The Surgeon's Fatherhood Surprise

by Jennifer Taylor

  What would she be like, this woman who pressed all the right buttons? He had always fancied sultry, elegant brunettes in the past, but for some reason he found it difficult to summon up a picture of his ideal woman. Perhaps he should start with her character rather than her looks, he decided. He wanted someone who was intelligent and kind, someone who would share his interests but have interests of her own as well. He definitely didn’t want a woman who hung onto his every word—that would be too boring!

  He grabbed a towel off the rack, wrapped it around his waist and stepped out of the cubicle. So he wanted a woman with a mind of her own, who was independent enough to have her own opinions and yet not be at odds with him over really important issues. She would have to be understanding, too, because his job was so demanding that it took up a lot of his time and he would hate it if it caused friction between them. She would also have to like children, and he would need to be sure that she would accept Freddie as her own.

  That just about summed up her personality so maybe he would have better luck with the matter of her appearance?

  Jack tossed the wet towel into the hamper and started to get dressed. Underwear, jeans, T-shirt… He paused. A picture was forming in his mind’s eye and he frowned as he tried to bring it into focus—soft fair hair, hazel eyes, a curvy figure… He gasped when he realised it was Alison Myers he was picturing. Why on earth had he conjured her up as his ideal woman? Because she was pretty and kind, and ticked all the other boxes on his list?

  He dragged a T-shirt over his head and grabbed his jacket. He must be in a worse state than he’d realised if he was dredging up such rubbish. There was no chance of him and Alison becoming an item. No chance at all.

  Monday morning rolled around and Alison found herself rushing to get ready. Mornings were always hectic, what with Sam needing to be taken to nursery and her having to get to work on time. As soon as Sam had finished his breakfast, she popped on his coat and walked him to the nursery. There were a lot of parents there, most of them in cars, too, and she kept tight hold of Sam’s hand as they crossed the road. She had just reached the pavement when a car pulled up beside her and Jack got out.

  ‘Hi. It’s chaos, isn’t it? Is it always like this?’ he asked, opening the rear door.

  ‘Mornings are usually very busy,’ Alison agreed as she paused. She cleared her throat when she heard how husky her voice sounded, but the sight of Jack bundled up in a navy ski jacket with his dark hair all mussed seemed to have stolen her breath. ‘What time did you get back from the hospital on Saturday?’ she said, striving for normality.

  ‘Just after seven.’ He lifted Freddie out of the car and smiled at her. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Oh, I was back home by four.’ She started walking towards the nursery gates, unsure whether she should wait for Jack, but he solved the problem by catching up with her.

  ‘At least it wasn’t too late.’ He glanced at the other parents and grimaced. ‘What’s the routine? Do you take the kids straight into their class rooms?’

  ‘Yes. They have to be signed in first, though, so that the staff know they’re here.’ Alison led the way through the main door then glanced back. ‘Has Freddie been to nursery before?’

  ‘Yes. He was enrolled at a nursery school in London, so I’m hoping that will help him settle down here. If he gets back into some sort of familiar routine, it might make him feel more secure.’

  ‘Don’t be surprised if he’s upset when it’s time for you to leave him,’ Alison warned him. ‘Sam used to be really clingy—although he soon got over it,’ she added when she saw the worry on Jack’s face.

  ‘Freddie isn’t so much clingy as terrified.’ Jack sighed as he ran his hand over his son’s dark curls. ‘I don’t think he cares one way or the other if I’m around, to be honest, but he’s scared of being left in strange places.’

  ‘Have you spoken to the staff about his problems?’ Alison asked quietly so none of the other parents could overhear.

  ‘Yes. I’ve had several long conversations with Mrs Galloway, who owns the nursery. She promised to alert the staff to the problem and I’m hoping she’s done so.’

  ‘Christine won’t have for got ten,’ Alison assured him. ‘She’s completely devoted to the children. That’s why this school has such a wonderful reputation—and why there’s a waiting list for places, too.’

  ‘Really?’ Jack frowned. ‘I hadn’t realised that. I mean, I had no problems about getting Freddie a place here.’

  ‘I think your father had a word with Christine,’ Alison explained, then wondered if she should have mentioned it when Jack frowned.

  There was no time to say anything else. They had reached the head of the queue and she busied herself signing Sam in. She took him to the cloakroom and helped him hang his coat on his hook—the one with the bright green frog on it—then took him into the playroom.

  ‘I’ll see you at lunchtime, sweet heart,’ she said, giving him a hug.

  ‘Bye, Mummy,’ he replied dutifully, before he raced away to join his friends. Alison smiled as she headed to the door. There was no sign of clinginess now, thank heavens!

  Jack was talking to Trish Atkins, who was in charge of the three-year-olds, and Alison didn’t interrupt them. She simply waved as she passed and hurried out of the door. Glancing at her watch, she realised that she would have to get a move on if she wasn’t going to be late for her first appointment.

  She made it to the surgery with five minutes to spare. Sue was on duty at the reception desk that morning, and she grinned when Alison rushed in.

  ‘You look as though you’ve run the three-minute mile.’

  ‘It feels like it, too,’ Alison gasped. She glanced around the waiting room and discovered that her first patient had beaten her to it. ‘Just give me a minute to take off my coat, then you can send Mrs Baxter up. Oh, and tell her to use the lift, would you? I don’t want her climbing the stairs.’

  Alison hurried up the stairs, turning right when she reached the top. The nurse’s room was at the end of the corridor, next to the lift, and she left the door open so she could hear her patient arrive. She hung her coat on a peg, then booted up her computer and brought up Audrey Baxter’s notes.

  Mrs Baxter had been diagnosed recently with angina, a condition whereby in sufficient oxygen was carried via the blood to the heart. Although there were a number of causes for the condition, the most usual one was atherosclerosis—a build-up of fatty deposits within the arteries which caused them to narrow. Dr Donnelly had requested a cholesterol test, which was why Audrey had an appointment with her that morning.

  Alison got up and popped her head round the door when she heard the lift arrive. ‘This way, Mrs Baxter. Come straight through.’

  ‘Right you are, my lovely,’ Audrey Baxter replied cheerfully. In her early sixties, Audrey had worked at the post office until she had retired the previous year. She now helped out at the church, and was always cheerful and always abreast of all the local gossip. She smiled as she plonked herself down onto a chair.

  ‘I was glad to take the lift, I can tell you. I’ve been feeling a bit breathless this morning.’

  ‘Are you having pains in your chest?’ Alison asked in concern.

  ‘Not really pains, as such. It just feels a bit tight, as though something’s pressing on it.’

  ‘I’ll give Dr Donnelly a call and ask him to take a look at you,’ Alison said immediately. She dialled Adam’s extension but there was no reply, so she phoned the reception desk. ‘Has Adam arrived yet?’

  ‘No. He just phoned to say that he’ll be late because he had an early callout,’ Sue explained. ‘Nick’s here, if you need him.’

  ‘Thanks, Sue. I’ll give him a call.’

  Alison phoned Nick’s extension and explained that she would like him to see a patient. He arrived a few minutes later and she quickly explained the situation before he examined Audrey.

  ‘Have you been taking the low-dose aspirin that Dr Donnelly prescribed for
you?’ Nick asked after he’d finished listening to Audrey’s heart.

  ‘Well, no, not really.’ Audrey looked sheepish. ‘It seemed a bit daft to take tablets when I was feeling fine, so I’ve only been taking them whenever I have a pain in my chest.’

  ‘I see. How about the glycerol trinitrate spray? I assume that Dr Donnelly advised you to use it if you had any pains or constriction in your chest?’

  ‘Um…well, yes, he did,’ Audrey admitted.

  Nick shook his head. ‘You need to follow Dr Donnelly’s advice. If you don’t, the situation will only deteriorate. Aspirin thins the blood and helps avoid the danger of clots forming, but it won’t work if the tablets are left in the packet. And you must carry your spray with you wherever you go, in case you need it.’

  ‘I shall, Dr Tremayne,’ Audrey promised, looking suitably repentant.

  ‘Make sure you do,’ Nick said firmly. ‘You’re not helping yourself by not taking the medication. You could, in fact, be putting yourself at greater risk of having a heart attack.’ He waited to see if that had sunk in then nodded to Alison. ‘I’ll leave you to get on with the blood test. Call me if you need me again.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Alison picked up the dish containing the syringe and plastic vials and took it over to her desk. She smiled at Audrey. ‘I hope you’ve taken heed of all that.’

  ‘Oh, I have.’ Audrey raised an eyebrow. ‘He can be a bit stern, can Dr Tremayne, when he chooses, can’t he?’

  ‘Only because he has your best interests at heart,’ she assured her. She took the samples and sealed them into a plastic envelope bearing both the patient’s and the surgery’s details. ‘We should have the results back by the end of the week, so make an appointment to see Dr Donnelly on your way out.’

  Alison cleared everything away, then buzzed for her next patient. However, as she waited for him to arrive she found herself comparing Nick’s approach to that of his son. Jack had exhibited none of the brusqueness that Nick occasionally showed towards a patient. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to put Becca at her ease on Saturday. It had been a surprise at the time, and Alison had found herself thinking about it more than once over the weekend. After reading all those articles in the magazines, she’d expected Jack to be full of his own importance, but he wasn’t like that at all.

  It was exactly the same when it came to his son, too. It was obvious how much he cared about little Freddie, and that wasn’t what she had expected either. So which was the real Jack Tremayne? The handsome playboy surgeon who devoted his free time to partying, or the dedicated doctor and father?

  She wished she knew, because it might help her decide how she felt about him. If she could slip Jack into one category or the other, it would make her life so much simpler.

  Nick decided to walk down to the harbour after he finished surgery. It had been a busy morning and they’d been hard pushed to keep on top of all the work. It was a good job that Adam Donnelly had decided to take a permanent position with the practice, he thought, otherwise they would never have coped now that Marco had left. Although he was glad that Lucy didn’t intend to rush back to full-time work, they definitely missed her.

  He walked along Harbour Road until he came to the lifeboat station and stopped. It was a cold, crisp day, the sun spark ling off the water. Shading his eyes, he peered out to sea, feeling the ache of loneliness nagging at him harder than ever that day. He missed Annabel, and still felt guilty about the way she had died. He should have paid more attention to what had been happening at home, instead of focusing all his energy on his job. If he’d done that then maybe his children would want to spend more time with him now, too, and he wouldn’t feel so alone.

  He was glad that he had made his peace with Lucy, but the situation between him and Jack was no better. He needed to find a way to get through to him, but after what had happened on Saturday he was even more wary of putting his foot in it. Maybe he and Jack were destined to remain at loggerheads. The thought was dispiriting.

  ‘Penny for them?’

  Nick swung round when he heard a familiar voice, summoning a smile when he saw Kate Althorp. He had missed Kate since she’d left the practice, missed their chats and missed seeing her around the place. However, he knew in his heart that it was better that she’d left. There was no chance of them ever being more than friends, and he didn’t like to think that he was holding her back. He wanted Kate to be happy because she certainly deserved to be.

  ‘Hello, Kate. How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. How about you?’ She gave him a gentle smile. ‘You looked deep in thought when I spotted you just now.’

  ‘I was.’ Nick sighed. ‘I was thinking about Jack.’

  Kate’s pretty face clouded. ‘Don’t tell me that you two still haven’t sorted out your differences.’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘You need to make your peace with him, Nick. I know that you two have had problems in the past, but surely it’s time you put all that behind you. Jack needs your help now more than ever.’

  ‘He brought Freddie into the surgery on Saturday,’ Nick said wistfully.

  ‘To see you?’ Kate said hopefully.

  ‘No. The poor little mite had been running a temperature and was feeling very out of sorts. Jack brought him in to be checked over. He had no idea I’d be there. In fact, I got the distinct impression that he wished one of the others had been on duty.’

  ‘But at least he asked you to see Freddie,’ Kate pointed out. ‘That has to be a step in the right direction.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Kate laid her hand on his arm. ‘I hate to see you tearing yourself apart like this, Nick. It isn’t right.’

  ‘It isn’t what I want, believe me.’ He put his hand over Kate’s. ‘I want to be friends with my children, not feel that I’m their worst enemy.’

  ‘Then do something about it!’ Kate removed her hand and stepped back. ‘All right, so it won’t be easy, and it won’t happen over night either, but if it’s what you really want then you will find a way, Nick. Right, that’s the end of my pep-talk. I’d better get on and do my shopping.’

  She gave him a quick smile, then headed along the road. Nick watched until she disappeared from view, then turned and stared out to sea. Could he and Jack resolve their differences? He wanted to believe they could, but he couldn’t do it on his own—Jack would have to meet him halfway. And he wasn’t sure if his son was willing to make the effort.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘RIGHT, Becca, I want to check how those cuts I stitched on Saturday are doing. If you can swing your feet over the side of the bed so that you’re facing me…that’s great.’

  Jack smiled at the teenager as he pulled up a chair. It was Monday afternoon and he had just finished a ward round. Alex had been called away to see a patient and Jack had been left in charge of the team. He had deliberately omitted Becca from the round because he understood how traumatic she would find it to have so many people gathered around her. Now he grinned conspiratorially at her.

  ‘The rest of the guys wanted to meet you, but I decided to keep you to myself for a while longer. Is that OK?’

  ‘Yes.’ The girl gave him a wobbly smile. ‘I was dreading having everyone staring at me.’

  ‘No way is that going to happen, sweet heart,’ Jack said firmly.

  He leant forward and carefully examined her face, using a magnifying lens so that he could see the more severely injured areas better. The cut on her forehead was healing well, although it might not appear so to the untutored eye. However, Jack had spent the last five years of his life—two as a senior house officer, doing his basic surgical training, followed by three of the allotted six years needed to gain his certificate of completion of training—looking at injuries such as this, and it didn’t faze him. The skin wasn’t inflamed, there was no puckering, and no sign of necrosis in the surrounding tissue either. He was confident that it would leave only the smallest of scars in time, and told Becca
that.

  ‘Are you sure? You’re not just saying that because it’s what you think I want to hear?’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that, Becca. I shall always tell you the truth, so if I say there won’t be much scarring, it’s because I know that for a fact.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ Becca gulped. ‘What about the rest of the cuts? Will they leave a lot of scars?’

  ‘They’re healing well. This one here on the edge of your jaw might leave a bit more of a scar, but even that shouldn’t be too bad.’ Jack smiled at her. ‘It takes time for the scar tissue to settle down and fade, but I’m confident that your face will look fine eventually. And any areas you aren’t happy with can be covered up with make-up—you’ll be shown how to do that after your treatment has finished.’

  ‘What about the big cut on my left cheek? Is it going to need a skin graft?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Jack sat back in the chair, knowing that he needed to explain exactly what would happen without frightening her. ‘Do you know what happens when skin is grafted?’

  ‘Not really.’ Becca pulled a face. ‘I’ve never thought about it.’

  ‘Of course you haven’t. Nobody does until they need to have one done,’ Jack assured her. ‘Basically, there are two types of graft—split thickness and full thickness. I will need to use a full-thickness graft on your cheek because the match will be better, and that’s very important.’

  ‘You said you would take the skin from behind my ear,’ Becca reminded him, and he laughed.

  ‘Go to the top of the class for remembering that! Most people don’t remember a word they’re told after an accident, and no wonder either.’