The Surgeon's Meant-To-Be Bride

‘No, you don’t, Gill. You’re just trying to appease me. Well, no, thank you very much.’

Hell! What did she want from him? ‘Well, don’t say I didn’t offer,’ he said glibly.

‘Offer? Offer!’ she raged. ‘I don’t want an offer, Gill. I want you to want a baby with me so much that your breath hurts when you think about it. That your arms ache and your heart feels bereft and your stomach is empty at the thought of not having one. You have to want one with very fibre of your being, Gill. Every cell. Can you offer me that, Gill? Because if you can’t then don’t try and placate me. It’s insulting.’

‘Look, OK, you’re right. I don’t. But I’m still willing to give it a go,’ he said quietly.

Harriet sighed. ‘How willing? Are you prepared to give up your job, your career, this lifestyle?’

‘I could have both,’ he said, annoyed at her all-or-nothing attitude. ‘You could go home and have the baby and I could have two months abroad and one month at home.’

OK, he was just making this up as he went along, but even he had to admit it sounded terrible. He could hardly blame her for her appalled expression.

‘No, Gill. You can’t. I don’t want to have a baby and be stuck at home by myself for great chunks of time. I want you to want to be around all the time for me and the baby. I don’t want to have to lie in bed each night worrying that you’re going to get shot by a local warlord or die in a helicopter crash or catch Ebola or something. You forget so easily that this work we do is dangerous. I can’t live like that.’

‘I could maybe cut down to just one or two overseas missions a year…’

He sounded lame and uncommitted. He’d hate it. He’d hate being away from the action so much, and she knew it. ‘And how long would we last, Gill? How long before you resented me? Resented the baby?’

Gill swallowed as he thought about her question. What an awful situation that would be.

‘This isn’t about me forcing you to do what I want. This is me saying I’m sorry, I changed the rules. You didn’t sign up for this and I know this isn’t what you want. I’ve always known. Heaven knows, I never expected to feel this way either. I’ve tried to change your mind but I can’t make you want this the way I want it. And I do want it, Gill. I need it. And I’m asking you to let me go so I can find someone who wants it as much as I do.’

The thought of her with someone else hurt like a fresh bruise deep inside that someone kept prodding. But she was right. If he couldn’t give her what she wanted then it was wrong to keep her bound to him.

Gill sighed as he removed the papers from the envelope. He could see her fingers stop their drumming and knew she was holding her breath. His eyes fell on the phrase ‘irreconcilable differences’. How pertinent. That was exactly their problem. They loved each other. They just wanted different things.

‘Are you sure, Harry? What we have is pretty special. Are you sure you can find that with someone else?’

He didn’t mean to sound conceited—he was just stating a fact. And it was buying him time. Putting off the inevitable.

Harriet shook her head and he was surprised to catch a shine of tears. ‘No, Gill. I’m not sure. I doubt I’ll ever love anybody as much as I love you. I honestly believe there’s only ever one true love for everyone. But that’s OK, I’m not looking for that. I know there’s someone out there that can make me happy and give me what I want the most.’

‘So you’re going to settle?’ he asked incredulously.

‘No, Gill.’ She shut her eyes briefly, blocking his amazement out, then opened them again. ‘I’m just looking for a different kind of love. One that has room for three.’

He nodded slowly at her. Their love had always been kind of all-consuming. Blocking everything and everybody else out.

She looked so lovely, standing in front of him, that the desire to hold her in his arms was overwhelming. She pulled a pen out of her scrubs breast pocket as if she’d read his mind, derailing his base urge. Yes, they’d had a good run but now it was time to let her go.

He took it from her and signed at the indicated places in his indecipherable doctor’s handwriting next to her neat signature. He placed her copies back in the envelope and handed them back to her, keeping his.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

He nodded and watched as she turned on her heel and left the room.

CHAPTER THREE

0900 HOURS

IF ANYONE noticed their indifference at the breakfast table, they didn’t say anything. In fact, as each of the team joined them at the communal table, good-humoured jokes were told about their early morning wake-up call.

‘Hell,’ said Joan Sunderland, yawning as she pulled out her chair. Joan was the team’s anaesthetist and had been working with MSAA and Gill for ten years. She was English, originating from Liverpool. ‘Parrots were loud this morning.’

‘Parrots?’ said Helmut. He was a Berliner and, as an anaesthetic technician, was Joan’s right-hand man. ‘Sounded human to me.’ And he winked at Harriet.

Harriet blushed and stole a furtive glance at Gill. He was concentrating on his toast but she could see the poorly suppressed grin. There was something so wrong about the team teasing them when Gill had just signed the divorce papers.

But, on the other hand, it was typical. They were a close-knit team. They’d been together on and off for a long time. They performed a stressful job in high-pressure situations and none of them could have come through some of the more awful things without the support of each other.

‘Hey, you two, keep it down next time,’ said Katya, her flat Russian accent accentuating her renowned bluntness as she and Siobhan entered the room together and joined them, completing the team.

Everyone laughed. Even Harriet managed a grin. She glanced around the table and noticed how relaxed and happy they all were. When Harriet had rejoined the team in their current locale two months ago they had been a little cool towards her. Tense and worried.

After all, they were the ones who had put up with Gill after she had left a year ago and the dreadful year before that when their relationship had slowly crumbled. Apparently his mood had been foul for a long time and, as delighted as they’d been to welcome her back into the fold, they’d been wary about the effect on the team atmosphere.

Cohesiveness was essential in their line of work. They didn’t have to all be bosom buddies but it helped. The dreadful security situations they faced in the countries they visited often meant they couldn’t even go out and soak up some local culture. They were stuck with each other’s company for two months at a time. Harmony was important.

And there was a certain sense of loyalty for Gill. Harriet had felt it the minute she had got back. Nobody had judged her but they’d been through Gill’s highs and lows for the previous year and it had been only natural for their sympathies to lie with him.

Gill was also the kind of guy who commanded loyalty and respect. Harriet sneaked another look at him as he poured coffee from the percolator into his mug. In his scrubs the naughty-angel look had gone. He was Dr Guillaume Remy. Surgeon extraordinaire. Calm and capable. Brilliant and cool under pressure.

Not a hot-shot arrogant city surgeon, specialising in a glamorous field and making heaps of money but a brilliant general surgeon getting paid a pittance to help the world’s poor and needy.

A real team player. A doctor who knew the value of a team and cherished the contribution of everyone. No throwing instruments around theatres and chucking tantrums. He possessed a poise that was exemplary and instilled a quiet confidence in all who worked with him.

He brought his mug to his lips and Harriet admired his long, beautiful fingers. She deliberately didn’t think of what they’d just done and where they’d just been and how they could stroke against her skin and reduce her to a whimpering mass of need. She thought instead about how many lives they’d saved. How efficient they were with a scalpel. How deftly they accepted an instrument without needing to look. How neatly they could suture to keep scarring to a minimum.

Her gaze travelled up to his face and lingered there for a while. His grey eyes were clear and bright, like a still tranquil pond, and his fine sandy hair framed a face that could almost be described as beautiful.

He looked…European. Tall with finely chiselled features, fabulous cheekbones and a regal nose. His body was lean, fine-boned, and had she not known him at all, his French heritage would not have surprised her. Yes, he was an Australian through and through, but there was just something so French about him also…

He laughed at something Helmut had said and Harriet blinked, realising she was staring. She tuned back into the conversation and immediately picked up the undercurrent of excitement as they all contemplated their last day of the mission. Tomorrow morning the organisation would fly them to London and then on to their different corners of the world for a month’s R and R before bringing them together again in another unfortunate part of the planet.

They were doing their things-I-have-missed-most-about-home routine. Yes, they all loved their jobs sometimes with an almost fanatical zeal, but two months away from all you knew and loved, flung into the pressure cooker of a crumbling foreign nation, it was only natural to miss certain things. It was a game they always played on the last day of a mission. There was only one rule—it had to be something different every time.

‘A BBQ and my grandfather’s escargots,’ said Gill.

Hmm, thought Harriet. Now, that she could relate to. Henri cooked the best snails. They were addictive.

‘The zoo. And frozen cobwebs,’ said Helmut.

Well, living in Sydney, she didn’t see too many frozen anything but she understood the sentiment. In this place it didn’t even get cool overnight. Just the same oppressive heat. No wonder the locals were so crazy. If she had to live here permanently, she’d want to kill somebody, too.

‘Ice-skating and vodka. The proper stuff,’ said Katya. Everyone laughed, no doubt remembering the time they’d all got merry together at an airport stopover a few years back on Katya’s vodka when their plane had been delayed.

‘The Mersey and British Rail,’ said Joan, and laughed at her own joke.