Excerpt of A Surgeon Worth Waiting For by Melanie Milburne

"WHERE the hell is the anaesthetist?" Jack Colcannon growled as he looked at the clock on the wall for the fifth frustrating time. "I have a huge operating list and I don't want to start late yet again."

"Becky should be here soon," Gwen Taylor, the scrub nurse, said. "Anyway, if there was a problem she would have phoned in by now."

Jack grunted as he turned towards the theatre tearoom. Rebecca Baxter might be his best friend's younger sister but working with her was proving to be a nightmare in more ways than one. Sure, she was a good anaesthetist — in fact, probably one of the best he'd worked with during the whole time he'd been at St Patrick's — but something about her always seemed to get under his skin.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and, taking it across to the window, looked at the view of the Sydney skyline in the distance. The summer sun was beating down relentlessly, and with only three weeks to go until Christmas he could almost feel the hectic pulse of the city as swarms of shoppers went about their frantic business.

He shifted his gaze and looked down to where he'd parked his new car earlier that morning. He'd taken delivery of it the week before and couldn't help a small smile of satisfaction as he thought of the power and thrust under the bonnet, the surge of speed that sent him backwards in the leather-clad seat as soon as his foot hit the throttle.

He took another sip of his coffee and was just about to turn away from the window when he saw a bright pink Volkswagen Beetle swing into the car park and begin the hunt for a parking spot.

Rebecca Baxter tried to nudge between two cars in the shade of a spindly tree, but after three attempts to reverse, she gave up and chugged a little further along to where Jack's car was parked. Putting on her indicator, she began to reverse into the tight space behind.

His fingers automatically tightened around his cup, his breath stilling in his chest as he watched her manoeuvre the car into position, the relief when she did it without touching the immaculate paintwork of his car sending his halted breath out on a whoosh.

"So there is a god after all," he murmured as he began to turn away from the window.

The sound of metal crunching against metal made him swing back so quickly his coffee went in a dark brown arc across the floor, and his mouth dropped open as he looked down below.

"Oops!" Becky winced at her misjudgement of the clutch release, quickly scanning the car park to see if anyone had witnessed her error. To her immense relief no one had appeared to notice.

She got out and inspected her car. Thankfully there wasn't a single scratch.

But as for Jack Colcannon's car…

She bit her lip, took a calming breath, and turned around to look at it. She knew how particular Jack was over things, and not just his car.

His brand-new car, she reminded herself with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as her eyes went to the nasty dent in his bumper. She bent over to peer at it. Was that a tiny bit of pink paint?

She sensed him coming before she heard him, which was saying something for her sixth sense, as he was practically bawling her out from the front door of the hospital, way across the car park.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He strode towards her angrily, his theatre gear plastered to his tall muscled frame by the hot stiff breeze that was coming in from the west. "Who in God's name taught you how to park?"

Becky lifted her chin and faced his furious green gaze with an equanimity she didn't quite feel. "My brother Ben did, and, if I remember correctly…" she gave him a pointed little look from beneath her lashes '…you even once took me out for a quick park yourself."

Jack set his jaw.

How like her to remind him of the one time he had lost all control with her. More than a decade had passed since that sweltering afternoon when he'd looked down at the full curve of her pouting seventeen-year-old mouth and…

"Anyway," she continued before he could think of a suitable retort, "it's the tiniest, weeniest little dent. Nothing to make such a fuss about."

He sent her a withering look and squatted down in front of his car to inspect the damage, running his long tanned fingers over the bent metal.

Becky felt her stomach muscles instinctively tighten. As much as she hated to admit it, Jack had the most amazing hands. She watched as they moved over the bumper, trying not to think of how they would feel moving over her skin, over her face, tracing the line of her mouth.

She had felt his mouth on hers — just the once, but the memory of it had stayed with her as if it had happened yesterday. Sometimes she felt as if she could still taste him when she swept her tongue across the surface of her lips…

He straightened to his full height and turned to look down at her, his mouth tight with tension.

"The whole thing will have to be replaced." 'What?" She stared at him in heart-tripping alarm. "The whole car?"

He rolled his eyes heavenwards, his tone clipped with biting sarcasm. "No. Not the whole car, Rebecca, just the bumper."

Becky hated the way he made the full use of her name sound like an insult. No one else did it, just him.

She would have hitched her chin up another notch but she was already craning her neck to maintain eye contact as it was. He was taller than her six-foot-one brother by about three inches and, no matter how often she wore heels to work, her five-foot-five frame still barely came up to his broad shoulders.

"You know something, Jack?" she said with a cutting edge to her voice. "You really should have booked in for that emergency personality bypass by now. You're really starting to annoy me, and that is not a good thing."

"Oh, really?" He gave her a glittering look. "Well, for your information, Dr Baxter, you rate pretty high on my annoyance Richter scale, too. My operating list is now going to be at least an hour late because of you breezing in here like this. What were you doing to make you so late? Your Christmas shopping?"

Becky glared at him, her mouth thinned out with anger. "I had a flat tyre."

"Another one?" His expression was disbelieving. "That makes — let me see now…" He held up his hand and counted on his long fingers as if speaking to a small child. "One last week, one on Monday and now another one today."

She pursed her lips and folded her arms without answering. "Come on, Rebecca," he said. "Can't you think of something a little better than that? What about a granny's or distant great-aunt's funeral or something?"

"I told you the truth." She bit the words out hard. "I have had three flat tyres in six days. It's costing me a fortune to have them fixed."

"Yeah, well, it's costing the government a packet to keep this public hospital up and running, and if we don't get this list started immediately the CEO will be on my back yet again about the ever-increasing waiting list."

Becky turned away to get her bag off the front seat, her teeth catching her bottom lip momentarily. She had never had car trouble before, but now it seemed as if something was going wrong every single day. Even the brakes had felt a little spongy when she'd pulled into the car park, though she'd had the car serviced less than ten days ago.

She hoisted her bag over one shoulder and flicked the remote to lock the car, turning back to glance up at Jack, who was watching her silently.

"I'll pay for the damages," she said, brushing past him to make her way towards the entrance. "Just send me the bill."

Jack frowned as her heels click-clacked across the car park, her small figure disappearing through the automatic doors of the hospital as if the building were swallowing her whole.

He gave a rough-edged sigh, ran a hand through his dark hair and followed her into the building.

It was going to be another one of those days, he was sure.

"Betadine prep, Gwen, please," Jack said, once the first patient was anaesthetised. Gwen handed him the Betadine and he applied it to the abdomen liberally before handing the dish and applicator back. The patient was draped and the diathermy and sucker set up.

"Scalpel."

He made a midline incision in the abdomen of sixty-five- year-old Hugh Williams, who had a sigmoid colon cancer.

"Rebecca, the usual antibiotics and heparin, please," he said. "Already given," Becky answered. "Can we tip him a little head down, please? He's a vasculopath and a little hypotensive at the moment."

"Yes, all right, head down a bit. Diathermy, Gwen," Jack said as he completed the opening of the abdomen.

He inserted a Balfour self-retaining retractor and carried out an exploration of the abdomen to assess the extent of the cancer, his frown behind his protective mask deepening as he concentrated.

"No liver metastases but the primary is stuck to the left pelvic wall." He addressed his registrar assistant, Robert Caulfield. "It's going to have to be dissected off the iliac vessels and ureter."

Half an hour later Jack spoke again. "This tumour is very adherent, Robert — I'm taking it off the iliacs now… Shoot! Vascular clamp, Gwen. The tumour is into the common iliac and we have a hole in the artery. Robert, compress the bleeding with packs till we clamp the artery."

"What are you guys doing down there?" Becky asked, her eyes still on the monitor. "His BP has dropped right off."

"We're into the common iliac artery and losing blood fast," Jack answered. "Where's that clamp, Gwen?"

"Coming, Jack," Gwen said. "We weren't expecting to need vascular extras."

"Mr Williams has got marginal cardiac function," Becky informed them. "Either you stop the bleeding or we're going to be in trouble soon. I'm putting in an extra IV line and starting colloid. Did you cross-match blood, Rob?"

"Just grouped and held, Dr Baxter," Robert answered. "We don't normally cross-match for a sigmoid colectomy."

"Right, then, I'm taking blood for an urgent cross-match. Jack, I'm getting in O-negative blood. I can't hold him on crystalloid any longer."

"Whatever," Jack said tightly. "Just keep him in there till I can clamp this artery."

"The Satinsky vascular clamp is here, Jack," Gwen informed him.

"Hold back the sigmoid mesentery and get that sucker in there to clear the field while I clamp, Robert. Ready. Now, suck, retract."

Jack applied the clamp to the common iliac artery and the bleeding stopped. He allowed himself a small sigh of relief and addressed Becky. "Bleeding has stopped, Rebecca. How is he?"

"Hypotensive but holding in there. I've got O-negative blood pumping in, looks about two and a half litres of blood loss, but if you've got the bleeding stopped we can manage it."

"Good. Vascular suture, Gwen."

Jack repaired the hole in the common iliac artery, taking care not to damage the left ureter. The sigmoid colon was then freed and resected.

"Blood supply to the bowel ends looks good. I'm doing a hand-sewn anastomosis. Gwen, outer 2/0 black silk and inner 2/0 chromic catgut."

"No stapler, then?" Gwen queried. "No, the anastomosis is too far from the rectum." Jack went on to complete the anastomosis and close the mesenteric defect.

"You can close up, Robert, no drains," he said, stepping away from the patient. "Everything all right your end, Rebecca?"

"He's stable and good BP," Becky said, exchanging relieved glances with the anaesthetic nurse beside her.

Jack left the operating theatre to write up his operation notes on Mr Williams as the registrar completed the closure of the abdomen.

"What's eating Jack this morning?" Julie, the anaesthetic nurse, asked the rest of the theatre staff. "He came in growling like a bear first thing."

"He was on call last night," Gwen said, handing Robert a skin stapler. "A twenty-year-old road trauma victim died in Theatre. He did everything he could but it wasn't enough. The kid bled out."

Becky felt a wave of shame go through her for the way she'd spoken to him in the car park. She of all people knew the stress of losing a patient, how it ate at you in the middle of yet another sleepless night as you agonised over what could have or should have been done, even if there had been a chance.

She looked at the still unconscious Mr Williams and sighed. He was one of the lucky ones. His family would see him in a few hours, a little worse for wear but hopefully with a good few more years left to live, thanks to Jack's meticulous skill and care.

She followed the orderlies as they wheeled the patient out to Recovery, checking that Mr Williams was responding to voice before returning to Theatre to get ready for the next case.

"What was that ruckus about in the car park this morning?" Gwen asked once Becky came back. "You heard that?" Becky gave her a startled look. Gwen smiled as she stripped off her sterile gown and stuffed it in the laundry bin. "What is it with you two? That stunt you just pulled off with Mr Williams proves just how well you can work together. Why can't you bury whatever hatchet there is and kiss and make up?"

"It would take an entire peace congress to sort out the mess," Becky answered ruefully. "Jack's had a chip on his shoulder about me for years, which up until this morning was the size of the Sydney Cricket Ground, but it has now just grown to include Centennial Park and Fox Studios as well."

"Uh-oh." Gwen's face screwed up in an I-know-this-is-going- to-be-bad grimace. "Whatever did you do?"

"I ran into the back of his car. His brand-new car." Gwen whistled through her teeth. "Not good." 'Definitely not good," Becky agreed. "Why were you late in the first place?" Gwen asked. "I had another flat tyre."

Gwen's brows rose. "What have you been doing, girl, parking on pins and needles?"