A Surgeon with a Secret Read online

  ‘I feel like I’ve got a part in some period drama.’ She was almost whispering. ‘I’m actually wearing a big, boofy dress and, any moment now, the orchestra is going to let rip with something like “The Blue Danube”.’

  ‘Classic.’ Lachlan smiled.

  He walked towards a cabinet near the main doors to the room. ‘There was a state-of-the-art sound system installed in here just before my father died. I wonder if it still works after all this time.’ He switched it on, watched the chosen disc with its classic waltz music slide into place and then adjusted the volume controls as the first notes of the violins came through the dozens of speakers that had been discreetly placed to provide surround sound that was so good it felt like the room had an invisible, full symphony orchestra in attendance. Seeing the delight on Flick’s face, Lachlan turned the volume up a bit more before walking back to her. He twirled his hand, gave a bow and then straightened to offer his hand.

  ‘May I have the pleasure of this dance, Mademoiselle?’

  Flick just laughed. ‘I can’t dance to save myself,’ she said.

  ‘And I was required to learn when I was seven years old,’ Lachlan responded. ‘This will be a good test of how good I still am at leading.’

  He could see her hesitating so he held her gaze and hoped that she would understand that this might not be professional but he wasn’t hitting on her, he was offering her an insight into who he was. The things that had shaped him into the man he was today. He wanted her to know who he really was, he realised—as a person and not her employer. In the same way that he wanted to get to know who the real Felicity Stephens was and why she chose to live her life in the way she did, without any solid roots in a particular place or lifestyle, which was pretty much the opposite of what Lachlan had always been expected to embrace.

  It was unlikely that Flick could read anything below the surface, of course, but whatever it was she saw in his eyes, it was enough to make her shake her head but keep smiling. Even better, it was enough to persuade her to take his hand.

  ‘Okay...put your left hand on the top of my arm, keep hold of my right hand and here we go...’ He kept his movements in slow motion as he directed her. ‘Step back with your right foot, sideways with your left foot and then close the gap with your right foot.’

  There was fierce concentration on Flick’s face as she followed his instructions and she managed to reverse the movements of the basic box step to start by going forward with her left foot. By the time they had repeated the move slowly a few times, it felt like she was getting the hang of it.

  It also felt like the warmth of Flick’s skin was starting to burn Lachlan’s hands. He only had his hand loosely against her back but he was acutely aware of every movement of her muscles and that heat and her softness and it seemed to be seeping into every cell of his own body.

  ‘You’re doing great,’ he told her. ‘Let’s see if we can actually do it in time with the music, shall we?’

  It wasn’t a huge increase in speed but it was enough to confuse Flick completely. She stepped on his toes, used the wrong feet, swore several times and finally started laughing helplessly.

  Lachlan was still holding her hand. He still had his other hand on the small of her back but they weren’t stepping in any direction. Flick felt like she was melting in his arms as she laughed but then she got control of herself and looked up at him.

  ‘Sorry...but I did warn you...’

  ‘You did.’ He was smiling down at her. He wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to apologise. That his toes would recover in no time and he’d actually enjoyed this impromptu—albeit unsuccessful—dance lesson.

  And then he realised just how much he had enjoyed it.

  How much he was loving the feel of this woman between his hands.

  And time seemed to stop right about then because they were still holding each other’s gazes and it was one of those moments that was a tipping point and Lachlan knew exactly which way it could tip. He only needed to see the slightest hint of an invitation and he would be kissing this gorgeous, vibrant woman.

  The romantic music was still filling the room but somehow they both heard another sound and it was only then that they both discovered they were being watched. How long had his mother, with her dressing gown tied tightly around her waist, been standing there in the open doors that led to the main hallway of the house?

  Shocked, Lachlan moved swiftly to turn off the music. Flick was looking just as shocked, nervous even, as silence fell and rapidly deepened in the wake of the music being cut. It was Flick who had the courage to speak first, however.

  ‘You came downstairs,’ she said.

  ‘Obviously,’ Lady Josephine snapped. ‘Seeing that you didn’t answer your pager, I decided I’d have to find out for myself what was going on with all the lights on and that loud music.’

  ‘Oh, no...’ Flick looked horrified now. ‘I must have left my pager in the kitchen.’

  ‘Sorry, Mother,’ Lachlan said.

  Had she seen that he’d been seriously thinking about kissing her private nurse? Would that be enough, without the disturbance of the music, to use this as an excuse to fire Flick? That would send him back to square one in his attempt to make life easier for both of them just when he was starting to feel like his life was under better control?

  ‘We didn’t mean to disturb you,’ he added, his gaze sliding briefly sideways to catch Flick’s. ‘It won’t happen again.’

  ‘You’ve always managed to create a disturbance without trying,’ his mother said. But it was Flick she was staring at. ‘You can’t dance,’ she said. ‘I’ve always considered that an appalling lack in any young woman.’

  Flick’s huff of breath sounded more amused than incredulous. ‘Lachlan tells me that you used to be a dance teacher,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ve come to the right place, then?’

  Lady Josephine turned away but Lachlan was quite sure he heard her muttered words.

  ‘Maybe you have.’

  * * *

  It had been a real risk being that cheeky to her client but, at the time, Flick hadn’t given it a second thought. As she went after Lady Josephine to offer help in getting back up the stairs, she realised that part of her might have actually been hoping that she would get fired on the spot.

  Because she deserved to be?

  If they hadn’t been interrupted at that point in time, Flick knew that she would have ended up kissing Lachlan McKendry. She might not want to be attracted to this man but wishing it away was never going to work. Worse, in that moment, she’d had the distinct impression that Lachlan was equally attracted to her. And, when he’d looked at her as he’d told his mother that it wasn’t going to happen again, she’d also realised that he didn’t want anything to be that disturbed—including her role as Lady Josephine’s carer.

  It had felt like a tacit agreement that, yes, there was attraction there, but nothing was going to happen. And that was fine by her. But Lady Josephine was still obviously highly irritated by the incident, judging by her curt refusal of assistance from Flick and the speed with which she started going up the sweeping staircase. She stopped when she got to the landing, however, and Flick caught up with her as she clutched the bannister with one hand and put the other to the centre of her chest.

  ‘What is it?’ Flick asked instantly. ‘Are you having trouble breathing?’

  ‘No...it’s my chest... Pain...’

  Flick took hold of her arm. ‘Sit down. Here, on the stairs.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Lachlan was walking out of the ballroom and had paused at the foot of the staircase. He came up the stairs two at a time when he saw Flick helping his mother to sit down.

  ‘Chest pain,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Show me where,’ Lachlan demanded. ‘Does it go anywhere else? Like into your arm?’

  Lady Josephine shook her head.
/>
  ‘How bad is the pain? On a scale of one to ten with one being no pain and ten being the worst you can think of?’

  ‘...nine...’

  ‘Right.’ Lachlan scooped his mother into his arms.

  ‘Put me down,’ she demanded.

  ‘Nope. I’m not about to let you go off to your room and die from a heart attack. I’m taking you to hospital.’ He looked back as he started down the stairs. ‘Flick, could you go and grab Mother’s GTN spray? And then come with us, please? There’s no time to wait for an ambulance to get here from Cheltenham and I’ll need someone else in the car.’

  He didn’t need to say that he might need help if this escalated into something as serious as cardiac arrest. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I do not want to go to hospital,’ Lady Josephine said. ‘You can’t do this, Lachlan. I won’t allow it.’

  Lachlan shook his head. ‘We’re going to get you properly checked this time. And, Flick?’

  She paused at the top of the stairs. She could see the real concern in Lachlan’s face. There was no way his mother was going to persuade him to let her stay at home and she liked how much he obviously cared.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Could we take your car, please? There’s not much of a back seat in mine.’

  The back seat of the Volkswagen Beetle wasn’t that much bigger than Lachlan’s sports car but Flick was small enough to be able to sit beside Lady Josephine as they sped towards the nearest hospital. It made more sense for Lachlan to drive, anyway, seeing as he knew these narrow, country roads far better than she did. She kept her fingers on Lady Josephine’s pulse, which was a little rapid but steady, and she was watching carefully for any signs of deterioration.

  ‘Has your spray made any difference?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’ll try another dose in a few minutes, then.’ Being unresponsive to the medication could mean that this was more than an episode of angina but Lady Josephine didn’t seem to be showing any other signs that she could be suffering a heart attack. Her skin was warm and not clammy and she wasn’t unduly distressed.

  ‘You’re not feeling like you might be sick, are you?’ Flick asked.

  ‘No. I’ve told you, I don’t need to go to hospital. I’m in my dressing gown, for heaven’s sake. How embarrassing is this?’

  The triage nurse in the emergency department could see how embarrassed her new patient was. ‘You’re in exactly the right place, Mrs McKendry. Sorry, Lady McKendry. It’s very important to get something like chest pain looked at. We’re going to get you into a private cubicle now and get a monitor on to see what’s happening to your heart.’

  Apparently, there was nothing abnormal happening. Flick was standing at the foot of the bed as the consultant was talking quietly to Lachlan a short time later.

  ‘There’s no sign of any ST depression. Or anything else that would concern me on her twelve lead ECG. Your mother’s in great shape for her age.’

  ‘But she had chest pain after climbing stairs. She does suffer from angina.’

  ‘I can’t see any confirmation of that diagnosis in her notes. She did come in for an asthma attack a while back. Perhaps it’s chest tightness that’s being interpreted as pain?’

  ‘That’s possible.’

  ‘If so, that doesn’t seem to be a concern at the moment, either. Her oxygen saturation on room air is normal and she’s not showing any signs of respiratory distress, apart from hyperventilating a bit when she first arrived.’

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ Lachlan said. ‘Or maybe it would be better coming from you. You might be able to persuade her to have a proper investigation, like an exercise stress test.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. Oh...and thanks again for your lecture today. I found it extremely educational.’

  Lady Josephine wasn’t about to agree to any investigations. ‘I’m absolutely fine. Take me home, Lachlan. Now, thank you.’

  A nurse found a wheelchair to take Lady Josephine out to the car. Flick was astonished at the smile she offered Lachlan.

  ‘Good to see you again,’ she murmured. ‘Give me a call sometime?’

  ‘Friend of yours?’ Flick asked as she pushed the wheelchair out of the cubicle. She’d been more than astonished by the blatant flirting of that nurse, if she was honest. She was aware of a nasty little flash of something that felt almost like jealousy.

  ‘Never seen her before in my life.’ Lachlan sounded bemused enough to be believable.

  They’d parked her car illegally in one of the on-call doctors’ car-parking slots in the ambulance bay but, because the consultant had recognised Lachlan as a visiting specialist, nobody had asked for it to be moved.

  There was someone else waiting to use the parking slot, though he didn’t seem annoyed when he saw Lachlan opening the driver’s door.

  ‘Thanks, Josh,’ he called. ‘No time now but we really need to catch up soon.’

  Lachlan shook his head as he shut his door. ‘Weird,’ he muttered. ‘You’d think I’d been working here for years instead of it being my first visit to the ED.’

  ‘First and last as far as I’m concerned,’ his mother told him. She lapsed into silence after that for the trip home. She was sitting in the front passenger seat this time and Flick had insisted on being in the back.

  ‘You’d be more squashed than an extra sardine,’ she told Lachlan. ‘You drive. That way we’ll all get home faster. It’s getting late and I’m sure your mother’s very tired.’

  She was tired herself but it only took looking away from the window to catch a glimpse of Lachlan’s profile to give Flick the feeling that she wouldn’t be falling asleep anytime soon tonight. Not if it was going to be as difficult as she suspected it would be to stop the whirl of thoughts clamouring to take priority in her head. That car crash of a dancing lesson, for example, and how Lachlan had made her laugh so much her knees had almost buckled. When had she last laughed like that?

  Too long ago.

  She was remembering, too, that look on his face of such deep concern for his mother. He cared so much and it broke her heart that his love did not seem to be reciprocated.

  There were deeper thoughts that Flick knew were only waiting for solitude and darkness to surface and take over completely. Like how delicious it had felt to have the touch of Lachlan’s hands on her body.

  And how disappointing it had been to have been so almost kissed...

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LISTENING TO ‘THE BLUE DANUBE’ as his silver Porsche ate up the miles between London and Gloucester was a choice that Lachlan would not have believed he would ever make but it was exactly what he needed after the action-packed day yesterday.

  For future reference, it was useful to know just how much extra work it was to have a film crew in his operating theatre. It wasn’t just the meticulous attention to guarding the sterility of the area, which meant that the cameras needed the same type of plastic covering that was in place on the overhead standing microscope that Lachlan would use for the intricate surgery needed to join nerves. There was also the need to explain every move he was making in layman’s terms, even though they would probably only use a small clip of Dexter’s actual nerve transfer surgery.

  The initial incisions to access both the masseteric nerve and the buccal branch of the facial nerve were probably too gruesome to be seen by a potentially young or non-medical audience. Maybe they would choose to limit the coverage to what could be seen on the large screen that showed the field Lachlan was viewing through the microscope as he used microsutures and fibrin glue to perform the coaptation of the nerve endings. Oh...he had remembered to explain that coaptation meant joining, hadn’t he?

  Lachlan let the music wash over the need to pick over everything he remembered about the surgery to search for anything he could have done better and he let go of it all after a brief mental revie
w of the visit to Dexter this morning, which had also been filmed. He hadn’t forgotten any necessary advice, he decided. He’d warned Dexter to avoid pressure to his cheek, exercise, lifting anything heavy and vigorous tooth brushing. He had his own doctors to watch over him until Lachlan saw him again, which meant he’d been free to move onto his next commitment, which was, coincidentally, another nerve transfer surgery he’d been invited to lead as a teaching demonstration at Gloucester General Hospital.

  This afternoon, he was due to meet a team of orthopaedic and neurosurgeons and the head of paediatrics to discuss the case of a young boy who’d been left with nerve damage after breaking his collarbone that was seriously impacting his ability to use his arm.

  At least he could use this short journey as a bit of time out. He’d slept well in his apartment last night so it had to have been the extra pressure of performing in front of cameras that had left him feeling so much more tired than usual. The enjoyment of feeling the power and responsiveness of this wonderful vehicle he was driving was also a boost and, with the delightful sound of the classical music surrounding him, Lachlan could indulge for a while in what felt like the happiest place he could have found.

  Except that wasn’t quite true, was it? This music was reminding him of the sheer pleasure he’d found in having Flick in his arms the other night. A pleasure that he’d known was out of bounds. He hadn’t needed his mother’s arrival, just in time to make sure he didn’t kiss Flick, to remind him of why she was there in the first place—and how desperately he needed her to stay there. The episode of angina, or asthma, or whatever it had been had given them all a bit of a fright but, on the positive side, it seemed that his mother now also realised how lucky they were to have Flick in the house.

  Good grief...his mother was actually undertaking to teach Flick how to dance the waltz. Lachlan found himself smiling as he remembered the conversation that had taken place the day after that trip to the emergency department.