Sheikh Surgeon, Surprise Bride

by Josie Metcalfe

  She’d hoped that, having got this far, she would at least have proved to the ‘old school’ orthopaedic surgeons that she was capable of doing the job, but it seemed as if their prejudices were still alive and festering unchecked in her new job. Did her immediate boss feel the same way?

  Of the all-male group that had turned to face her, it was easy to spot the one looking uncomfortable at being overheard and he was the one she strode towards first with her hand outstretched. She took a grim delight in demonstrating that he was nearly a head shorter than she was and he was also definitely past his prime, with a large gut filling out his theatre greens like an advanced pregnancy.

  ‘I’m Lily Langley,’ she announced, probably completely unnecessarily as they’d just been discussing her appointment. Well, she mused as she deliberately made a point of offering her hand to each in turn, forcing them to introduce themselves, there was one good point about that embarrassing start—at least she hadn’t been left in any doubt about their attitude towards her.

  One, Colin Wetherall, even went so far as to try to crush her knuckles under the guise of shaking her hand but he was the one left wincing, the hours she’d spent in the gym finally paying off in spades.

  Not that she’d hurt him, she reassured herself silently as she worked her way around the semi-circle. She’d only flexed her hard-won muscles enough to let him know that his attempt at a power play hadn’t worked. Then she turned to face the final member of the group.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, as she actually had to look up a couple of inches to meet eyes so dark that with the light behind him it was almost impossible to see where pupil and iris met. But it was the twinkle of humour in them that robbed her of words.

  ‘Razak Khaled Khan,’ he said, the harsh syllables of his name softened by a voice that flowed like honey over her nerves, then he held out his hand, lowering his voice as he added, ‘Be gentle with me, please!’

  Lily laughed aloud. She couldn’t help it when he’d managed to tickle her sense of the ridiculous. She wouldn’t even attempt to intimidate someone like this, especially when he was her boss.

  He had such innate presence that she didn’t know how she’d managed to miss seeing him immediately when she’d walked into the room, but now that she’d met his eyes, it seemed impossible to look away.

  ‘Not all of us feel the same way as Reg and Colin,’ he reassured her. ‘Some of us have actually learned that it’s not just what we do but how we do it that matters.’

  ‘Thus proving evolutionary theory correct?’ she queried, suddenly realising that her hand was still securely wrapped in his and tugging surreptitiously. To her surprise, he resisted, tightening his grip fractionally to prevent her retrieving it.

  He tightened his grip still further and nodded when she automatically matched the pressure with her own. ‘Good. You have worked hard to improve your strength, but have you sacrificed dexterity?’ he challenged.

  ‘I can thread a needle with the best of them,’she reassured him. ‘But you’ll see for yourself when we start work.’

  ‘Not if he has his way,’ interrupted Reg with an unexpected touch of venom to his tone. ‘He’s been trying to get the hospital to agree to some ridiculous conveyor-belt system that will mean we wouldn’t even have time to breathe, let alone speak, and as for mentoring…Forget it! Thank goodness the hospital’s administrators have got more sense than wasting scarce resources on it.’

  Lily saw the way Razak’s face fell with disappointment and she felt an unexpected pang of sympathy. Whatever this scheme was, it was clearly close to his heart.

  ‘They have sent the department a written decision?’ he demanded, turning on his heel to stride towards the pigeonholes on the wall behind the door, then flicking impatiently through the handful of items waiting in the slot labelled ‘Khan’.

  ‘Well, no,’ Reg admitted reluctantly. ‘But it stands to reason that they will, man. It’s taken years to get the funding released for that new theatre suite to be built. Do you really think they’re going to hand the whole thing over to a surgeon who’s only going to be here for a few months, just so he can waste time, effort and precious resources trying to prove an…an alcohol-fuelled brainwave?’

  ‘I don’t drink alcohol,’ her new boss said with admirable restraint. ‘And I would have thought you would jump at the chance to have someone else working in the new theatres. Then he could suffer while all the teething problems are sorted out.

  ‘Anyway.’ He turned to face Lily and his sombre expression was immediately lightened by a smile. ‘It is time to give you the guided tour, Dr Langley. You will need to know your way around the rest of the hospital in case we get a call from A and E, and also to know where everything is within the department in case they send something urgent up to Theatre.’

  ‘Actually, I had a tour when I came for my interview,’ she reminded him, conscious that his time must be too precious to act as a glorified tour guide. ‘The one bit they couldn’t show me was the new operating suite because it was still a building site. Is it really nearly finished?’

  ‘Do you want to see?’ he offered, with all the enthusiasm of a puppy dropping a ball at her feet in the hope that she would want to play.

  ‘Of course.’ She grinned, then was glad of her long legs when she had to quicken her pace to keep up with him when he strode out of the room and set off down the corridor.

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ he apologised a moment later, coming to a sudden halt so that she almost ploughed into his back.

  ‘For what?’ She tried to appear unaffected in spite of the fact that her pulse had just accelerated from sixty to a hundred and twenty beats with his unexpected proximity.

  She was close enough to feel the heat emanating from his lean body through the cream-coloured shirt he wore, close enough, even, to be able to see the beginning of a tangle of dark hairs at the unbuttoned throat of that shirt.

  Suddenly she was uncomfortably aware that she knew something as intimate as the fact that her new boss had hair on his chest, and Lily felt the beginning of a blush warming her cheeks.

  He was staring in amazement when he found that she was right behind him, those dark eyes dropping the length of her long trouser-clad legs with a dawning smile. ‘I was going to apologise for expecting you to be able to walk as fast as I do and rudely leaving you behind. This is the first time…the first time in my life…that a woman has been able to match my pace without running or getting out of breath.’

  ‘So you’re accustomed to having short-legged women running after you?’ she quipped, then sucked in a sharp breath when she realised that she was actually flirting with the man. She’d never realised before that she even knew how to flirt.

  The gleam in his eyes grew more pronounced and his teeth were startlingly white against his olive skin. ‘Some of us have that cross to bear,’ he admitted with mock modesty. ‘And doubtless your long legs have been very useful to you as you leave your many suitors in your dust.’

  Many suitors! Hah!

  Lily knew what she looked like. She saw herself in the mirror every morning as she brushed her teeth and pulled her hair back into a no-nonsense twist. Even on a good day, she wouldn’t stop traffic, unlike her sisters who had inherited their mother’s better-endowed shape. So, was he mocking her for her lack of feminine attributes, his own subtle way of putting her down?

  ‘I am sorry. Did I say something wrong?’ He had obviously noticed her rapid change of expression as his broad forehead was pleated into a frown. ‘If I have upset you…’

  ‘No, no. Everything’s fine,’ she said hastily, averting her face from his intense scrutiny to look along the corridor. ‘So, does this lead directly to the new operating suite?’

  For just a moment she held her breath, certain that he was going to pursue the point, then released it in a silent sigh of relief when he began walking again.

  ‘Nothing in this hospital leads directly to anything else,’ he said wryly. ‘I hope you have a good sense of
direction.’

  ‘If I get lost, you’ll have to send out search parties,’ she suggested, trying to recapture the light-hearted tone of their earlier conversation, but when Razak shouldered his way through the next set of swing doors she came to a sudden halt.

  ‘Wow!’ she breathed, feeling her eyes grow wider and wider as she looked around at the reception area for the new suite. ‘This is bigger than my whole flat…well, it’s more of a bedsit, really, but…’ She shut her mouth, suddenly aware that she was babbling. That would have been bad enough if it was only in front of her new boss, but to have half a dozen workmen listening in, too…

  ‘So, you like it?’ he asked, as he beckoned her forward to point out the eventual purpose of each of the rooms, from the lowliest store cupboard to the two spacious theatres. ‘They finished putting in the last of the flooring on Friday so they were given the weekend without any traffic on them to allow the adhesives to set properly. Today, as you can see, everywhere is being decorated.’

  ‘But there are no doors to any of the rooms,’ she said, suddenly realising why everywhere looked so strangely open.

  ‘There will be doors,’ he reassured her with a laugh. ‘Apparently, they won’t go in until all the equipment has been installed because otherwise they get in the way and can get damaged.’

  ‘That’s logical,’ she agreed, ‘especially as so many of them will be on automatic closing mechanisms. And you’re hoping that we’ll be moving in here when it’s completed?’

  ‘I’m lobbying hard,’ he admitted as he led the way back out into the original part of the hospital. ‘I don’t know who you spoke to when you came for your interview, but did they tell you what I’ve been trying to organise in this new suite?’

  ‘No one said a thing, other than that I would be working with a surgeon who wasn’t staying very long and would that affect my acceptance of the post if I were offered it.’

  ‘And you had no objection?’

  ‘Not if it gave me the chance at a post here,’ she said bluntly. ‘The high standards of orthopaedic surgery in this hospital made it an obvious choice for the next step up the career ladder.’

  ‘So, you are a career woman, then,’ he said with a thoughtful frown as he paused in front of the door with his name across it. ‘Have you no wish for a husband and children?’

  ‘Certainly not for the foreseeable future,’ she said firmly, wondering if his background led him to believe, like her family, that women belonged in the home, rearing children and catering to their husbands. ‘I have worked far too hard to get this far to give it all up for nappies and midnight feeds. There is another rung I want to climb on the ladder first.’

  ‘Well, let us see if we can make the next few months the perfect preparation for that goal,’ he suggested as he led the way into his office. ‘There is much to be done with so many patients waiting months in agony for their turn on the table, and this afternoon we have a clinic to determine the suitability of the next group to take their place. Come, I will show you their files.’

  A tiny secret place inside Lily was actually disappointed that Razak had switched to a totally professional tone, completely devoid of any of the previous light-heartedness. The rest of her applauded it, knowing that the more experience she could gain by his side, the better it would be for her career.

  After all, she rationalised, her career was more important to her than being friendly with the man who would help to hone her skills.

  CHAPTER TWO

  BY THE time she staggered back to her bedsit that evening Lily was totally exhausted and wondering if she was ever going to be able to keep up with Razak’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy.

  Things had started off calmly enough as the two of them had first examined an apparently endless series of patients referred by their GPs, many of them needing orthopaedic surgery sooner rather than later for their painful joints. Later that afternoon they had moved on to the review of the two patients who had been admitted that day for surgery the following morning, but before they had been able to take any sort of a break for her to ask any of the questions already buzzing around in her head, Razak had been contacted for an urgent consultation on a patient in the emergency department and she had found herself running in his wake when he had suggested she come, too.

  ‘Sir, listen to this,’ exulted a very young doctor as he reached out towards the blood-spattered body on the trolley in front of him. ‘You can actually hear the bones grating when you spring the man’s hips.’

  ‘Don’t!’ snapped Razak, before he could make contact, the word like the crack of a lash. ‘How many times have you already done that?’

  ‘A couple,’ he admitted, then smiled almost innocently. ‘It’s the first time I’ve actually heard a break when I’ve done it and I—’

  ‘And you could be responsible for killing the man,’ Razak interrupted fiercely. ‘What’s his blood pressure doing? If the sharp edges of the broken bones damages one of the pelvic arteries he could bleed out in a matter of minutes. Your job here is to stabilise his condition so we can get him up to Theatre, yes?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he agreed, clearly crestfallen. ‘Do you want to use an external fixator before he’s transferred?’

  ‘Have X-rays been taken yet to show the position of the fracture?’ Razak demanded briskly. ‘If there’s more than one break we may have to. Otherwise, if you can guarantee not to make him any worse while he’s transported to Theatre, we’ll do it upstairs while we do an open reduction and internal fixation.’

  Even as he was speaking, the radiographer was positioning the equipment above the moaning patient and there were so many members of staff noisily occupied in taking care of him that Lily wondered for a moment whether they would even hear the radiographer’s warning countdown to the first exposure.

  At the last second the last nurse whipped her hands off the body and stepped back smartly, only to step forward just as swiftly as soon as that view had been taken.

  The whole process had to be repeated several times to build up an accurate picture of what was going on inside, and all the while the members of the resus team were going about their tasks. Machines were monitoring the patient’s blood pressure and airway but one of the nurses was specifically detailed to document each dose of painkilling drug and every procedure as it was done while another was keeping up a soothing running commentary in the hope that it would make everything just a little less frightening.

  At least the hospital had the latest digital X-ray technology, so there was no long wait while old-fashioned plates were hurried away to be developed. With this state-of-the-art equipment, as soon as the shot was taken it was available for viewing on the monitor with the touch of a button.

  Razak muttered something vehement under his breath when he saw the first view, and even without knowing his language Lily could tell that he’d sworn. She certainly felt like it when she saw the damage the man had sustained.

  ‘Definitely an external fixator,’ she murmured as she stepped aside to reach for the wall phone. ‘Who should I ask for to bring the kit down?’

  ‘Can you see if Colin Wetherall’s free at the moment?’ Razak asked. ‘Tell him what we’ve got here and that I’d like him to do a demonstration for you.’

  ‘A demonstration?’she murmured under her breath, while someone up in the orthopaedic department checked to see if Colin was still in Theatre. He’d had two operations scheduled that afternoon, a knee and a shoulder. If everything had gone well, he should be nearly finished. But why should she need Colin to demonstrate the fixator kit? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t used it before, although, admittedly, not very often.

  Was calling him down Razak’s way of saying that he wasn’t impressed with her level of skill? She didn’t think she’d made any mistakes today, their only disagreements having been over matters of personal preference for various prosthetics.

  ‘I hope he is free,’ Razak said suddenly, his voice right behind her telling her that he’d
come far closer than she’d realised. ‘He spent some time in Russia at the institute where this particular fixator system was developed and he’s nothing short of brilliant with it. The best in the department, I think.’

  Lily hadn’t known the man long, but she had a feeling that Razak didn’t give praise easily, so it was with an unexpected feeling of anticipation that she waited to see what would happen. For the moment, her role was more of a passive observer, but that could change at any moment.

  To the uninitiated, the external fixator kit that arrived just before Colin might have been confused with a rather sophisticated construction toy with its various shiny rods and connectors, but in the hands of someone who had obviously been taught by masters how to use it best, it was a revelation.

  Using the X-rays as a guide, Colin swiftly tightened the special screws into position in the bones then fitted the rods between them, tightening them only when the pelvis had been restored to the correct shape.

  ‘How’s his blood pressure?’ Colin demanded, without even lifting his head from the last titanium rod, his movements swift and accurate, while Razak automatically braced the unstable pelvis for him.

  ‘No sign of hypovolaemia so far, but blood is being cross-matched and sent up to Theatre.’

  They sounded so calm, but those few words were a measure of the potentially deadly nature of this particular injury. There were so many veins and arteries in this area and this sort of bony injury was often accompanied by massive soft-tissue injury and a more than fifty per cent chance of dying of massive blood loss.

  So far, their patient had been lucky. His blood pressure was holding fairly steady, indicating that there was no great dip in his blood volume. He also seemed to have avoided any apparent injuries to his kidneys, bladder or urethra as there was no sign of blood in his urine or on the ultrasound scan that had largely replaced the need for peritoneal lavage.