Robin Gianna – Tempted By The Brooding Surgeon: Tempted by the Brooding Surgeon / From Fling to Wedding Ring (страница 14)

Daniel listened to the infant’s chest again, and even from several feet away she could hear the wheeze as he cried. Maybe the baby would have lived quite a while with congestive heart failure, but it was more likely that he wouldn’t have. And that’s why they did these missions, wasn’t it? To save lives.

Finally, Daniel pulled his stethoscope from his ears and raised his head to look at Annabelle again. “I don’t think there’s any doubt it’s anomalous left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery. Good call, Luciana. In an ideal world we’d do more testing, but we have no choice but to open him up and see what we find, then get it fixed.”

“Ready with the gases and IVs, Doctor,” Annabelle said.

He gave her a nod then shocked her with another knee-weakening smile—had he ever smiled even once in the OR at the other clinic at any of the team? She was pretty sure she would have remembered if he had. Then again, for some reason his lips and jawline and those warm brown eyes were attracting her attention in a whole new way. Something she absolutely had to squelch.

Annabelle sucked in a meditative breath as he turned away to speak to the parents again, his voice a calming rumble. More hand shaking, then the couple were gone, leaving the three of them to scrub, gown and finish prepping the space.

“Do you know this family, Luciana?”

“I didn’t know them, but I do know the baby’s grandmother. She goes to my church, and I’d posted there about the clinic opening in a few days, which is why they came up.”

“Sounds like it was all meant to be that we’re here doing this tonight. You two ready?”

Luciana nodded, and Annabelle placed the mask over the baby’s nose and mouth. Once he was asleep, she put the IV lines into his tiny arms and legs, and the central line into his neck. After carefully checking his vitals, she nodded at Daniel. “All set.”

Together, they all did their jobs meticulously, with Daniel exposing the baby’s small heart and beginning the intricate surgery with steady hands, Luciana assisting. “Looks like he already has some tissue death from lack of oxygen, poor little guy. But we’ll get him fixed up, as close to perfect as we possibly can.”

* * *

Long past midnight and hours into the surgery, Annabelle quelled a big yawn, wishing she had a giant cup of coffee. She blinked hard, briefly moving her attention from the baby’s vital signs to look at Daniel’s intense eyes above his surgical mask. No sign of fatigue there, just an impressive, unwavering focus.

She’d participated in many delicate and skilled surgeries, though most had been more like what they’d been doing in Ayllu, and not quite as complicated as this. And every single time she felt awed by the steady hands, the years of training it took to perform such detailed work.

She loved her job but honestly couldn’t imagine doing what the cardiac surgeons did day in and day out. A special breed of doctor, for sure.

He literally held this baby’s life in his hands. She did too, but it was different. Administering then carefully monitoring the anesthesia throughout surgery kept the child safe and made the procedure possible. But to be able to restructure a tiny heart so it could function normally?

Truly amazing.

He’d talked about a surgical team needing to respect one another and the admiration she felt for him at that moment welled up in her chest as she watched him work. As it did, a revelation struck her right between the eyes.

For the first time she fully understood Daniel’s perspective from five years ago.

She’d made a huge mistake, there was no doubt about that. And if he, or any other surgeon, didn’t feel confident that someone on their team was capable enough, the life they were responsible for could be lost. What had happened back then might have technically been partly her resident’s fault, as well as her own. But when it came right down to it, the buck had stopped with her, the same way it did for a talented surgeon like Daniel.

He’d said that sometimes patients didn’t get second chances. That horrible day, theirs nearly hadn’t. And maybe that really did mean he’d been right. That she hadn’t deserved a second chance either.

Still absorbing all that and letting it sink into her brain, she pulled her attention from the fierce focus on his face. When she looked at the baby’s vital signs again, she sat straighter and stared.

“Doctor, your blood loss is ahead of where it needs to be.”

“Okay. Working on it.” He nodded, keeping his intent attention on his work.

Her throat tightened as she glanced at the blood-pressure monitor again, not liking one bit the continued drop in pressure. Not only did they clearly need more blood to compensate, they might need even more than she’d originally thought. Thank God she’d brought a good supply.

She hurried to retrieve a bag from the blood box, along with a second bag so it would be ready to hang if the first one didn’t do the trick. Trying to work as fast as possible without making a hasty mistake, she got the first bag attached and released more blood and medicine into the child’s IV lines.

“I’m having some trouble controlling the bleeding,” Daniel said. “Hang another five hundred cc of blood.”

“Just did. I have another one here ready to go. I’m pushing some meds to help.”

For a split second his brown gaze lifted to hers, before he gave her a short, nodding salute.

“I’m going to need it. Wait just a couple minutes then go ahead and hang the second bag.”

“Will do.”

Relieved that the baby’s blood pressure had normalized but still keeping a careful watch, the surgery took one hundred percent of Annabelle’s focus. Two more hours passed until finally Daniel had the wound closed and secured, with Luciana helping to finish the bandaging. When they were ready, Annabelle removed the IV lines and slowly awakened the infant.

Daniel snapped off his gloves and pulled down his mask. The slow, deliberate way he lifted off his scrub cap showed he felt as dead tired as Annabelle did, which was hardly a surprise since it was almost 4:00 a.m. Despite the lines and shadows etched around his eyes, their brown depths looked elated as his gaze met hers for a long moment before turning to the nurse. “We did it, ladies. Luciana, great job assisting. Where have you worked?”

“I’ve been a surgical assistant at two different hospitals in Lima for a long time. But Huancayo is my hometown, so I was happy to come here to help get the clinic open again.”

“Is there another nurse who can come here tomorrow to help care for him post-op?”

“I don’t know. I’ll see if I can find someone, but I’ll take care of him if I can’t.”

“I’ll also talk to Eduardo to see if he has anybody. There’s no way you can take care of this little guy and deal with more patients all by yourself once the clinic is open. Not to mention you’re going to need some sleep.”

“All of us do,” Luciana said with a tired grin. “But for tonight I’ll stay here with him.”

“No, we’ll stay. Or I will, at least,” Daniel said. “Do you have a place close by you can sleep?”

“I have relatives here, and have been staying with my mama since I arrived. I want to thank you both again for coming so fast. For being here at all. The little one might not have lived long if you hadn’t decided to open the clinic. It’s been closed for such a long time. I can tell you the people here appreciate it more than you can imagine.”

Daniel’s eyes met Annabelle’s for a long moment, and she saw they were lit with emotions. Satisfaction. Appreciation. And a slight smugness that told her that he was remembering what he’d said to her when she’d been so angry about being sent off to this place to work. That when her time here was finished, she’d be glad to have taken care of the patients in need, and whether she did it at the other clinic or here didn’t matter.

And, yeah, she couldn’t deny she was glad.

“I need to call the parents. Do you have their number?”

Luciana recited it, and Daniel went into the other room to speak to them. Annabelle could hear his low, lilting Spanish and let herself enjoy the cadence of it, the warmth she hadn’t noticed enough before.

She and Luciana again checked the baby’s IV lines, oxygen, breathing and other vital signs, before finally stepping back and smiling at one another.

“Not out of the woods yet, but he seems to be doing really well,” Annabelle said. “He’ll have to be carefully monitored, of course, and I feel like we should stay part of the day tomorrow to help you.”

“I know you have surgeries scheduled at the other clinic, but a little time here would be good. But didn’t Dr. Ferrera say you were going to be here to work with Dr. Diaz at some point anyway?”

“I assume that’s still the plan, but we’ll see.” Maybe a certain arrogant and extremely talented surgeon was finally ready to acknowledge that she knew what she was doing, even during the most intricate surgeries.

On the other hand, maybe she should ask to come here after all. The peculiar feelings rolling around in her tummy whenever she looked at Daniel might mean working with Dr. Diaz would be a good idea.