Washington!’

He stopped and turned towards her.

‘Have I done something to upset you?’ she asked as she caught up to him.

‘No.’

Grace waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t say another word. Man, he could totally be the poster boy for the strong, silent type.