A Surgeon for the Single Mom

by Charlotte Hawkes

  Effie could feel Tak’s fury even from where she stood. His mother’s words might have cut into her, but every time Tak defended her it felt like the most soothing of balms.

  ‘Effie is not a tramp. And if I were to marry anyone I would marry her. I would have no mistress. She would be enough.’

  ‘But you aren’t going to marry her, are you, Talank?’ his mother continued victoriously. ‘And for all this noble talk of yours, you and I both know the truth, don’t we? You didn’t just choose Effie as this mutual buffer you claim. You chose her deliberately.’

  There was no reason for Effie’s blood to chill and slow in her veins, she told herself anxiously. No reason at all.

  ‘Careful...’ Tak warned.

  But his mother had clearly smelled blood and now she was going in for the kill. Whether it was Tak or Effie, she didn’t care. In any case, one equated to the other.

  ‘You chose to align yourself with a woman who would sully your reputation by association.’

  ‘That’s enough.’ Tak’s voice was icy.

  ‘She is unmarried with a child. Damaged goods. Even you couldn’t carry that kind of toxic baggage and still be useful to your father and me.’

  The truth slammed into Effie like a knee to the chest. Powerful enough to cause internal bleeding and even cardiac arrest. It catapulted her back to a time when she hadn’t been good enough. When people had done everything they could to disassociate themselves from her and she had been wholly ashamed of who she was and where she’d come from.

  But this time she had no one to blame but herself. From the start Tak had warned her that he would hurt her and she hadn’t believed him.

  More fool her.

  ‘I warned you—that’s enough!’ he bellowed.

  It was enough for Effie. The silence stretched out, straining, twisting, pulling taut. And with it came a tugging on her heart, until she felt as though it might tear in two.

  She couldn’t bear it any longer.

  With her hand over her mouth to stifle any sound, she finally found her strength and raced up the corridor to her room. All she had to do was find her clothes and she would be out of there within minutes.

  And she would never come back.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TAK EYED HIS MOTHER, feeling an odd, unexpected kind of fury building inside him. He ignored her question and the fact that he didn’t—couldn’t—answer her. He was only glad that Effie had left long enough ago that she wouldn’t have heard that. It would have hurt her more than he could have borne.

  ‘You will not repeat that to Effie. Ever,’ he said with deliberate calm. ‘Do you hear me? I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but the time for me to pretend that you are any kind of mother is long gone. I made excuses for you because of Saaj, but you were never a mother in the truest sense of the word. Not to me, and not to the others. The only reason you mourned Saaj was because you had some twisted idea in your head that he was the key to winning my father back.’

  Instead of paling and slumping in her seat, as he might have feared, his mother narrowed her eyes, drawing her face into an ugly, cruel expression. ‘Is this her influence? Damaged, toxic, and now she causes you to speak to your mama that way?’

  In one terrible instant the scales fell from Tak’s eyes. He would never be able to reason with this person and he would never be able to save her. She’d thrown her lot in with his father a long time ago and the man was like a wild, savage sea, with no respect for life or safety. Uma would drown because his father fed off her struggles. He sucked her under time and again, and she refused to right herself or grab hold of anything that could rescue her.

  There was nothing Tak could do. Nothing anybody could do. She was anchored to him and she loved it.

  But he wasn’t going to let some sense of filial duty or honour tie him up any longer. He couldn’t throw his mother out—that would be a step too far. But Effie had told him that he wasn’t like his father and he was choosing to believe her. He was choosing her.

  Turning his back on his ranting mother, he called Havers. ‘Tell Effie we’re leaving. We’ll return as soon as my mother has left this house. And as soon as she is gone change the locks.’

  ‘Effie has gone, Mr Basu.’

  In all the time Tak had known the old man, he’d never seen him upset.

  Time seemed to slow. ‘What is it, Havers?’

  ‘She looked rather distressed, sir.’

  The room closed around Tak. Everything felt too tight, too constricting. Even his skin seemed to compress on his bones.

  She had overheard. There could be no other explanation.

  He turned to face his mother. The gleam of delight in her eyes was unmistakable.

  ‘And so the mighty fall,’ she proclaimed. ‘All this disgust and disdain you show for your father, and all along I’ve warned you that you’re just like him. That you will hurt any woman who doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into with you. All those names you’ve called him and all that hatred you have for him. How does it feel, Talank, to know that you are him?’

  Tak didn’t answer. He couldn’t. It was as if a storm was closing in on him. It had come out of nowhere, so fast that he hadn’t even known it existed before. But he was getting caught up in it now, and he didn’t know which direction to even begin to turn.

  How had he let himself believe he could be a better person? A man worthy of a woman like Effie? He should have gone with his gut—pushed her away the minute he knew something was happening between them.

  But he’d known even from that first moment in Resus that there was something unique, something incredible about Effie. It had lured him in and it had seduced him. And he, in turn, had seduced her. Into his life and then into his bed. He’d taken advantage of her, and what was more he’d justified it by telling himself the attraction was mutual.

  ‘You could go after her, Mr Basu,’ Havers said suddenly. ‘She would probably appreciate that.’

  For a perfect instant Tak nearly obeyed. Then reality set in. He couldn’t go to her now. That would only be rubbing salt into an already very raw wound. Calculating and insensitive. The best thing he could do now would be to stay away from Effie. To let her get back to her life and some semblance of normality.

  Swinging around, Tak dismissed Havers and faced his mother. It took everything he had not to react to that cruel triumph radiating from her eyes.

  ‘You may have won this round,’ he told her, as evenly and as calmly as he could manage. ‘But you won’t win any more. Get out of my home and out of my life. I’m not my father and I never will be, and you’ll need to find a new punch-bag. And if you go anywhere near Hetti or Sasha or Rafi I will make sure you regret it for the rest of your life.’

  He didn’t even wait for her to answer. He simply walked away. Out of the room. Out of the house. Into his car.

  He didn’t care if he drove all night or all week. As long as he stayed away from Effie—didn’t hurt her any more than he already had—that was all that mattered.

  ‘This is Maggie, thirty-four...’ Effie briefed the team, relief pounding along her veins as she noted that Tak wasn’t the neurological surgeon assigned to the case. ‘At around six forty-five she was on a ladder, painting the first-floor window frames on her house, when she fell approximately four metres to the ground and landed on her back on a concrete path.’

  In truth, she had no idea whether or not Tak was even in the hospital today. And she’d spent her entire shift—the entire past thirty-six hours, in fact—telling herself that she would never think about him again.

  But it was like outlining a specific image and then telling someone not to instantly picture it in their head. Impossible.

  ‘When we arrived GCS was thirteen, transmitted upper airway sounds equal air entry bilaterally, blood pressure was low and she was complaining of lower lumbar
pain and looked very pale. Suspected internal bleeding. From top to bottom, she has a deep three-inch laceration to the head, lower back and pelvic pain, suspected spinal fractures. We administered one-fifty milligrams of ketamine for the pain.’

  It might almost have been possible to lose herself in her cases, with shout after shout ever since she’d arrived at the air ambulance base at six o’clock that morning—if it hadn’t been for the leaden ball filling her chest every single second.

  She was grateful when the rest of the hand-over passed off without a hitch and she could get out of there. As soon as she got back to the base she would be done for the day. Maybe another night’s sleep would finally begin to shake Tak from out of her head.

  She snorted to herself. Well, she could live in hope.

  ‘Effie.’

  He caught her as she was exiting the building.

  She wouldn’t have stopped, but her legs refused to work and she didn’t want to risk humiliating herself any further by forcing them to move only to collapse right there on the ground. Worse, have him pick her up in his arms.

  She heard him jog up behind her and then move around to face her.

  ‘I have to get back to base,’ she managed. ‘They’re waiting for me on the heli.’ But there was no concealing the quiver in her voice and she knew he heard it, too.

  ‘No, they aren’t. They’ve left. Your pilot was close to his maximum flying hours and he had to get back to base. You were still in the middle of the hand-over in Resus, and technically your shift finished an hour ago, anyway.’

  ‘Oh.’ She swallowed. ‘Well, then, I need to get back to my paramedics so we can head back together.’

  ‘They’ve left too. I said I’d give you a lift back to your base and your car.’

  Of course he had. A sliver of irrational anger cut through her. Taking charge as if he had every right to do so.

  And then he opened his mouth and with two simple words took the heat out of everything.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She let the apology linger between them for a moment.

  ‘What for?’ she asked eventually, her voice soft. ‘The fact that I’m damaged goods or the fact that you didn’t tell me that was why you were using me?’

  ‘She’s gone, Effie,’ he said quietly.

  If she hadn’t known better she’d have thought he was ashamed. But that was impossible, because Tak was never ashamed.

  ‘She’s out of our lives.’

  The anger rushed back, flooding her. ‘There is no our lives,’ Effie exploded before she could check herself. ‘You used me.’

  ‘We used each other at the beginning,’ he reminded her. ‘That was the deal.’

  It hurt. Too much.

  ‘No, the deal was that we would be each other’s buffer. The deal was never that because I was so damaged and toxic you would become tainted by association. I suffered enough of that growing up, because of my mother and where I was from. I will not accept it as a proud, hard-working single mother of a beautiful daughter.’

  She wasn’t prepared for him to reach out and snag her chin, forcing her to tip her head up, making her meet his eye.

  ‘Nor should you accept it. Ever. But those were her words—they were never mine.’

  ‘They might as well have been,’ Effie argued, wrenching her head away, feeling the hurt blistering inside her like a chemical burn she couldn’t get to. ‘You gave her the weapon and you gave her the ammunition. You even marked me out as the target and you never even warned me. All she had to do was point and shoot.’

  ‘I didn’t even know you had a daughter when I asked you to that gala. Neither did Hetti. How could I have possibly chosen you on the basis she accused me of doing?’

  He sounded rational, yet urgent all at once, and Effie realised there was some comfort to be taken from that. She felt her shoulders slump slightly, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

  ‘You might not have intended it. At least not initially,’ she conceded. ‘But once you knew about Nell—once I told you that night at the gala—you must have known people would find out. You must have known this would be your family’s reaction.’

  He didn’t deny it, although he looked as though he would give anything to, and there was some small comfort to be taken from that, too.

  But then a horrid thought stole into her mind. ‘Is that why you kissed me? After you’d assured me that everything would be platonic between us?’

  ‘No!’ he refuted instantly, a little too loudly for comfort. ‘No. That isn’t what happened. I kissed you because I wanted to. More than that, I couldn’t stop myself. But I didn’t intend to. I didn’t plan it.’

  ‘And that’s where the problem lies, isn’t it?’ Effie smiled, but it was a weak, bitter smile. ‘Because I don’t believe you. I can’t believe you. You could have told me at any time that Nell’s existence had changed me from being your “buffer” to being your dirty little mistress, but you never did.’

  He blanched at her words. Of course he did. Because she’d chosen them deliberately to really hit her point home. To hurt him. Anywhere near the amount he’d hurt her.

  ‘You’re the one who said I wasn’t like him,’ Tak said darkly. Thickly.

  She wanted to stop but she found she couldn’t. She had to ram the knife in a little bit deeper. ‘That was when I thought I knew you. Now I know better.’

  For the longest time he stood and stared at her. And she wished she had even an inkling of what he was thinking.

  ‘You were right,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I am nothing like him. I never was. It was just something my mother said to keep a desperate ten-year-old in line. But you’re also right that I should have been more honest with you. I just never thought I would meet a woman who got under my skin as you do. And by the time I realised that you had it was too late to explain it all.’

  ‘It would never have been too late,’ Effie choked out. ‘If it had come from you. Not some stranger. Not someone who wanted to cut me down. I’ve had enough of that throughout my life. If you had really cared for me you would have protected me from it happening again.’

  ‘I tried to warn you that I’m not a good man.’

  She felt buffeted and fragile. Pushed and pulled between hating him and...and something else which she didn’t care to acknowledge.

  ‘That’s bull. You are a good man, Tak.’

  It felt as though the words were being torn from her mouth. She felt compelled to tell him the truth, yet simultaneously she didn’t want to leave herself any more vulnerable and exposed than she already was.

  ‘I should never have said what I did. It was a low blow, and whatever has happened you don’t deserve that. You’re an incredible doctor, you care about your patients, and you go above and beyond. Every time. You’re an amazing brother—Hetti says so all the time. You practically raised your siblings without your mother. Sometimes for your mother. And you took care of her, too.’

  He shook his head, and it was the terrible, tormented expression stalking the darkness of his eyes which really twisted inside her chest. Making her struggle for air.

  ‘Tak...?’

  ‘I wanted her dead,’ he whispered at last. So quietly that for a moment she almost missed it.

  When she heard him, she didn’t answer. Her mind scrabbled around for something to say, the right thing to say, that might possibly ease some of that agony on his face.

  But nothing came, and the more his eyes raked over her face, wretched, bloodless, the more her brain shut down, leaving her terrified that she might say the wrong thing and somehow make it worse.

  In the end Effie did the only thing she could. She reached out and took his big hand in her two smaller ones, hating the way his body jerked as she did so. As if he didn’t trust her, when all she wanted was to be there for him.

  And then, finally, he
started to speak again. ‘That’s why I let her push me all those years. Why I couldn’t just tell her outright to stay out of my business and my life, to shove her idea of an arranged marriage. I hated her, and I wanted her dead, and I’ve felt guilty for it all this time.’

  A gurgling, maniacal laugh bubbled in her throat and it was all she could do to stuff it back down. This was all so horribly familiar.

  ‘You think you’re the only one who has wanted a parent dead?’ she asked at length. ‘Do you have any idea how many times I wished my mother would die? That she would drink herself into oblivion? Drown her failing liver until it finally gave out?’

  ‘Well, I imagined mine might overdose on those pills of hers. Then maybe my father would come home, but I wasn’t betting on it. At the very least I figured my siblings would be taken in by other members of the family. Even foster care would have been better.’

  ‘I understand where you were coming from, but it wouldn’t have been,’ Effie blurted out before she could stop herself. ‘You have no idea how bad it is. Plus, you’d have been split up. Your siblings ripped away from you.’

  ‘I didn’t realise that back then.’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘It’s only since you came along and opened up to me that I’ve realised how good we really had it. How lucky we were not to have had your childhood.’

  Effie shook her head. ‘I’m not saying that. I would never say that. It’s subjective. In some ways I only had myself to look out for. You had siblings to take care of. But then you were never alone and I was. It’s different.’

  ‘All I knew was that the more of a victim she was, the more stupid stunts she pulled to try to win him back. And the more of the monster it brought out in me.’

  ‘You were a kid, Tak.’

  ‘She was my mother.’

  ‘She wasn’t doing the job of a mother and you resented her for it. Of all people, I can understand that, Tak. Believe me. You were taking responsibility for your siblings when that wasn’t supposed to be your job, and she left it to you.’