Winning the Surgeon's Heart
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Annie Claydon
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16
CHAPTER ONE
SILENCE FELL. FROM the thirty people who had entered the challenge, there could only be two winners, and it looked as if the judges were ready to announce who they were.
Hannah’s friend, Sophie, was bent forward, clutching her knees and stretching the muscles in her back. The most challenging task in a long and challenging day had been saved until last, an obstacle course that had drained everyone. But they’d done it together. Hannah laid her hand on Sophie’s shoulder and she looked up, grinning.
‘I think you’re in with a chance. Not so sure about me.’
‘We’ll find out soon enough. Are you okay?’
Sophie nodded, straightening. ‘We’ll all be aching tomorrow.’
This was more than just a matter of winning for herself. Hannah and Sophie had worked together for five years, crewing an ambulance that worked out of Hamblewell Hospital. When the hospital had entered Arial TV’s Hospital Challenge, lured by a generous cash prize, they’d decided to enter together. The selection day had involved both physical and mental challenges, and was designed to whittle thirty entrants down to two, who would go on to represent the hospital in the televised challenge. Hannah had set her heart on winning with Sophie.
She caught Sophie’s hand, squeezing it. A stage had been erected on the open space behind the hospital building, and in the heat of a summer’s day there was almost a carnival atmosphere amongst the spectators. The chairman of the judging panel had picked up the microphone and was tapping it to see whether it was working. A frustrated murmur travelled through the crowd that had come to watch and cheer the competitors on.
‘Get on with it, mate.’ Sophie whispered, and Hannah nodded. The suspense was getting to her as well.
‘The judges have come to a decision—’
The microphone cut out suddenly, and Hannah rolled her eyes. If they’d wanted to keep everyone on tenterhooks for as long as possible, this couldn’t have been planned any better.
There was a short pause as the microphone was inspected and pronounced fit for use, without the need for any further tapping. The judge smiled, turning once more towards the crowd.
‘Sorry about that... As you all know, today’s winners will go forward to represent Hamblewell Hospital in the Hertfordshire heats of Hospital Challenge, the first of which will be hosted here next Saturday. We hope you’ll all be here to cheer our team on. We’ve been obliged to choose just two winners today and our task hasn’t been easy...’
There was a pause. Everyone was holding their breath already, and if the guy didn’t get on with it, someone was going to pass out. It was just as well that there were plenty of medical staff on hand...
‘Hannah Greene!’
Hannah heard a cheer go up, somewhere far away. She felt Sophie grab her, hugging her tight. Suddenly it felt as if her legs weren’t going to carry her.
‘Go... Go.’ Sophie had freed her now, and was pushing her towards the stage, where the judges were all on their feet and joining in with the applause.
‘Sophie...’ Hannah didn’t want to go alone. She’d thought that both names would be announced together, and taking this walk without her friend seemed impossible.
‘You’ve won, Hannah. You’ve got to go and shake the man’s hand.’ Sophie gave her one last push, and a path opened up in front of her through the other competitors. She walked towards the podium in a daze.
Then it hit her. Sophie was going to be next, it was impossible that the judges hadn’t seen the way they’d encouraged each other in completing the challenges. They were already a team, used to going together into every kind of situation. Hannah climbed the steps onto the stage, shook the judges’ hands and then turned to the crowd, throwing her arms up. Everyone cheered wildly, and she could see Sophie jumping up and down, suddenly finding that last bit of energy.
‘We’ve obviously made a popular choice.’ The judge smiled, waiting for the cheering to die down, and there was silence again. ‘And going on to join Hannah for Hospital Challenge is Matt Lawson...’
What?
Hannah tried to smile, but it felt as if her own achievement had suddenly turned to dust. She didn’t even know Matt Lawson. She looked for Sophie, and she was cheering along with everyone else, seeming not to notice that it was her name that should have been called.
The crowd parted, and a man began to walk towards the stage, stopping to shake a few hands as he went. Hannah did know him, although not by name. He had a reputation as being an excellent surgeon, but many of the female staff ignored that and concentrated on his looks. Hannah herself had been guilty of a little objectification on that score...
His sun-coloured hair and the tan gave him the look of someone who spent more time outdoors than inside. Probably blue eyes. Hannah had imagined the blue eyes and then consigned the whole image to the look-don’t-touch category.
She felt herself blush as he shook the judges’ hands, and then grinned at her. Blue. They were blue, the shade more intoxicating than she’d imagined. Dark, like a Mediterranean sea.
That was where he belonged. On a holiday she had no intention of taking. Not here, not in her real life. He congratulated her, and then turned to wave to the crowd. This was not happening.
She stood, trying to smile, for what seemed like an age, until they were allowed to climb down from the stage. Sophie was the first to get to Hannah and hug her.
‘I’m so excited... And you’ve got the dreamboat as a partner!’
Hannah felt tears of exhaustion and disappointment in her eyes. ‘I don’t want him. Why didn’t they pick you?’
Sophie puffed out a breath. Hannah was about to get one of her friend’s reality checks.
‘Look, I’m not going to pretend that I’m not disappointed. But you did a lot better than me, and so did he. Did you see the way he got over that climbing wall?’
Yes. Hannah had looked, just as Sophie had. Matt Lawson had been in the second group around the obstacle course, and they’d both seen the way he’d negotiated the steep wall. And she’d dared to notice that he looked just as good—better actually—in action than he did when she’d seen him walking along the corridors of the hospital.
‘I can’t do it on my own, Sophie. We’re a team.’
‘Well, you’re just going to have to get used to being in a new team, aren’t you? I’ll be cheering you on all the way.’
‘But...’ This sounded a lot like self-pity. She should be thinking about how Sophie must be feeling, not having been chosen after all the effort they’d put in. ‘I’m so sorry...’
‘Nonsense. We said that we’d be happy if just one of us was chosen, didn’t we? This is my achievement as well, we did it together. Give me a break, will you?’
They’d said it would be enough if just one of them won. Hannah hadn’t actually meant it. But Sophie was glowing with joy, and it would be unfair if she didn’t feel it too.
‘You’ll stick with me, won’t you? I can’t do this without you.’
‘Are you kidding? I’ll be with you all the way. You’ll be there for both of us, eh?’
Matt hadn’t seriously expected to win this thing. As the only member of the surgical team who’d had any chance of being able to negotiate a climbing wall, he’d been strong-armed into signing up for the challenge by his colleagues, who had all been keen to have someone represent them. He’d stepped up his gym routine a bit for the last three weeks, and that had been about it.
He’d seen Hannah and her partner, making their way around the obstacle course. They were both fit, and both up for the challenge, but Hannah was clearly the stronger of the two. Although the tasks they’d encountered today were meant to be done individually, he’d seen Hannah slow a little once or twice, waiting for her partner to follow so that they could pace each other around the course.
They were a team. They wore matching T-shirts, emblazoned with the logo of the ambulance service. He knew that the nature of their job meant that they had to rely on each other, and that the ambulance crews had a fierce sense of pride. He wondered how Hannah felt about being teamed up with a complete stranger.
She’d seemed less than enthused about the judges’ decision when he’d been called up to the stage. But as she walked towards him across the grass, she was smiling. Matt had to admit that it was a very nice smile, at that.
‘Congratulations.’
‘That was a surprise...’ He felt strangely at a loss for words. ‘For me, I mean. You were a dead cert to win.’
She blushed a little. It was a fine accompaniment to her smile. ‘You made it over the climbing wall in one go. I took two.’
Matt was privately of the opinion that she could have done it in one. His automatic assessment of her mobility and strength told him that the wall shouldn’t have been a problem for her and that her partner was the one who’d taken two goes. The judges had clearly seen that as well, and Matt decided not to mention it.
‘I’m looking forward to the next round.’
Hannah nodded. ‘Me too. Would you like to meet up? To train?’
That sounded rather more enticing than Matt had supposed it might. Hannah’s was the kind of beauty that was enhanced by the application of a little grime and sweat. This morning, he’d noticed her chestnut hair tied back in a shining plait at the back of her head. And, of course, her smile. But as the day had gone on, he’d started to appreciate her fearlessness and tenacity. She was messy and exhausted, but she still shone.
‘I’m afraid I can’t this week, I have a pretty full schedule at work. I imagine they’re going to be throwing the unexpected at us next Saturday, so I guess the best we can do is just keep up the fitness training and get a good night’s sleep on Friday.’
That obviously wasn’t the answer that Hannah was looking for. It was too bad, because he couldn’t just put off a few operations because it happened to suit him. She should understand that.
‘Okay. Well... I’ll keep training with Sophie. As long as you don’t mind.’ She motioned towards her partner, who was walking towards them.
‘Why should I? If it works, don’t mess with it.’
She and Sophie had the kind of partnership that Matt had observed in others, and had never really experienced for himself. He was part of a team at work, in just the same way that she was, but he confined that to knowing the strengths and weaknesses of his colleagues and what they could reasonably be called on to do during working hours. Hannah and Sophie were obviously friends, and he almost envied it.
‘Hi. I’m Sophie. Congratulations. You did a great job and you really deserved to win.’ Sophie held out her hand and Matt took it. Her manner was a little more open than Hannah’s and her grin a little easier, but somehow it didn’t reach into the corners of his soul the way that Hannah’s did. But then no one had any business with his soul, that was his to contend with.
‘Thanks. You and Hannah are a great team...’
Sophie threw her arm around Hannah’s shoulder, laughing. ‘I think I’ve hit my limit today. You and Hannah can go on and win this thing.’
That was obviously important to both of them. Matt hadn’t really thought much about it, he’d reckoned on giving a reasonable account of himself and then going home. But suddenly he wanted to be a winner. And he wanted Hannah at his side, winning with him.
‘The hospital could do with the money.’
‘We’re all relying on you two.’ Sophie laughed. ‘No pressure, obviously.’
‘Pressure? What’s pressure?’ Hannah murmured the words quietly.
Sophie chuckled, nudging her friend in the ribs. ‘Don’t listen to her, Matt. Hannah’s very focussed at times.’
He could see that already. And he liked Sophie immediately, she was the kind of woman that he usually chose to spend his free time with. Conventionally pretty, with blonde hair and blue eyes, she seemed easygoing and uncomplicated. Hannah, on the other hand...
Hannah was compelling. Beautiful. Almost certainly not the right kind of woman to get involved with, because bonds made with Hannah might not be easy to break. Matt dismissed the idea. No one was going to get involved with anyone, he should relax and look at this as an extension of his work. Money for the hospital was an extension of his work.
‘We’d better get going...’ Hannah was scanning the crowd intently, obviously looking for someone. ‘I’ll see you next Saturday, then?’
A whole week suddenly seemed a very long time to wait. But Matt hadn’t planned on winning today, and he was going to have to fit his training sessions in whenever the opportunity presented itself.
‘You know where to find me if you want me?’
Hannah nodded quietly, and it was Sophie who answered. ‘Yes, we know. We’ll leave a message with the surgical unit...’
Matt watched as the two women walked away from him. Sophie was obviously reliving one or other of the obstacles, tracing shapes in the air in front of her to illustrate the point. Hannah was listening intently. He wondered if she ever gave herself a break and loosened up a bit.
‘Mum...!’
A small boy, of about six, was running across the grass towards them, followed by an older woman. Even if he hadn’t called to her, Matt would have guessed this was Hannah’s son, his tawny eyes and red-brown hair matched hers almost exactly. Hannah stretched out her arms in an expression of joy, falling to her knees, as the boy ran straight into her arms.
If she’d employed half the exuberance that she’d shown just now, she would have floated over the obstacle course, instead of battling her way through it. Sophie and the older woman were chatting and laughing together, and Hannah was doing a little victory dance with her son. The thought that he wanted to do a very different kind of victory dance with her was enticing and entirely inappropriate, but it was the kind of image that was difficult to erase from his memory.
It would fade. Memories did fade when you were a stranger, always on the move. Matt had learned to travel light, making no lasting personal attachments to hold him back.
He’d been travelling light since he was eight years old. Always running, always trying to leave behind the bad memories. But they were the ones that had caught up with him now, crowding in and obscuring the sun. As clear as if it had all happened yesterday, and blocking the view of Hannah and her family.
Matt had known that his father had an uncertain temper and that he’d sometimes hurt his mother and made her cry, but he knew now that his mother had protected him from the worst of it, locking him in his bedroom or sending him to a friend’s house to spend the night. Afterwards he’d seen his mother wince in pain as she’d bent or reached for something. There had never been any bruises on her face, but as he’d got older Matt had begun to understand that was the one place his father had never hit his mother.
His father had hurt him once. Just once, but Matt still remembered the pain and the terror of being unable to escape the hand clamped firmly around his arm. Now he thought of it as a good thing, because it had been the final straw that had made his mother pack their bags and leave.
At first it had been exciting, a taste of the kind of freedom that Matt hadn’t even realised existed. They’d changed their names, using his mother’s surname instead of his father’s, and had embarked on a new life, in a new town. And then his father had found them and they’d run again. Another new life in another new town. Matt had forgotten how many there had been. In the end he hadn’t bothered to make new friends, because he’d known that he and his mother would be moving on again soon.
Matt watched as Hannah played with her son in the late afternoon sunshine. They seemed happy, carefree. No looking over their shoulders...
Until Hannah did look over her shoulder, straight at him, and caught him staring. Matt raised his hand, giving a smile, and she returned the gesture. Then he turned and walked away. He had no business wanting Hannah’s warmth. He needed her as a teammate, and that was just for the next few weeks. After that, he’d be moving on again.
