Winning the Surgeon's Heart

by Annie Claydon

  To an assignation she had to keep, a destination she wished to reach, or was she simply escaping the place?

  Not that he could blame her.

  But what lingered in his mind as she disappeared from view, where the drive curved slightly, was his first thought on seeing her—the totally absurd thought that she’d look good on a horse.

  Look good on a horse?

  He kicked the potted palm in one corner of the balcony and swore quietly to himself. Prolonged inactivity was obviously driving him insane. Or at least turning his brain to mush. He had to find something to do—something he could do without moving too far from the luxurious suite of rooms where his grandmother was dying—the same suite of rooms in which she had honeymooned with his late grandfather.

  Returning here to die had been her one wish—her last wish, she’d said, probably to get him here—and although the extensive research he’d done on the place had shown him it was now actually a luxury convalescent home, he’d been doubtful. While a panel of specialists on the mainland advised on medical matters, top-class residential housekeeping, therapeutic and nursing staff made sure the guests—definitely not patients—were well cared for. His grandmother had three cheerful and gentle Thai nurses who attended to her personal needs—bathing, dressing, feeding her—with reverence and concern.

  Pampered, more like! he thought with a derisive snort. The place was a luxurious convalescent facility for anyone wealthy enough to afford its exorbitant daily tariff.

  Not that the money had been a problem when his grandmother had dropped her bombshell and demanded to die in the place where she had been so happy on her honeymoon. Her side of the family had always been wealthy, but a little app he’d fiddled around with during his student years had eventually been developed and sold. DocSays had brought him wealth beyond imagining in spite of the fact that the most important of the answers it gave anyone using it was, if in doubt, to see a doctor.

  Could he update it?

  Think of something new?

  Or had that questing part of his brain atrophied as he’d practised the medicine for which he’d been training at the time?

  But it was worth a try—anything to ease the boredom of waiting around.

  If there’d been something he could do for his grandmother on a daily basis—if she’d been well enough to be wheeled out into the beautiful gardens, even taken for a ride in a little tuk-tuk—he’d have been more content.

  It was the helplessness he felt—the fact that he, a doctor, could do nothing more to help the woman he loved so dearly—that was getting to him.

  And that thought was also annoying—the one about loving her so dearly. She’d brought him up from the age of twelve, and her answer to any upset in his young life had always been, ‘Monroes don’t do emotion!’

  Yet, if he gave himself time to think—and at the moment he had plenty—he had to accept that what he had always felt for her was love and that perhaps the stricture should have been, ‘Monroes don’t show emotion.’

  His argument against it had been that he was a McLeod but she’d blown ‘such nonsense’ away with an airy wave.

  ‘For all your name, you’re a Monroe through and through, and don’t you ever forget it,’ she’d told him in a steely voice.

  But seeing her now, turned from a strong, determined woman into frail bones and fine, lined, pale skin, he realised the pain he felt when he looked at her had to be emotion.

  Love.

  A love so deep it was as if part of himself was dying.

  And repeating her words to himself—Monroes don’t do emotion—did little to stop the pain...

  He returned to his pacing, and caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. It was the woman who’d look good on horseback returning.

  On a horse?

  * * *

  Hilary McKenzie Steele wasn’t entirely sure she should be riding up the raked gravel drive of the Palace of Peace and Contentment, but Muriel Walker, her assigned ‘guest’, had told her about the stables.

  ‘Beautiful horses, Kenzie dear,’ she’d said. ‘There for all of us to ride, but how many do? Do the horses get the exercise they need, do you think?’

  ‘I’m sure they do,’ Kenzie replied, aware of her position as a sounding board.

  Not that Muriel was sick or in need of special nursing care, she was simply bored, moving from one luxurious home or hotel to another.

  This luxury convalescent hotel had been on her itinerary for a few years, though why she always insisted on a nurse as a companion, Kenzie had yet to fathom.

  Anything different to give her life a little meaning, Kenzie supposed.

  Which explained the horse.

  Muriel, for all her die-away airs and imaginary illnesses, was only in her early sixties, and, Kenzie was sure, could learn to ride a horse. Surely that would give her something to do.

  Kenzie rode to the side entrance. She’d left Muriel in the little sitting room just off the side lobby—Muriel dressed in jeans and a light polo top, a deceptively simple outfit that had possibly cost as much as the horse.

  Tethering Bob—Kenzie smiled again at the unlikely name for a Thai horse—she went inside to fetch Muriel.

  ‘Come on,’ she told the older woman. ‘It’s time you learned to ride.’

  Muriel, who’d been resistant to the idea from the beginning, looked at Kenzie and must have read something in her face that told her argument would be futile.

  She stood and then smiled.

  ‘If I fall off I’ll sack you,’ she warned, and Kenzie, although not entirely sure her boss turned friend was joking, laughed.

  Kenzie had given a lot of thought to getting Muriel onto the horse, and had come up with this side entrance as the ideal place. Not only would no one see them—she wasn’t going to have anyone laughing at Muriel—but the urns that flanked the shallow steps were on a stepped platform. It had been simple enough to remove one of the urns, giving Muriel steps to get up and a flat area to stand on as she swung herself into the saddle.

  Or perhaps clambered into the saddle...

  She was helping Muriel with the transfer from the platform to the horse when a man appeared, turning the corner from the drive and stopping to watch the operation.

  ‘Need a hand?’

  Rich, deep, English tones made the three simple words ring through the air, hitting Kenzie’s ears and somehow reverberating through her body in a way that brought heat to her cheeks.

  Embarrassment at being caught?

  She hoped that’s all it was.

  And cursed the colour that rose so easily. Honestly, you’d think by now she’d have outgrown blushing...

  ‘We’ll manage,’ she said, but far too late, because now he was at the horse, steadying Muriel from the other side, putting her foot into the stirrup Kenzie had shortened earlier.

  ‘First time?’ he said, smiling up at Muriel.

  The smile caused Kenzie more problems than the voice. She shook her head, trying to clear the sudden confusion. Muriel. She had to concentrate on Muriel, not some stranger with a beautiful voice.

  Strange man at that and she was here to get over men...

  For ever, if she had her way—but that was another problem altogether...

  ‘Now you take the reins, and hold them so you just feel the horse’s mouth at the end of them,’ she told her charge.

  ‘Just the left hand,’ the stranger said, releasing Muriel’s right hand from the folded reins. ‘That’s so you can carry the whip in your right and smack him if he’s naughty.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t hit him,’ Muriel protested, and the man laughed.

  ‘Who are you?’

  Kenzie was aware that the question came out far more forcibly—rudely?—than she’d intended, but the laughter had brought back her confusion.

  He made a sweeping
bow—to Muriel, not to her—and said, ‘Alexander Monroe McLeod, prisoner in this palace, and happy to be of assistance.’

  Another worker, Kenzie decided, although she certainly hadn’t set eyes on him in the ten days she’d been here.

  ‘Your grandmother?’ Muriel asked him softly, and he nodded, and although some things fell into place—the talk of a woman who’d come here to die, her doctor grandson with her—something else was niggling at Kenzie.

  She studied the man across the horse and frowned. She knew the face, and the name had rung a bell—several bells—but what...?

  And shouldn’t she introduce herself?

  Some instinct pushed that thought away, though why, she couldn’t tell.

  ‘So,’ he said, still speaking to Muriel. ‘Where are we off to on this adventure?’

  ‘Not very far,’ Muriel assured him. ‘In fact, I think getting on is enough for one day.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ the man—Alexander Monroe McLeod, how grand—said. ‘You need to get the feel of the animal. So, if your friend leads and I stay right beside you on this side, will you feel safe enough?’

  Muriel nodded tentatively and Kenzie flicked the lead rein very gently and clicked a ‘Get up,’ at the horse, who moved obediently and sedately along the path.

  The man with the beautiful voice and grand name was talking quietly to Muriel, distracting her from the first-time rider’s usual thoughts of how precarious her perch was and how very far away the ground!

  Which gave Kenzie the time to sneak glances at him across the horse’s neck.

  She was sure she knew the name but definitely hadn’t met him. Tall, dark-haired, distinguished-looking somehow, with the kind of profile you could put on a coin.

  It was such a fanciful thought she had to give herself a stern reminder that she was here to forget a man, not to be fancying a new one, no matter how attractive he was.

  Yet he wasn’t the kind of man you’d forget!

  Perhaps she’d seen a photograph?

  Lightbulb moment!

  ‘I know who you are,’ she said, unable to keep a note of triumph from her voice. ‘You’re the bloke who developed the DocSays app!’

  ‘What did you say?’ Muriel was obviously mystified.

  ‘Do you know it?’ he asked, the question a trifle stiff.

  Kenzie laughed.

  ‘I doubt there’s a nurse in the world who doesn’t. Working in a hospital can be a bit humdrum at times, so we often see what you’d say about our patients’ symptoms. Harmless fun, and as you always say see a doctor, that’s actually what’s happening with our patients, if you see what I mean.’

  * * *

  Alex stared at the woman in total disbelief.

  ‘You compare your actual hospital doctor’s diagnosis with the app?’

  ‘It’s fun!’ she had the hide to say, before adding, ‘They’re usually the same.’

  As if that made a difference! Nurses comparing his opinions to those of other doctors as if it was a game...

  ‘Who are you?’ he demanded, thrown off balance by this whole situation—the horse, his earlier, and definitely weird, thoughts about the woman, and a laughing face with blue eyes that were rather startling against her lightly tanned skin.

  ‘I’m Hilary McKenzie Steele,’ she announced, undoubtedly mimicking his own introduction. ‘Known to one and all as Kenzie! My mother died in childbirth and Dad gave me her whole name, so that’s my excuse for its length.’

  She was making fun of him, he knew, but he had introduced himself with his full name when Alex McLeod would have done. And all he could offer by way of explanation for its length were hundreds of years of tradition—rather feeble compared to a dead mother.

  ‘Are you still ready to catch me if I fall?’ Muriel asked, breaking into his senseless thoughts.

  ‘I most certainly am,’ he said. ‘But tell me how you feel. Comfortable—’

  ‘Or terrified?’ the woman called Kenzie asked, with a smile in her voice that made it a gentle tease.

  ‘Well, it is a long way up, but it feels just fine,’ Muriel assured them. ‘Can we go on down the drive—maybe right to the stables?’

  ‘Of course,’ Kenzie replied, although Alex felt a slight unease about this decision. He hadn’t even known—or if he had he’d forgotten—there were stables and horses, but how far away were they?

  ‘Um, Kenzie,’ he said, tentatively trying the name on his lips and finding he quite liked it. ‘I’m not sure I can stay much longer.’

  ‘Oh, that’s okay,’ she answered cheerfully. ‘You can see Muriel has her balance now and there’s a dismounting block at the stables. Do you ride yourself? There are some lovely horses in the stables, and apparently there are trails up through the rainforest towards the top of the mountain.’

  ‘And you’ve been here how long?’ he demanded, aggrieved that the blue-eyed woman apparently knew so much about the place.

  ‘Ten days! But I guess us menials mix with locals more than you guests do. This place is very upstairs downstairs, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, Kenzie,’ Muriel murmured. ‘I don’t make you feel like that, do I?’

  Kenzie laughed.

  ‘Of course not, you silly goose. I was just teasing.’

  ‘Teasing me,’ Alex muttered, before looking up at Muriel.

  ‘Are you sure you feel safe with just Kenzie here beside you?’

  Muriel smiled down at him.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Hasn’t Kenzie already proven her worth, showing me how nice it is to be on a horse? Maybe one day, when I can ride by myself—Kenzie’s going to teach me—we can all ride up into the mountains.’

  She paused, still looking at him.

  ‘That’s if you can ride, of course.’

  He wanted to snort. He’d practically been born on a horse! But he confined himself to a polite goodbye to both women, and hurried back into the hotel. Even when his grandmother was awake, she was barely conscious and a lot of that time had no idea who he was.

  Which, of course, made him very reluctant to miss any moments with her when she did! He thought of the times he hadn’t spent with her. Breaking a lunch or dinner arrangement because he was held up at the hospital, or, worse, out on a date, such ordinary things, but all time he had already missed with her.

  And now there was no time to make it up to her—no more time...

  But as he went up in the lift, he couldn’t help picturing his first glimpse of the woman with the improbable name—long legs striding easily, back straight, and the cloud of dark hair—black, he thought now, or perhaps a very dark brown.

  And the explanation for these thoughts?

  He had absolutely no idea and the sooner he got them out of his head the better. Since the farcical end of his engagement and marriage plans he’d remained aloof to the charms of women, throwing himself into work as an alternative—and far easier—passion.

  He shook his head in a futile attempt to remove the wayward meanderings of his mind. It was because he was stressed. He couldn’t do anything for Gran, and doing nothing left him with too much time on his hands to dwell on life without her...

  But, then, she had looked good on the horse... Kenzie...

  * * *

  The rest of Muriel’s ride was uneventful, but Kenzie was glad to see a little tuk-tuk waiting to take her and her charge back to the hotel.

  ‘You should have a hot shower, and I’ll arrange a massage for you,’ she said to Muriel as they climbed into the little rickshaw. ‘You might need another one tomorrow, too, because your muscles have been doing something new.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to have a massage every day,’ Muriel announced, ‘because I’m going to conquer this horse-riding thing!’

  ‘You’re a Trojan, Muriel!’ Kenzie told her, ‘But you might be sore tomorrow so we’ll take it
easy.’

  She saw Muriel safely back to her room and into the shower, arranged the massage, and ordered tea and scones for after it.

  Only then did she pull out her phone and open the DocSays app on it. She had to smile at the pixelated image of Alexander Monroe McLeod, which looked, of course, nothing like him. The photos she’d seen occasionally—usually on the financial pages of serious papers—was how she’d recognised him.

  Imagine meeting the man!

  Her friends would never believe it!

  Especially the ones who’d told her she was crazy to take a short contract job at a luxury convalescent home off the coast of Thailand.

  ‘You’ll be bored to death,’ they’d warned her, and secretly she’d believed them, but at the time she’d have taken a job on Mars to get away from her far too small home town!

  Small town, new doctor, whirlwind romance that had the entire town speculating whether Kenzie would finally get married, then the new doc’s wife had arrived...

  Kenzie had expected pain—and hurt pride and humiliation had certainly brought that in its train. But in many ways it had been a relief. Much as she wanted to marry and have children—and urgent as that need was becoming—she’d known all along there was something not quite right about Mark...

  Something that had, thankfully, held her back from a physical relationship with him...

  ‘Now, Kenzie,’ Muriel announced, appearing from the bathroom in a cloud of steam and a luxurious peignoir, ‘I will have no argument about it this time. You are to eat with me this evening. We need to plan out my riding lessons.’

  ‘It might be best to leave any plans until morning. See how you feel then.’

  ‘We can discuss it over dinner,’ Muriel said forcefully.

  So much for diversion!

  ‘I thought the Sapphire Dining Room tonight. It’s smaller and for all they tell me the same chef oversees both kitchens, I’m sure the food is better there.’

  They had argued before about Kenzie dining with her guest, as a cleverly worded sentence in the rules and regulations for ancillary staff seemed to suggest it wasn’t a good idea.