The Heroic Surgeon

Stop it!

He passed the endotracheal tube down Mikhael’s trachea, inflated its cuff to secure it against slipping out and started delivering 100 per cent oxygen. He picked his next words more carefully. “Though, come to think of it, we are probably related. My family comes from Florence and all Florentines are related somehow.”

A smile warmed her eyes. “So I was more of a clairvoyant than a liar.”

Her warmth went right through his chest. “You can be anything you like as long as you’re my translator.”

He inserted a Foley’s catheter. No blood came with the urine. He heaved a sigh of relief. No urogenital injuries either.

With his first measures complete, he allowed his gaze to linger on Gulnar’s face, found concentration knotting her elegant eyebrows as she placed the cannula in Mikhael’s arm, connected it to the IV line, handed the saline bag to Mikhael’s lady friend to hold up, and set the drip to maximum.

Placing the cannula must have been hell. Mikhael’s veins were long collapsed and with the way her left arm was pressed to her side—why was she holding it like that…?

The realization, the memory hit him. The knock she’d taken! Was her shoulder injured? It must be…

Reach out for her, examine her—enfold her…

He barely stopped his impetuous move towards her, squashed the roiling urge and the end of a tourniquet between clamped teeth. Not a good time. And it never would be either. He was done reaching out. Never again on a personal basis. He’d finish this and move on. And on. He’d sworn it. He’d continue living on the fringes, alone and separate.

He’d die the same way.

CHAPTER TWO

“NOW—blood.”

Gulnar’s eyes swung up at Dante’s terse command. He wrapped the tourniquet around his arm and snapped it hard in place, hoping the lash of pain would end his wandering thoughts.

If only it were that easy. He sighed and presented Gulnar with his arm turned upwards, exposing his bulging veins, handed her the line of the blood bag, capped needle first. She hesitated.

He exhaled. “Now what?”

She chewed her lower lip. “We can’t just do a transfusion without checking your blood. But we can give him more fluids and he’s more or less stable…”

“Trust me, I’m clean. You can’t imagine how clean. And I’m bursting with packed red blood cells and clotting factors.”

Gulnar bit into her lip and he exhaled, feeling his arm going cold and numb with the tourniquet’s constriction. He could have done without the aggravation. Could have done with Gulnar’s help. One more thing he’d have to do without, then.

He reached for the needle and she resisted. His hand fisted in exasperation. Blood hissed in his ears. He snapped another bag up, snatched the cap off its needle with his teeth. “Even if you don’t believe me, don’t you think it’s worth the risk to save Mikhael now? And what possible reason would I have for lying? For infecting him with—what? AIDS, presumably? Aren’t you taking this paranoia too far?”

He raised his eyes to flay her with his irritation, met her magnificent eyes and it was h

e who flinched.

“When you wake up one day, Dr. Dante,” she snarled, “and find the neighbors you’ve lived with all your life have turned into enemies, when they take over your home, make you run for your life, when the people you think will offer you sanctuary kill everyone you know and love, when you’ve survived fifteen years of war and displacement, it’s not very hard to see how one can end up paranoid!”

He gaped at her, his heart constricting, his throat closing.

“From what you described, it’s a miracle to only end up paranoid after all that. But, paranoid or not, I will do this with or without your consent. You can help me or you can go back to your corner and stop hindering me.”

At his vehemence something leapt in her eyes, settled there. Something softening, acquiescent. His body lurched, his head tightened. Hell. He’d take her antagonism any day.

His breath eased only when her eyes released him and she took the needle from his fingers.

So she’d decided to trust him, huh? Good to know. Too good. It felt even better to surrender to her ministrations as without another word or glance she slipped the needle into his vein. He didn’t even feel it piercing his skin, didn’t feel the tourniquet being snapped off. A soothing touch, a perfect approach. He sighed, watched his blood filling the collection bag and handed her one more bag to add to the one she already had.

Her eyes sought his as he pumped his hand. “Three bags?” He nodded. “You can’t donate all that blood. Those bags have to be a pint each!”

“Five hundred ccs actually. I’m a big man, I have lots to spare.”