Risking Her Heart on the Single Dad

by Annie O'Neil

  Though he’d virtually memorized all the details of the case Amanda ran him through it again.

  Mary Lingford was an expectant mother. She lived just under a hundred miles outside of Atlanta, hence the helicopter ride in. With rush hour traffic starting as early as four a.m., they weren’t taking the risk of her being stuck in an ambulance. At forty-three years old she was a high-risk pregnancy. She was twenty-seven weeks pregnant with a baby boy. And the baby, her local hospital had discovered last night, during a routine scan, had a congenital heart defect.

  Hypo-plastic left heart syndrome. The most common lethal condition in congenital heart disease. About one in five thousand babies had it. None survived without surgery.

  There were still a good thirteen weeks of pregnancy remaining, so Mary’s baby needed to stay inside her. But that heart needed fixing. The Piedmont Women and Baby Pavilion was the best place for both of those requirements to be fulfilled.

  Ty turned around so the scrub nurse could help him gown up. “Have they done any pre-anesthesia? I want to make sure they’ve steered clear of teratogenic drugs. Accidentally inducing labor at this point would be a nightmare.”

  “I called in last night, and an hour ago before they prepared her for the flight. No pre-anesthesia. They’re leaving everything up to our team.”

  Ty smiled. There was never an i left un-dotted or a t left uncrossed on Amanda’s watch. Extra-generous in this case, seeing as he’d scheduled the operation for early morning and she most likely would only be observing. She was a specialty delivery nurse. A skill they were hoping they wouldn’t need this morning. But it was protocol.

  The safety of Ty’s patients was paramount. He went where most surgeons refused to go. Directly to the womb.

  Amanda nodded toward the operating room, where their patient was being wheeled in. “Looks like they’re ready for you.”

  Good. Ty needed to put his blinkers back on. The blinkers that had seen him through the last few years of his life. Through work and caring for his daughter and his extended family. Those were the three components of his life. None of which included having adrenaline spikes when he laid eyes on a complete stranger.

  The telephone rang as he entered the OR. Amanda took the call.

  “All right if Dr. West scrubs in?”

  Ty looked up in surprise. “She’s here already?”

  Amanda nodded. “Jet-lagged, apparently. Said she thought it would help her understand the clinic’s ethos if she scrubbed into a surgery and saw things from the ground up. Would you like an extra pair of hands?”

  He nodded. “Why not?”

  How interesting. He knew Dr. West was a surgeon, but from the sounds of her research papers he’d thought she’d be more lab rat. Someone whose world revolved around cell slides, microchips and Petri dishes. But it appeared he’d been wrong.

  Good. He’d made a good call. A surgeon who wanted to hit the ground running? He liked her already.

  Amanda wrapped up the phone call. After saying hello to his patient, and assuring her that she was in the safest of hands, Ty turned his attention to the anesthetist. Giving the patient the wrong type of drug could induce labor, thereby doubling the risk of administering anesthesia.

  “Back home in Oz we try to go as minimal on the anesthesia as possible. Too risky for baby and mom.”

  Everyone turned as a feminine Australian accent filled the operating theater.

  Ty’s chest constricted as his eyes clashed with the familiar pair of bright blue eyes. Umbrella girl. Right there in the scrub room. Reminding him once again—or his body, at least—that he was still a red-blooded male.

  Yessir.

  Still vital and responsive, even after five years of certainty that his chances of connecting with a woman on that sort of level had died with his wife.

  The woman tore her eyes from his, then gave the rest of the team in the operating theater a quick wave. “G’day, all. Sorry... I know I shouldn’t be sticking my nose in before I’ve been briefed properly, but I presume the goal here is to keep the baby precisely where it is?”

  This was Dr. Kirrily West?

  Ty couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t the woman he’d been expecting. Not that he’d seen a photo or anything, but...seriously? Umbrella woman? And what was she doing talking about anesthetic before the very stressed patient was even anesthetized?

  He gave his patient’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and said in a low voice, “We’ve got a new surgeon scrubbing in but only as an observer. Nothing to worry about.”

  Mary gave him a silent nod, concern evident in her crinkled brow.

  Ty looked back to the scrub room, ready to give this new doctor a piece of his mind.

  Kirrily West wasn’t wearing her chic biker chick ensemble anymore. She was in a pair of Piedmont scrubs, and making the standard-cut cotton top and trousers look far more interesting to take off than they should.

  Why the hell hadn’t he looked at her photo before he’d okayed that plane ticket?

  No need to be a surgeon to figure that one out. He was a busy man, and looks didn’t factor when he was considering groundbreaking researchers who might make an invaluable contribution to pre-term fetal welfare.

  He caught himself staring instead of chiding as she swept her hair up in one hand, twisted it with the other, then bundled the auburn coil under a blue surgical cap. It was a simple gesture that made it far too easy to imagine many things he shouldn’t.

  Silky hair... Soft bare skin... A whispered moan...

  What an idiot. He should have done that video conference call with her rather than tasking his colleague Mark with the job.

  So that what? He could have changed his mind? Decided that a woman with a heart-shaped face and brilliant sapphire eyes that made his heart do strange things wasn’t worth his time, despite her obvious genius and passion for neonatal surgical advances?

  Science didn’t work like that.

  He didn’t work like that.

  Even so... The woman now twirling around for the scrub nurse to do up her surgical gown wasn’t at all who he’d been expecting. He’d presumed she’d be... Well, older for one thing. Her insight into fetal reconstructive surgery was on a par with much more senior surgeons. Her take on what might be achieved one day in the world of neonatal intensive care was potentially Nobel-prize-winning stuff. Literally life-changing for countless premature babies.

  None of which explained why he’d expected an old, frumpy librarian type. Smart didn’t equal unattractive, but...

  Oh, this was a disaster.

  Kirrily West pressed her freshly gowned elbow to the intercom button again. “Any thoughts on the anesthetic front?”

  “Dr. Sawyer?” whispered Mary, reaching for his hand. “Is what she’s saying true?”

  Right. Though only a handful of seconds had passed, it was a handful too many. His operating theater. His operation. His method of treatment.

  He looked at Kirrily West and said pointedly, “As our patient Mary, here, is awake right now, perhaps it would be best if we talk her through just how safe her child will be rather than focus on what hasn’t happened.”

  He didn’t know how they did things Down Under, but they did things Southern-style here. It entailed TLC and a whole lot more professionalism and tact for starters.

  He addressed his team—and, most importantly, the patient. “As ever, Mary, our number one priority is your baby’s safety. I’m not saying this is a routine surgery. It isn’t. It’s specialized. But this is the best place for you to have it and everything has been taken into account. Particularly the anesthetic.”

  Mary’s brow was knitted with worry lines. “But what was that other doctor talking about? Will the anesthetic hurt my baby? I don’t want to do this if the surgery is going to induce labor!”

  She tried to push herself up from the gurney.

 
; Ty resisted shooting Kirrily West a look—an eyebrows raised look, straight up to his surgical cap, that would make it clear to her that this was exactly why precision verbal conduct was every bit as important as precision surgical conduct.

  But actions spoke louder than words, so he gave Mary’s hand a reassuring squeeze and a pat. They both knew this was very likely her last chance of having a child, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to be the surgeon to let her down.

  “Like I said, everything’s been taken into account and the protocol is as safe as these things can be. We’re going to administer tocolytics. They’re drugs designed especially to prevent premature labor. And I’ve just been told the emergency transport team administered an H-2 antagonist last night, which will also help.” He looked Kirrily West straight in the eye. “Thoughts, Doctor?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  KIRRI GULPED. THIS was exactly the sort of thing her brother would have ejected her from his operating theater for. Leaping before she looked.

  She called it spontaneous innovation. He called it foolishness. Up until now she’d thought both of them were a little bit right.

  How on earth had she not noticed that the patient was still awake?

  Easy. She was running on adrenaline and showing off for the hot doctor. At least Dr. Ty Sawyer wasn’t there—the surgeon who ran the Piedmont Women and Baby Pavilion. That would have been unrecoverable.

  Even so, she had to wonder if she could have made a worse first impression...

  Probably not.

  That’s what happened when she showed off like a teenaged girl, hoping her nerdiness would appeal to his nerdiness, and then maybe—if pigs began to fly—she and Captain Umbrella would live happily ever after...

  Struth.

  If she hadn’t been fully scrubbed up she would have thunked herself on the forehead.

  Sheepishly she pushed the intercom again with her elbow. “Still all right if I join you?”

  “Observation only,” came the crisp reply.

  Fair enough.

  She’d been too keen to please. Too eager to prove she was worth the investment. And she wasn’t just talking about the business class flight over. She was talking about being given access to one of the world’s premier research labs, an amazing park-side apartment in the center of Atlanta and six precious weeks away from her brother to give her project one final push before deciding whether or not to give up the ghost.

  Fulfilling one dream to make up for the loss of another was the way she’d rolled for the past few years.

  Her hands hovered above her flat belly, then dropped to her sides.

  Right. Enough of all these feelings.

  She dialed back her nerves and entered the operating room. Whoever this doctor was, he wasn’t impressed with her. And very likely he had the ear of Ty Sawyer, her benefactor. She had one shot to prove him wrong. Otherwise her packed bags would stay that way.

  She stood to the side while Dr. Chocolate Eyes spoke with his patient for a while longer, assuring her that whilst nothing came with a one hundred percent guarantee he would do his best to offer her ninety-nine-point-nine percent. Next he spoke with the anesthetist, then the pair of them together. He was calm, encouraging, and a picture of capability. It took a lot to impress Kirri but she was impressed.

  Soon enough he was ready to begin.

  Hypo-plastic left heart syndrome was a critical congenital heart defect, and performing the surgery to the letter was the only option. If he didn’t fix it now, once the baby was born the left side of his heart would be unable to pump essential oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body.

  “Where would you like me, Doctor...?”

  Kirri scanned the small group. There were three women and three men there. All gowned up. Only one with eyes that made her heart skip a beat. She looked away from him and chose a chap with more gray hair than the others. Could he be Dr. Sawyer?

  A nurse nodded at a spot directly across from Dr. Chocolate Eyes. “Dr. Sawyer likes his spare pair of hands here.”

  Wait. What? Dr. Chocolate Eyes was Dr. Sawyer?

  Oh, this was bad. The turn-around-and-jump-right-back-on-the-plane sort of bad. Why weren’t there any pictures of him on the website? Normally this type of surgeons—the so-good-they-were-famous type—had pictures of themselves all over their websites, their literature. How had she managed to pick a camera-shy guy?

  She checked herself. A woman who jumped on a plane and went to the other side of the world at the first whiff of a chance to prove her brother wrong should probably research things a bit more thoroughly.

  Not that she would’ve refused the trip even if she’d seen his photo. Plenty of too-good-to-be-true men walked through the doors of their clinic back in Oz. Usually with a gorgeous wife on his arm, seeking the opinion of the Baby Whisperer to get the beloved child she’d put on hold after opting to have her career instead.

  Lucky them. Able to put it on hold rather than spend their entire life knowing it would never be an option.

  Kirri squished the thoughts away. Worrying about who her brother could and couldn’t wave his magic fertility wand over wasn’t her remit today. Making a fresh start was.

  So... Dr. Chocolate Eyes was her new boss.

  Okay. Fine. Just because he made her tummy do all sorts of curious things that other deeply scrumptious men didn’t, did not mean she couldn’t get a grip and focus.

  So she took in a deep breath, calmed herself, and watched as the magic of surgery began.

  A few hours later she exhaled.

  Watching Ty Sawyer at work was breathtaking. It was like having a special glimpse of one of the world’s best artists at work. Skill and finesse all wrapped into one incredibly talented package. No wonder people flocked to his clinic.

  With little more than a microscopic glance in her direction, he’d left with his patient and gone to the recovery room. Now he’d returned, wearing a pair of fresh scrubs. Dark green. A nice contrast against his skin. He definitely looked as if he had a splash of Latin in him. It would explain the shiny black hair and thick dark lashes...

  Barely meeting her eyes, he gestured that she should follow him.

  Okay. She guessed they weren’t going to go through the ritual. How do you do? Nice to meet you. Sorry about earlier.

  Well, he had given her an umbrella. Maybe if she gave it back the gesture would melt the frosty atmosphere keeping him two briskly timed paces ahead of her as they virtually race-walked down the corridor to a stairwell.

  “How’re mum and baby?” she asked his back, then jogged a bit to catch up with him.

  “Not too different from when you saw them last. As you saw, the surgery went well. The prognosis looks good. Her son will no doubt have more surgeries ahead of him when he’s older...but it’s a life saved for now.”

  She let the words slide into place with the weight they deserved. Easy enough, considering everything he’d said had slipped down her spine like warm, buttery caramel. How was it that the Georgian accent wasn’t the world’s favorite? She was its newest number one fan. So long as it came out of a certain someone’s mouth.

  A rather nice mouth, now that she could see it properly because he wasn’t wearing his surgical mask. It was full for a man’s mouth. Sensual, even. And tipped into a demi-frown that she could just imagine parting with her tongue—

  Er...no, she couldn’t! She could imagine no such thing.

  She forced her mind back to more neutral territory as they zipped down the stairwell and opened a door to another corridor. This floor was quieter than the surgical floor above, which had what she liked to think of as the quiet hum of healing. This floor was obviously for the researchers.

  Her heart-rate accelerated as she jogged yet again to catch up with Ty Sawyer and an idea struck. “You wouldn’t happen to have the fetal echocardiogram, would you? The one they made the diag
nosis from?”

  He slowed his pace enough so that Kirri didn’t have to jog. “It’s on the system. Any reason why?”

  She shrugged. “I geek out on that kind of stuff.”

  She threw him a goofy look, then tossed caution to the wind. She’d already made a complete idiot out of herself in front of him, and would very likely be packed off back to Oz by the end of the day, so why not go the whole hog?

  “I kind of have a collection.”

  “Of echocardiograms?”

  “Yeah.” She risked a bit of a brag. “The earliest HLHS I diagnosed was fifteen weeks.”

  He gave a low whistle. “Early.”

  She grinned. Couldn’t help it. She was the first to do it as far as she knew. Before that it had been sixteen weeks.

  “I know. I think I was lucky. That or I have bionic ears. Anyway, I’ve got prenatal ultrasounds for pretty much every day of gestation and for all sorts of conditions. I thought it’d be interesting to have a look. Or rather a listen.”

  “Fine. But first...”

  Oh, here it comes. The ticking-off she deserved for stuffing her bloody foot in it back in surgery.

  Ty stopped in front of a door, crossed his arms and went epically frowny. “In future, if you scrub in again—and that’s conditional—it’s important for you to recognize hierarchy. And that begins with me.”

  Kirri barely contained an eye-roll. Typical male surgeon. Showing the little girl how things were done in the big boys’ world. Yeah, she’d messed up—but she did have a few strings to her own bow in the surgical department. Thank goodness she was going to be a lab rat for this six-week stretch. Hot or not, she couldn’t deal with being patronized in surgery.

  “Right!” Ty clapped his hands, as if relieved the telling off was over, and gave her a quick once-over. The type a general might give a soldier before allowing him out onto the battlefield. “Allow me to show you our lab, Dr. West.”