She glanced up and, as he caught the intent look in her eyes, he guessed she'd not been taken in.
'Determined, aren't you?' She spoke lightly and he bowed his head in reply.
'Seems I have to be to get a straight answer from you, Dr Cochrane.'
Her chuckle warmed the air between them and Grant found himself smiling for no particular reason.
And more determined than before to find out her feelings on the matter he was trying to discuss.
'Well?'
She studied him for a moment before she replied, leaning forward as if she needed to see him clearly when she spoke.
'I agree that, particularly with a small specialty, we can become too inwardly focussed—too obsessive about our own particular field. That's why—'
Sally realised what she'd been about to say and bit back the words about the changing rooms, and took a steadying breath. Not only did she have to deal with the contradictory reactions of caution and delight his presence caused, but she had also to avoid the pitfalls of his conversational challenges.
Without aggravating him unnecessarily!
'That's why?' he prompted.
'That's why it's best to mix with other people,' she said lamely, but knew he was too smart to believe that's what she'd intended saying. A new diversion was needed. 'Actually, it doesn't affect me at all, this no-fraternisation business. Fraternising with anyone is out of the question as far as I'm concerned. At least until I've finished my exams.'
'No social life at all?'
His eyebrow repeated the question.
'Is that so surprising?' Sally countered. 'Most specialists I know marry early so they don't have to be wasting time on a social life while they're studying, or marry later when their career's established.'
'Wasting time on a social life? That's a radical statement. Do I detect a touch of cynicism?'
Sally shrugged but then she smiled, enjoying the ebb and flow of the non-medical conversation.
Enjoying the company, though she knew she shouldn't be. This was a man to avoid, not someone with whom to discuss her non-existent social life.
She glanced up at him and knew from his eyes, and the alert way he held his head, that he was still waiting for an answer.
And would, no doubt, continue to wait.
'Probably!' she admitted. 'And it was also a generalisation, which I hate. But you must admit a lot of the mating-dating game is just that. A game. Or perhaps an elaborate dance, with set moves and counter moves. Even in the bird and animal kingdoms, there's a ritual to it all.'
'A game you've chosen not to play, or a dance to which you weren't invited?'
'Ouch! That's hitting a girl when she's down, that is.'
Then she thought about it.
'Chosen not to play,' she told him. 'At the moment. Until I'm through. Early on in my career, I came this close...' she held her thumb and forefinger millimetres apart'.. .to missing a scholarship and decided romance and study didn't mix.'
She'd finished her meal and was watching him as she spoke, so saw the shadows that darkened his eyes.
Emboldened by the ease between them, and possibly the relaxant effects of a pleasant cabernet, she said, 'You, too?'
The question startled Grant. What was she? A mind-reader? Someone who saw the past in his empty wineglass?
'Why would you ask?'
She smiled the little half-smile that seemed to flicker at one side of her lips before settling into place.
'Good guess?'
'Not really,' he said. 'Anyone my age and still single would be expected to have a few relationships in his past.'
'Only a few, Dr Hudson?' she teased, and he saw that silly smile playing around her lips again.
Not that he was going to be taken in by silly smiles. He finished the last morsels on his plate, then pushed it slightly back towards the centre of the table.
'That was delicious,' he said. 'If all the offerings are as good, I can understand the recommendations.'
He was watching her but not by a blink of an eyelash did she betray how she felt about the change of subject.
'Everything's as good,' she assured him, then she, too, pushed her plate aside. 'Even their desserts if you're a dessert man. And their coffee is something special, though I won't be indulging in it. I can hear my books calling me, and it will be a mug of instant in the study for me tonight.'
She pushed back her chair and he knew she was about to leave, but a slight hesitation gave him a chance and her own words suggested an opening.
'Hear the books calling from here? Where do you live?'
Her grin lit the golden lights again.
'Just down the road,' she told him, nodding towards the door where the street dropped down towards the railway line. 'Wrong side of the tracks to someone in the towers on the other side!'
She did leave then, threading a path through the tables, mostly empty this late at night, her slim body bending lithely as she made her way to the cash register.
Which is when he realised she was paying the bill.
Hers, or both?
He followed her, reaching her side as the woman she'd called Carole tallied the total.
'I'll get this,' he said, but Sally was having none of it.
'No fraternisation, remember,' she said to him. 'We each pay our own. He's my boss,' she added to Carole.
'Lucky you,' the young woman said, casting Grant a mischievous smile. She fiddled once more with buttons on the cash register, then said, 'But if he's your boss, he must earn more. Why not let him pay?'
Let's see you get out of that, Grant thought, but his resident was more than ready for an argument.
'And let him think I owe him something?' Sally retorted, handing Carole a note and waiting for change. 'No way. Anyway, it's his rule we're following. No fraternisation among the staff. Quaint, isn't it?'
He knew she was teasing but he bit anyway.
'You've just finished telling me you approve of it,' he reminded her, taking the slip of paper that he assumed was his bill from a fascinated Carole.
'Only because it happens to suit me at the moment,' Sally replied, turning towards him so he could see her impish smile. 'But who knows? You bring a tall, dark and handsome newcomer onto the team and my views on the subject might change.'
'You want someone more tall, dark and handsome than this man?' Carole demanded. 'You must need your eyes tested.'
And although Grant knew he should be offended, being discussed in the third person as if he weren't there, he nonetheless waited anxiously for Sally to reply.
'He's spoken for,' she said, swinging back to take her change and, as she dropped a few gold-coloured coins in a small glass bowl that must hold tips, she gave a theatrical sigh. 'Isn't that always the way?'
On that tantalising note, she started towards the door, then swung back.
'Thanks for your company at dinner,' she said. 'See you tomorrow.'
And with that she was gone.
'She's looking a lot better,' Carole said, and although Grant, not wanting to gossip about a staff member, didn't ask the obvious, the phrase puzzled him.
Better than what? He remembered her talking about taking time off. Had she been ill?
Or had the relationship she'd mentioned really hurt her?
So deeply she didn't want to get involved with anyone again?
He sighed as he added his tip to the glass bowl. Then he thanked Carole and departed, heading for his car on the nearly deserted street.
He could understand Sally's wariness if a relationship had caused her pain. Hadn't he steered clear of all women for a long time after Erica?
But the thought of Sally in pain disturbed him and he looked up and down the road, searching for her. Perhaps she'd driven off.
Then, as he turned on his headlights, he saw the movement and realised she was walking down the road.
More uneasiness grabbed at his guts.
Was that wise?
OK, the street was quiet, and qu
ite well lit except at the point she'd reached when he turned on his lights. At the corner, a big old mango tree leant over the fence and threw black shadows on the footpath. But as he put the car into gear and let it roll down the hill, the beam of light lit up her figure for an instant, then she disappeared beneath the tree.
He saw the gate as he drove past. Sally Cochrane lived in the old high-set house behind the mango tree. He'd noticed the place before and had admired the wide verandahs, but, like so many of the old wooden Queenslanders in this area, it was in need of a lot of attention.
He drove under the railway line and up towards the next hill and his apartment block, thinking it might be fun to do up one of those old houses. Bring it back to its former glory.
Sally Cochrane doesn't want you in her life and she definitely doesn't need any distractions this year, he reminded himself.
But, for some reason, he could see himself in an old shirt and paint-stained shorts, stroking green paint around the railing of Sally Cochrane's verandah.
'Now there's a puzzle for Dr Freud,' he muttered as he pushed his keycard into the box to open the garage doors. 'Green paint? Verandah railings?'
'Sounds like a nesting syndrome to me,' his infuriating brother said, when Grant called to him a little later and mentioned the possibility of buying an old house. 'I do hope it's the pretty resident.'
'Just because you've finally fallen in love doesn't mean I have to follow suit,' Grant told him. 'Pain we might share, but not emotions. Believe me, mate, love clouds too many of the real issues in a marriage. Like who takes the responsibility for what. Whose career comes first? Whether to have kids, and who's going to be their primary carer if you go that way?'
'Well, something must be working,' Tom reminded him. 'People have been muddling along, with love and marriage linked together, for a long time now.'
'Not always successfully,' Grant reminded him.
'And are all your operations one hundred per cent successful?' Tom demanded. 'Doesn't it depend on how success is measured?'
Grant glared at the phone.
'This is a ridiculous conversation. All I said was that I was thinking of buying an old house. Because I don't think I'd like to live in an apartment for ever, not because I want to get married.'
Tom's laughter irritated him even more, so he pleaded having another call on the line and hung up on his brother. Who was a damn fool. Fancying himself in love with a woman he barely knew!
He blocked the thought that he didn't know Sally Cochrane all that well either but, instead of going into his library to check something he'd need for a lecture the following day, he walked out on to his balcony and peered around the buttress that separated it from the balcony next door.
His apartment looked north and east, towards the city and the river, but if he leaned out a little further, he could see the railway line, and beyond that...
'Falling to your death while trying to identify a house behind a mango tree would be a stupid way to die,' he told himself, and walked back inside.
Tomorrow he'd phone Jocelyn, apologise again for all the missed dinners and arrange something for the weekend. It was time to think of marriage, but he knew it would work better with a pragmatic approach. He didn't need the love thing. Been there and done that! Seen the ravages it caused in other people's lives.
A sensible arrangement, that's what he required.
Which was another reason to get Sally Cochrane right out of his mind.
It took a mammoth effort of will but eventually Sally was able to immerse herself in the chapter she'd set aside for that night's work. She'd scheduled to finish this book by the end of the week, and start on the next over the weekend. Not that her schedules always worked the way she hoped. The singer from her brothers' band was visiting relatives down south and she'd be filling in for her this Saturday night, so the more she got done during the week, the further ahead she'd be by the time she had to leave the books.
Motor neuron disorders. Daniel's specialty. He'd offered to work with her, lend her notes, help her study. In the flat he'd rented, presumably so he had somewhere to stay closer to the hospital than his home in the outer suburbs. Somewhere, she realised now, where he could take the women with whom he cheated on his wife.
And to think she'd thought, back when he'd made the offer, he was being helpful! Had fallen for it. Once!
She forced her attention back to the books, back to the lists of disorders that could produce damage to the nerve pathways and leave a patient disabled.
Her eyes drifted from the pages. Towards the window. Above the screen of mango leaves she could see the top of the building where Grant Hudson lived.
'But not his apartment. It's on the other side,' she reminded herself aloud. 'And gazing at a glass and concrete tower won't get you through your exams. Put him out of your mind.'
Easier said than done, she admitted next morning when they dead-heated in the car park and so had to share a lift up to the ward.
'What are you? A workaholic?' he demanded, tapping his watch to remind her it wasn't yet seven o'clock.
'When I'm going to be in theatre, I like to see the patients before they're given their pre-op medication,' she said. 'And if you weren't here yourself you wouldn't know what time I started. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!'
He chuckled and for some reason the day seem brighter— more exciting—although it had barely begun!
'Do you know Mr Fielding? Has he been a patient here before?'
The questions diverted her back to thoughts of work, rather than bright days, and she told herself she was pleased as they directed the conversation back on track. This was work— nothing more or less.
'He had an acoustic neuroma removed two years ago, but recent scans show a mass on the site.'
Grant nodded.
'He's certainly showing symptoms of something happening there,' he said, ushering Sally out of the lift. 'Vertigo, and tinnitus. Head pain. I know its hard to remove all of a neuroma because of its proximity to the brain stem, but it's unusual for there to be such a quick regrowth of a benign tumour.'
'Aren't we operating on him today?' Sally asked. 'Hadn't you decided that's what it was?'
Grant nodded, but he looked sufficiently worried for Sally to take it further.
'Second thoughts?'
He smiled at her, and her heart forgot she wasn't interested in him, and about the no-fraternisation rule, and began to tap-dance on her ribs.
'Second, third, fourth and fifth thoughts. I think I'll reschedule him for later in the day and get Daniel to organise more scans this morning.'
'Radiology will be pleased,' Sally told him. 'Nothing they love more than rush pre-op jobs.'
'Better for them to be put out than to operate on a man I'm not convinced needs a repeat of major surgery.'
His tone told Sally the subject was closed. They'd halted outside the ward.
'So, will we shift the other surgical patients one place forward?'
'Who's on the list? Do you know? Will the second patient be here yet? Prepped? Surely not.' He answered his own question and Sally realised he was thinking out loud and stayed silent.
'The neuroma was scheduled for four hours minimum,' he continued. 'Damn. I should have reorganised this yesterday, but it was only as I drove to work I began to wonder if it might not be fluid clouding the image. There could be some scar tissue as well, but I'm not convinced it's a regrowth.'
'Couldn't we keep him as first patient but just drill an exploratory burr hole? Wouldn't that tell you more than a scan? And if there's fluid present, you could drain it off. Consider a shunt.'
His smile was slow coming, but when it did arrive it warmed bits of Sally she hadn't realised were cold.
'Smart kid, aren't you?'
'Not such a kid,' she retorted, then regretted the words as his eyes agreed with them.
'No!' he said, and pushed through the doors into the ward.
They separated, Grant to speak to the char
ge nurse, while Sally checked on the patients who were being settled into their rooms before the pre-op procedures began.
'You cutting today, Sally?'
Bill Dixon, the anaesthetist, was ahead of her, and Sally flinched at the description of her job.
'Operating sounds far less violent,' she told him. 'And before you begin on Mr Fielding, you might check with the boss. He's thinking exploratory rather than craniotomy.'
'Suits me,' Bill told her, and he drifted off towards the nurses' station where Grant was still discussing patients.
Sally also left Mr Fielding for later. Best for Grant to explain what he intended doing. She moved on to Mrs Nash, a stroke patient. Some weeks earlier, they'd operated to relieve pressure from fluid build-up, and had inserted a shunt, but fluctuating temperature and tests of the CSF showed an infection present, possibly from the shunt.
'How are you feeling?' she asked the woman.
Mrs Nash lifted her left hand and waggled it to signify so-so. Until the set-back with the fluid build-up, her speech had been improving.
'It's been a nuisance, hasn't it?' Sally told her. 'Never mind. Hopefully we'll have you right after this op. It isn't a big one. Dr Hudson feels if we remove the shunt the infection might settle down. There are other ways we can drain the fluid so don't worry about that.'
The patient nodded and reached out to take Sally's hand. Her thank you was rough, but Sally smiled and nodded to show she'd understood.
'No worries!' she said. 'It's all part of the service.'
But as she moved away from the woman, she was frowning. Mrs Nash was thirty. Mother of a young family. Too young to be so incapacitated.
Later in the day, as she worked on this particular patient, with Grant Hudson beside her at the table, the thought came back to her.
'Is it my imagination, or are we getting more and more young stroke victims?' she asked, directing the question not specifically at him but at the room in general.
'I've been wondering that,' Bill replied. 'Though, mind you, years ago, surgery wasn't considered part of a stroke victim's treatment, so maybe that's why we're noticing them more.'
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