Annabelle froze, her heart knocked hard against her ribs, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe at all.
That voice. The cold tone. The stinging criticism. All were too horrifyingly familiar. Forcing herself to slowly turn toward the tall, gowned man standing with his arms folded across his chest next to the patient, her worst fears were confirmed.
She may not have seen him for five years, but she’d recognize those hard brown eyes anywhere. The cut cheekbones. The bronzed skin. The displeasure and disdain on his face. The lips that were inexplicably sensuously shaped, even when pressed together in clear annoyance.
Dr. Daniel Ferrera in the flesh.
The man who had sabotaged her first career goals.
Gulping, she tried to pull air into her lungs. How could this be? How was it possible that of all the cardiac surgeons in the whole world, he was the one here on this mission trip in Peru?
“Making us miss an entire day of surgeries yesterday was unfair to everyone else, both the patients and the surgical team who took valuable vacation time to be here, Dr. Richards. And this morning you’ve kept the patient waiting for his surgery, making it so fewer patients will get seen today and all week, disappointing the families hoping their child will be taken care of since we won’t be able to fit in nearly as many because of your actions.”
Condemnation filled his dark eyes as they seared into hers. “I could have sent someone to get the monitor from the airport later, while you were here doing your job, but apparently some things never change.”
“I... The monitor was donated by a benefactor.”
“And the benefactor is more important than our patients here?”
“No. No, of course not. But I had to make sure the monitor arrived safely. When I was here last, we almost lost a patient because there was no monitor. A premature infant, and that’s just not acceptable if there’s any way to avoid it. So I decided to bring one here this time.” Icy shock numbed her brain, making it hard to speak coherently, and her insides seemed to squeeze and sag along with her arms under the heavy weight of the monitor as she stared at him.
Daniel must have seen her struggling to hold the machine, as a disgusted sound left his lips before he strode to take it from her, sliding it onto a nearby metal table.
“If you’d simply shipped it, you wouldn’t have hit bad weather, wouldn’t have missed your connection, wouldn’t have had to deal with airport security and wouldn’t have missed your first day, setting back the schedule for the whole week. It seems apparent that you’re not cut out for this kind of work.”
The arrogant tone, the sarcastically raised dark eyebrow, the scorn on his face cut through her horrified paralysis. Yes, it was true, she might not be cut out for any of the things she’d striven so hard to be excellent at. She wasn’t like him and all the others who came from their hoity-toity privileged backgrounds, people who’d had every advantage handed to them with white gloves and smiles, showered with accolades and money and a golden path laid out for them to become physicians.
She might be leagues below him in every way but, if nothing else, her pathetic history had at least given her grit and bravado. Living in rough neighborhoods around even rougher people had taught her that, when pushed, you’d better push back or you’d end up rubbed into the floor. She wasn’t about to let him talk to her that way, in front of their patient and the rest of the small surgical staff, whether she deserved it or not.
“For your information, this is my ninth mission trip, Dr. Ferrera. I’m not a newbie. I know the circumstances we’re dealing with here. But if we can save even one life by having a monitor, I was damned well going to make that happen.” She grabbed the mask and IV with shaking hands to show him it was time to stop talking and get to work. “I’m no longer the green anesthesiologist I was when we last worked together. Since your insults and criticism are only delaying the surgery on this boy even longer, I suggest we get to it.”
Dark eyes slashed across her like a whip before he turned to the patient and crew. “Since Dr. Richards obviously hasn’t had a chance to study our surgery lineup today, I’ll have to go over it again. We have an atrial septal defect, with the hole thankfully small. Get him hooked up to the all-important monitor while Dr. Richards gets the gases ready. As soon as he’s asleep and ready, I’ll get started.”
Everyone got to work. Daniel’s scowl and his stiff professional tone changed completely as he leaned over the little boy, speaking softly and melodically in Spanish. Whatever he said actually made the child smile, and though Annabelle didn’t want to feel the squishiness in her heart at how beautifully he was reassuring their young patient, it happened anyway.
How could the man be such a chameleon? A total autocratic jerk one minute, and a gentle, caring doctor the next? It didn’t matter, really. Neither of them would ever get past what had happened five years ago, and his obviously negative convictions about her skills. The thought of having to work with him for two entire weeks made her stomach churn. Before she’d even started her first surgery, she found herself hoping it was the fastest two-week mission trip in history.
But with no way to actually warp time to make that happen, she would focus on their patient and her job. She prepared to connect the two anesthetic gases to the small clear mask, then leaned over to show it to the child. Trying to explain it to him in her halting Spanish, she realized the stress of facing Daniel Ferrera seemed to have obliterated from her brain the few words she did know in the other language. With the surgery needing to start pronto, she knew that swallowing her pride was the right thing to do, and turned to her friend Karina. “Can you tell him I’m going to put the mask over his nose and mouth, and he’ll go to dreamland for a while?”
Before Karina could say a word, Daniel Ferrera leaned over the patient again, speaking more of that lovely, lilting Spanish, and mere seconds after Annabelle placed the mask on his face, the boy’s eyes were closed. Grateful that she’d done this enough times that her shakiness evaporated as she worked through the steps, Annabelle worked to connect the IV lines to his arms and legs, then the final, central line to his neck connecting directly to his heart. A necessary step of stunning the heart before the surgery could begin. “Pressure?”
“Monitor shows we have railroad tracks so all okay,” Jennifer said.
Annabelle glanced at the monitor, glad to have it for confirmation, no matter what Daniel Ferrera thought about it. “Good.” She concentrated on inserting a breathing tube, relieved that the boy’s mouth opened wide enough for it to go in easily. “Neuromuscular blockade set. We have a one airway, so he’s breathing manually.”
All she got was a nod from Daniel Ferrera before he got to work. Just as she’d remembered from the last time she’d watched him perform a delicate operation, he was steady, confident and precise. Not a single bobble or pause, just an even pace and periodic questions to the support crew and her as they monitored the patient. But there was no question that the tone of voice he used when he talked to her was completely different than the one he used with everyone else. Abrupt and clipped, showing loud and clear that he was still annoyed.
What was with the man that he couldn’t just let things go? It was clear nothing had changed from five years ago. Didn’t he believe people deserved a second chance after a mistake? Even if that mistake had been a terrible one?
For the next several hours, the surgery went smoothly, the whole team working together seamlessly without a hitch.
“That’s a wrap.” Daniel said, finally leaning back and running his finger down the closed incision. “Time for epinephrine to get the heart working again, then we’ll wake him, Dr. Richards.”
* * *
Her eyes lifted to briefly meet his, and if that icy blue could have physically stabbed him, he had a feeling she would have been glad. One of the many personality traits he disliked in medical professionals was if they tried to pass the buck when something went wrong. He did everything he could