Sydney Harbour Hospital: Tom's Redemption (6 page)

The reaction of the medical students to his lecture at lunchtime had been in stark contrast to that of his colleagues this evening. It had taken him close to an hour to deal with the number of students who’d wanted to speak to him at the end of the lecture. Only a few of his previous colleagues had made themselves known to him and he understood why. If his career had been chopped off at the knees from one act of fate, then so could theirs be, and it terrified them. So they’d avoided him.

Now he was avoiding them.

He’d brought Hayley to this restaurant because he often ate here and it was a short walk from his apartment. Prior to tonight, he’d only ever eaten here alone so he hadn’t anticipated that Wayan, the owner, would give Hayley such a rapturous welcome and offer champagne.

Tom had quickly gone into damage control. This wasn’t a date. It was just a meal with a fellow doctor and an attempt at reality—nothing more, nothing less. In the past, he’d rarely taken anyone out more than once so the chances of this ever being repeated were exceedingly slim.

‘Hayley is a colleague at the hospital, Wayan.’

‘Hello, Wayan.’ Her smoky voice had been infused with
warmth. ‘As much as the idea of champagne is tempting, I’m on call and iced water would be wonderful.’

They’d discussed the menu, ordered their food, which had arrived promptly, and the pungent bouquet of lemon grass, coriander, peanut satay and chilli hadn’t disappointed. The flavours on his tongue matching the promise of the tantalising aroma. Wayan had placed the food on the table and as Tom had instructed him on his very first visit said, ‘On your plate, satay’s at twelve o’clock, rice at three and vegetables at nine.’

Both he and Hayley had eaten in relative silence with only an occasional comment about the food. When he’d finally balled his serviette and dropped it on his plate he heard the clink of ice against glass, but it wasn’t the movement caused by someone taking a sip. It was more continuous and he knew Hayley was stirring with her straw and staring down at her drink, probably wondering why she’d come.

He understood totally.

He swallowed, knowing he needed to break the silence. He’d never seen the point of chitchat with no purpose and he sure as hell wasn’t going to talk about the weather or the lecture he’d just survived. He thought about the first time he’d met her. ‘How long have you been scared of the dark?’

She coughed as if she was choking and he realised he’d missed the moment she’d taken a sip.

‘How long have you been blind?’

Again he found himself smiling. Three times in one day had to be a record. ‘I take it that your fear of the dark is off the conversation list.’

‘Is your blindness?’

He thought about it. ‘Yes and no.’

Her blurry outline leaned forward. ‘Okay, I’ll cut you a
deal. If either of us asks a question that goes beyond what we’re comfortable answering, we just say, “Enough.”’

He’d never met anyone quite like her. Women usually wanted to know every little detail and got offended if he didn’t tell all. This suggestion of hers, however, was perfect—conversation with a get-out-now option. ‘You’re on.’

‘Good.’ The table rocked slightly as if she was pressing her hands down on it. ‘I’ve been scared of the dark since I was a child and
don’t
tell me I should have grown out of it by now.’

The heartfelt punch behind her words hit him in the chest and left behind the trace of a question he could easily ignore. ‘I’ve been living in the dark for two years after an urban four-wheel drive, complete with a dirt-free roo bar, ran me off my bike when I was in Perth for a conference. I slammed into the road headfirst.’

Flashes of memory flitted in colour across his mind. Memories he’d learned to control. ‘Ironically, I’m told that my skin’s healed perfectly and I don’t have a single scar but the impact stole my sight.’ He forced his hands to stay in his lap and not grip the edge of the table as he braced himself for the platitudes he’d grown used to hearing.

‘That sucks.’

He blinked. She’d just done it again—defied convention. ‘It more than sucks, and coming back to Sydney is proving to be—’
Never admit weakness
. He cut himself off before he said more than he intended.

‘Challenging. Purposeful. A relief?’ The words hung in the air, devoid of anything other than their natural sound.

‘I’m not sure it’s a relief.’ He ran his fingers along the edge of the spoon Wayan had put on the table as his marker to find his drink which was on a coaster directly above it.

‘Why did you come back?’

He shrugged, not really understanding the decision himself. ‘There’s something about the pull of home.’

‘Family?’ Her usually firm voice suddenly sounded faint.

He shook his head and tried not to think about his mother. ‘No, but I grew up here.’

Understanding wove through her voice. ‘And you worked at The Harbour. That’s got to be a strong pull too.’

It was like a knife to his heart. ‘Don’t tell me that lecturing is as important as surgery because you know it doesn’t even come close.’

He’d expected her to object but instead she gave a heartfelt sigh. He knew exactly what that sound meant. Before he’d thought it through he found himself saying, ‘There’s something about holding the scalpel just before you cut.’

‘I know, right?’ Animation played through her voice. ‘There’s an exhilaration that gives you this amazing feeling, but there’s also some tiny ripples of concern because no matter how routine the operation, there’s always the threat of the unknown.’

Her words painted the perfect picture, describing with pinpoint accuracy that
one
moment every surgeon experienced. The image floated around him but instead of bringing on a cloud of bitterness, it brought back the buzz. A buzz he hadn’t known in two long years.

Hell, he missed talking with a colleague—with a fellow surgeon. Sure, he’d talked to doctors in the last two years, but he’d been the patient and those conversations had been very, very different. ‘And in neurosurgery even the known can bite you.’

He felt a flutter of air against his face and his nostrils
flared at the softest soupçon of magnolia. He realised she’d leaned forward again.

‘Even with an MRI?’

He responded to the interest in her voice. ‘They’re a brilliant roadmap, certainly, but just like a photograph often it’s all about what isn’t in the picture.’

‘The human body being a variation on a theme.’

The enthusiasm in her voice pulled him in. ‘Absolutely. I remember once when I’d—’ The strident notes of techno music split the air.

‘Sorry, that’s my phone.’ The noise was immediately silenced. ‘Hayley Grey.’

Tom had no choice but to sit and overhear one side of a conversation. A conversation so familiar that he’d said similar words in the past at dinners, from his bed, in the car and on his bike.

Hayley sucked in a sharp breath. ‘When …? A and E …? How many …? Five minutes … Okay, two, then. Call David Mendez … Bye.’

His pulse rate had inexplicably picked up. ‘Problem?’

‘Road trauma.’ The scrape of her chair screeched, matching the urgency in her voice. ‘I have to get back.’

He carefully moved his chair back a short distance and rose to his feet, hating it that he didn’t know exactly where she was standing, although he could smell her—smell the exhilarating combination of her perfume mixed in with her heady aroma of excitement. The thrill of the unknown—a surgeon’s addiction.

‘Tom.’ Her hand slipped into his, her skin soft, warm and fragrant.

A wave of heat hit him so hard he had to fist his other hand to stop it from reaching out and pulling her against him. It was like his body had just woken up from a long, deep sleep and was absolutely starving. He craved to trace
every curve and swell of her body, and he hungered to learn if her body was as lush and as sexy as her voice promised it would be, as her summer garden scent taunted that it was.

She squeezed his hand. ‘Thank you for the best satay I’ve tasted outside Asia.’

‘No …’ Huskiness clung to the word and he cleared his throat. ‘No problem. I’ll walk you back.’

‘Thank you, but I have to run.’

He’d heard the regret in her voice before she’d even said the word. He couldn’t run.

She quickly withdrew her hand. ‘I won’t ask if you’re all right to get home because you’d probably bite my head off.’

He forced a smile against the cold grimness that was washing through him and leaving behind a film of bleakness on every part of him that it touched. ‘You’re right about that.’

‘I’m right about a lot of things. Goodbye, Tom.’

‘Good night, Hayley.’

He heard her rapid footsteps, the tinkle of the bell as the door opened, the jet of winter night air that raced in around his ankles, and then the thud of the heavy door closing. And she was gone, running down the street with adrenaline pumping through her veins and her mind alert with every diagnostic possibility.

And he couldn’t even freaking escort her back to The Harbour, let alone be involved with the emergency.

His hands fumbled with fury as they sought the back of the chair and with a curse he sat down heavily and felt his hand collide with the plate. Cold rice squelched through his fingers. He swore again and pushed the plate away. A crash followed.

The disappointments of the day and the bitter fury that
had been his companion since the accident rolled back in like a king tide. With a gasp he realised their arrival meant they’d been absent. Gone for the hour he’d spent at dinner.

The hour you spent with Hayley
.

But now every single feeling was back with a vengeance—stronger and more devastating than before. It swamped him with the reminder that his current life was a very poor relation to the one he’d lived before. It clawed at him, pulling him down and forcing him back toward the pit of despair he’d only half dug himself out of.

Hayley would be operating within the hour. She would be saving lives. And what was he doing? Sticking his hand in cold food and making a damn mess. He fought for his breath against a tight and frozen chest. So what if she smelled like summer sunshine or if the timbre of her voice stroked him like a hot caress, sending his blood direct to his groin? If attempting normality meant being reminded of everything he’d lost, he wasn’t ever doing it again.

‘Wayan!’ He heard himself yell and didn’t care that probably every other patron in the small restaurant was staring at him.

‘Yes, Tom?’

‘Bring me the rest of that bottle of red wine. Now.’

He intended to lose himself in Connawarra’s finest merlot and forget everything about Hayley Grey.

CHAPTER FOUR

H
AYLEY
woke up slowly, blinking against the sunlight that streamed in through her open curtains, and stretched out with a sigh. The brighter the light, the better she slept, and today was an exceptionally sunny day. It was also her day off—a day she usually spent studying.

At high school she’d spent her weekends studying instead of partying, and that had continued through medical school. Now her days off often came during the week but the pattern hadn’t changed. She’d sleep really late and then study well into the night until she fell asleep at her desk under the glow of her reading lamp. There she could get a few hours’ sleep, unlike in her bed.

She threw back the covers and got up, padding directly to her small kitchen to make a huge pot of Earl Grey tea and a plate of hot, buttered toast. While she waited for the kettle to boil, she opened up her study planner to see what the next topic of revision was, only this time her usual buzz of enthusiasm didn’t stir. Instead, she had an overwhelming urge to do something totally different with her day. An urge so unexpected that it swooped in and changed the shape of her loneliness.

She bit her lip. She was intimate with loneliness—it had been part of her from the moment death had stolen not only her twin sister’s life but a part of her life too.
Over the years it had become a living thing—a constant companion—despite other friendships. She’d thrown herself into study and then work, and she enjoyed being part of a huge institution, but the empty space inside her had never filled. She’d tried a few times to be a girlfriend, but she’d never found the connection strong enough. Eventually she’d accepted that there was always going to be a space between her and others. Still, she was a healthy woman with needs like anyone else so in the past she’d settled on two ‘friends with benefits’ arrangements—one at university and another last year in the UK. Both men had eventually wanted more than she could offer so she’d let them go, and happily watched each of them fall in love with a woman they deserved. A woman who was whole and could love them the way she never could. Now she was back in Sydney she didn’t have time for anything other than work and her exam preparation. She’d spent years working toward this exam so she could proudly hang up a brass plate with her name on it—Ms Hayley Grey. Surgeon. FRACS.

Finn Kennedy was right. The exam was a bastard and the pass rate first time round was very low. She was determined to pass on her first attempt and for that to happen, study must be her priority.
Nothing
was going to derail her from her goal.

You enjoyed having dinner with Tom Jordan
.

The kettle boiled and she poured the water over the fragrant leaves and breathed in deeply. To her total and utter surprise, the quick dinner she’d shared with Tom hadn’t been the horror she’d anticipated. Sure, Tom had his own set of demons, but the flipside meant he wasn’t interested in hers. Added to that, his conversation style was in such sharp contrast to the usual ‘first date’ scene that it had been both refreshing and stimulating.

It was hardly a date
.

I know that
.

She quickly buttered her toast but she couldn’t deny that Tom’s rough-edged charisma and wickedly deep voice kept coming back to her at all times of the day and night, making her feel flustered and tingly all at the same time. God, maybe she did need to have sex with someone soon.