Unlocking the Doctor's Heart

It was almost two hours before Beth was able to finally leave the hospital. Tania’s parents had arrived while she’d been in Radiology and Beth thought she had been so long with the little girl, she may as well stay a little longer while the orthopaedic registrar viewed the X-rays and made his decision. Beth admitted to herself that on a level somewhere between incredibly tired and flat-out exhaustion it felt good to be needed. She was making a difference just by being there, and that was a wonderful feeling. It had been such a long time since she had felt that she was important or needed by anyone.

She explained the situation to Mr and Mrs Grant and thought she would leave quietly, until she noticed how worried Tania was about the casts.

Beth remained with the family for the procedure, then accompanied them to the paediatric ward. Finally it was time to go home. Intending to catch a cab in front of the hospital, she grabbed her things and rushed through the front door of A and E—straight into Dr Harrison.

‘Don’t you think you’re carrying dedication to the extreme?’

‘It was a special case,’ Beth answered, ‘but I must go, I’m really past being tired. Damn!’ she moaned as she saw the last cab on the rank pull away. Now she had to call another one and hope there wasn’t a long wait. She opened her purse, searching for her phone. The air was still warm and although Beth hadn’t been outside all day she knew it must have been a hot day to still be this warm so late in the evening.

‘Did I miss something here?’

‘No, but I did. The last cab,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I’ll have to wait for another to be dispatched.’

‘No problem. I’ll take you home,’ Dr Harrison said, taking her arm and heading towards the car park. ‘I could do with a drive to clear my head. The restaurant was a little stuffy.’

‘That’s very kind of you but I couldn’t—’

‘I insist,’ he cut in. ‘It’s the least I can do to show my appreciation for your marathon first day on the job. Besides, there’s really no point arguing, I always win. So where are you staying?’

After a quiet smile, she realised she was too tired to argue so gave him her address. His charm was indisputable and the ease with which he made Beth’s pulse race gave her no reason to doubt he would always win. She looked down at his strong masculine hand holding her arm and the warmth of his skin made her spine tingle. She felt so good, so protected...and so close to exhaustion. Her tired eyes slowly climbed his body, daring to rest for a moment on his chiselled jaw and soft lips. At this close proximity, Beth guessed his body could be as commanding as his mind.

‘Best be on our way,’ he said with a voice more brotherly than seductive. She came down to earth with a crash. Dr Harrison was simply offering friendship to a new arrival in his city. And why would it be any different, she thought. She had seen his beautiful escort earlier in the evening. Still, being friends was more than she had expected from him this morning and it was infinitely better than being adversaries. Besides, she really didn’t need a distraction or any complication and a man like Matthew would never fancy a woman like her, she decided. He would be looking for a worldly, gorgeous model type, definitely not a dishevelled, overtired resident clearly in need of a hot bath and a good sleep.

‘Sounds fine to me,’ she said, as they headed towards a dark-coloured BMW convertible. He opened her car door first and waited for her to get in before walking around to the driver’s side and climbing in. Within minutes, Beth found that Dr Harrison hadn’t bought the car for appearance alone.

After confirming the address of the one-bedroom maisonette the hospital exchange programme had found for Beth only fifteen minutes from the hospital, he took the car out on the main road and put his foot down hard on the accelerator. Beth’s hand gripped the door handle tightly as her eyes found the speedometer. With the warm wind rushing by, she was glad her hair was still tied back in a plait, albeit wispy after almost fifteen hours on the job.

‘Don’t you worry we might be picked up for speeding?’ she managed to say.

‘I’m within the speed limit...maybe it just seems faster because you’re tired,’ he said, using one free hand to loosen his tie and undo the top button of his shirt.

Beth unsuccessfully fought the urge not to stare at his appealing profile as she felt her heart start to pound. Everything in her mind was warning her not to look for trouble. He was so attractive and she felt sure he knew it. Somehow she had to keep her thoughts purely professional but he was making it difficult without a lot of effort.

His broad shoulders were relaxed against the leather seat, tanned skin revealed beneath his open shirt where his tie had been. How she wished the tie was back in place and the buttons were not open. She wondered how in her almost catatonic state she was mesmerised by his sensuality. This was ridiculous. It was like having a crush on a teacher. Totally inappropriate, she berated herself silently.

She mustered her thoughts. ‘I was wondering why you were heading back to the hospital so late at night?’

‘Some paperwork,’ he answered flatly. Matthew had no intention of admitting that going home alone after dropping his sister back at her place was worse than the distraction of undertaking a few hours’ paperwork at one in the morning. A good night’s sleep had eluded him for years. Five years, to be exact.

Five long, lonely years since the accident. The nights would turn into morning with just enough sleep to allow him to function. Anger, resentment and a lot of disappointment had taken his life and turned it into mere existence. He felt robbed of the happiness he had once enjoyed and had thought was to be his forever. He was nothing more than a shell of a man. An angry one at best, and at worst just empty and alone. But tonight this English woman, for some reason that he could not understand, was making him feel a little less angry and a little less empty.

‘So what makes a young woman travel halfway around the world to do exactly what she could do in a London hospital?’

Beth thought better of blurting out her family issues and decided to go the pleasant route. ‘I felt like a break from the cold English winters. Thought I’d swap wellies for sandals for a year or so.’

Matthew smiled. ‘It does get cold here. You might need some socks to accompany your sandals around June and July.’

Beth smiled back at his response. She was very tired but enjoying the banter. Matthew was not just easy on the eye. He was amusing and put her at ease.

‘I heard it doesn’t snow here in Adelaide—is that right?’

‘Yes, and to let you into a little-known secret...’ Matthew looked away from the road and into Beth’s eyes for a split second ‘...I’ve never seen snow.’

Beth was amused by his confession. But it was the nanosecond of his piercing blue eyes staring into hers that took her breath away. She had thought she was about to collapse from exhaustion when suddenly her body had come to life. She swallowed nervously. Matthew was making her feel alive in ways that even fully awake she hadn’t felt before. She had to snap out of it. He was her boss and he was playing cab driver. That’s all, she reminded herself. You are not his type.

‘Really, you’ve never, ever seen snow?’

‘No, never,’ he conceded with a grin. ‘My travel destinations are always the tropics up north. No chance of snow up there and there’s none to speak of in Adelaide except maybe some muddy, icy fluff on the top of Mount Lofty, but you’d need a hunting party with magnifying glasses to find it.’

‘Mount Lofty?’

‘It’s up that way.’ He signalled with his hand to the foothills in the east. ‘In a national park. Scenic enough, but there’s definitely no ski resort up there.’

‘Well, then, I did pack properly,’ she announced. ‘I left the wellies back home.’

Matthew suspected there was more to Beth’s medical exchange than a desire to swap her footwear but since she was obviously close to exhaustion he decided not to ask more questions. He didn’t need to know too much. He had to admit to himself that he found her cute, and feisty and a little mysterious. It was an intriguing package but it was also worrying. Matthew didn’t want to be interested in Beth in any capacity other than as an exchange resident in his care. She would be there for twelve months and then she would be gone. Never to be seen again.

He put his foot down again as the lights changed to green, sending Beth’s head back against the headrest. She was surprised to find they were nearing her street. It wasn’t so much the conversation that had been riveting and had made fifteen minutes seem like five but the distracting speaker.

Beth released her seat belt and reached for the door handle. ‘It’s the next one on the left, number seven.’

‘Do you roll out shoulder first from moving cars, or is it more of a hunched kind of a jump?’ he asked with a smirk. Without waiting for her reply, he continued, ‘Don’t be in such a hurry to get out of the car, Dr Seymour.’

Indignant that she may have betrayed her desire to move away from him rather than the car, Beth was at least grateful the dim streetlights hid the heat she felt in her cheeks. From the corner of her eye she watched his mouth curve in the moonlight.

With impeccable manners, he jumped from the car, whisked around to Beth’s side and opened her door. Quickly she climbed out and crossed the pavement to her gate. She didn’t know what he was thinking and she prayed he didn’t know what was on her mind. And the sooner she put distance between them, the better.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Dr Seymour,’ he said, as he ran back to his side of the car.

‘Thanks so much for the lift.’ Feeling more relaxed with thirty feet between them, she added as she opened her front door, ‘And please call me Beth when we’re off duty.’

‘You’re welcome, Beth.’ His voice was drowned by the noise of the engine as he took off down the street and into the night.

As Beth lay in bed that night she thought about the extraordinary day she’d had and more particularly the extraordinary Dr Harrison. He was nowhere near as bad as she had expected in some ways, and in other ways he was worse. He was an enigmatic man and working with him was going to be either hell or heaven, she could see it now. But for some strange, unfathomable reason she was looking forward to it. She had always enjoyed a challenge.

Tentatively she reached for the photograph of her family that stood on her bedside table. It had been taken in happy times. She smiled at the image of herself as a toddler, standing with her father, George, and mother, Grace. George, a surgeon, she knew would be impressed by the skill and dedication of a man such as Dr Harrison, and her mother, if she was still alive, would simply succumb to his charm.

She thought of the new additions to her family, those she left behind when she’d accepted her exchange to Australia, or, more accurately, those she had wanted to leave. There was no photograph. How she wished her life had been different.

When she’d been ten, and less than a year after her mother had passed away, her father had remarried and she’d gained a stepmother, Hattie, and a stepsister, Charlotte. Hattie was as warm as a refrigerated sardine and Charlotte, well, that had been an unhealthy competition from day one.

Beth rolled her sleepy eyes as the thought of Charlotte trying her best to pip her at every available opportunity to get George’s attention. Unfortunately, with Hattie’s assistance it had worked. After graduating from high school, Charlotte had decided against university and chosen to become a fitness instructor. Beth remembered the loud conversation that had occurred that night.

‘Fitness instructor?’ her father had questioned Hattie.

‘And what may I ask is wrong with that?’ she’d said with her eyes widening and, in Beth’s opinion, becoming scarier by the minute.

‘Nothing, absolutely nothing,’ he’d replied, wishing he had never opened his mouth, but having done so he continued, ‘It’s a perfectly good career, but she’s never shown an interest before. In fact, Charlotte has never had a gym membership to my knowledge. It seems a little out of the blue and I wonder if it isn’t just a phase?’