A Surgeon for the Single Mom

pain and looked very pale. Suspected internal bleeding. From top to bottom, she has a deep three-inch laceration to the head, lower back and pelvic pain, suspected spinal fractures. We administered one-fifty milligrams of ketamine for the pain.’

It might almost have been possible to lose herself in her cases, with shout after shout ever since she’d arrived at the air ambulance base at six o’clock that morning—if it hadn’t been for the leaden ball filling her chest every single second.

She was grateful when the rest of the hand-over passed off without a hitch and she could get out of there. As soon as she got back to the base she would be done for the day. Maybe another night’s sleep would finally begin to shake Tak from out of her head.

She snorted to herself. Well, she could live in hope.

‘Effie.’

He caught her as she was exiting the building.

She wouldn’t have stopped, but her legs refused to work and she didn’t want to risk humiliating herself any further by forcing them to move only to collapse right there on the ground. Worse, have him pick her up in his arms.

She heard him jog up behind her and then move around to face her.

‘I have to get back to base,’ she managed. ‘They’re waiting for me on the heli.’ But there was no concealing the quiver in her voice and she knew he heard it, too.

‘No, they aren’t. They’ve left. Your pilot was close to his maximum flying hours and he had to get back to base. You were still in the middle of the hand-over in Resus, and technically your shift finished an hour ago, anyway.’

‘Oh.’ She swallowed. ‘Well, then, I need to get back to my paramedics so we can head back together.’

‘They’ve left too. I said I’d give you a lift back to your base and your car.’

Of course he had. A sliver of irrational anger cut through her. Taking charge as if he had every right to do so.

And then he opened his mouth and with two simple words took the heat out of everything.

‘I’m sorry.’

She let the apology linger between them for a moment.

‘What for?’ she asked eventually, her voice soft. ‘The fact that I’m damaged goods or the fact that you didn’t tell me that was why you were using me?’

‘She’s gone, Effie,’ he said quietly.

If she hadn’t known better she’d have thought he was ashamed. But that was impossible, because Tak was never ashamed.

‘She’s out of our lives.’

The anger rushed back, flooding her. ‘There is no our lives,’ Effie exploded before she could check herself. ‘You used me.’

‘We used each other at the beginning,’ he reminded her. ‘That was the deal.’

It hurt. Too much.

‘No, the deal was that we would be each other’s buffer. The deal was never that because I was so damaged and toxic you would become tainted by association. I suffered enough of that growing up, because of my mother and where I was from. I will not accept it as a proud, hard-working single mother of a beautiful daughter.’

She wasn’t prepared for him to reach out and snag her chin, forcing her to tip her head up, making her meet his eye.

‘Nor should you accept it. Ever. But those were her words—they were never mine.’

‘They might as well have been,’ Effie argued, wrenching her head away, feeling the hurt blistering inside her like a chemical burn she couldn’t get to. ‘You gave her the weapon and you gave her the ammunition. You even marked me out as the target and you never even warned me. All she had to do was point and shoot.’

‘I didn’t even know you had a daughter when I asked you to that gala. Neither did Hetti. How could I have possibly chosen you on the basis she accused me of doing?’

He sounded rational, yet urgent all at once, and Effie realised there was some comfort to be taken from that. She felt her shoulders slump slightly, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

‘You might not have intended it. At least not initially,’ she conceded. ‘But once you knew about Nell—once I told you that night at the gala—you must have known people would find out. You must have known this would be your family’s reaction.’