Buch lesen: «The Surgeon's Proposal»

The Surgeon’s Proposal

Lilian Darcy

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MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘ARE you on your mobile, Dr Calford?’

‘Yes, but don’t worry. I’ve only moved three car lengths in the last ten minutes, so I’m not exactly a danger to other road users.’

‘I’m sorry, Dr Calford, I didn’t catch that.’

‘Never mind, Lesley.’ Dylan Calford raised his voice above the background noise of peak-hour traffic. ‘There’s nothing that can’t wait. We’ll pick it up next week, OK?’

‘Enjoy the wedding,’ the orthopaedic clinic secretary carolled cheerfully.

Dylan swallowed the dampening response that sprang to his lips, saying instead, ‘And you enjoy your weekend, Lesley.’ He knew that, like most working women with a family, she deserved to.

He flipped his phone shut and concentrated on the traffic. Brisbane roads were like tangled spaghetti at the best of times, and five o’clock on a Friday afternoon was not one of those. Being January, it was a hot Friday afternoon, too. With the sun pouring through Dylan’s front windscreen, the car’s air-conditioning couldn’t keep up, and he felt sticky all over.

He was already late. Didn’t know why he was going to this wedding in the first place. He was cynical about weddings at the moment. He didn’t altogether want to feel this way, but after the debacle he’d endured with Sarah…There really was something too incongruous about proceeding directly from a meeting with his divorce lawyer to a ceremony designed to shackle two more innocent people together in the dubious bonds of wedlock.

‘Like lambs to the slaughter,’ he muttered. A crucial three metres of space opened up ahead and he was able to crawl forward far enough to turn left into a quiet side street which should cut through in the direction of St Lucia.

Not that Dr Alexander Sturgess remotely resembled a lamb, of course.

Traffic lights ahead. Red, naturally. Dylan had chronic bad luck with traffic. As a result, he’d learned to be alert and super-competent in the way he navigated the sprawling city. That was a plus. All the same, he would have preferred to have been one of those fortunate souls for whom green lights, empty lanes and parking spaces appeared in his path like magic.

The sun was spearing into his eyes, half blinding him and making him sleepy. He and Alex had both been in emergency surgery half the night, putting a nineteen-year-old motorbike rider back together after a horrific crash. Head injury, complicated fractures, internal injuries. It was one of those times when you didn’t know whether to even hope that he would live. The metal plates and pins now keeping the young man’s bones in place were the least of his problems.

As befitted a senior orthopaedic specialist and a man about to get married, Alex had then taken the rest of the day off. Dylan, in contrast, had tackled his senior’s scheduled surgical list, done a three-hour fracture clinic, which had run late, made hospital rounds and met his lawyer. The man was probably on the phone with Sarah’s lawyer right now, presenting the details of the proposed settlement he and Dylan had worked out together.

Would it pass muster? Dylan suspected not. Sarah apparently valued the support she’d given him during his past two years of specialist orthopaedic training more highly than he did.

‘Thank God we didn’t have kids!’ he muttered.

Were children on the agenda for Alex and Annabelle? He imagined so. Alex would want to perpetuate the Sturgess dynasty. And Annabelle, aka Theatre Sister Annabelle Drew…Didn’t she have a child already? Yes, he was sure she did. Not hers, but one she’d had dumped on her a year or so ago. Her sister’s little boy, or something.

Dylan didn’t know the exact circumstances. Sister Drew didn’t splash her personal life around during surgery like antiseptic solution, the way some people did. She was one of the few women who, in many ways, actually suited the anachronistic title of ‘Sister’ that was still used for senior nurses in Australian hospitals.

She was composed, contained, warm and highly competent. Polite. Honourable. Good. The kind of woman men didn’t swear in front of.

Except Alex, Dylan revised. Alex swore during surgery the way he used a scalpel—deliberately, and with precision.

And Annabelle laughs at dirty jokes, he thought. As long as they’re actually funny.

She had a lovely laugh. It was gurgly and rich, and came from deep inside her diaphragm.

So perhaps I’m wrong about the swearing thing. Perhaps it’s just me who doesn’t swear in front of her. That goodness thing…I probably don’t have the slightest idea about who she really is at all.

The thought discomfited him a little, for some reason. This marriage to Alex, for example. Unlikely, wasn’t it, if Annabelle Drew was the woman Dylan believed her to be?

The light turned green and he made a little more progress before getting stopped on a steep hill, which necessitated a noisy handbrake start once the car ahead began to move. Dylan’s shirt was glued to his back, and it felt far too limp for a garment he’d only put on an hour ago.

Up ahead. Was that it? At last, yes!

Except that three circuits of the parking area revealed that there were no spaces, which forced Dylan into the next street and delayed his arrival by a further five minutes.

Now I really am in a foul mood! Dylan realised. I wish I’d turned down the invitation.

But his senior colleague would have read more into this than was intended. Alex had a tendency to do that.

Dylan hurried through the entrance of the elegant function centre and asked, ‘Sturgess-Drew wedding? I’m late.’

‘Straight through.’

‘Thanks.’

He opened one half of a double, frosted glass door, slid through the gap, narrowly avoided colliding with a potted palm directly ahead, and discovered that he’d arrived halfway through the ceremony itself. A string quartet waited patiently on a large, draped dais. Guests, seated in neat rows, listened politely as a civil marriage celebrant droned out a syrupy poem.

It was almost impossible to hear. In the front row, a little boy was squirming energetically in the arms of a rather frail-looking woman and yelling, ‘No! Don’t want to sit down! Don’t want to sit down!’ He looked to be around two years old.

There were barely any empty seats. Just one, in fact, at the end of the same short row where the little boy was refusing to sit. Dylan edged his way along the side aisle towards it, hoping Alex wouldn’t notice his terrible timing.

Again, it was the kind of thing that Dr Alexander Sturgess, MB, BS, M.Sc., FRACS, FA Orth. A., would take personally. Alex never considered that other people might have vindictive ex-wives and verbose divorce lawyers, late-running clinics and bad luck with traffic.

Dylan admired Alex Sturgess as a surgeon, which was why he’d returned to Coronation Hospital to train with him after a couple of rotations in hospitals elsewhere in Queensland. As a man, however, Alex wasn’t exactly a role model he strove to emulate.

Easing into the seat, Dylan could hear a little better. The celebrant intoned more flowery words about love. Alex looked as if he’d forgotten to paint an expression on his face—other than, perhaps, a faint mist of approval—and Annabelle looked very, very nervous. The pale grey suit that the groom wore was wrong. Expensive, but wrong. It made Alex’s skin tone look washed out, and stressed the fact that his once blond hair was heavily greyed. He was actually a much better looking specimen of manhood than he appeared today.

Oh, shut up! Dylan told himself. Who are you, to be this critical? Just sit through it, wish them every happiness and let them get on with it!

No.

No.

Annabelle’s dress was lovely. She had resisted the current vogue for strapless wedding gowns, in which most brides looked as if they had a single, log-shaped breast plastered across their chest. Dylan suspected, too, that she had an unsuitably freckly back and shoulders. Instead, she wore some draped confection in warm cream silk.

Portrait neckline, was it called? Anyway, it gave her a classic, regal aura and made her curvy figure look perfect. Her shoulder-length dark hair was piled up in glossy curlicues and tendrils. Her brown eyes were huge. Her freckle-dappled skin looked warm and peach perfect. She wasn’t beautiful, but she had something.

He wasn’t wrong about her, Dylan decided. She was going to be miserable with Alex.

The toddler was still struggling and yelling. He was an attractive child, with brown eyes and light brown curly hair, but clearly he wasn’t suited to this formal setting. The woman who held him—presumably Annabelle’s mother as there was a resemblance—looked grim-faced and at the end of her rope, on the verge of giving up and carrying him out.

Dylan could hear her laboured, wheezy breathing, and remembered overhearing Annabelle talking to another nurse about ‘Mum’s health’. Emphysema, he thought.

Meanwhile, the little boy was ruining the occasion. Alex clearly thought so. He glared in the child’s direction, then frowned tightly. The celebrant reached the meat-and-potatoes part of the ceremony. Traditional and churchy, this bit. Alex’s idea? It didn’t really fit, after those chintzy poems.

‘If anyone here present knows any reason…’

The celebrant raised his voice, struggling to be heard above, ‘Put me down, Gwanma!’

‘May they speak now, or forever hold their peace.’

‘Yes,I do!’ Dylan muttered darkly but very distinctly. ‘You’re making a terrible mistake!’

They’d heard.

Not the whole congregation, but the ones who counted. Annabelle’s mother and Annabelle herself. Alex. The celebrant. The bridesmaid and the best man. The first two rows of guests. Lord, had he said it that loudly?

Apparently.

It didn’t help that the little boy had suddenly gone quiet. A plastic lollipop stick protruding from his mouth explained this unlikely development.

Dylan began to sweat. Again.

Alex and Annabelle had both turned in his direction. Alex was looking slack-jawed and appalled, Annabelle startled and bewildered. The bridesmaid was gulping in air, and had a hand pressed to her ribcage. The best man was staring in horror.

Even Annabelle’s little boy was watching him, happily sucking on his lollipop, while ‘Gwanma’ looked as if she had fully expected some kind of ghastly last straw at some point during the afternoon, but hadn’t thought it was going to be this.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dylan barked. Instinctively, he stepped forward. This was another mistake. He was standing just a foot or two from Annabelle now, and right beside her. ‘I didn’t mean it.’ But he had meant it. ‘It was…’ a moment of indulgent madness ‘…a joke. It was nothing. Please, uh, carry on.’

Alex wasn’t buying it. The slack jaw had hardened. The washed-out complexion had refined to white around his nostrils.

‘A joke?’ His voice rasped. ‘That’s ridiculous! People don’t joke in the middle of a wedding. You have a reputation as a loose cannon in some circles, Dylan, and I’ve chosen to ignore it, but this…What do you mean by it?’

He looked from Dylan to Annabelle and back again, and the action seemed to link the two of them together, standing shoulder to shoulder, as they now were.

‘Dylan? Annabelle?’ His voice rose.

It was obvious that he suspected an affair. Annabelle had gone bright red. The first two rows of guests were watching in strained silence, like the audience at an amateur play in which the cast have forgotten their lines. Further back, there was whispering, as those who hadn’t heard Dylan’s words tried to fathom what was going on. On the string quartet’s dais, the cellist let her fingers slip and the strings of her instrument squawked.

‘Nothing,’ Annabelle said. ‘Nothing, Alex.’ She clasped her hands together. The gesture could have meant either ‘Believe me’ or ‘Forgive me’. Dylan knew it was the former, but Alex clearly wasn’t so sure.

Taking another edgy step forward, which brought the billowing skirt of Annabelle’s dress washing around his trouser-clad legs, Dylan said, ‘Really, Alex, I’m sorry. I know what you’re thinking and it’s my fault, but, no, it’s…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Nothing like that.’

Annabelle’s bridal fragrance enveloped him, evocative and sweet.

‘It isn’t, Alex. Honestly,’ she echoed. Shaking, she laid a hand on her groom’s arm. From this perspective, Dylan could see the slope of her right breast where the neckline of her dress gaped a little with her movement. Too many heartbeats passed before he looked away. ‘You can’t possibly believe—’

‘It doesn’t matter what I believe,’ Alex said. ‘It’s what other people believe, and it’s fairly obvious what they’ll believe about this!’

‘Garbage!’ Dylan put in helpfully.

‘Then, please, let’s just…get on with it,’ Annabelle begged, ignoring him. ‘The way you’re reacting is only making things worse. People are whispering, and—’

‘Oh, it’s my fault?’ Alex’s nostrils flared again.

‘No, I’m not saying that, but—’

‘It’s my fault,’ Dylan interposed. ‘That’s clear. Annabelle’s right. Please, just get on with it.’

But Alex had a look on his face now. It happened in surgery very occasionally if he was tired and absently asked for the wrong size of clamp or something. Most surgeons would simply correct themselves and go on, but Alex could never do that. He would doggedly proceed with a piece of equipment that was less than ideal, rather than lose face by admitting to a mistake. Fortunately, he was a good enough surgeon to carry it off, but this wasn’t surgery, this was his wedding.

For heaven’s sake, get over it, Dylan wanted to tell him. Don’t lose your sense of proportion. But he knew it was already too late.

‘No, I won’t get on with it,’ Alex said coldly. ‘Are you coming, Peter?’

‘Yes,’ said the best man, who had to be Alex’s younger brother. He blinked, like an animal caught in a bright light. ‘Yes. Right. Of course.’

Without another word, Alex spun neatly around, strode down the centre aisle and out the glass door through which Dylan had entered just a few minutes earlier. Peter hurried after him. In the dead silence that had now fallen over the assembled guests, just two sounds could be heard—the squeak of the door as it swung closed again, and the lusty sound of one little boy slurping on a red lollipop.

The silence didn’t last for long.

In seconds, the sound of voices had swelled from a buzz to a roar. Annabelle’s silk skirt swished against Dylan’s legs again as she whirled to face him. She was furious.

‘Why did you do it? A joke? You can’t think I’ll swallow that! It was malicious! You know Alex as well as I do, Dylan Calford. You must have known he’d take it as a personal insult or worse. Why did you do it!’

In hundreds of hours of working together during surgery, Dylan had never seen her brown eyes blaze that way before. Her chest was heaving. The dress had slipped a little, and one creamy shoulder was bared. Her cheeks were still fiery red. She looked electric and wild and more stunningly attractive than he’d ever have thought she could…but, then, he’d never seen her dressed for her own wedding before. A dangerous new awareness stirred inside him.

‘Why?’ he echoed. ‘Why?’

As fast as a computer scanning its hard drive, he ran through all the possible placatory falsehoods at his disposal and rejected every one of them. He was left, therefore, with the bald truth, so he said that, aware even as he spoke the words of how inadequate they sounded.

‘Because I knew you wouldn’t be happy.’

Annabelle was not grateful for the insight.

In a low voice, she said, ‘I wanted this marriage. I needed it. I was going to give up work and take Duncan out of child-care. He hates it, and it’s not good for him. I was going to spend more time with my mother, who isn’t well, who isn’t going to get better, and who needs me, too.’

‘Is that what marriage is—?’

She rode right over the top of him. ‘I was going to relax, for once, with a man I respected and cared for—care for—at my side, a man who’s made it clear that I’m important to him, and that we can create a good partnership together. I had faith in that partnership! How dare you impose your own shallow definition of marital happiness? And how dare you presume to make that sort of judgement about us?’

‘Not Alex,’ Dylan corrected. ‘Just you.’

‘How dare you imagine you know me that well? No wonder Alex thought we were having an affair!’

The bridesmaid squeaked and covered her mouth with her hands.

‘Darling…’ came a shaky, smoke-damaged voice.

Annabelle turned. ‘Yes, Mum?’

‘Can you take Duncan now? He won’t go to anyone else, and I just…can’t. I need my oxygen from the car, and my inhaler. I shouldn’t have thought I could get by for so long without them.’

‘Oh, Lord, Mum, I’m sorry!’ Annabelle muttered. She blinked several times, and Dylan realised it was because she was fighting tears. She reached out for the little boy, but he’d had enough, lollipop notwithstanding, and wriggled immediately to the ground.

‘Splore!’ he said.

‘No, we can’t explore now, love.’ She bent to him, and Dylan got a serious and spectacular view of her breasts, as smooth as ivory and as plump as fresh-baked rolls. His groin tightened unexpectedly, and he felt as if someone had barged into him and knocked him sideways. Now was not the moment to have this happen.

‘Want to explore with me, Dunc?’ the bridesmaid offered tentatively, just behind Annabelle.

Too late. Duncan was already off and away, through the crowds of guests, who were milling uneasily in aisles and between rows of seats. The bridesmaid followed him, way too slowly. Dylan was still rooted to the spot. For several reasons. Annabelle straightened, and a sigh escaped between her teeth.

‘He’ll come back, won’t he?’ Annabelle’s mother said.

‘If he doesn’t head straight for the street and get mown down by a car, the little monkey-love.’

‘I meant Alex.’

‘Oh.’ Annabelle sighed again. ‘No, Mum, I don’t think he will. Alex is…not the type who cools off quickly.’

‘But surely he’ll realise—’

‘I’d better go after Duncan, Mum. Linda’s had no experience with kids. I’ll bring your oxygen and your inhaler, and I’ll tell everyone that they’re welcome to stay. You can pass the word around, too. Get the music playing, perhaps? There’s no sense all this food and planning going to waste. And then I’d better phone and cancel our hotel…’

Gathering up the folds of her dress, she smiled distractedly at several guests and began to make her way down the aisle. Following her, Dylan spotted Duncan at the back of the string quartet’s dais, and pointed him out to Annabelle.

Again, she wasn’t grateful.

‘You won’t be staying to eat, I don’t suppose,’ she said. It was an order rather than a question, and her chin was raised. ‘But perhaps you’d care to mention, on your way out, that cocktails and dinner are still on for those who want them?’

‘Sure. Of course,’ he agreed, knowing how completely inadequate it was.

He did as she’d asked, heading gradually towards the beckoning glass doors. After fielding several questions along the lines of ‘What on earth did you say?’ and ‘Oh, was it you, then?’ he was finally able to make his escape. He’d never been so relieved in his life.

At home, once he’d peeled off his limp clothing and had a cold shower, a message on his answering-machine awaited him.

It was from Sarah.

‘I’ve heard your offer, and it’s insulting. We’re preparing a counter-offer over the weekend, and your lawyer will hear from mine on Monday.’

Am I that out of touch with reality? Dylan wondered, after he’d erased the message. We were only married for two years. I was working. She was working. We employed a cleaner. We ate take-away meals, or I cooked. We kept separate bank accounts, and split the mortgage payments. For six months of that time, I was on rotation in Townsville and we only saw each other every second weekend.

In fact, they’d been far too scrupulous about maintaining a degree of separation in their lives, he now considered. Sarah hadn’t wanted to come to Townsville. Perhaps their marriage would have lasted longer, and been happier, if they’d joined themselves to each other more completely. And perhaps he would then have felt that Sarah was entitled to the top-heavy percentage of their assets that she was obviously planning to claim.

Still stewing over it, and over the wedding fiasco, he made himself some salad and one of those nutritionally challenged instant dried pasta meals that people took on camping trips. Then he bored himself with television for several hours and dropped into bed at eleven, seeking oblivion.

It didn’t come. He felt like a heel and resolved to himself, I’ll make it up to Annabelle. That’s the least I can do.

Go and see Alex, try and explain. Cover the cost of the reception. Ring each and every guest personally. Anything. Whatever Annabelle wanted.

Had this whole mess happened because of the divorce, or because he was a really terrible person? Until things had gone pear-shaped with Sarah, he’d have said his life was in an impeccable state. Priorities in order. Heart in the right place. Career on track. Judgement damn near flawless.

Hang on, though! Had he lost that much faith in himself? Rebellion began to stir inside him.

Annabelle Drew, I saved your backside this afternoon, no matter how you twist your definition of marital happiness.

Poking at his feelings a little more, he discovered, to his surprise, that he was angry with her. Disappointed, too. Somehow, she was a woman of whom he would have expected better. Better priorities. Better principles. Better sense.

I will make it up to her, if she’ll let me. But she’s wrong to blame me for this!

Rolling onto his stomach in a twisted sheet, Dylan slept at last.

‘Thank heavens that’s over!’ Helen Drew said to her daughter, as the final straggle of wedding guests headed for their cars, later than both of them had hoped. She had her portable oxygen close beside her, and really should have been using it more tonight. Her breathing sounded terrible, despite the use of her inhaler, and she looked even worse. ‘You did a fabulous job, darling. I was proud of you.’

Annabelle felt her mother’s arms wrap around her like a comfortable quilt. On the dais vacated by the departing string quartet, Duncan had fallen asleep at last, about fifteen minutes ago. And Linda had gone, too, thank goodness. She was a good and loyal friend, great at helping Annabelle with tax and finance questions, but was useless, and knew it, with kids, the elderly and sick people. Her ineffectual offers of help had, in the end, been something of a strain.

‘You mean the fact that my face felt as if it was about to drop off didn’t show from the outside?’ Annabelle said to her mother.

‘Well, of course it did, but people expected that. They knew you were upset.’ Annabelle’s mother hesitated for a moment. ‘Life will go on, you know.’

‘Oh, I know that, Mum.’ Although she couldn’t quite imagine it at the moment.

She felt like one of those cartoon characters who stepped off a cliff, but didn’t start falling until the gravity of their situation hit home. Her mind ticked and rattled like an engine out of tune.

Cancel the hotel for this weekend. Cancel the two-week honeymoon, planned for just over a month from now, at a time when Alex had been able to make some space in his schedule. Thank goodness she hadn’t handed in her notice at the hospital yet! Where was Alex right now? At home?

‘And anyway, you and Alex, I’m sure, will patch things up,’ Helen said. ‘It would seem silly not to get married just because some idiot of a man decided to get clever during the ceremony.’

Which of those misconceptions, if any, to tackle first? Annabelle wondered.

First misconception—she and Alex weren’t going to patch things up. She knew that. Their relationship was over.

He had put so much thought and time and money into making theirs a perfect, elegant wedding, befitting the strong and sensible partnership they had hoped to create together. He’d wanted a ceremony and reception that would set a benchmark for friends and colleagues to aspire to, the sort of occasion that people would talk about for years. Well, they’d achieved the latter goal! Unfortunately, not in the way he’d wanted.

And he was a very stubborn man. Slinking off next week to a sparse little ceremony in a bureaucrat’s office wouldn’t make the grade, even leaving out the question of Alex’s loss of face.

Which Alex would never leave out. And he was probably right—people would gossip.

Second misconception—Dylan Calford wasn’t an idiot.

She’d known him, on and off, for three and a half years now. In some ways, she knew him better than she knew Alex, since there wasn’t such a gap in status between them. She knew what he looked like first thing in the morning, fresh from a snatched sleep in the doctors’ on-call room. She knew what he ate for lunch, and the places he’d been to for holidays since his marriage. They called each other by their first names.

He was proving himself as a fine surgeon, he was good to work with, and by all scales of character measurement, he was a pretty decent man. What Annabelle knew of him, she liked—had liked until today—and along with the rest of the hospital staff who worked with him, she felt for him over the issue of his divorce. He wasn’t quite the same person he’d been a couple of years ago. Harder. More cynical, and less patient.

And, finally, he hadn’t ‘decided to get clever’. He hadn’t intended his words to be overheard. Possibly, he hadn’t intended to speak them out loud at all.

Which means he genuinely thinks our marriage would have been a mistake.

How could something be a mistake when you needed it so badly? Annabelle knew that she and Alex weren’t in love the way most couples believed themselves to be when they married. They’d talked about that, seriously and at length.

Alex had exhibited his worst qualities today—as he sometimes did in surgery—but in their private time, he was thoughtful and interesting. They respected each other. He approved of her. They could talk about plans without friction. He was a tender, undemanding lover, and he worked hard at his relationship with Duncan.

And, oh, dear Lord, she’d needed their marriage! She needed to be able to give up work for a few years in order to focus her attention on caring for her mother and Duncan. She needed Alex’s financial support, not for herself but for the people she loved.

When they’d started going out together four months ago, it had been like being rescued from a dragon’s lair by a white knight. She’d started sleeping again. She’d seen light at the end of the tunnel.

Whereas now…

Suddenly, she felt sick. Anger towards Dylan Calford rose in her throat like bile. The concern he evidently had about the dire possibility of her making a mistake in marriage, of her ‘being unhappy’, was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

‘I wouldn’t have let it be a mistake!’ she muttered to herself. ‘I would have made it work, no matter what it took. I would have been happy! Imposing his cynical stance on other people just because he’s having a bad divorce is unforgivably arrogant!’