‘I’m so proud of you, you know,’ she said aloud. ‘This wasn’t your mistake, and you fixed it, but you’re still prepared to take the blame. You really care, about the people who work for you and with you and for the people you do the work for… The patients you never even get to meet.’
They were both silent for a minute. Was Kate also thinking about the teenage girl she’d never met who’d been the patient today? And that Connor had been the girl’s surgeon?
That sucked. Bella had watched that chemistry happening on the dance floor last week and had been secretly thrilled. Kate might be fiercely independent and appear not to need a man in her life on a permanent basis, but everybody needed to be loved, didn’t they?
To love someone else?
Okay, she knew how much Kate loved her, but that wasn’t enough. For either of them. Especially if Bella was heading for the other side of the world. She might be gone for years and she didn’t want to have to worry about Kate being lonely.
And Connor was cute. She instinctively knew she was too young or ditzy or something to be of any interest to him, but she could appreciate his attributes. Not just his looks but that laid-back confidence he had. That almost naughty streak. He was a bit of a renegade was Dr Matthews. A modern-day, professional kind of pirate.
Bella was watching Kate pacing again. She had changed into her jeans but hadn’t undone the tight braid her hair was bound up in. Her movements were graceful but… fierce somehow. Like a wild cat prowling the perimeter of its cage.
Why on earth had she been harbouring the hope that the two of them would get together? They were total opposites.
Maybe that was why. Maybe someone like Connor was exactly what Kate needed to balance her. To put some joy into that precisely ordered world that Kate had created for herself. But why would Connor be attracted to someone who was as uptight as Kate? As much as she loved her, Bella couldn’t deny that her aunt was a control freak. And maybe too much of a feminist or something because she’d never had a high opinion about the male of the species.
Bella sighed. It had never been likely to happen. And, after today, the chances were probably well below zero.
The sound of the doorbell made them both jump. The two women stared at each other.
‘No,’ Kate whispered, looking horrified. ‘It couldn’t be. Could it?’
Bella swallowed hard. It was just the sort of thing Connor would do, wasn’t it? To chase someone that he considered had done him harm and sort it out himself, even if it was completely outside any accepted protocol?
The doorbell sounded for the second time. A long, demanding blast.
Bella cleared her throat as she uncurled her legs from the sofa.
‘Do you want me to go and see?’
‘No.’ Kate sucked in an audibly deep, if shaky, breath. ‘I’ll go.’
* * *
Connor’s finger actually hurt because he’d pushed the damn doorbell so hard.
He knew full well he shouldn’t be here but Kate hadn’t been in her department when he’d finally calmed down enough to be prepared to face the issue, having gathered all the information he could about the day’s events. How dared she simply walk off and go home as though nothing untoward had happened today?
Well, he was going to let her know in no uncertain terms just what the implications were of the error that had been made. He could have gone straight to the highest authority that governed the behaviour of physicians within the hospital system, but he was too involved at a personal level here. He’d file a request for disciplinary action when he could be sure he could present it on a professional more than a personal level.
But, dammit, it was one of his patients that it had happened to.
Okay, it hadn’t exactly been Kate’s fault. He knew about the disruption caused by that fire alarm. He knew that the department had been overloaded with work that included a tutorial taking place and more than one urgent case from Theatre being delivered.
He could also be perfectly confident that Lewis Blackman and Kate would have had it all sorted in no time flat if Lewis hadn’t had the misfortune of choosing that moment to have a heart attack.
But…
About to push the doorbell for the third time, Connor found his finger hovering.
But Kate had been the one to find the error, hadn’t she? She’d run up to Theatre so fast that she had barely been able to talk through her breathlessness. He’d heard that phone ringing faintly in the technician’s room. He could have sent someone to answer it and had the news of the error well before he’d picked up the scalpel.
It wasn’t as if he’d even started extending the opening in Estelle’s leg. She would be left with barely more than the scar she would have had anyway from the biopsy and fracture repair, even after dealing with the benign tumour.
She had kept her leg. No harm had been done.
Thanks to Kate.
