Accidental Seduction

by Caroline Anderson

  'Right, this is what you have to do,' he told her, and explained, pointing to the area at the top and the bottom where she would have to make the connection with the supporting graft they used to repair the structure.

  She nodded, asked a question, then squared her shoulders and began. He helped her, holding things with his left hand, pointing, directing, trying not to twitch when she was too slow, and then finally the aorta was repaired, and they released the clamp at the top to allow the blood to flow again.

  Angie was bagging blood into the patient as fast as she could, and once the area was cleaned up and rinsed out, they could have a proper look at the damage and how it had arisen.

  'How did I miss it?' Annie asked, sounding shocked. For a moment Max hesitated, then his natural honesty came to the fore. He couldn't leave her in doubt of her professional competence. She'd done an excellent job, both today and on Sunday.

  'You may not have done,' he said. 'And anyway, when you opened him up you were looking at the spleen—and you've made a good job of it. The aorta may well have been silent—a tiny split in one layer of the wall, gradually deteriorating over time. There may have been nothing to see, like Tim Jacobs. Did I miss the tear in his mesenteric artery, or did it appear later? Who can tell?'

  He shrugged. 'Surgery is a pretty inexact science. We do what we can, but sometimes things get missed, and the body tends to be quite forgiving and good at warning us.' He stared at the aortic graft, checking it for leaks, for kinks or bulges or problems of any sort, and then nodded with satisfaction.

  'Whatever, it seems you've done it OK. He's safe now, barring clots getting to the wrong place. We'd better get him on some serious anticoagulant and then we can only hope he recovers well. He was lucky to get this far. Well done. You can close now.'

  He turned away, stripping off his gloves with care, wincing as the tight latex pressed down on his fracture. He struggled with the ties of his gown, and finally got it off, then the hat and mask, and he poured himself a cup of coffee, stirred four sugars into it and sat down.

  He was shaking all over, either from low blood sugar or pain or emotional turmoil—or all of the above, he admitted. He dropped his head back against the wall and let his breath out on a shaky sigh.

  He was a father. Only—he checked the clock on the wall, and saw it was ten-thirty—seven and a half hours to go before he got to meet his daughter. He just had to get through the rest of the day...

  Annie closed up Mr Andrews's incision, and stepped back with a shaky sigh. Hopefully everything would now be all right, and with any luck she wouldn't have to work alongside Max again for a day or two.

  It had been agony, watching the impatience on his face, the suppressed irritation as he'd obviously wanted to take over. Well, that was his fault, because if he hadn't broken his hand he could have done the whole thing and Mike could have assisted him.

  And she wouldn't have had to stand there opposite him with those frowning eyebrows so close to her, hideously conscious of her every move and the inadequacy of her performance.

  She left the operating room, shouldering the door out of the way as she stripped off her gloves, and felt a pang of disappointment because Max was gone. Silly, really, because being with him was torture, but her stupid, foolish heart ached for his presence.

  And tonight he was coming round to meet Alice, and it should have been such a wonderfully happy occasion, and instead it was going to be agony.

  Oh, damn.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, ripped off her mask and hat and gown and opened her eyes again to find Max standing there, dressed again in his normal clothes, his face a shuttered mask.

  'Everything all right?' he asked gruffly.

  'I take it you're talking about Mr Andrews?'

  'I was.'

  'He's fine.'

  'Good.'

  He left then, and she slumped into one of the chairs and sighed. Just seven hours to go, and he'd be meeting Alice.

  * * *

  Alice was beautiful. She had a huge smile, just like her mother's, but her eyes were his, so like his that he could have been looking into a mirror, and in her delicately pretty face the dark lashes made them seem even bigger and more striking.

  She was tiny for her age, dainty and featherweight, and she settled on his lap with a gummy smile and pulled the pen out of his top pocket.

  'You'd better take your jacket off before she makes a mess of it,' Annie warned, scooping the baby up. Max shrugged his jacket off and hung it over the back of the chair before taking his daughter back into his arms.

  His daughter.

  Amazing. He felt his eyes fill, and blinked hard. 'She's beautiful,' he said gruffly.

  'Yes.'

  He felt, a sudden ache of loss for having missed her birth and those precious early weeks, and his anger began to rise in him again. He put it away with deliberate firmness. Now was not the time. The baby would pick up on it and that would be a shame.

  He smiled at her, and she beamed back at him and grabbed his nose with her hand, hauling herself to her feet.

  He winced and helped her up, supporting her as she jumped up and down on his lap giggling hugely and hanging onto his ears. Then she fell against him, her soft, wet rosebud mouth planting itself on his lips, and he kissed her and held her away, ignoring the pain in his hand.

  'Hello, baby,' he said softly. 'I'm your daddy. What do you think of that?'

  She blew a raspberry, and he chuckled quietly and hugged her, but she pushed away and started jumping again, each little leap grinding the bones in his hand together. Tough. It was his own fault he'd hurt it, and he wasn't going to stop her using him as a trampoline if that was what she wanted to do.

  'I'll heat her supper,' Annie said, and went out into the kitchen, but Alice turned her head and watched her mother go, and started to wail.

  'Come on, love, we'll go and watch, shall we? She's only next door.'

  He followed Annie, to find her standing at the sink with her hands over her face, her shoulders heaving silently.

  'Is there anything I can do?' he asked, feeling awkward and miserable and angry with both of them for the mess they were making of this whole thing.

  'No. Just take her into the sitting room and entertain •her. I won't be long.' Her voice was clogged with tears, and his heart ached for her, even though it was all her fault.

  What a mess.

  He took the unhappy baby back into the sitting room and tried to entertain her, but she was hungry and grizzly and she wanted her mother. All he could do was walk up and down with her in his arms, rocking her and crooning to her, and just hope that Annie would be quick.

  She was, and he deliberately ignored her tear-stained face and focused instead on uniting Alice and her sloppy, messy food.

  How hard could it be to get food into a baby? Everyone made it look so easy, but most of it seemed to be on her chin or her cheeks or down her bib—or all over him, come to that. She just shut her mouth at the wrong time, or turned her head, and his broken hand was awkward.

  He tried with his left, but that was just worse, and in the end he gave up.

  'Annie, I can't do this,' he admitted, and she took the baby from him without a word and spooned the food quickly and efficiently into her waiting mouth.

  He couldn't bath her either, not with his hand in this state, but he'd brought a camera.

  'Do you mind if I take photos of her?'

  'So long as I'm not in the picture,' she said flatly.

  So he took pictures, with Annie carefully off the edge of the field of view, and then after Alice was bathed and tucked up in bed, he kissed her goodnight, swallowing the lump in his throat, and then left the room.

  He stood outside, listening to Annie singing to her, and then after a few minutes she came out, tears streaming down her face, and looked straight at him with red-rimmed eyes.

  'You can go now,' she said, and he nodded, swallowed hard and headed for the door.

  He got home just in time,
fumbling his key in the lock and going in, closing the door behind him before the emotion of the past twenty-four hours caught up with him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The next few days were the longest of Annie's life, and even the nights couldn't bring oblivion. They were spent replaying their row, while she racked her brains for any other way she could have told Max about Alice, anything else she could have done that would have made it better, but there was nothing.

  Apart from telling him straight away on his first day at the hospital, of course, and that was still impossible to contemplate and even more impossible to achieve now, after the event.

  She was still deeply shocked at how fast he'd changed, one minute loving and affectionate, the next throwing her out of his house in a blazing temper. His words rang in her ears even nowadays later, flaying her with every action replay.

  'Get out. I don't want you here—not now, maybe not ever.'

  And he'd made it clear every day since that he was only tolerating her presence to gain access to his daughter.

  She, the faithless little minx, had taken to him like a duck to water after that first tense evening. He still couldn't bath her because of his broken hand, but he'd managed to feed her and dress her after her bath, although that was a bit hit and miss with her wriggling so much as he blew raspberries on her tummy.

  Annie swallowed hard. They got on so well, and he was proving to be a wonderful and natural father. Just what she'd wanted, really, but impossibly difficult to reconcile with the man who looked straight through her and spoke only when absolutely necessary.

  Annie went to work on Friday, dreading the day ahead, but in fact it wasn't too difficult. They didn't have a list, and Max kept firmly out of her way.

  Mr Andrews had been moved from the geriatric ward, where he'd been at first, to ICU after his aortic graft, and was now back on the surgical ward where he belonged, together with his wife and son who had also been involved in the collision on Sunday.

  His wife's parents, who had been travelling in the back of the people carrier, were on the orthopaedic ward, and Mr Andrews was the only one of the family in Max's care. His wife and son had been treated by David Armstrong and Nick Sarazin, and they were all progressing well. They were in the same bay together, and greeted Annie with affection when she walked in.

  'It's my favourite doctor,' Mr Andrews said with a smile.

  She ran a critical eye over him and smiled back. 'You look better today.'

  'I feel better. I feel much better. I expect the physio will be round in a minute and ruin all that, but until then I'm just enjoying it.'

  She laughed. 'You do that. I passed her in the corridor a minute ago, so she won't be long. I just want to have a look at your stomach.'

  She pulled the screens round and examined him, and nodded her satisfaction. 'That looks and feels good. Your bowel sounds are returning, so you should be able to have something to eat later today. I want you to take it easy, though. Small drinks first, then graduate to semi-solids. You might get chicken soup tonight if you're really lucky!'

  'I normally hate chicken soup, but I have to say I'm ready for it!' he said with a chuckle. 'Can I have a nice ham sandwich to wash it down?'

  'Don't push your luck,' she warned, but she was smiling. She opened the curtains just as Max walked up, and she froze for a second.

  'Morning,' he said vaguely to everyone. 'How are things?'

  'Excellent, Mr Williamson, excellent,' Mr Andrews said, oblivious to the tension. 'I was just telling Annie I fancy a ham sandwich.'

  'Maybe tomorrow,' she said encouragingly, and then braced herself for Max's criticism. It didn't come, though. Instead, he just nodded and walked away again, so with a mental shrug she carried on.

  Mrs Bradley was ready to go home, and Annie was on her way to discharge her when she found Max there already.

  'I think you could go home today,' he was saying, so with another shrug she turned away and went and made herself useful elsewhere. There was plenty to do, following up the other post-ops, discharging other patients that had come in for elective surgery and were ready to go home.

  By the time she'd finished doing that Max had made himself scarce, and she was able to relax again.

  Not for long, though, or at least not long enough.

  He was round that evening as usual, playing with the baby, feeding her, making her giggle,, and then while Annie was bathing her he said, 'I'd like my mother to see her.'

  Annie felt sick. It was another step towards losing her daughter, another person to share her with, but Alice had a right to her grandparents as well as her father.

  'When?' she asked, her voice taut.

  'Tomorrow? She lives in Cambridge. I'll have to go and fetch her, she doesn't have a car.'

  She shrugged. It didn't matter what she felt, it was going to happen anyway, and it would be too petty to refuse.

  'Fine,' she agreed. 'What time?'

  'I don't know. The morning, probably. Can I give you a ring?'

  So formal! So horribly distant and remote. Oh, lord.

  'Of course,' she said expressionlessly. 'Here, you can dry her.'

  She scooped the baby out of the bath, let her drip for a second then plonked her on the towel on his lap and left them to it. Anything to get away from him and that icy politeness.

  'I've got something to tell you.'

  'Really? Sounds exciting. Sit yourself down, you're cluttering up my kitchen.' Max's mother put the kettle on, swiped a damp cloth over the worktop and then turned to him, cloth in hand. 'Well? What is it?'

  Where to start? Nowhere, he realised, that would avoid the lecture that was inevitably coming.

  'I've got a baby,' he said, and his mother sat down on the other chair with a plonk and stared at him.

  'Nothing like getting straight to the point,' she said. 'Would you care to elaborate?'

  He sighed and rammed a hand through his hair. 'I suppose so. Her name's Alice, and she's eight months old.'

  'Eight months? Good grief,' she said faintly. 'Have you only just found out?'

  He nodded. 'Yes—on Monday night.'

  There was a long pause. 'And how did you find out?' his mother prodded gently.

  'Annie told me.'

  'Annie?'

  He sighed heavily, and his mother sat back and looked at him over the table, a patient look on her face.

  'Why don't you start at the beginning?' she suggested, so he did, telling her all about how he'd met her, how they'd just gelled, how wonderful it had been to be with her.

  'It just...happened. I can't explain or excuse it. She was married, I was engaged. It was way out of order, but— It was just so right somehow, more right than anything's ever felt before.'

  'And then you lost touch, presumably?'

  He nodded. 'We agreed we couldn't see each other again, because she had a husband and I was marrying Fiona—except, of course, I couldn't, not after that. I know it sounds really crass, but I felt as if I'd touched heaven with Annie, and my relationship with Fiona was such a pale imitation in comparison. And anyway, she'd met her barrister by then.'

  Max shrugged. 'So that was it. I thought I'd never see Annie again, and then when I started working at the Audley, there she was suddenly, as large as life and my junior registrar. I couldn't believe it, and I felt just the same about her as I had a year ago. I was just stunned, and then after a week she told me Alice was mine.'

  He felt a wave of nausea just remembering that awful night, all the soul-baring that had gone on before she'd told him, and how raw and exposed and cheated he'd felt afterwards.

  'And her husband? Where does he figure in all this?'

  Max blinked and looked back at his mother. 'Sorry, didn't I mention it? Her husband's dead. He died of cancer last year.'

  His mother's face registered shock and then compassion. 'Good heavens. Poor girl. How awful for her. And then she had a baby in the midst of all of that. Oh, poor child.' She shook her head slowly in disbelief. 'So, if
it's not a stupid question, how does she know Alice is yours?'

  'The eyes,' he said flatly. 'It's like looking in a mirror.'

  Her mother gave a sad smile. 'Your father always said that after you were born,' she said softly, and her eyes misted over, remembering him. 'So,' she went on, pulling herself together visibly, 'what happens now?'

  He gave a huff of humourless laughter. 'Now— well, now I'm trying to get to know my daughter without killing Annie for having kept it from me.'

  'But she couldn't have told you,' his mother said matter-of-factly. 'Did she know where you were? And anyway, you'd agreed not to see each other again, and she thought you were married, didn't she?'

  He nodded. 'Yes, but...when we met again, she could have told me then, for heaven's sake, but she just kept it a secret and said nothing for a week! She even had the gall to tell me she wanted to be sure of me!'

  His mother stared at him blankly. 'What's wrong with that?' she asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

  'What's wrong with it? Mother, she was testing me! I was being vetted, for God's sake!'

  'So?' His mother stood up and took two mugs down from the hooks under the cupboard and spooned coffee into them, totally unconcerned, or so it seemed. She poured the water onto the granules, stirred each cup twice, tapped the spoon on the side of the mugs—he was ready to strangle her by the time she sat down.

  'Is this anything to do with your broken hand?' she asked, and he growled under his breath.

  'I hit the wall,' he admitted, and his mother tutted at him.

  'You always did have a shocking temper. You'd think by the age of thirty-two you would have got a grip on it. So why were you so mad with her?' she went on calmly.

  He counted to ten and breathed in and out deeply before replying. 'She didn't trust me,' he said, slowly and carefully, as if his mother were a little dense. 'She was checking me out to make sure I wasn't just a promiscuous philanderer, unquote.'

  'Very sensible girl. She didn't know you from Adam.'

  'I'm your son!' he yelled, outraged, and she quelled him with a single look.