The Surgeon's Convenient Fiancée (Medical Romance) by Rebecca Lang Page B

was being confirmed for her, was that she could never abandon Fleur andMungo while they needed her. How much worse would it be, she wondered, if they were her own biological children?
    Once the piece of gut was removed by Shay and passed to the scrub nurse, who put it into a stainless-steel dish, he turned to Deirdre where she stood behind him, well back, as though he had been fully aware that she had been there all along. ‘Hi, Deirdre,’ he said. ‘Come a little closer. This patient has a carcinoma of the descending colon and, as you can see, I’ve removed a large chunk of the gut. Fortunately for him, we’ve got it in the early stages and it hasn’t spread to the omentum or the liver. It has not invaded through the wall of the colon. He should do very well.’
    Deirdre nodded. ‘That’s good,’ she said, knowing that the prognosis for cancer of the colon was good if there was no spread. Once in the liver, it was a different story, unless there was one localized lesion, which could then be surgically removed.
    As she watched, he took a scalpel and carefully cut open the piece of intestine that he had removed, to reveal the tumour inside the lumen. ‘There you have it,’ he said. ‘Nasty.’
    Then he put on a new sterile pair of latex gloves.
    ‘I’m going to staple the two cut ends together,’ he said to Deirdre. ‘I’m sure you know all about that.’
    ‘Well, I expect you have some new gadgets since I last assisted with a gut resection,’ she said. She would just watch what the scrub nurse handed him, then what he did. The circulating nurse brought her a low standing stool so that she could be raised up a few inches and get a better view of what was going on with the operation.
    ‘Thanks,’ she said.
    Shay turned back to the task in hand and said no more to her for a long time. The room was more or less silent, apart from some exchanged remarks, the muted sound of the anaesthetic equipment and the intermittent sound of the suction equipment. Deirdre forgot herself, even managed to put Fleur and Mungo out of her mind while she concentrated on what was going on in front of her, knowing that she was free to leave the room whenever she wanted to.
    There was the usual coffee-lounge in theoperating suite for nurses and doctors, just off the main corridor. Already she and the other two nurses on orientation had been there for a coffee-break. The main staff cafeteria for the whole hospital was the one on the ground floor of the building that she had been to with Shay. Then there was the little coffee-shop in the main lobby where she and Shay had bought coffee on her first visit. That seemed like a long time ago. When this case was over she would go to the main cafeteria for lunch, so the tutor had instructed her, then they would all meet up later for a mini-lecture. So far, she was enjoying every minute of it.
    Eventually the final instrument and sponge count had been done by the two nurses to make sure that no instruments or gauze sponges had been left inside the patient’s abdominal cavity. Shay stripped off his latex rubber gloves and left the suturing of the abdomen to his assistant and the surgical resident.
    Beckoning Deirdre over to the side of the room, he proceeded to write notes on thepatient’s chart about the procedure he had just done, talking to her at the same time.
    ‘Will you be going to the cafeteria for lunch?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes,’ she said.
    ‘Good. I’ll meet you down there in about ten minutes, if you like,’ he said.
    The others in the room were probably thinking that he was talking to her about the case as he wrote busily, Deirdre concluded. Yes, she would like to meet him.
    Deirdre nodded. ‘I’ll see you there, then,’ she said, her heart singing. At the same time she told herself not to read too much into his actions.
    ‘Right. Save me a seat,’ he said quietly, looking at her sideways and grinning. At least, his eyes smiled; she could not see the lower part of his