First Time in Forever (Puffin Island 1)

Ann? No, that wasn’t right.

Angela. Yes, it was Angela.

Fatigue descended like a gray fog, slowing his thinking. He needed sleep.

He’d been called to an emergency in the night and had been on his feet operating since dawn. Soon the adrenaline would fade and when it did he knew he was going to crash big-time. Sean wanted to be somewhere near his bed when that happened. He had the use of a room at the hospital but he preferred to make it back to his waterside apartment where he could nurse a beer and watch life on the water.

“Dr. O’Neil? Sean? I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have put the call through if I’d known it was personal. She said she was a doctor.” The look in her eyes told him she’d have no objection to being Veronica’s replacement. Sean didn’t think she’d be flattered to know he’d temporarily forgotten her existence.

“Not your fault. I’ll talk to the relatives—” He was tempted to take a shower first, but then he remembered the white face of the boy’s mother when she’d arrived at the hospital and decided the shower could wait. “I’ll go and see them now.”

“You’ve had a really long day. If you want to come by my place after work, I make a mac and cheese that is wicked good.”

She was sweet, caring and pretty. Angela would come close to most men’s idea of a perfect woman.

Not his.

His idea of a perfect woman was one who didn’t want anything from him.

Relationships meant sacrifice and compromise. He wasn’t prepared to do either of those things, which was why he had remained resolutely single.

“As you just witnessed, I am an appalling date.” He managed what he hoped was a disarming smile. “I’d either be working and not show up at all, or so tired I’d fall asleep on your sofa. You can definitely do better.”

“I think you’re amazing, Dr. O’Neil. I work with loads of doctors, and you’re easily the best. If I ever needed a surgeon, I’d want you to look after me. And I wouldn’t care if you fell asleep on my sofa.”

“Yes, you would.” Eventually they always did. “I’ll go and talk to the family now.”

“That’s kind of you. His mother is worried.”

*

HE SAW THE worry the moment he laid eyes on the woman.

She sat without moving, her hands gripping her skirt as she tried to contain anxiety made worse by waiting. Her husband was on his feet, hands thrust in his pockets, shoulders hunched as he talked to the coach. Sean knew the coach vaguely. He’d found him to be ruthless and relentlessly pushy and it seemed that surgery on his star player hadn’t softened his approach.

The guy wanted miracles and he wanted them yesterday. Sean knew this particular coach’s priority wasn’t the long-term welfare of the kid lying in the OR, but the future of his team. As a sports injury specialist he dealt with players and coaches all the time. Some were great. Others made him wish he’d chosen law instead of medicine.

The moment the boy’s father saw Sean he sprang forward like a Rottweiler pouncing on an intruder.

“Well?”

The coach was drinking water from a plastic cup. “You fixed it?”

He made it sound like a hole in a roof, Sean thought. Slap a new shingle on and it will be as good as new. Change the tire and get the car back on the road.

“Surgery is only the beginning. It’s going to be a long process.”

“Maybe you should have got him into surgery sooner instead of waiting.”

Maybe you should stop practicing armchair medicine.

Noticing the boy’s mother digging her nails into her legs, Sean decided not to lock horns. “All the research shows that the outcome is better when surgery is carried out on a pain-free mobile joint.” He’d told them the same thing a week before but neither the coach nor the father had wanted to listen then and they didn’t want to listen now.

“How soon can he play again?”

Sean wondered what it must be like for the boy, growing up with these two on his back.

“It’s too early to set a timetable for return. If you push too hard, he won’t be playing at all. The focus now is on rehab. He has to take that seriously. So do you.” This time his tone was as blunt as his words. He’d seen promising careers ruined by coaches who pushed too hard too soon, and by players without the patience to understand that the body didn’t heal according to a sporting schedule.