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muscles and the parietal pleura. With a bit of luck we might deal with a tension pneumothorax and get some cardiac output at this point.’

      They didn’t.

      Tony took just a moment to watch the screen, however, and his voice was soft. ‘What’s his name?’

      ‘Michael.’

      ‘And he’s seventeen?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Family here?’

      ‘His mother’s just arrived. She’s in the relatives’ room.’

      Tony simply nodded, but Kelly was allowing herself to stare at him in the wake of his rapid-fire surprising queries. How had he done that? Made this seem so much more personal? As though he cared more about the patient than demonstrating his obviously not inconsiderable skills? Maybe he wasn’t as hung up on his status as rumour had led her to believe.

      She held her breath, watching the swift and decisive actions of this surgeon as he used a fine wire saw to cut though the sternum and then opened the chest with retractors.

      ‘I’m “tenting” the pericardium,’ he said moments later. ‘Scissors—thanks. Make a long incision like this. If it’s too short, it’ll prevent access to the heart. Suction…’

      What would it be like, Kelly wondered, to have this man as a mentor in a career as a cardiothoracic surgeon? Or just to work alongside him as a nurse? To know him on a personal basis?

      Maybe she knew him better than anyone else in this room.

      A ridiculous thought, given the situation. Given reality. It made her memories of her time with him more dreamlike. Precious, but harder to hang onto. Kelly tucked them protectively into a corner of her mind.

      Into that empty space in her heart.

      Tony had both hands inside the boy’s chest now, massaging Michael’s heart. ‘Make sure you keep the heart horizontal during massage,’ he told the observers. ‘Lifting the apex can prevent venous filling. I’m aiming for a rate of eighty per minute here, and I’m looking for any obvious bleeding that we need to control.’

      The people in front of Kelly were murmuring in awed tones, and they shifted enough to obscure her line of vision. She heard the request for internal defibrillation, however, and could envisage the tiny paddles that would provide a minimal jolt to the cardiac tissue but hopefully restore a more normal heartbeat.

      A collective gasp of amazement rippled around the room seconds later, but she could sense no let-up in control of a difficult situation from the star at the centre of this drama.

      ‘Theatre’s on standby. Let’s get Michael up there while we’ve got a perfusing rhythm.’

      There was a new flurry of activity as the open chest wound was covered, and the bed, the monitors and numerous necessary staff members all began moving as a connected unit.

      Tony stripped off his gloves, dropping them to the floor and reaching for a fresh pair. His gaze scanned the assembled staff as he took a single step to put him within reach of what he needed. Kelly felt the eye contact like something physical. Almost a blow, the way it sent shock waves through her body. Despite the contact being so brief—less than a heartbeat—the connection was so strong she was sure Tony had to feel it, too. He’d glance back—with a frown, maybe. Needing a second glance without having registered why.

      But he didn’t look back. He barely broke his stride as he pulled fresh gloves from the slot on the box and followed his patient towards Theatre.

      Maybe he hadn’t seen her. She was unimportant.

      Invisible.

      ‘Wow,’ came a voice beside her. ‘I saw it, but I still don’t believe it.’

      ‘I don’t believe the mess they’ve left behind. Kelly, would you mind helping clear this up?’

      ‘Better head back to work myself.’ The first nurse sighed. ‘Guess the excitement’s over.’

      Kelly tore her gaze away from the open door that had swallowed the figure of Tony Grimshaw.

      Yes. The excitement was definitely over.

      ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘I’ve checked three times since you rang this morning, Mr Grimshaw. I’m sorry, but there’s no C. Riley to be found on either the permanent or the casual nursing staff databases.’

      ‘But…’

      ‘Are you sure she’s a nurse?’ The woman from Personnel was beginning to sound impatient on the other end of the line. ‘St Patrick’s employs hundreds of people, you know. This Miss Riley you’re trying to locate might be a physiotherapist or a dietician or a social worker—or any number of other things.’

      ‘But she said…’ Tony paused. She hadn’t actually said she was a nurse, had she? She’d said she worked in a lot of different areas and that her favourite places were Emergency and Theatre. He was standing in the theatre suite right now, and there were people everywhere. Nurses, orderlies, technicians. Even a girl polishing the taps on the handbasins.

      There were also two registrars waiting for him at a discreet distance from this wall phone. They were running late for a departmental meeting.

      ‘Never mind.’ He’d probably started some sort of a rumour by making these enquiries in the first place, but the staff in Personnel weren’t to know why he was trying to locate the woman. It could be to reprimand her or something. ‘Thank you for your help,’ he added.

      ‘A pleasure. If I hear anything that might be helpful I’ll contact you, shall I?’

      Tony could squash any embryonic rumours by saying it really didn’t matter.

      But it did, didn’t it?

      Since he’d woken up on Sunday morning to reach out and find his bed empty, he’d been unable to get rid of that sense of…loss.

      It should have been easy. He’d thought he had it sorted when anger had kicked in briefly. When he’d started feeling as though he’d been used and discarded. But then the doubts had crept in. Excuses his brain was only too willing to come up with on her behalf.

      Maybe she’d had a good reason to leave without saying anything. Mind you, there’d have to be a good reason to justify not wanting to repeat that experience. He knew it had been just as good for her as it had been for him. Nobody could fake that kind of responsiveness. Or sincerity. The princess had been genuine and he wanted to find her.

      Maybe she was married?

      If that was the case, fine. Tony wasn’t about to break up anyone’s marriage. It was this not knowing that was frustrating him. That and the peculiar dream-like quality the whole night had taken on.

      But it had been real. Utterly different from anything he’d ever experienced before, but there was no denying it had happened. Or that the impression it had left made it impossible to forget. Perhaps what was really pushing his buttons was the need to prove it had been real. So that he would know what he needed to aim for in his personal life and never allow himself to settle for what had been on offer so far.

      Mediocrity. Interest that always became infected with an urge to escape.

      ‘Thank you,’ Tony said finally, preparing to hang up the receiver. ‘I’d appreciate that.’

      His registrar had an armful of paperwork, and there would be a lot more by the end of the usual late Monday afternoon meeting where the cardiologists presented their cases. They would listen to histories, view footage of angiograms showing coronary arteries in various stages of blockage, grade people to score the urgency of intervention and draw up the Theatre list for bypass surgery for the next week.

      There would be cases left over from last week who hadn’t made it to Theatre because of emergency procedures taking precedence,

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