He seemed even more dazed. Terror had receded in the face of her ridiculousness. ‘It’ll make me go to sleep?’ he managed, but he didn’t sound as if it was a dreadful idea.
‘No,’ she told him. ‘Not my dream stuff. It’ll simply make you relax. Then, if it’s OK with you-and only if it’s OK with you-we can take the next step and give you something so you have a swift sleep while Dr Jake fixes your bump. If you don’t feel relaxed then you can back out. But you do want your hernia fixed, right?’
‘Right,’ he whispered.
‘You really do?’
‘Y-yes.’
‘Well done,’ she told him, releasing his wrist and touching the back of his weathered hand lightly with her own. ‘There’s courage and there’s courage. My moths and your anaesthetic. You want to start now?’
‘Y- Maybe.’
‘Then let’s do step one,’ she told him. ‘You close your eyes while Babs holds your hand, you’ll feel one tiny prick, then we’ll see if my fairy dust works. We can take it from there.’
She administered the propofol, then stood and chatted some more, watching as his eyes became confused-but not terrified at all. She was even making him smile.
‘Next step?’ she asked, and got a sleepy, fuzzy nod for her pains.
Hooray. She needed to let Jake know they were due to start.
She heard a faint movement in the doorway and turned, expecting to see an orderly.
But it was Jake.
He was looking at her with blatant admiration.
How long had he been here? She felt a blush starting at her toes and working its way up. This man had the power to seriously unsettle her. He was almost as unsettling as moths,
‘You’re good,’ he told her, and she struggled for composure-struggled to give him her very smuggest smile.
‘I know,’ she told him. ‘Francis and I are developing a very nice relationship. Aren’t you sorry you’re not into relationships yourself?’
She shouldn’t have said it.
The operation was done in almost total silence. The atmosphere was so tense it was almost unbearable. Not only did he not want to take their relationship any further, she’d killed any friendship they might have been starting to build.
Which was a shame.
She very much wanted to keep working with him, she decided as she watched his fingers perform the delicate piece of surgery to relieve Francis of his hernia. It wasn’t a particularly difficult operation, but his fingers were swift and sure. He was meticulous in everything he did. Francis would be left with minimal scarring and a super-fast recovery because of it.
He was a seriously good surgeon, she thought. He was wasted in Dolphin Bay.
And then she thought, no, he wasn’t wasted in Dolphin Bay. A place like this was lucky to have him. Susie would be blessed to have him if she got into trouble at delivery. If every country town could have a doctor as good as Jake…
‘Blood pressure?’ Jake snapped, and she told him, aware that she’d been watching him for a moment and this was a ruse to make her look at her dials instead of looking at him. She flushed. There was no need to remind her to do her job. He might be a good surgeon, but she knew enough about anaesthesia for her attention never to stray away for more than a second or two at a time. Francis’s anaesthetic was the lightest she could give. She had him intubated but his vital signs were steady, his colour was great and every indication was that this surgery would cause him minimal discomfort.
‘Reverse,’ Jake snapped.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Say please,’ she said mildly, and Babs choked.
Jake glared. ‘What?’
‘Say please…sir.’
‘Kirsty…’
‘Politeness is everything. We may as well start the way we mean to go on.’
‘Please,’ he said, goaded, and she smiled.
‘That’s better,’ she approved. She turned to Babs. ‘He’s very autocratic for a surgeon, isn’t he? I thought you had to be at least an orthodontist before you let go of the
‘Can we concentrate on what’s important?’ Jake snapped, and she very nearly said
Then she glanced at his face and saw the lines of strain around his eyes and thought better of it.
Whatever was eating him, she wasn’t going to break through with laughter.
She probably wasn’t going to break through at all.
‘Is it over?’ Francis surfaced terrified, his eyes wild and frantic. Jake was hauling his gloves off and Kirsty leaned over, took Francis’s hands in hers and held. Hard.
‘It’s done. You’ve conquered your fear. You’re awake. Jake’s fixed your hernia, your wife is waiting to see you and all you have to show is a three-inch square dressing on your tummy. Six stitches. When you wake up a bit more, you can have a look.’
‘It’s done?’
‘It is. The operation is completely finished. All that’s left is my fairy dust, making you a bit sleepy. If I were you, I’d settle back for a nice long nap.’
He searched her eyes, hope warring with fear, dreading that she might not be telling the truth.
But then Jake was behind her, gripping her shoulder, presenting them as a team.
‘She’s right, mate. You’re a new man. Thanks to our Dr Kirsty.’
‘She’s a ripper,’ Francis whispered. ‘A real ripper.’
‘Not a particularly respectful ripper,’ Jake said steadily. ‘But a ripper for all that.’
Francis closed his eyes. Jake stepped back, releasing Kirsty. The orderly moved in to wheel the trolley back out into the corridor. Jake moved into the washroom, but Kirsty stood still for a while longer.
Until the sensation of fingers pressing against her shoulder was completely gone.
He had a list.
The hernia had been a test, she realised. By the time she’d got rid of her hospital gown Jake was waiting for her, and he handed her a slip of paper.
Dorothy Miller: Veins
Mark Glaston: Basal cell carcinoma
Scotty Anderson: Osteochondroma
‘What’s this?’ she asked cautiously. She was in the corridor outside Theatre. Maybe they could have gone somewhere else to talk. Jake must have an office, she thought, but maybe showing her into an office might get her alone. That might constitute a relationship.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding exasperated, and she knew she didn’t have to say it out loud for him to know what she was thinking. ‘I overreacted yesterday.’
‘You did.’
‘So don’t rub it in.’
‘Tell me about the list,’ she said coolly, and there was a moment’s hesitation while he considered whether to take her antagonism further. But he obviously-and wisely-decided against it.
‘Dorothy Miller has the most appalling varicose veins,’ he told her. ‘One burst last month and it came close to killing her. She’s eighty and she won’t go to the city to get them fixed. She says if she dies she dies, but I’d prefer her not to. Mark has a basal cell carcinoma on his face that’s been incompletely excised. He needs a full-thickness excision and a skin graft. It’s a simple job, but Mark’s wife is blind, they have two small children and for him to leave for a night is a major drama. I told him he’d have to find a way and he agreed, but now you’re here I’ll do it myself.’
‘Now that I’ve proved myself competent,’ she said dryly, and he had the grace to smile.
