Hot-Shot Surgeon, Cinderella Bride. Alison Roberts

save was the talk of the hospital, but what concerned him was whether the boy would make it through the next critical day or two. Whether he would recover without sequelae that could ruin his quality of life.

      The two men he was leading into the meeting room now had been the other musketeers at the ball. Funny how it seemed such a long time ago already. As they sat down around the long table, Tony impulsively turned his head.

      ‘Josh, you know a lot of the nurses around here, don’t you?’

      His registrar grinned. ‘I’m working on it.’

      ‘Ever come across a Cindy?’

      The grin stretched. ‘No. No Barbies, either.’

      Tony’s smile felt strained. This should feel like a joke but it didn’t. He nodded at colleagues entering the room, noted that the audiovisual gear wasn’t ready yet, and lowered his voice.

      ‘Cindy Riley,’ he told Josh. ‘Tall. Long, black hair.’

      ‘Not the woman you spent most of Saturday night dancing with? Blue dress with a lacey thing down the front?’

      Tony gave a slow nod, hopefully not overdoing the effort to appear casual. It wasn’t easy. The memory of that ‘lacey thing’ almost exploded in his head. The way her fingers had assisted him to undo it. The way her breasts had felt when he’d finally got to touch them…

      ‘Won’t be a moment,’ one of the cardiologists called. ‘We just need another extension cord.’

      ‘She told you her name was Cindy Riley?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Josh exchanged a glance with the other registrar. ‘And you’re trying to find her?’

      ‘Ah…yes.’

      Josh grinned. ‘Did it occur to you that she might not want to be found?’ he ventured.

      ‘What on earth makes you say that?’

      Josh didn’t respond immediately. Computer printouts were being passed around, listing the cases up for discussion. Tony took his copy but ignored it. He frowned at Josh.

      ‘It just seems a bit of a coincidence.’ Josh shrugged.

      ‘What does?’

      ‘A Cindy Riley. At a ball.’

      ‘Thanks for coming,’ the head of the cardiology department said, then cleared his throat. ‘We’ve got a lot to get through today, so let’s get started. Case one. Sixty-eight-year-old man with angina occurring with minimal exertion. Investigations so far reveal reduced ventricular function estimated at thirty-eight percent. He has moderate mitral regurgitation. A blocked anterior descending, almost blocked posterior descending, and fifty percent occlusion on his left main.’

      The screen flickered into life, and views of dye being injected into coronary arteries were shown from various angles.

      Tony was having trouble concentrating. A combination of words had made a loop that went round and round in his head.

      Cindy Riley. At a ball.

      Again and again the name echoed and merged, and finally morphed into something else.

      ‘Good grief!’

      ‘Problem, Tony?’

      His soft exclamation had unintentionally reached the presenting cardiologist.

      ‘Not at all. Ah…could you just rerun that last shot of the left main?’

      Josh caught his gaze for a second, the quirk of his lips revealing that he knew exactly why Tony had been surprised.

      Cindy Riley.

      Cinderella.

      No wonder this felt so different. He’d stumbled into a fairytale!