Reunited With Her Brooding Surgeon

He was excited. This was exactly the sort of opportunity he’d hoped to establish on his return to Perth and to get to be involved so early on was ideal.

He appreciated his good fortune and hoped that, rather than just observing the kidney exchanges, his surgical skills would be required due to the number of operations that were being scheduled. He breathed deeply as he thought of how it would feel to be offered the opportunity to conduct one of the surgeries himself. If it happened, it would most likely be one of the retrievals but he didn’t mind. He just wanted to be involved. Just wanted a chance to showcase his ability. It was one of the few things he knew he excelled at. And a retrieval was still a surgical procedure. It was a little more routine than a transplant but the margins for error were small and it was still an important process.

Doing a retrieval meant he would be removing a healthy kidney from a healthy person, which really contradicted the medical charter of ‘Do no harm’ but, in this case, he believed in the cause, in the greater good such a procedure would mean. He believed in this case that the benefits outweighed the disadvantages. The improved quality of life the selfless donor was offering to an unknown recipient was an amazing gift, although he still found it incredible that people were willing to sacrifice one of their organs, to offer it to a stranger, in return for one of their own loved ones receiving the same gift.

He couldn’t imagine loving someone that much.

He refocused, tuning back in to Elliot’s speech just in time to hear his introduction.

‘I would like to introduce you all to Dr Janet Hosking and Dr Marcus Washington from the Queen Victoria Hospital in Western Australia, who are joining the Kirribilli General renal unit for the next three months.’

He stepped forward as his name was announced and his gaze landed on a petite redhead who was standing to Elliot’s left but had previously been hidden from view behind someone else’s shoulder. She was staring at him with her mouth open. Her heart-shaped face was pale, her skin smooth and creamy but her lips were painted a bright red, almost the same colour as her fiery copper hair. He’d only seen hair that colour once before in his life.

That couldn’t be right. There had to be millions of people with that colour hair in the world.

Maybe he was mistaken. It had been twenty years ago after all. His memory had to be misleading him. Surely this couldn’t be the same girl? What were the chances of that?

But the coil of fear in his gut told him that the chances were high. It was just his luck.

CHAPTER TWO (#u387d46e3-5bb5-5a9b-8b97-b9330bf8ac01)

THE GORGEOUS MAN with amazing bone structure stepped forward and Grace’s heart skipped a beat and her mouth dropped open.

Marcus Washington.

She could not believe it.

It had to be him. Even though he no longer resembled the twelve-year-old boy she’d once known, it had to be him. There couldn’t be two of him.

He was a doctor? A nephrologist?

She hadn’t thought about him for years but if she had she never would have imagined he would become a doctor. She knew that sounded harsh and judgemental but what she remembered of Marcus did not fit with her image of someone who had clearly ended up in a position of responsibility and service to others.

But what did she really know about him? She had only been seven years old. What had she known about anything?

Her father was a doctor and, at the age of seven, everything she’d known or thought had been influenced by what and who she’d seen around her. Particularly by her own family. And Marcus’s family had been about as different from hers as a seven-year-old could have imagined. But she knew enough now to understand that it wasn’t about where you came from or what opportunities you were handed in life, but about what you did with those opportunities, those chances. It was about the choices you made. The drive and the desire to be the best that you could be.

She would never have pictured Marcus as a doctor but now here he was, standing in front of her looking polished, professional and perfect. It had to be him.

Grace knew a lot could change in twenty years and by the look of him, a lot had.

She was still staring at him, trying to make sense of what was happening, when he looked in her direction and caught her eye. Grace blushed and, cursing her fair skin, the bane of a redhead, she looked away as his gaze continued on over her. She finally remembered to close her mouth and hoped her reaction hadn’t been captured on camera.

Had he recognised her?

It didn’t appear so but, then, why would he? She was nothing like the seven-year-old he had last seen.

She must have missed an earlier HR announcement about him coming to her hospital. She would have remembered if she’d seen his name. What had Elliot said? He would be here for three months? Attached to her department?

She swivelled her eyes and observed him through the curtain of her hair as he shook Elliot’s hand. She took a second look. And a third. She had changed in the intervening years but so had he. There was nothing left of the skinny adolescent in him. Nothing at all.

Not that she was complaining. He looked just fine.

His dark hair was close cropped now, his wild curls a distant memory. And where had those broad shoulders and powerful legs come from? Her last memory of him had been as a tall and thin pre-teen with skinny brown legs in shorts that had always looked as if he’d outgrown them. That boy was gone now. Replaced by a taller, more muscular, more confident and far better dressed adult version.

She didn’t need to see him naked to imagine the toned, muscular body that was under the suit.She had always thought he was exotic in a slightly out-of-place way, but he appeared to have grown into his skin. She’d never known his mother but she’d heard she was Caribbean or something if she remembered correctly, and the mixture of her genes with Marcus’s Caucasian father had combined to give Marcus the best of both worlds. And that had never been more obvious than today.

But the one thing that hadn’t changed was that the adult Marcus was not paying her any attention. Just like the adolescent one. He had kept to himself as a child. It had seemed he’d never paid anyone any attention. Maybe he’d been trying not to draw attention to himself. He had been different from the other kids at school, different in looks and different in his background, and Grace knew that had made him a target for some of the other children. It didn’t pay to be different when you were a kid. It didn’t pay to stand out from the crowd.

But looking at him now it appeared that things had improved for him in the intervening twenty years. He still stood out from the crowd but now there was a sense of strength and confidence about him. All traces of the shy, quiet, reclusive child had been wiped out.

Grace was curious to know where he’d been, what had happened to him, but her questions would have to wait. It was almost her turn to speak and she needed to get her head back in the present. She was still new in this job and it was important to make a good impression. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by the past. No matter how good it looked.

She picked Lola out in the crowd. That was a mistake too. Lola had obviously seen Grace’s reaction to Marcus and was grinning wildly. At least she didn’t know the full story. Grace glared at her and looked for someone else in the crowd to focus on as she tried to ignore Marcus, who had stepped back with the other nephrologists. He was no longer front and centre, but that didn’t stop Grace from being totally aware of him. She imagined she could feel his presence even though she kept her eyes averted from him.

She took a deep breath and stepped up to the microphone as Elliot introduced her.

‘As you know,’ she addressed the crowd, ‘we have four surgeries scheduled here tomorrow, which would not be possible without the generous gift of organs from family and friends of those in need.’

Her job today was to raise awareness about organ donation and, somehow, she managed to get through her spiel and ignore Marcus, even though she could feel his eyes on her. Most of the eyes in the crowd were on her but she could feel Marcus’s piercing gaze more than most. There was an intensity about it and she knew she couldn’t afford to look his way. She’d definitely lose her train of thought.

‘The majority of Australians are willing donors,’ she continued, ‘so the problem we have is not a lack of interest but a lack of knowledge coupled with a lack of suitable organs. We need suitable organs and then we need permission to use those organs. If your family don’t know your wishes or don’t support your decision, we cannot use your organs. But, in some cases, living organ donations are a possibility and that is the case for the surgeries we have scheduled for tomorrow.

‘All these surgeries are part of the paired kidney exchange, where living donors are giving up a kidney to a stranger in exchange for a better matched kidney for a loved one in need. There are twelve surgeries scheduled across the country, which makes it the largest paired exchange exercise ever conducted in Australia.

‘Transplants using organs donated by the living have a higher success rate and you can imagine the freedom that this will afford someone—no more dialysis and fewer hospital visits. So thank you to those wonderful donors who are giving not just a kidney but the gift of a better life.

‘If you are interested in finding out more there is further information on the organ donation website, but please also remember to talk about this issue to your families and let them know your wishes in this very important matter.’

Grace stepped gratefully back into her place after her speech and planned to bolt as soon as the media questions ended but Elliot called her name as she turned to flee. She stopped in her tracks and took a deep breath. She knew what he wanted. He wanted to introduce her to the two new doctors. Only they weren’t both new to her.

She wondered if Marcus would remember her.

She pasted a smile on her face and turned around. Sure enough, Elliot was standing between Janet and Marcus. Grace tried to take control and introduced herself to Janet first, shaking her hand before looking up at Marcus.

He towered over her. Grace was tiny, only five feet two inches tall. Away from the hospital she liked to wear heels but they were impractical with all the running around she did and now, in her flat, sensible shoes, Marcus was easily a foot taller than her.

He stared down at her with a look that was far from friendly. She could only assume he remembered her. And not fondly.

She didn’t think she’d ever given him a reason to dislike her yet his jaw was clenched and tense and his lips were firmly closed. No welcoming smile there!

She remembered other kids teasing him. But she never had, she’d been too young, and she doubted that her brothers would have either, they hadn’t been raised that way, but Marcus certainly didn’t look pleased to see her. He looked as if he was daring her to say something about his past and she wondered what he thought she might say after all this time.

She couldn’t actually remember him leaving town. One minute he had been there, living in Toowoomba, going to school with her brother. The next minute he’d gone. Vanished. Just like his mother before him.

But now here he was. Fighting fit, successful and gorgeous.

So what was the story? She was desperate to know.