The Italian Surgeon's Christmas Miracle (8 page)

Ordinary movements but Luke found himself watching as though she was performing a magic show.

‘Will the taxi be very long?’ she asked.

‘I haven’t called them yet.’

She almost spilt the mugs of hot chocolate as she carried them to the table. She set them down carefully but the wobble in her voice gave away her nervous reaction.

‘How come?’

‘I want to talk to you.’

Amy sat down. She put her hands around her mug as though she needed the comfort of its warmth. She hung her head, pretending to inhale the rich aroma.

‘The house,’ she said finally.

Luke couldn’t resist the opportunity. ‘Amongst other things.’

Sure enough, her face lifted and he got a clear view of her eyes. The connection he was looking for caught instantly and, for a moment, Luke just went with it—torn between amazement and being appalled at the power he could sense.

Another dimension was there. Just waiting for him to step into it and to take that first step. All he needed to do was make physical contact. He could reach out and cover one of Amy’s hands with his. Or stand up and pull her into his arms. Feel the…

‘O-other things?’ Amy’s voice had a strangled quality.

With enormous difficulty, Luke broke the pull of the eye contact and stifled the first response that came to mind. The desire to talk about that kiss. About whether it had had the same kind of effect on her as it had done on him. About whether she would be interested in…
Hell
, he couldn’t go
there
, could he?

Not with the obstacle of the intentions with which he had come to this house. He needed to ground himself. To remember why his life had intersected with Amy’s in the first place.

‘Tell me about your Uncle Vanni,’ he commanded.

That should do it. He could listen to an account of his father’s life. A happy life, no doubt, that had never included his own son. Involuntarily, Luke’s gaze slid sideways—to where the flap of his coat hung around the back of the chair. To the pocket hiding that stolen article.

‘Poor Uncle Vanni,’ Amy said softly. ‘He never recovered from losing the love of his life.
Both
of them, in fact.’ Her gaze was accusing.

Luke could feel the hairs prickling on his neck again—the way they had when he’d seen that photograph. He was staring at a can of worms here and Amy had her hand on the lid, so to speak. Did he really want her to open it?

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, his voice harsh. ‘Women?’

Amy shook her head. ‘There was only ever one woman for Uncle Vanni. The other love of his life was his son. You.’

Luke couldn’t meet her gaze. He didn’t believe it. He couldn’t afford to. It was doing more than rocking the foundations of his world. This had the potential to rip deep, dangerous crevasses in those foundations.

‘Tell me,’ he commanded gruffly. ‘The story as you heard it.’

‘OK.’ Amy took a deep breath. ‘Uncle Vanni fell madly in love with Caroline. He was working in a vineyard at the time, in northern Italy, and Caroline had been sent to this posh finishing school nearby. She was only eighteen and she had to go home but then she discovered she was pregnant and all hell broke loose.’

Luke found himself nodding slowly. He could imagine how that news would have gone down. His grandmother would have considered her daughter’s life ruined.

‘Caroline ran away,’ Amy continued. ‘Back to Italy. She married Uncle Vanni and they had a gorgeous baby and they were blissfully happy, even though they didn’t have much money.’

They had certainly looked blissfully happy in that photograph.

‘So what happened?’

‘There was a dreadful accident. Their car was really old and the brakes failed on a mountain road. They were all badly injured. Caroline died just a few hours later and Uncle Vanni was evacuated to a big hospital in Milan. He was in Intensive Care for weeks and in the hospital for nearly six months. It was two years before he could work again and he had trouble with his back and feet for the rest of his life. Lived in slippers did Uncle Vanni.’

Luke pushed the image of those comfortable slippers from his mind. Then he cleared his throat.

‘And…and the baby?’

‘Caroline had her passport because they had been planning to cross the border at some point. They’d been married for three years or so by then but were going on their first real holiday. Anyway, the hospital and the police tracked down her family and her mother apparently arrived the next day. She arranged a medical escort and took both the baby and Caroline’s body back to England.’

‘And then?’ Luke had to clench his fists to stop himself touching that scar beside his left eyebrow.

‘It was months before Uncle Vanni was fit to travel but as soon as he could, he came to England to try and find his son.’ Amy raised her eyes to Luke’s and he could see the moisture shining in them. Could hear the catch in her voice that seemed to be attached by an invisible sting to his own heart. It tugged.

‘Do you know, even more than thirty years later, Uncle Vanni couldn’t talk about any of this without breaking down? He was in a really bad way when he got to this country. Broken in body and spirit. It took huge courage to go to Caroline’s home and face her mother and when he did, he was told that his son’s injuries had been too severe. Despite the best medical care the Harringtons could access, that little boy had died a week or so after they brought him back.’

Luke’s mouth opened. He snapped it shut again. What could he say? Amy was clearly telling the truth as she knew it. What good would it do to tell her that his grandmother valued honesty above everything?

‘He never went back to Italy. For a few years he just existed in London. He had a job as a school caretaker and he lived in a bedsit in some horrible high-rise. My mother found him when we came to live in London and he gradually became part of our family.’ Amy took a deep breath and then gave her head a tiny shake. ‘Anyway…My dad was a policeman and there was a job one night when these kids had to be taken into care. There was a big mix-up and Dad ended up bringing them home for the night. The youngest was a boy who was about three years old and he homed in on Uncle Vanni and climbed up on his knee. Looking back, I suspect that was the turning point but unfortunately things got worse before they got better.’

‘How so?’

‘My dad got killed on duty. Shot. I was nine. Mum was going to pack us all up and move back to Italy, but she’s never been very good at making decisions and then acting on them. She had to rely on Uncle Vanni and he finally started to come out of the depression he’d been struggling with for so long. And then he got the “great idea”.’

‘Which was?’

Amy stopped and took a sip of her drink and then continued. ‘He decided that if his own son was lost to him, rather than waste the rest of his life, he’d spend it looking after children that other people didn’t want. But he couldn’t do it by himself. He needed my mother as part of the family to get approval to be a foster-parent himself. He found this house and persuaded her to stay at least for a while and that’s where it all started. It’s been my life ever since.’

‘But your uncle’s dead now.’

‘My mother is just as passionate about these children as he was. When he was dying, she promised she would look after them as if they were her own. And they are, really. She loves them. We all love them.’

‘So why didn’t he do something about protecting them? Legally?’

‘You mean, the will? I have my own theory about that.’ Amy’s smile was poignant.

‘Which is?’

‘Uncle Vanni was a wonderful man. He’d do anything for anyone, but he wasn’t perfect by any means and he had a bad habit of convincing himself that he’d done things because he had intended to do them.’ Amy stuck her tongue into her cheek as she pondered and Luke felt an odd twist in his gut as he watched.

‘Like—he’d be given a chore like posting a letter or taking out the rubbish and he’d say he’d done it. And then, when he was asked if he’d done it, he’d sneak off and actually get it done before he got caught out. I was there once when he put his hand in his pocket and found a letter he’d forgotten to post and he winked at me, like it was our secret. The thing is, he was a hopeless liar. The real secret was that we all knew. Asking him if he’d done something was just a reminder but he would always say he’d done it because he didn’t like to let anyone down and he always
intended
to do it.’

‘So you think he intended to make a new will and didn’t get around to it.’

Amy nodded. ‘And nobody would have reminded him because anything to do with death was so upsetting for him. It would remind him of what he’d lost. Maybe that was the reason he couldn’t bring himself to actually go and do it. Or maybe he just kept putting it off, telling himself there was plenty of time.’

‘Only there wasn’t.’

‘No. It was so sudden. A massive stroke. They kept him on life support for a couple of days but then we had to let him go.’

Luke was silent. He was struggling with this. Clearly, Amy believed she was telling the truth. The story rang with the resonance of truth and he could sense that faded photograph hidden in his coat pocket. The evidence all around him supported Amy’s account. And ‘Uncle Vanni’ had been a hopeless liar, so he must have believed he was telling the truth.

But if it
was
true, it went against everything Luke had been brought up to believe was true, and it threatened to cut deeply into the respect he had for the woman who’d raised him.

Things that had been so black and white—like the values he’d based his life on—were being held up for inspection and, instead of the solid foundation he’d believed them to be, they were shaky.

Flawed?

Luke didn’t like that notion. It would mean that a part of himself was potentially just as flawed, and he wasn’t ready to accept that.

He got slowly to his feet. ‘I don’t think I’ll bother waiting for a taxi,’ he said. ‘I’ll walk.’

‘Is it far?’

Far enough to give him time to think, at least. Luke put his coat on. He picked up his scarf and gloves. ‘I won’t get cold this time.’

Amy went to the door with him. She seemed tired, which was hardly surprising given that it was after 3:00 a.m. now, but it was more than that. She was sad. Did she miss the father figure she’d had in her life?

At least she’d known him.

‘You need to rest,’ Luke told her.

They were close again. Too close. The temptation to kiss her again enveloped Luke with painful intensity.

‘I will,’ Amy said. ‘I’ll call Lizzie’s first, though, and see how Summer’s doing.’

‘I’ll check on her first thing. I’ll be back at work by 6:00 a.m.’

‘Maybe you should just stay here. You’re not going to get much sleep after walking home.’

‘I might go back to Lizzie’s and use the on-call room.’ The temptation was strangling Luke. He couldn’t stay here and keep his hands off this woman.

But he had to pause, once more, as he stepped out into the night because the soft sound of Amy’s voice was arresting.

‘He did love you,’ she said quietly.
‘Luca.’

There it was again. That name. That pronunciation. Pulling him…somewhere.

Somewhere he couldn’t go because he had no idea how to get there.

And it was too disturbing.

‘Did you really have no idea?’ Amy asked.

‘No.’ Luke could hear the trace of bewilderment in his own voice. ‘No idea at all.’

‘C
HRISTMAS
shopping, was it?’

‘Sorry?’ Luke turned on the water and picked up the small brush to start scrubbing in. It was 6:30 a.m. and the question from his registrar was baffling.

‘That huge carton I saw you coming out of the lift with. You looked as if it was something you were planning to hide.’

‘Mmm.’ Maybe he’d looked as furtive as he’d felt. Luke hoped he hadn’t been observed earlier, down in the bowels of St Elizabeth’s Hospital, following the directions of that cooperative cleaner to where the recycling and large items of rubbish were collected. ‘Definitely Christmas stuff,’ he said in a tone that would discourage any further questions.

‘Great time of year, isn’t it?’ his registrar said cheerfully. ‘Rather fun, hiding stuff and surprising people.’

‘Mmm.’ Luke paid careful attention to scrubbing beneath his nails. His registrar should know he wasn’t one for idle chitchat right before surgery when his focus was on what lay ahead. He certainly didn’t want to start thinking about that early morning mission because then he would start thinking about Amy. Wondering how he could present that box of decorations currently sitting in a corner of his office. Imagining the sparkle of pleasure he might see in her face.

And if he started to think about that, his mind would latch back on to what had kept him largely awake for the few hours he’d spent in the single bed the on-call room boasted. Back to that kiss. The way he had felt holding Amy in his arms. That spiral of desire—or was it actually
need
?—had to be firmly damped.

The bright lights of the operating theatre suite should be far more effective than daylight even in restoring reality, and Luke would welcome the return to normality. He could hasten it, by a nudge in the right direction.

‘So you know what’s on the agenda this morning? For baby Liam?’

‘Three surgeries in one go, from what I could gather.’

‘Pretty much. An arterial switch, VSD closure and repair of an aortic coarctation.’

His registrar whistled silently and any thoughts of Christmas shopping were clearly dispelled. They were in for a long, hard session in Theatre.

Preparations to put the infant onto the heart-lung bypass machine were painstaking and time-consuming, complicated by having to leave access to the arteries that needed repositioning. It was nearly 8:00 a.m. when the tiny heart was stopped with the cold, high-potassium solution that would also protect the heart muscle while it was not functioning.

Luke was already deep within the zone that would enable him to operate with no lessening of precision for many hours. Cutting tiny areas of miniature vessels and placing stitches he needed magnifying goggles to visualise accurately. Coating every suture line with fibrin glue.

Short breaks to flex muscles and counteract strain were taken, but for minimal periods of time only. Six hours on bypass were getting to the limits of what a baby could tolerate well and Luke intended finishing before then.

The session finished, as it had begun, with another complication. An abnormal rhythm persisted after the heart was restarted and did not respond well enough to the cocktail of drugs Luke ordered.

‘We’ll keep him ventilated and on sequential atrioventricular pacing,’ he decided eventually. ‘Let’s get up to ICU.’

Had he bothered to think about it, Luke would have decided he was entirely grounded in reality again by the time he accompanied his patient to the highly specialised unit. The fact that nothing remotely unprofessional crossed his mind made it a non-issue.

So it was a huge shock to walk into the unit and see Amy sitting beside Summer’s bed, holding the little girl’s hand. Leaning forward to press a gentle kiss to her forehead.

To instantly remember his own experience of the touch of Amy’s lips.

And—ever so slightly—to feel the ground shift beneath his feet once more.

‘It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow,’ Amy was telling Summer. ‘When all the boys and girls are asleep, Father Christmas will come and leave presents under the tree.’

‘For…me?’

‘Of course for you, darling.’ Amy kissed Summer’s forehead. ‘I’ll bring it in when I come to visit.’

She looked up, aware of the activity beyond the glass windows of Summer’s cubicle, in time to see the surgical team come past with a tiny, post-operative patient that had to be baby Liam. It was no surprise that the baby’s surgeon was still close by.

What
was
surprising enough to take Amy’s breath away was the way her heart seemed to stop and her skin come alive so that every cell tingled. The way she felt a connection to this man that went far deeper than any she had the right to feel.

They had shared a kiss, that was all.

One
kiss.

It was nonsense to feel as though so much more than their lips had touched. As though their souls had made contact. Maybe it was the result of over-thinking, which was a trait Amy was sure she had inherited or learned from her mother. The ability to endlessly replay and examine tiny snatches of life. To experience them again and again. To analyse them and consider every possible repercussion.

The way Amy had done only last night after Luke had gone. As she’d lain, wakeful, in Uncle Vanni’s bed.

For a while she’d simply remembered—and missed—the person who’d been the most important man in her life for so many years. It had been a natural progression of her thoughts to realise that Uncle Vanni had, indirectly, been responsible for bringing a new man into her life.

Her mother would have probably proclaimed that it was meant to be and given thanks to some obscure saint.

Amy was fighting the same tiny voice in her own head that was saying the same thing. The one that was noting every reaction she had to Luke Harrington.

The one that was taunting her with the accusation that she was falling in love.

Amy had done her best to argue back.

Don’t be ridiculous. He’s from another planet.

He’s a man
, the voice whispered back.
You’re a woman.

He’s rich. Incredibly rich. I wouldn’t even know what spoon to use if he took me out to dinner.

But you
want
him to take you out to dinner.

No! It could never work.

Why not?

He’s important. I’m…nobody.

Really?

Not according to the way he judges people. I’m nothing. Just a nurse. He couldn’t even remember my name.

I’ll bet he remembers it now. After that kiss.

Ah, yes…That kiss.

And the voice had an argument compelling enough to almost obliterate any arguments Amy’s rational side could muster.

Remember what Margaret said?
He’s lonely.

It struck something nameless and deep and Amy suspected that’s what the connection was all about. Yes, she and Luke came from totally different worlds and it might be far too great a challenge to understand and appreciate what was most important in each other’s lives, but that could be part of the connection because Luke might not even realise how lonely he was.

He obviously hadn’t had any idea his father had loved him and Amy wasn’t sure that her heartfelt story last night had convinced him. He needed convincing if she was going to change his mind about the house.

He also needed—as everyone did—to be loved.

And that was something that Amy did have. Surely the ability to love transcended the barriers of status and wealth?

At some point during the remaining hours of darkness and internal conversation, an idea had been born.

A plan.

And while Amy’s first objective in coming to Lizzie’s this afternoon had been to spend some time with Summer, she had also been planning to see Luke. To talk to him. To offer up her plan.

There was an awful lot resting on his acceptance of that plan, so it was no wonder she was nervous. No wonder that her heart tripped and accelerated when she saw him. Not that it could explain why it was so hard to look away from him but the eye contact didn’t last long enough to be an issue.

Luke was busy. She could see him supervising the transfer of the baby to the care of the unit staff. Consulting with the other specialists who came in. Making final adjustments to the life-support equipment and finally, taking a phone call.

When he caught her gaze on terminating the call, Amy had the horrible impression he had been aware of how often she had been looking in his direction. As though he had expected to make eye contact the second he had chosen to look
her
way.

Just as he expected her to respond to the subtle movement of his head that was an invitation to leave Summer’s side and join him.

‘Be back in a minute, sweetheart,’ she murmured. The reassurance was more for herself than Summer, who seemed to be sound asleep again.

Could Luke feel that disturbance in the air that intensified with every step closer that she took? A feeling of…awareness was the only description she could come up with. She was
so
aware of everything about this man.

She’d seen in him in scrubs before, of course, but this was completely different because this time it was in the wake of having been kissed by him. She knew how hard the muscles beneath the ill-fitting cotton were. She could see a swirl of dark hair in the deep V-neck of the tunic top. She could almost feel the air being moved as he sucked in a breath. Amy focused on his hand, lying lightly on the high counter in front of the nurses’ station. Long, elegant fingers drumming almost imperceptibly to denote, what? Impatience? Tension?

Maybe both, Amy decided, her gaze flicking up to note the faint shadows under his eyes and the way the muscles of his jaw were bunched.

‘I called the transplant co-ordination centre first thing this morning,’ he told Amy. ‘I had to leave a message because it was too early, but they just called me back.’

Amy nodded. She couldn’t read whether the news was hopeful or not in his expression. Instead, she got the curious impression that he was watching her just as carefully.

‘Summer’s at the top of the list.’

‘Oh!’ Amy caught her breath. And held it, knowing that Luke had something more to say. She could
see
it. Like a tiny flame in the depths of his dark eyes.

A ray of hope.

‘There’s a child,’ Luke said quietly. ‘In Scotland. Glasgow’s Eastern Infirmary. She’s been in a coma for three weeks now and the parents are ready to consider organ donation. The latest EEG showed some activity, however, so she doesn’t yet meet the criteria for being a donor, but the activity has declined markedly since the last test. She’s showing signs of multi-system failure but they’re continuing life support in the hope that some good may come from it. They’re going to repeat the EEG later today.’

Amy could feel tears prickling. ‘The poor family! What a terrible ordeal for them.’

‘Sounds like it might be a release in some ways,’ Luke said steadily. ‘This girl has severe intellectual and physical disabilities. She had a seizure and knocked her head hard enough to cause this coma.’

‘Do you think…?’

‘She sounds like an ideal match.’ Luke nodded. ‘Same blood group. Good size of heart. She’s only a couple of years older than Summer. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that things come together. She could die from renal failure before her brain gives up. Or they may find the heart is not suitable when it’s harvested. You know the kind of things that can get in the way.’

Amy nodded but she was thinking of the child’s family. ‘It would be so hard, wouldn’t it? To have to send your child to Theatre when they were still on life support. Still breathing. If it was my child, I’d just want to hold it…’ Amy had to sniff and blink rather hard. ‘Sorry.’

Amy didn’t need Luke staring at her to know that her emotive response was both unprofessional and unhelpful.

‘Don’t be,’ was all he said, however. ‘These situations are emotional for everyone concerned.’

With the possible exception of himself? He seemed perfectly calm. Totally professional. Sympathetic but detached.

One of the unit staff came out of the office.

‘Your secretary just called, Mr Harrington. There’s someone in your office who’d like to see you if you have a minute to spare.’

Luke glanced at the wall clock. ‘Not really. We’re due to start again in Theatre in twenty minutes and I need to see the parents.’

‘It’s your grandmother,’ the clerk said.

‘Oh…’ The flicker of dark brows went up and then down and the frown made him look as though the surprise was not a pleasant one. ‘In that case…’ Luke gave Amy a somewhat curt nod. ‘We’ll talk later.’

She was being dismissed. Summer was forgotten for the moment and there was no chance of an opportunity to present her plan. Or even to tell him that the tyre repair firm that he must have organised had been to deal with his car. It was frustrating enough to make Amy have to resist the impulse to follow Luke from the unit. She wanted time with him. Alone.

She also looked at the clock. If Luke was due in Theatre in twenty minutes and he wanted a few minutes to reassure his patient’s parents, he would probably only allow five to ten minutes to talk to his visitor. If she timed it just right, Amy could catch him as he left his office and she could, at least, ask for an appointment to speak to him later.

They needed to talk about the house. He’d said so himself more than once and it hadn’t happened yet. They had been sidetracked by those ‘other things’.

Amy sat with Summer for a few more minutes. She was still sleeping peacefully. She caught the attention of Summer’s nurse.

‘If she wakes up, can you tell her I’ll be back soon? I’ve just got a message to run.’

‘Sure.’

Unaware of the determined expression on her face, Amy left the unit and headed towards Luke Harrington’s office.

‘Grandmother!’ Luke shut the door of his office behind him. ‘This is a surprise!’

‘I was in the city for lunch.’ Lady Prudence Harrington sat, ramrod straight, in the chair in front of his desk. She tilted her cheek for a customary greeting. ‘With Reginald and Lucy Battersby and her brother.’