practice.
The last time Abbey had seen this piece of surgery performed it had taken close on three hours. Steve would be able to reverse the anaesthetic in less than one.
Finally Abbey watched as Ryan inserted layers of neat stitching. All Abbey had had to do had been to watch that the tools Ryan needed had been on hand, hold the flaps apart so Ryan could work and supervise as Eileen kept the site free of blood. Now Janet had a new hip and, by the look of Steve’s monitors, she’d come through the operation with flying colours.
A new hip… For Janet, that meant almost a new life. She’d been in constant pain for years.
She never would have done it if Ryan hadn’t come.
Abbey send a thousand tiny prayers of gratitude upward for this small miracle. She glanced down at her still swollen knee, the bulky dressing barely discernible under her surgical trousers. If it only cost one bruised knee to have Ryan here… well, the bruising was worth it.
How much more would she pay to have him stay? She couldn’t begin to consider.
The procedure over, Steve followed his patient out to Recovery. Eileen gathered the stained linen and took herself off to the sluice room, and Abbey was left alone with Ryan.
‘Tired?’ Ryan asked sympathetically, and immediately Abbey decided she wasn’t.
‘No.’
‘Liar.’
‘Well, I shouldn’t be tired,’ she said. ‘Less than an hour for a procedure such as this… I don’t know how you did it. Besides, I’m rested and raring to go. There’s no excuse for me not to be. I’ve just pinched your holiday.’
‘You needed it. I shouldn’t have asked you to assist today. ’
‘I wanted to,’ Abbey said warmly. ‘Ryan…’ She looked up and met his dark, concerned eyes. ‘I just want to thank you,’ she said simply. ‘If you knew how much I wanted Janet to have this done… The other hip’s not nearly as bad but now, even when it finally gives… Well, so far she’s come through this brilliantly. As long as her rehabilitation goes well, I shouldn’t have any trouble convincing her to do the other hip.’
‘I’ll fly back and do it for you,’ Ryan offered lightly, and Abbey found herself feeling suddenly less bleak.
Maybe when Ryan left here he wouldn’t be gone for good. Maybe he would come back in a year or so…
Yeah. In your dreams, Abbey Wittner. Or, if he came back, he’d come back with a wife.
‘Where’s Felicity?’ she said with difficulty, and watched Ryan’s face close.
‘She’s out at my father’s farm, working. I asked her to come in for lunch but she hasn’t time.’
‘I see.’ But Abbey didn’t. If this was supposed to be a honeymoon, Felicity was surely a trifle offhand about her husband.
‘You’ve not organised the wedding yet?’ she asked, and for the life of her she couldn’t keep her voice steady.
‘No. We’ll do that as soon as Dad gets back from Cairns.’ It sounded like changing a pair of socks. ‘We’ll do that.’ Just as unimportant.
‘Oh.’
This was inane. Abbey crossed to the sink and peeled off her gloves. Then Ryan was behind her, untying the tapes of her theatre garb, and Abbey started feeling really strange.
‘You… you can let Steve go back to his research now,’ she managed, and it was a real effort to keep her voice light. ‘I… You can see my leg’s almost back to normal. The lass who’s helping to babysit can keep caring for Jack, and I can take over work again.’
‘Not yet you can’t.’
‘Ryan, I must.’
‘Monday,’ he said. ‘You can start again next Monday, but you’ll take the rest of the week off, Abbey, and that’s an order.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘Ryan…’
‘Don’t baulk me here, Abbey,’ Ryan said heavily, and his hands suddenly fell to her waist. And gripped hard. ‘I want to do this. In three weeks I’m having to walk away from here, and I want to do it with a clear conscience. Allow me to give you a decent break. Then maybe-’
He broke off. His hands fell away and he stepped back as Eileen re-entered the room. Eileen looked curiously from Ryan to Abbey. And she smiled.
‘Am I interrupting something?’ she said brightly. ‘Would you like me to leave clearing this mess until later? And pull the curtains closed?’
Abbey gasped and moved away from Ryan. She hauled her theatre gear from her shoulders and shoved it in the laundry basket with unnecessary force.
‘No. No!’ The feel of Ryan’s hands on her waist was still with her. ‘We were just discussing Dr Henry’s wedding,’ she managed. She took a deep breath. ‘If you’ll excuse me, R-Dr Henry, I’ll go out to Janet. I want to be with her when she wakes.’ She took another deep breath. ‘And… I accept your offer to work until next Monday, though, if you change your mind…’ She faltered, knowing that Eileen’s interest was growing by the minute. Probably because of the mounting colour of Abbey’s cheeks.
She made a swift, desperate decision.
‘If you’re free… maybe before Sam comes back… how about on Thursday? Maybe you and Felicity could come to dinner out at the farm. Jack and I would enjoy having you.’
There. She’d got it out. She had to start treating this man as part of a couple, she thought bleakly, and the best way to do it was to put a face to this mysterious Felicity. The sooner the better.
‘You mean it?’ Ryan asked, and Abbey nodded.
‘Thursday. Seven o’clock?’ She cast a rather frantic look at Eileen. ‘Can you come too?’
‘I’m on duty,’ Eileen said sadly, but there was a hint of a twinkle behind her eyes. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t miss it for quids. I’m just not sure where Felicity stands in all this. I’m just not sure where anyone does. But I’d really like to know.’
‘Why am I doing this?’
Abbey stared down at her tousle-headed toddler and demanded an answer. ‘Jack, why am I going to all this trouble? It’s like those people who go swimming in the Antarctic in midwinter. I’d have to be a little bit crazy.’
Jack was armed with a spoon and was in the process of cleaning the chocolate mousse bowl. There was chocolate mousse from one end of his small person to the other and he had far more important matters weighing on his mind than his mother’s social life. Like how he could get the last scraps of chocolate right at the bottom of the bowl…
He gave up and did it the easy way. Abandoning the spoon, he stuck his head right down the bottom of the bowl and licked.
And Abbey chuckled.
‘Yeah, well, the ostrich approach may have its advantages, but they’re coming even if I stick my head in a mixing bowl too.’ She sighed and looked around her. At least the food would be great. If there was one thing Abbey could do well it was cook. If only the house didn’t look so… so… well, so darned poor.
It normally didn’t matter. It was just that tonight… tonight what she really didn’t want to happen was for Felicity and Ryan to feel sorry for her.
‘Which they shouldn’t,’ she said. She picked up Jack, bowl and all, and gave his chocolate-clad person a fierce hug. It was a bit tricky as he still had the bowl over his head, but Jack enjoyed the sensation and gave a chuckle from the bottom of the bowl. ‘I have you, Jack Wittner. And I have Janet. Your grandma is improving every day, little Jack, and we’ll have her playing hopscotch in no time.’
Felicity and Ryan arrived right on seven and by the time they arrived Abbey had the place looking as good as it ever could. She’d placed a white cloth (not too worn) over the scrubbed kitchen table and a bunch of crimson bougainvillea sprayed from a glass jar in the centre. With luck the flowers were so lovely that her visitors would miss the absence of a cut crystal vase. The meal was all ready. The smell from the chicken concasse was wonderful
