Hearts of Gold: The Children's Heart Surgeon

But her heart longed for the love she felt might be on offer, while her mind reached out for companionship and her body—well, her body just plain lusted after his!

So she had to say something!

She reached out and placed her hand over his, so they both rested on the table. Gave his fingers a squeeze because this could well be the last time she touched him.

Then she withdrew her hand and used it to grip her other one—tightly—in her lap beneath the table so no one could see them twisting anxiously.

She looked at Alex, at the grey eyes that seemed to see right into her soul, and with a heavy heart blurted out the words that needed to be said.

‘You’ve probably guessed I was with someone at the congress. My husband. I left him that night. I haven’t seen him since. I started divorce proceedings eighteen months ago, but as I haven’t heard from the lawyers I don’t know if it’s gone through so I could, technically, still be married.’

Alex seemed to be waiting for more, his eyes fixed on her face, then he smiled.

‘Are you telling me this in case I have strong feelings about dating married women? Believe me, Annie, if you haven’t lived with the guy for five years, I don’t think you count as married any more, so you can’t escape me that way.’

The teasing tone in his voice warmed all the cold places in her body that thinking about Dennis had produced, but as she replayed all the words—both hers and his—in her head, she realised she was still a long way from explaining exactly where things now stood between her and Dennis.

Not that she knew for certain…

Alex was talking again and she shut away the sudden tremor of fear.

‘Annie,’ he said gently, ‘you must know there are plenty of places in the States where divorce is cheap and easy. Maybe he’s divorced you.’

‘Maybe,’ she said, though she doubted it. When the first of the private investigators had called her father—only two days after she’d left Traders Rest—her father had said Annie was in the US and as far as he knew still with Dennis. Her father had also supplied the man with the name and contact details of the family’s solicitors and asked that all contact be made through the firm, which meant there’d always been an address available for the service of papers or for information about a ‘quickie’ divorce.

‘Well, as I said, it doesn’t matter,’ Alex reiterated. ‘Now, would you like to put your hand back on the table? I think on a first date, even in Australia, we’d be allowed to hold hands.’

Annie smiled at the weak joke, but as her fingers were now icy from remembering, she was happy to rest her hand back on the table, appreciating the warmth of his when he placed it on top of hers.

He gave her fingers a squeeze, thanked the waiter who’d brought their wine and then said, ‘My mother always said to show interest in one’s companions—ask about their jobs and so on. But I know all about your job and you know about mine, and we’ve already talked about the pets and the food, so I guess we might be up to families. Is it just you and your father in yours? Having had my sister visit last year, I can only see that as a blessing, although I suppose it’s been fun having her around. She was an afterthought, my sister. Three boys, then when the youngest was eight along came Frances. I was thirteen, old enough to understand the basic sex education we’d had at school, so you can imagine how horrified I was to realise my mother and father must have done that to have produced Frances! Totally grossed me out for a long time!’

Annie laughed.

‘I can imagine!’ she said, but though her laughter sounded genuine, Alex could still read strain in her face, and the cold fingers nestling beneath his suggested that telling him even the bare bones of her story had upset her.

She lifted her other hand up to pick up her wineglass, tilting it towards him in a toast.

‘To the new unit!’ she said.

Alex lifted his own glass and clinked it against hers, although he’d always thought the gesture corny.

‘Not to the new unit, Annie, but to us!’ He raised it higher, then moved it to his lips and took a sip. ‘This is a date, remember.’

A slight smile trembled on her lips.

‘I’m out of practice at dating,’ she said. ‘This is the first in a very long time, and I’ve probably already blown it with a confession about my dubious marital status, and now I’m feeling envious of you, growing up in a family with four kids. You asked if it was just Dad and me in our family, and it is. My mother died when I was eleven, so he and I are closer than most fathers and daughters.’

‘Nothing to feel envious about,’ Alex assured her, although he felt sorry for anyone who hadn’t experienced the kind of upbringing he’d had, and he couldn’t imagine not having the close connections he’d retained with his siblings. ‘After three boys my mother had always prayed for a girl so she’d have female support within the family, but when Frances came along Mom swore she was more trouble than the three of us put together.’

He could feel Annie’s fingers growing warmer and could see the tension draining out of her face. His imagination had provided him with a vivid image of her travelling to the US with her husband, separated from her father—the only close family she had—by an ocean. No mom at home to phone when things were difficult, no supportive letters like the ones he still received from members of his family—though now they were emailed, not posted.

The waitress set their meals on the table. Annie thanked her then took back her hand so she could handle her fork and spoon for some spaghetti-twirling.

‘I always order pasta in pieces because I’ve never mastered that art,’ Alex confessed, after admiring her expertise for some time.

‘Student meals!’ she said. ‘I trained in—in a city and Dad was posted in the country at the time, so I shared a flat with three other students. I think we lived on spaghetti for four years. When we were flush we had sauce on it, other times olive oil and garlic.’

She paused then grinned at him.

‘Come to think of it, I didn’t have many dates back then either!’

Alex knew she was doing her best to keep the conversation light, but her hesitation in mentioning a particular city struck him as off-key and he remembered other times she’d caught herself in conversation.

Were things not finished between herself and her husband in other ways—apart from the divorce? Was she fearful of him finding her?

Mental headshake. OK, so some men did get hung up on ex-wives or ex-partners—you read about it every day in the paper—but Annie had been at the congress with her husband—a congress of cardiologists and cardiac surgeons. Yes, there were ancillary services represented, and a clutch of representatives from drug companies, but to think of any of these people as…

Dangerous?

Annie was talking, about the food and some place at the beach that sold fresh pasta and a variety of sauces.

‘It’s really delicious, and well worth the drive.’

‘We could go together on Saturday—if all’s well at work,’ Alex suggested, then knew from the arrested look in Annie’s eyes that she’d mentioned the place as offhand conversation. And he knew, in her mind, this wasn’t just a first date. It was a final one as well.

But why? He tried to get inside her head. To work out what might have happened to make her so determined not to get involved with him when it was equally obvious she liked him.

And, from her response to his kisses, felt an attraction towards him.

She’d had a bad experience with marriage—that was obvious—but that wasn’t at all rare these days. People he knew had been married three or four times and had very few hang-ups about it. He didn’t think that kind of short-term arrangement would suit him, but still…

He considered how things must have been. Marrying fairly young then travelling to the US where her husband had been her sole support—probably, if she hadn’t worked, her sole contact with the outside world. If things had been difficult between them, she’d have been truly isolated. Living in the most civilised country in the world, yet so alone she may as well have been on the moon.

The waiter appeared to ask if he’d like more wine, and he realised he’d been sipping at his glass, emptying it, as he thought. He thanked the man and was about to wave him away when he realised Annie’s glass was also empty.

‘Would you like another glass of wine? Don’t stop because I did. I’m always aware I could be called in, so I usually stop at one—on rare occasions two.’

She shook her head and the waiter went away, then she smiled the slightly mischievous smile that made her eyes sparkle.

‘Just because I didn’t have a mother, it doesn’t mean I wasn’t warned about drinking too much on a first date. I think my father, having been on the other side of the dating game, probably knew more about it than any woman ever would. He typed up lists of warnings he not only read out to me before I went out the door but also taped all over the place.’

Alex chuckled at the image of fatherly concern.

‘How did it start? Boys are only after one thing?’

Annie relaxed for the first time since they’d sat down and Alex had mentioned the paper he’d given at the congress.

‘That was the first, fourth, sixth, eighth and eleventh, if I remember rightly. It was something he repeated with such regularity it confused me more than it helped. To begin with, I thought the “one thing” was a kiss, so for my first three years at high school, on the rare dates friends arranged for me, I refused to let any of the boys kiss me. Then the story went around that I had some terrible lip disease—far worse than herpes—and I didn’t have to worry about saying no because no one ever asked me.’