The Surgeon's Fatherhood Surprise (5 page)

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.

‘R
IGHT
, 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.’

He carried on when Becca laughed, pleased to see that she was looking a little more relaxed. It would be an ordeal for anyone to have to face this type of surgery and it must be doubly difficult for a teenage girl.

‘I shall remove a small section of skin from behind your ear, slightly larger than the area it needs to cover to allow for shrink age. I’ll have to put a couple of stitches into the site from where I take the graft, but it will heal pretty quickly and shouldn’t cause any problems. Once I have the graft, I will fit it precisely over the area on your cheek and make sure it’s securely attached. You’ll need to wear a pressure bandage on it for a while afterwards to keep it flat, but that’s basically it.’

‘And will everyone be able to tell that it’s a graft? I mean, will it look different to the rest of my face?’

‘There’s bound to be some scarring,’ Jack explained gently. ‘But the results are usually excellent. In a year or so, you will hardly notice it at all.’

‘A year!’ Becca sounded stricken. ‘It will take that long to heal?’

‘It could do.’ Jack leant forward and looked her straight in the eyes. ‘I know it’s going to be hard, sweet heart, but I promise you that you will hardly notice any difference in time.’

‘But I’ll still look like a freak when I start university this October,’ she wailed.

Jack tried to console her, but nothing he said calmed her down. In the end, he wrote her up for a mild sedative and went to have a word with her parents who had arrived back from holiday that morning. They too were distraught when he explained the situation to them, and that made him feel
worse. He wished with all his heart that there was something more he could do, but he couldn’t perform miracles. All he had was his skill as a surgeon, and in some cases it simply wasn’t enough.

A cloud of gloom seemed to hang over him for the rest of the day. He checked on Becca before he left, but she was very subdued and barely responded when he spoke to her. He drove back to Penhally Bay and collected Freddie from the nursery, and it seemed fitting that his son was in an equally downbeat mood.

He took Freddie home and made his tea, then phoned Lucy for a chat, but he could tell that he’d caught her at a bad moment so he didn’t stay on the phone very long. Freddie was playing with some of his toys, but he turned away when Jack knelt down beside him. He sighed. It seemed that he was persona non grata wherever he went today.

He was heading to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee in the hope it would chase away the blues when the doorbell rang, so he veered off to answer it and was surprised when he found Alison standing outside. She had Sam with her and she looked unusually serious.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you but I’ve just discovered that Sam has nits.’

‘Nits?’ Jack repeated blankly.

‘Yes. One of the other mums told me that she’d found some in her little girl’s hair when I collected Sam from the nursery at lunchtime, so I made a point of checking.’ She grimaced. ‘Apparently, he and Freddie were playing together this morning so I thought I’d better warn you. Once one child gets them, they spread like wildfire.’

‘Oh, I see. Well, thanks for telling me.’

‘That’s all right.’ She turned to leave, but all of a sudden Jack knew that he couldn’t bear to spend the evening with only his thoughts for company.

‘What do you recommend to get rid of them?’ he said hurriedly. He shrugged when she glanced back. ‘I’m not very clued up on head lice, so is it best to buy something from the chemist? Malathion is used in most of the patented lotions, I believe’

‘It is, although I’m not too keen on using such strong chemicals. Whenever I’ve come across a case at work, I’ve always recommended conditioner.’

‘Hair conditioner, you mean?’ Jack’s brows drew together. ‘Does that really work?’

‘Oh, yes. If you apply a thick layer of conditioner to Freddie’s hair after you wash it then you can comb any lice or nits out with a fine-toothed comb.’

‘That sounds a better option than dousing his head in chemicals. Thanks for the tip. As you’ve probably guessed, this is all very new to me,’ he added wryly.

Alison raised her eyebrows. ‘I’ll bet it is. Checking your son’s hair for nits isn’t how you would usually spend your evenings.’

‘What do you mean?’ Jack asked, somewhat puzzled by the comment.

‘Nothing. Forget I said anything.’

She turned to leave again, but he had no intention of letting her go without an explanation. He opened the door wider and stepped back.

‘I can’t forget it now that you’ve said it, can I? Why don’t you come in and tell me over a cup of coffee exactly how I should be spending my evenings. I was just about to put the kettle on when you rang the bell,’ he added when she hesitated.

‘I really can’t see the point,’ she began, but Jack was having none of it. If she had something to say then he wanted to hear it. For some reason he didn’t understand, he didn’t want her getting the wrong idea about him.

‘Then do it as a favour. I was sitting here feeling very sorry for myself when you rang the bell, and I could do with cheering up.’

‘Has something happened with Freddie?’ she asked anxiously as she stepped into the hall.

‘Yes and no.’ He shrugged, wondering how to explain that he was feeling rejected because his son hadn’t wanted to play with him.

‘Hmm, that sounds ambiguous enough to be intriguing,’ Alison said lightly. She unzipped Sam’s coat, then ushered him into the sitting room. ‘Go and play with Freddie while Jack and I make some coffee, darling. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.’

Jack headed to the kitchen and filled the kettle as the two boys settled down to play with some building blocks. Alison followed him in, grimacing as she took stock of the tired units and chipped worktops.

‘I thought my kitchen was bad, but this is a mess. It looks as though it could do with a complete make-over.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Jack scooped coffee into the cafetière. ‘The whole place needs refurbishing. It’s having the time to get it sorted out that’s the biggest problem.’

‘Are you going to do it? I thought you’d only rented the cottage?’

‘Yes and no.’ He grinned at her. ‘That’s becoming my favourite answer, isn’t it? Sorry. I don’t mean to be so vague. It’s just that everything about my life seems to be up in the air at the moment. It’s hard to give you a definite answer.’

‘It can’t have been easy for you, uprooting your life and moving down here,’ she said, sitting down. ‘I mean, you’ve left your home and all your friends—no wonder it feels as though your life is in turmoil when you’ve had to make so many changes.’

‘It’s not that, exactly.’

He sat down opposite her, feeling his heart give the strangest little flutter when she looked at him with her hazel eyes full of sympathy. Few people had felt the need to sympathise with him. He wouldn’t have thanked them if they had. He prided himself on the fact that he could take care of himself and didn’t need anyone to prop him up, yet it was different when he was with Alison; he felt differently around her.

He chased away that thought and smiled at her, falling back on the charm that had got him through so many tricky situations in the past. ‘I enjoyed living in London, and I doubt I’d have moved away if it hadn’t been for Freddie. But as for missing my friends—well, that really isn’t a major factor.’

‘Are you sure? After all, you led a very hectic social life when you lived in the capital. It’s understandable if you feel bored and restless now that you’ve moved out here.’

‘Ah! Obviously you read all the rubbish that was written about me a few years ago,’ Jack said ruefully. He held out his hands, palms up. ‘What can I say? I had a great time and I enjoyed all the parties, et cetera, but it was only ever one small part of my life. I grew out of that whole scene some time ago, and I don’t miss it either.’

‘No?’

‘No,’ he said firmly when he realised that she didn’t believe him. ‘There’s only so much partying a person can do before it becomes boring. You see the same old faces wherever you go, have the same pointless conversations. It might appear like a fabulous way to live to anyone watching but it’s not really like that, believe me.’

‘Then why did you do it if you didn’t enjoy it?’

‘Oh, I enjoyed it well enough in the beginning,’ he admitted. ‘Going to all those exciting new places and meeting people you’ve only ever seen on television or at the cinema
gives you a tremendous buzz at first. Most people find themselves swept away by the glamour of it all.’

‘As you were?’

‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘I went a bit mad when I first moved to London—fell in with a crowd whose main aim in life was to enjoy them selves. If I hadn’t had my work then heaven knows what would have happened. It’s what stopped me going off the rails. Especially after I met India.’

‘That’s when most of the articles appeared,’ Alison said softly. She blushed when he looked at her in surprise. ‘I used to buy a lot of the gossip magazines, and you and India featured prominently in them.’

‘You don’t strike me as the sort of person who reads stuff like that,’ Jack said, getting up to pour the coffee. He took the mugs back to the table then fetched the milk and sat down again.

‘Normally I wouldn’t read them, but I was going through a difficult time. They seemed to fill a gap in my life, if that doesn’t sound too silly.’

‘Of course it doesn’t sound silly!’ He put his hand over hers and gently squeezed it, felt his breath catch in the most alarming fashion, and hastily released her. ‘If they helped, great. Don’t feel guilty about it.’

He picked up his mug and took a sip of the scalding-hot brew. He wasn’t going to ask her why her life had been particularly difficult at that point, not if he hoped to keep a grip on his wayward emotions. He was already stressed because of what had happened with Becca and Freddie, and he didn’t think he could cope with anything else—like getting upset on Alison’s behalf.

‘I don’t.’

She lifted the mug to her lips and blew on the coffee to cool it, and Jack felt his insides bunch them selves into knots as he watched her lips purse. From what he could tell, she
wasn’t wearing a scrap of lipstick, but she didn’t need it to enhance the pouty fullness of her mouth.

Tingles suddenly started to shoot through his body, flashes of electricity that charged every cell, and he buried his face in the steaming mug. He had slept with a number of women in his time, kissed a hell of a lot more and flirted with probably triple that number, but at no time could he recall feeling as keyed-up as he felt right now. The sight of Alison’s lush bare mouth was playing havoc with his senses, stirring them into a bubbling cauldron of desire. He wanted to lean across the table and kiss her, run the tip of his tongue over those soft, delicious lips and taste them, then gently—ever so gently—nibble the lower one. And that was just for starters!

Jack shot to his feet, mumbling something about checking on the boys because it was the first excuse his over loaded brain dredged up. He almost ran out of the kitchen, praying that Alison didn’t suspect what was going on. He couldn’t imagine that she would, not when he was having such difficulty accepting the concept.