Another question but at least one he could answer.
‘Her mother was here. She flew down with the Royal
Flying Doctor Service when they brought the baby to
us. But she had to go home to the rest of the family—
she’s hoping to get down again next week but even
with really cheap accommodation available at the
hospital, she still has to pay air fares and, I imagine, pay
someone to mind the other children at home.’
MEREDITH WEBBER
15
‘Poor thing, it must be so hard to not be able to be
with her baby,’ Grace murmured, but in such a way
Theo had to look at her. Did she really feel for Scarlett’s
mother or was she mouthing a platitude while thinking
something else entirely?
He didn’t know this woman so he had no idea and,
really, did it matter? Yet again he sensed a puzzle…
They’d moved away from Scarlett’s crib, out of the
PICU to the lift foyer where they met up with other
members of the team waiting to go down.
‘Grace and I are barely settled in and, speaking for
myself, I need to shop before I can eat,’ Jean-Luc said,
joining his and Grace’s names in a way that suggested
a relationship, although as far as Theo knew they’d
only met since their separate arrivals in Australia. ‘Is
there a good restaurant close by?’
‘Scoozi!’
Jean-Luc had spoken to Aaron who was standing
beside him, but the reply was chorused by most of the
team.
‘It’s the other side of the park,’ Jasmine Summers,
one of the PICU nurses added as they all stepped into
the lift. ‘Some of us are going there now, so do come
along. You’re coming, aren’t you, Theo?’
He had intended going home to do some work on a
wood-fired oven he was building in his tiny courtyard,
but he had to eat.
And Grace Sutherland, for all her blunt questions,
intrigued him…
‘Oh, do come, Theo.’ Now she added her entreaty,
and though he had the strangest—and strongest—feel-
ing he was being manipulated, he agreed.
16
THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE
Out of curiosity, he told himself, and in part that was
the truth, because there was something about Grace
Sutherland that didn’t quite ring true—some mystery
inside the beautiful packaging.
That she was physically attractive to him was a sec-
ondary matter, or so he assured himself. He didn’t get
involved with work colleagues so the physical attrac-
tion would never be explored, but the intrigue? It
wouldn’t hurt to investigate that, surely…
The group walked in a straggle of twos and threes
down the road that ran alongside the park towards the
restaurant. Grace walked in the lead with Phil, Theo be-
hind them with Maggie and Aaron, and though he was
listening to the conversation about titration rates of
drugs during open-heart surgery in very small infants,
he wasn’t taking in as much of it as he usually did.
She walked with a peculiar grace—what a stupid
thing to be thinking about a woman called Grace!—but
the way she strode along, her pace matching Phil’s, sug-
gested an athleticism that wasn’t often seen in special-
ists of either gender, most of whom were too busy to
get to the gym with any regularity or to work out in
other ways.
The staff at Scoozi, seeing the mob from the hospital
arrive, pushed together a number of tables, but was it
chance that Grace sat next to Theo, who had taken the
chair at one end?
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said, answer-
ing his own query—the seating arrangement had not
been chance.
‘Question?’ he parried, although he knew full well
what she’d asked. But now, rather than consider the
MEREDITH WEBBER
17
woman’s grace, he was considering her lack of it. And
her lack of good manners! It was none of her business
why he’d switched from surgery to perfusion.
‘Why aren’t you married?’
He’d forgotten that one! He stared at her, aware his
disbelief was probably written on his face. It must have
been for she looked embarrassed, but only for a mo-
ment, recovering her composure beautifully and
smiling an apology.
‘I know that’s personal, but I’m only here for six
months and if I want to get to know everyone in the
team, then I have to ask questions.’
That kind of made sense—or did it?
‘Do you really want to get to know everyone in the
team? After all, as you say, you’re only here six months,
after which you’ll go back to South Africa, send emails
for a few months, Christmas cards for a few years, then
forget the lot of us.’
‘Probably not Christmas cards, I’m not good with
them.’ She looked embarrassed, as if he’d been spot on
in the reading of her character. Not that she was going
to let him get away with it. She shifted slightly in her
chair then continued, ‘But professionally it’s good to
keep in touch with people, especially those with more
experience, because you never know when something
comes up you haven’t personally experienced before,
and you can always ask.’
She hadn’t answered his question, but her comments
made him wonder even more about this woman. In his
life, women were the ones who kept the strands of
friendship sewn together, his mother and aunts keeping
in touch with the family’s friends, while his ex-wife had
18
THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE
been forever on the net, talking to one friend or another,
and had turned the sending out of Christmas cards into
a kind of ‘who gets the most’ contest. But, then, Lena
was like that…
‘You’re thinking about some woman now,’ the exas-
perating South African said, her clipped accent seeming
to turn the remark into a rebuke.
‘You can’t know that!’ Theo growled. ‘And if there’s
one thing I hate, it’s someone—usually a woman—
telling me what I’m thinking.’
‘Well, you were scowling,’ Grace replied, totally un-
abashed. ‘The kind of scowl that suggests bad thoughts,
and as you’re hardly likely to be thinking bad thoughts
about your bypass machine, or the menu that’s in your
hands, I guessed it must have had something to do with
my question.’
He scowled some more and began to read the menu,
although he knew it by heart and always ordered the
Creole pizza and out of sheer politeness should have
passed it to Grace, had she not annoyed him so much.
‘I’ll have the Creole pizza,’ she announced, Jasmine,
on her other side, having handed her a menu. ‘Chicken,
banana, sweet chilli sauce and sour cream—Italian
purists must be turning over in their graves but it soun
ds
delicious.’
Now what was he going to order? If he ordered the
Creole she’d think he was copying her and probably read
something into it—like he might be interested in her.
Which he was in the way a scientist was interested
in a new specimen that appeared under his microscope,
but no more than that, for all the unexpected tugs of at-
traction he was feeling.
MEREDITH WEBBER
19
Heaven forbid!
He ordered a steak and a glass of the pinot grigio the
restaurateur, Anna, imported from Italy. Someone fur-
ther down the table had ordered a plate of garlic bread
and another of brushetta before anyone was seated, and
these arrived as the orders were taken, the plates of
bread being passed around.
‘No, thank you,’ Grace said to both.
‘Dieting?’ Jasmine asked, and Theo watched, won-
dering just how Grace would respond.
‘No, I never diet,’ she said, with the supreme confi-
dence of a woman with a great metabolism.
End of conversation, although Jasmine had obvi-
ously meant it as an opening gambit.
‘Lucky you,’ Jasmine told her, not willing to let the
subject go just yet. ‘I’m always dieting. I’ve tried just
about every diet ever written.’
‘Oh, but surely you don’t need to diet, Jasmine.’
words without Theo even noticing, but to him it
sounded as if Grace was making an effort to be nice—
as if social chatter didn’t come easily to her.
Jasmine, too, must have sensed something strange for
she smiled uncertainly, conveying enough apprehension
for even someone as seemingly insensitive as Grace to
see.
‘I didn’t mean to sound critical of diets or people
who diet,’ she added quickly. ‘But research has shown
that dieting fads can do more harm than good.’
For Theo it was like watching an act in a play and
he waited to see if Jasmine would be mollified.
Apparently she was, for she smiled at Grace.
20
THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE
‘I know,’ she said with a big sigh. ‘I’ve read that too,
but I think I’m addicted to diets.’
It was said as a joke, but, sensing it would go straight
over Grace’s head, Theo plunged in.
‘Like I’m addicted to good pizza,’ he said, forgetting
he’d just ordered steak. ‘Which is why I’m spending all
my off-duty time building a wood-fired oven in my al-
ready too small courtyard.’
‘Is the pizza no good here that you didn’t order it?’
Of course Grace had picked up on his error.
‘No, the pizzas are great, I just needed a change,’ he
assured her. OK, so she’d zeroed in on him again, but at
least discussing food likes and dislikes was better than dis-
cussing marriage—or his lack thereof. And Jasmine was
off the hook—she’d turned to talk to Aaron on her other
side, so Theo took another slice of garlic bread and
relaxed.
‘So, are you in a relationship?’
Had he heard correctly? He stared at the woman he
thought had asked an extremely impertinent question
and she gave an embarrassed shrug.
‘I told you I asked questions—I explained why,’ she
said. ‘And you didn’t answer about why you’re not
married, so I wondered…’
Theo studied her a moment longer, sensing some-
thing he couldn’t quite pin down behind the brash
manner.
Something uncertain?
It sounded that way, but surely not!
Given the attraction he felt towards her, he knew he
had to keep his distance, not find excuses to learn more
of her.
MEREDITH WEBBER
21
‘Why?’ he asked, cool and distant again. ‘Why are
you wondering—why do you need to know? As you
said, you’re here for six months. I could work with
people for six months and not need to know about their
personal lives. In fact, there are people at this table— No,
that’s not right, the team mostly know the surface things
about each other’s lives, although the fact that I am single
is enough for most of them to know. No one in the eight
months I’ve been here has ever asked me why.’
‘Yes, well…’
She pursed her lips—lush, full lips which, when
pursed, looked extremely inviting and turned the tug
into a more insistent feeling—and studied him in turn,
then shook her head.
‘I’m sorry! I’ve been far too intrusive. My father was
always telling me that, right from when I was a small
girl, asking questions all the time and not differentiat-
ing between acceptable questions and personal ones.
Although—’
She stopped, and Theo forgot he was trying to keep
his distance and was intrigued enough to prompt her.
‘Although?’ he echoed, and she smiled and shook
her head, the blue eyes looking…sad? Vulnerable?
Vulnerable? This super-confident woman?
Super-efficient, too, he suspected.
Vulnerable was the last word he’d use…
She’d gone too far. Again! Grace knew that, but
somehow the switch that turned her off before she
pushed that extra bit further had always been missing
from her genetic programming. She should never have
asked him about his marital state in the first place, then
pushing when he didn’t answer…
THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE
Terrible!
But he’d be ideal. She’d known that from the moment
she’d seen him, recalling his bio in the team info sheets
she’d read. He was intelligent, well-built, good-looking—
although she knew that shouldn’t be a prerequisite—and
apparently available. Not that she needed available—she
wasn’t intending to have an affair with him.
All she really wanted was his sperm…
She felt a blush stealing into her cheeks and was fu-
rious with herself. She might be blessed with a good
metabolism so didn’t need to diet, but she’d have pre-
ferred a tendency to run to fat than this terrible blushing
thing she had.
Had Theo seen the colour in her cheeks that he lifted
the bottle of cold water off the table and offered to pour
her a glass? How embarrassing!
Surely this was the time to ditch the Grand Plan—
to forget all about it and just get on with her life. She’d
lived with the ache for a long time—she could live with
it a little longer…
She thanked him and watched his concentration as
he poured the water, then noticed the back of his hand
as he passed her the glass—long slim fingers and a
slight scattering of dark hair at the wrist—and for some
strange reason the heat of embarrassment left her, and
a shiver travelled up her spine.
Looking at a man’s hand couldn’t make
you shiver,
so maybe she was sickening for something.
Not that she ever got sick…
‘Although?’ he said again, and it took her a couple
of seconds to go back far enough to pick up the prompt.
MEREDITH WEBBER
23
She smiled. Father had told her when she was very
young that she had a beautiful smile and that you could
never go wrong with a smile.
‘I can’t tell you the “although”,’ she said, wonder-
ing if this was flirting. ‘But I am interested.’
Duh! Blushing again. Who would have thought it
would be this hard?
‘In me?’ Theo asked, and she felt her blush deepen
so she must be scarlet-cheeked by now.
‘In everyone on the team,’ she said.
‘Oh!’ His dark brown eyes lit up to match his de-
lighted smile. ‘So you’ll ask all of them about their re-
lationships? Actually, I can fill you in on some of them.
Jasmine’s just got engaged, Phil and Alex and Aaron—
with Aldo added we have a lot of A s, don’t we? Anyway
those three are all happily married—’
‘Stop! You’re making me more and more embar-
rassed. It is none of my business.’
Theo stopped, but only because she sounded genu-
inely distressed, although he was pretty sure Dr Grace
Sutherland didn’t often do distressed. But it was there
again, that note of uncertainty in a person who gave off
such positive vibes, and he was interested in spite of
himself.
In a purely professional way, of course.
‘I’m not in a relationship,’ he said, under the cover
of the noise as meals were delivered to the table. ‘And
I was married, but my wife and I split up seven years
ago.’
Wrong thing to tell her. That interested look was
back in her eyes.
‘Do you know the number of weeks, days and hours
24
THE HEART SURGEON’S BABY SURPRISE
as well?’ she asked, spearing a shard of red-hot pain
dead-centre into his heart.
‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ he said, his voice as cold
and as curt as he could make it. His meal was placed in
front of him and he looked at it and shook his head,
aware he’d never eat it, although, thinking now of
Elena, he wouldn’t have eaten the pizza either.
He didn’t look at Grace again in case he was invei-
gled into thinking her vulnerable again. Vulnerable as
a full-grown crocodile! So he cut his steak, and pre-
tended to eat, shifting things around on his plate so it