The Legendary Playboy Surgeon (6 page)

He was rushed straight into a resus area. An oxygen mask and electrodes were on him within seconds. A registrar was gaining IV access to administer pain relief and a nurse produced GTN spray and an aspirin tablet for Lewis to chew and swallow.

‘We’re onto it,’ the staff assured Kate, as she stood watching.

‘Go,’ Lewis urged. ‘You’re needed downstairs.’

‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ Kate promised. ‘Hang in there.’

By the time she got back to the basement of St Pat’s, the results for Theatre Three had just been phoned through.

‘What was it?’

‘Oesteosarcoma,’ Mark told her grimly. ‘Classic. Late stage.’

‘
What?
But the X-ray...’ Kate cleared her stunned reaction with a single, sharp shake of her head. ‘Show me.’

Sure enough, the microscopic evidence was clearly that of an aggressive, malignant tumour.

That poor kid, Kate thought. Thirteen years old and she was probably going to lose her leg. Or would they wait and give her a course of chemo before operating again?

They?

It would be Connor holding the scalpel up there. He was a specialist in paediatric bone cancer. The best. At least the girl had the chance of having her life saved, if not her leg.

She still couldn’t believe it. She pulled the slide free from its clips, wanting to see another one. To gather more evidence. It was then that she noticed something that made her blood run cold.

A tiny dot on the corner of the slide. A marker. The kind she always used on the slides she kept for her teaching.

Time seemed to stop and yet Kate’s brain—and her hands—were moving at the speed of light. It took only seconds to confirm the worst. Somehow, one of her teaching slides had become mixed up with the new sample from Theatre.

The thirteen-year-old girl didn’t have a highly aggressive cancer at all. The tumour was benign and could be easily treated.

Kate ran to the phone and dialled the Theatre extension. The phone rang. And rang. What was keeping someone from answering? Were they all too busy? Doing an unnecessary amputation?

Kate shoved the phone at the nearest technician. ‘Wait till someone answers,’ she snapped. ‘Tell them to stop. They’ve got the wrong diagnosis.’

She couldn’t just wait. Kate ran for the door, unbuttoning her coat as she went so that she could move faster.

She was fit. Four flights of stairs would only take a minute. She would take them two at a time. Three, if she could.

This couldn’t be happening.

Not on her watch.

* * *

Connor had delayed for longer than he should have. Looking at the MRI scans again. Trying to decide just how high up they needed to go to try and get past the potential spread of the lethal cancer. He called in a paediatric oncology consultant to discuss whether to deal with the fracture and wait for Estelle to undergo a course of chemotherapy before the irreversible step of amputation.

But the decision had been made.

Connor picked up the bone saw and tested it. The whine reminded him of a dentist’s drill. Just before it hit an exposed nerve in a tooth. For a few seconds the sound had drowned out the faint ring of the telephone in the technician’s booth that nobody seemed to be in a hurry to answer. Grimly, he put the saw down and picked up a scalpel. He needed to fully expose the bone he was going to be cutting through.

Scalpel poised, Connor was astonished to see the double doors leading into the theatre burst open. Someone was standing there, holding a mask to her face with its unfastened strings dangling loose. She wore a white coat.

Unbuttoned, but it was obviously Kate. Her eyes were wide and frightened and she was panting so hard she could barely speak.

‘
Stop
...’ she managed. ‘You have to stop.’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘Y
OU
can’t blame yourself.’

‘Of course I can.’ Kate couldn’t stop pacing. She was in the living room of her house, a long room that had windows and a set of French doors that led to a small courtyard and lawn bordered by the big, old trees that covered the property.

It was after six p.m. but still full daylight. A lovely late spring day that showed no sign of ending yet. It had, without doubt, been the longest day of Kate’s life. She groaned aloud.

‘It’s my department. With Lewis out of action I have to take full responsibility for what happens in there.’

Bella was curled up on the sofa, watching her aunt with a concerned frown on her face. ‘It wasn’t your fault there was a fire alarm and things got messed up.’

‘I should have been doing the biopsy. Mark doesn’t have enough experience. He couldn’t see that there was an anomaly. He didn’t go back and double-check.’

‘You weren’t there to do the biopsy,’ Bella pointed out. ‘It’s not as if they can keep someone under anaesthetic for hours and hours waiting for a result. You had no choice—you had to get Dr Blackman to Emergency. You probably saved his life. He
is
OK, isn’t he?’

Kate’s nod was almost distracted. ‘They got him up to the cath lab. He had his artery opened with a stent within a couple of hours. They say there’s minimal damage and he could be back on deck in a week or so.’ She sighed. ‘They did say he’s very lucky. He had an episode of VT just after I left, which could easily have been an arrest if he hadn’t been in the right place.’

‘There you go, then.’

Kate shook her head. ‘You don’t understand, Bella. It was a catastrophic error. A girl almost lost her leg unnecessarily. If that had happened, my career would have been over. Probably Connor’s career as well. How could anyone live with themselves if they made that kind of mistake?’

‘But it didn’t happen.’ Bella closed her eyes. ‘Thank goodness.’

Something in her tone made Kate stop pacing for a moment. ‘You were up there this afternoon, weren’t you? Did you hear something?’

‘It was all anyone wanted to talk about.’ She smiled at Kate. ‘Apparently you bursting into the theatre like that was the most exciting thing that’s ever happened up there. Someone said you should have been riding a white charger, dashing in to the rescue.’

It was Kate’s turn to close her eyes. She would never forget the look that Connor had given her as he’d stood there with a scalpel in his hand. She’d had no idea whether or not she was too late and the shocked silence around her had suggested that she was.

Kate had never felt more out of control of anything in her adult life. As if she was clinging to a clifftop by only her fingernails.

‘There’s been a mistake,’ she’d heard herself gasp. ‘A mix-up with the slides.’ She had been so out of breath, her voice had been no more than an agonised gasp. She’d had to press her hands against her ribs because her chest was hurting so badly. ‘The tumour isn’t malignant.’ Kate had had to drag in some more oxygen. It had sounded horribly like a sob. ‘It’s a benign osteoid osteoma.’

Another silence. Even more shocked as everybody had realised what could have just taken place. Then Kate had felt the wave of horror that the pathology department—
her
department—could have got something so horribly wrong. And all she’d been able to do was stand there, her breathing still so rough it had sounded like that of a sobbing child.

‘Thank you, Dr Graham,’ was all Connor had said. ‘Now please leave the theatre.’

It hadn’t been till hours later that Kate learned that she’d been in time and the girl, Estelle, had not lost her leg. The tension she was under barely lessened, however. She was waiting for Connor to come storming into her department. His fury would be more than justified. The chain of formal complaint, a hearing in front of disciplinary committee and all the repercussions would be equally justified. It was a disaster that Kate had never envisioned herself having to face and she had no idea how to deal with it.

But nothing happened and Kate was confused. She went to visit Lewis but he was recovering from his procedure and the last thing Kate wanted to do was give him the stress of knowing what had happened in the department in his absence. Leaving the coronary care unit, Kate stood for some time in front of the lifts, considering the option of going to find Connor and getting it over with.

But she couldn’t quite find the courage and while she was standing there, Bella texted to say she was cooking dinner tonight and suddenly the only place Kate wanted to be was in her own home.

Her refuge.

‘Did you see Connor while you were in the theatre suite?’

Bella shook her head. Her face folded into lines of sympathy. ‘I did hear that he was absolutely furious. Nobody had ever seen him look the way he did when he came out of Theatre.’

‘I don’t blame him in the least,’ Kate said quietly. ‘I should have gone to talk to him but I was...’ Her words trailed away so that she was virtually talking to herself but she could still hear the trace of astonishment in her tone. ‘I was too scared.’

* * *

Bella hadn’t seen Kate look this miserable—frightened, even—since...well, not since her young aunt had unexpectedly arrived to join her own family and that had been twenty years ago so she couldn’t really trust the memory, could she?

Yes. She could. She may have only been a small child but she’d recognised the kind of sadness that was the aftermath of something really bad happening. Not that she’d ever found out what had happened that had resulted in Kate ending up on their doorstep to stay for ever with her whole life contained in one small suitcase, but she’d instinctively known how lost and lonely the older girl was feeling.

That was why she’d followed her when she’d taken off that first day. All the way to that junk shop where she’d found Kate clutching the rusty old iron key she’d discovered in a drawer full of ancient cutlery. Bella had tiptoed up to Kate and slipped her small hand into the larger one.

‘Come home,’ she’d whispered. ‘We want you.’

‘Keep the key if you want,’ the owner of the shop said. ‘It’s not worth anything.’

It had been worth something to Kate, though.

Bella’s mother, Jackie, had been puzzled by the odd marks on Kate’s bedding when she’d gone to change the sheets later that week but Bella had known what they were. Traces of rust from where the key had been secreted under her pillow at night.

Kate still collected keys. Gorgeous, antique specimens that had come from her travels. A vast old iron one from a castle in Germany. A French one with an intricately curled decorative head. Many, many others. Some were polished brass and some were iron. None of them was rusty, though. Bella could be sure that the original key was still in the collection but it had been restored to its original condition at some point. And kept and treasured.

Had that first key represented escape? Or the determination to lock up the past and move on? Bella had never asked. She’d never needed to. The bond that had been forged that day when she’d taken Kate’s hand and led her back to a home where she had been welcomed and loved had been deeper than any words, and it had grown over the years.

Bella often felt lazy and messy and totally without a really worthwhile ambition in her life when she was in Kate’s company but she adored her aunt and she hated seeing her like this again. It was so out of character to see her looking frightened. Disconcerting. As though the world had tilted a little on its axis.

‘It’ll be OK,’ she offered. ‘Everybody knows you’re brilliant and you couldn’t possibly be responsible for a mistake like this. You’ll be the head of that department before long.’

Kate’s huff of expelled breath was disparaging but it was true. She
was
brilliant. And totally in control of everything that happened around her. She had taken control of her life from the moment she’d arrived to live with Bella and her family. She’d gone to a new school and achieved academic excellence. She’d gone on to train as a nurse and had come top of her class. Nothing and nobody was allowed to stand in her way. She was fiercely independent and utterly determined and Bella knew that the only sure-fire way to get on the wrong side of Kate was to tell her what to do, especially if Kate knew there was a better way.

Heavens, that was why she’d ended up doing a medical degree in the first place. Too many doctors had told her what to do. Kate was destined to be at the top of a power chain and she was absolutely the right person to be there. Bella might not be able to understand that drive to be the best and achieve the highest possible standard in everything she did but she could certainly admire it.

‘I’m so proud of you, you know,’ she said aloud. ‘This wasn’t your mistake and you fixed it but you’re still prepared to take the blame. You really care, about the people who work for you and with you and for the people you do the work for...the patients you never even get to meet.’

They were both silent for a minute. Was Kate also thinking about the teenage girl she’d never met who’d been the patient today? And that Connor had been the girl’s surgeon?

That sucked. Bella had watched that chemistry happening on the dance floor last week and had been secretly thrilled. Kate might be fiercely independent and appear not to need a man in her life on a permanent basis but everybody needed to be loved, didn’t they?

To love someone else?

OK, she knew how much Kate loved her but that wasn’t enough. For either of them. Especially if Bella was heading for the other side of the world. She might be gone for years and she didn’t want to have to worry about Kate being lonely.

And Connor was cute. She instinctively knew she was too young or dizzy or something to be of any interest to him but she could appreciate his attributes. Not just his looks but that laid-back confidence he had. That almost naughty streak. He was a bit of a renegade was Dr Matthews. A modern-day, professional kind of pirate.

Bella was watching Kate pacing again. She had changed into her jeans but hadn’t undone the tight braid her hair was bound up in. Her movements were graceful but...fierce somehow. Like a wild cat prowling the perimeter of its cage.

Why on earth had she been harbouring the hope that the two of them would get together? They were total opposites.

Maybe that was why. Maybe someone like Connor was exactly what Kate needed to balance her. To put some joy into that precisely ordered world that Kate had created for herself. But why would Connor be attracted to someone who was as uptight as Kate? As much as she loved her, Bella couldn’t deny that her aunt was a control freak. And maybe too much of a feminist or something because she’d never had a high opinion about the male of the species.

Bella sighed. It had never been likely to happen. And, after today, the chances were probably well below zero.

The sound of the doorbell made them both jump. The two women stared at each other.

‘
No
,’ Kate whispered, looking horrified. ‘It couldn’t be. Could it?’

Bella swallowed hard. It was just the sort of thing Connor would do, wasn’t it? To chase someone that he considered had done him harm and sort it out himself, even if it was completely outside any accepted protocol?

The doorbell sounded for the second time. A long, demanding blast. Bella cleared her throat as she uncurled her legs from the sofa.

‘Do you want me to go and see?’

‘No.’ Kate sucked in an audibly deep, if shaky, breath. ‘I’ll go.’

* * *

Connor’s finger actually hurt because he’d pushed the damn doorbell so hard.

He knew full well he shouldn’t be here but Kate hadn’t been in her department when he’d finally calmed down enough to be prepared to face the issue, having gathered all the information he could about the day’s events. How dared she simply walk off and go home as though nothing untoward had happened today?

Well, he was going to let her know in no uncertain terms just what the implications were of the error that had been made. He could have gone straight to the highest authority that governed the behaviour of physicians within the hospital system but he was too involved at a personal level here. He’d file a request for disciplinary action when he could be sure he could present it on a professional more than a personal level.

But, dammit, it was one of
his
patients that it had happened to.

OK, it hadn’t exactly been Kate’s fault. He knew about the disruption caused by that fire alarm. He knew that the department had been overloaded with work that included a tutorial taking place and more than one urgent case from Theatre being delivered.

He could also be perfectly confident that Lewis Blackman and Kate would have had it all sorted in no time flat if Lewis hadn’t had the misfortune of choosing that moment to have a heart attack.

But...

About to push the doorbell for the third time, Connor found his finger hovering.

But Kate had been the one to find the error, hadn’t she? She’d run up to Theatre so fast that she had barely been able to talk through her breathlessness. He’d heard that phone ringing faintly in the technician’s room. He could have sent someone to answer it and had the news of the error well before he’d picked up the scalpel.

It wasn’t as if he’d even started extending the opening in Estelle’s leg. She would be left with barely more than the scar she would have had anyway from the biopsy and fracture repair, even after dealing with the benign tumour.

She had kept her leg. No harm had been done.

Thanks to Kate.

Connor’s anger couldn’t evaporate instantly but it was diluted with confusion now. He was trying to catch a coherent thought as the door opened in front of him. He found himself staring at Kate.

He could see her fear.

Not the same kind of fear he’d seen that night on the dance floor but it was close enough. And this time he could also see the determination to face whatever was coming. Kate wasn’t going to turn and run away.

Not this time.

But how could he yell at her? Something was swimming up through his brain. If he did that, it would only justify the way she’d reacted the other night. Give her a reason to lump him in with whatever brute of a male had done her emotional harm in the past. For some inexplicable reason, it suddenly seemed very important that he didn’t give her the opportunity to do that.