Fairytale on the Children's Ward

Em’s lips!

But it was better to think of Oliver’s lips than the problem of Emily right now. Thinking about Emily would put her mother into a panic again and a panicking perfusionist was of no use to anyone.

Unfortunately thinking of Oliver didn’t do her much good either. Look at it this way, she told herself. Yes, it was an unbelievable quirk of fate that had brought them together again, but they’d met as colleagues now, nothing more. Two professionals, working in the same team, working to save the lives of tiny babies.

Forget the fact you still feel an attraction to the man!

Forget Emily—well, not Em herself, but the problem she presented right now. Concentrate on work.

In the kitchen, she turned on the simple pod coffee machine that had been her treat to herself when she’d moved to Sydney, and dropped two slices of frozen fruit loaf into the toaster. Had Oliver found the shops? Did he have food to eat? Coffee?

The temptation to tap on his door and ask him was almost overwhelming, but it was barely six and their official working hours began at eight so it was likely he was still asleep. Besides, the more times she saw him outside of work hours, the more opportunities she would have had to tell him about Emily, and the angrier he’d be when she did tell him, that she hadn’t told him earlier.

Did that make sense or was her lack of sleep making her stupid?

She sipped her coffee, returning to the mental excuse of not knocking on the door in case he was still sleeping.

An image of a sleeping Oliver popped obligingly into her head—Oliver in boxer shorts, his back bare, lightly tanned, the bones of his spine visible as he curled around his pillow in sleep. An ache started deep inside her, and she left her toast half eaten, the coffee cup still half full, hurrying to the bathroom to clean her teeth, then fleeing her flat which was, she realised, just far too close to Oliver’s for her peace of mind. It was the proximity dogging her, reminding her, teasing at her body. If she moved—

But how could she when Alex had been kind enough to arrange the accommodation and she already felt settled here?

Or had done!

Although if she shifted…? No! her mind shrieked at her. Of course you have to tell him.

* * *

Oliver pushed his bedroom window to open it wider, sure there must be a breeze somewhere in the stillness of the summer morning. Below him the front door clicked shut and Clare strode into view, marching with great speed and determination up the path, then along the street, striding now—exercising or escaping?

But escaping from what? Not him, surely.

He laughed at the thought, a mocking laugh, but didn’t leave the window, watching until a slight bend in the road took her out of sight.

Clare!

He showered and dressed, reminding himself that both of them had changed in the ten years since the split. Now they were mature adults and could meet and treat each other as professional colleagues, nothing more, though the thought of her with a child niggled at him.

For one thing, where was the child now? She hadn’t had a child with her and there was no noise coming from next door.

Clare with a child.

Why did that hurt him?

The physical attraction he still felt towards her was probably nothing more than an emotional hangover from the past, some glitch in programming, possibly to do with the Italian revelations. And feeling this strong attraction, it was only natural that he’d been on the brink of taking her in his arms yesterday evening, when the front doorbell had sounded.

Saved by a pizza!

Think of food, not Clare.

Rod’s daughter had left some basic groceries in the flat—milk and butter in the fridge, coffee, tea, bread and spreads in the pantry. He’d have to find the supermarket and do some shopping, and until then he could eat at the hospital. In fact, if he left now he could have breakfast there; maybe that’s why Clare had left so early.

She wasn’t in the little coffee shop in the foyer, nor in the canteen, so he ate a solitary breakfast, then made his way not to the teams’ rooms but to the theatre, wanting to refamiliarise himself with the way Alex had it set up.

‘Oh!’

Clare was there ahead of him and she must have sensed his presence, for the startled expression burst from her lips before he was fully through the door.

Not that she was unsettled for long, greeting him with a smile—a very professional smile—and a cheery, ‘Good morning, Oliver,’ for all the world as if they hadn’t shared an extremely passionate relationship, albeit ten years ago.

‘Do you always begin this early?’ he asked, because two could play the calm and controlled game. She smiled again.

‘First-night nerves,’ she told him. ‘I’ve spent a lot of time here in the past week, but I’m still anxious about the machine, which is stupid as it’s exactly the same make of machine as I operated in the States. It’s just that—’

She stopped abruptly and he saw a faint colour appear in her cheeks.

‘Just that…?’ he prompted, hoping professional conversation would halt the disturbances in his body.

‘You’ll think I’m barmy, but to me the machines have personalities, maybe idiosyncrasies would be a better word, and until I get to know each one personally I won’t know what to expect.’

Clare watched him carefully as she explained her unease, and to her surprise, she caught no hint of a smile. In fact, Oliver was nodding as if he understood what she was saying.

‘You have so much to think about, with the responsibility for the respiratory and circulatory functions of the lungs and heart. I can understand you wondering if the machine has quirks you need to watch for. You’ve got the oxygenator, the pumps, the filters, the reservoirs and tubing, so many component parts that can go wrong.’

And now he smiled, sending tremors of remembered delight through Clare’s body, in spite of her determination to remain on strictly professional terms with him.

‘But have things ever gone badly wrong for you? Has there ever been a disaster you couldn’t overcome?’

She found herself smiling back at him, professionally, of course.

‘Tubes kinking, the membrane oxygenator failing, the machine turning off automatically when a clot or bubble gets into the tubes? I’ve seen most of the calamities that can happen, and had to cope with a few, but generally the machines, providing they are serviced regularly and checked before every operation, work brilliantly.’

Oliver heard the pride in her voice and recognised the dedication she had to her profession—speaking of which…

‘It still seems a strange choice for someone who had stars in her eyes and an established career as an actor.’

He saw her shoulders lift in a slight shrug.

‘Things happened, Oliver, that changed my goals. I’d done well in science at school, so a switch to that seemed logical.’

Which would have made sense, only her voice had tightened as she spoke, and he sensed a tension in her body. Or was he fooling himself that he was still so attuned to her he could feel her emotion, sense that she’d told maybe not a lie but certainly not the whole truth?

‘Then perfusion.’

He shook his head, as much at his own imaginings as at her choice of career. But at least her smile was back—a bright smile now.

‘If I’d known how much I would love this job I’d never have bothered with anything else. What amazes me is that there are so many jobs out there that no-one even knows about. I mean, the career adviser at my school didn’t mention perfusionist as a career option. In fact, he’d probably never heard of it either. By chance, I met a perfusionist and that was it.’

‘So here you are.’ Nice, normal conversation; he’d be able to handle this. Always assuming the attraction he still felt towards her wasn’t obvious to everyone who came in contact with him when she was around.