The Rebel Surgeon's Proposal

Special thanks to all the following, who have given me so much support and encouragement, kindness and care…

Jo, Anne, Richard, Chris, Sue H, Liz, Lorraine, Pam, Maggie, Sue S, Sandy, Gwen, Gill, Sue R, Fiona, Lesley, Jennifer, Jackie, Irene and Christine

You are all appreciated beyond words

February

‘F
RANCESCA
?
My goodness, lass, is that you?’

After responding to a call from the A and E department to carry out a series of emergency X-rays on a road-accident victim, Francesca Scott was returning to the radiology unit when she heard someone call her name. Glancing round, she saw an older woman sitting in a wheelchair at one side of the reception area, separate from the handful of other people who were awaiting attention. Recognition dawned as Francesca observed the plump figure, her gaze travelling over a rounded face framed by short grey curls. A familiar face that was kindly and surprisingly unlined by the ravages of a difficult life…a face that now bore the signs of bruises that had Francesca’s stomach twisting into knots and suspicion sending warning bells ringing in her mind.

Old memories flowed, fast and furious, nearly overwhelming her, making her feel hesitant, vulnerable, taking her back to the girl she had been ten years ago rather than the woman she had since fought to become. Part of her wanted to run, to push the myriad of scary emotions away, but she could never turn her back on the woman who had recognised her and reached out to
her. Feeling as if she was crossing some unbridgable chasm to an unknown destination rather than a few feet of floor space, Francesca closed the distance separating them. As she sat on a chair beside the woman, she studied the bruising and noted the way she was cradling her right arm in a sling.

‘Hello, Mrs Devlin.’

A smile bloomed, bringing a twinkle to faded green eyes that displayed pleasure and warmth, making her look much younger than her sixty-three years. ‘It’s wonderful to see you, Francesca!’

‘Thank you. And you. I wouldn’t have wanted you to be here under these circumstances, though.’ Trying to keep barriers erected against anything personal, or anything related to the past, Francesca focused on Sadie Devlin’s injuries and why she had been left alone. ‘Have you been seen, or are you waiting for an X-ray?’

‘I’m not sure what’s happening. The nurse who brought me here from Casualty went off to talk to a friend and hasn’t come back. She’s a bit of a flighty one.’ The admission was made with a mix of wry amusement and a hint of frustration.

Francesca cursed under her breath, pretty sure who the culprit was. ‘Do you know her name?’

‘Olivia, I think. Dyed blonde hair, lots of make-up.’

It figured. She tried to hide her annoyance at wretched Olivia Barr, who had no doubt gone off after some man who had caught her fancy. ‘Is that the X-ray request form?’ she asked, gesturing to the slip the older woman held in her lap.

‘Yes, that’s right. Shall I give it to you?’

‘Please.’ Francesca stood up. ‘I’ll find out what’s going on and get you booked in.’

Mrs Devlin’s relief was obvious. ‘Thanks, lass.’

A quick check at the reception desk with Kim, one of the unit’s clerks, confirmed that Olivia had failed to organise the
requested X-rays and had left her charge unattended for some time. After a hectic morning in Radiology, things were beginning to wind down, but as her colleagues on duty were all busy with patients who had prebooked appointments, Francesca offered to handle Sadie Devlin’s case herself.

‘I thought you were on your lunch-break now?’ Kim fretted as she wrote up the necessary paperwork and entered the details on the computer.

‘It’s OK.’ Francesca was determined to ensure that Mrs Devlin did not have to wait another moment before she was made comfortable. ‘I’m no longer on call for A and E and I’ll still have time for a quick snack before I start on the appointments I have scheduled for this afternoon.’

The younger girl smiled as she handed over the file. ‘Thanks, Francesca. I was getting a bit worried, especially when Olivia disappeared and just left the lady there. Things have been so busy I haven’t had a minute, but I was going to speak to her if Olivia didn’t come back soon.’

Making a mental note to have words with the tardy nurse, Francesca returned to Mrs Devlin and wheeled her to a vacant X-ray room.

‘I’m not jumping the queue, am I?’ the thoughtful lady fretted.

‘Not at all. I’m just sorry you had to wait this long.’

Francesca prepared things in readiness to take the required images. As she turned to face the woman once more, dread filled her, a lump forming in her throat as she wondered how to voice her concerns about how she had been hurt.

‘What happened today, Mrs Devlin? Did you have an accident or…?’ Her words trailed off and she cursed the tinge of colour that warmed her pale cheeks, betraying her discomfort and, no doubt, making the direction of her thoughts all too clear.

Mrs Devlin sent her an understanding smile as the unspoken question hung in the air between them. ‘It’s all right,
Francesca. Really. Yours is a natural assumption to make, after all. But on this occasion it was all my own fault. I climbed onto a chair to change a lightbulb. So silly of me.’ She sighed, shaking her head. ‘It was more rickety than I thought, and when it gave way, I overbalanced. The next moment I was on the floor. Instinct had me putting my hand out to save myself. I knew right away that my arm was broken.’

‘Did you hit your head at all?’

‘No, but I grazed my face on the chair as I fell…hence the bruises. The nice doctor in Casualty was very thorough checking me over and my arm seems to be the only worry.’

‘That’s good news.’ She smiled, relieved there was nothing more serious going on. ‘Let’s get these X-rays taken, then.’

‘Francesca…’

A change in the tone of voice alerted her and she looked up, seeing both determination and the shadows of past pain in the older woman’s green eyes. ‘Yes?’

‘Mick, my husband, died five years ago.’ The announcement was delivered after a short pause and without emotion, but a welter of meaning resonated in those seven words.

Francesca bit her lip, unsure what to say. She couldn’t express sorrow for the loss of a man who had been brutal and cruel, at whose hands Mrs Devlin and her three children had suffered for years and whose often violent crimes had led to several spells in prison.

The woman reached out with her uninjured hand to pat Francesca’s arm. ‘You don’t have to say anything, lass. I know what people thought of him—of us as a family. Many wondered why I stayed, but it was for the children. I couldn’t abandon them and Mick would never have let me take them away from him. My being there gave them some protection.’

Only at the expense of her own, Francesca wanted to protest, but held her tongue. She was angry on Mrs Devlin’s
behalf, she always had been, but even through the impotence of youthful rage, she had also long admired her courage and her love for her children. Not that all of them had deserved her selflessness. It was true that everyone in Strathlochan had known the history of the Devlin family and had spoken of them—the men, at least—with disgust and wariness. Rumours and prejudices had been rife about them and Francesca had grown up fearing Mr Devlin and the two older boys, Jon and Pete, who had shown all the signs of following in their father’s unsavoury footsteps.

Her own home life had been nothing to write home about but for all the problems surrounding the Devlins, Francesca had always envied them Sadie. Her care for her children had been obvious, even for Jon and Pete, who had repaid her dedication so shabbily. To Francesca, Sadie Devlin was all a mother should be…the kind of mother she herself had always longed for. So many times growing up she had admired her from afar, had played make-believe in her mind, pretending Sadie
was
her mother and that someone loved her for herself, always had a kind word for her, a ready hug. Reality had always intruded—a reality without the love and cuddles and kind words she had so craved.

Pushing aside unwanted memories, thoughts of things she had long since tried to banish and shut away in a dark, secret part of her mind, Francesca focused on her task, being as gentle as she could as she positioned the injured arm so she could capture the clearest picture of the suspected fracture. Explaining exactly what she was doing and ensuring her patient was as comfortable as possible, Francesca retreated to the protected cubicle while the X-ray was taken.

‘I need to take one more picture from another angle and then we’ll be finished,’ she explained, returning to the main room. ‘I’ll be as careful as I can.’ Even so, Mrs Devlin winced as her arm was moved and repositioned. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t worry, lass, it has to be done.’

Francesca worked swiftly to minimise any discomfort and, once she had completed the X-rays, resettled Mrs Devlin’s arm in the supportive sling. The images were soon ready to send to the A and E department but there was still no sign of Olivia Barr. Angry that the nurse had deserted her patient, Francesca decided to return Mrs Devlin to Casualty herself.

‘How long have you been back in Strathlochan, lass?’

The question caught Francesca by surprise, once more reawakening things she wished to keep dormant and in permanent hibernation. ‘Nearly three years now,’ she confided as she guided the wheelchair down the maze of corridors that were so familiar to her but could easily confuse the unwary.

‘And you like it here at the hospital?’ Sadie probed.

‘I do. I love my job.’

Saying the words out loud confirmed the truth of them. For the first time in her life she felt she fitted somewhere, Francesca admitted. She relished the variety of the work she did, both within the radiological unit itself and when she was on call to A and E. The buzz and uncertainty of the emergency work appealed to her, being quite different from the order and organisation of the unit and set appointments.

As a rule, she wasn’t good with people, but she enjoyed the interaction with her patients, devoting herself to their care and doing her best for them while they were in her charge. Outside her professional life, once she shed her work persona, she avoided people as much as possible. She knew that her nickname around the hospital was the Ice Maiden but it didn’t bother her. The people who dubbed her that knew nothing about her or her life. She got on all right with most of her colleagues in the work environment, but any kind of social interaction made her uncomfortable.

She had a few people she counted as friends. One was A
and E doctor Annie Webster, who was currently recovering from a frightening incident when she had been attacked while on duty three weeks ago, an assault that had nearly killed her. It had been a scary time and still made Francesca shiver when she thought of it. She had been on call in A and E when the assault had occurred and had done the ultrasound scan that had shown the flooding of blood into Annie’s pericardium from the stab wound to her heart.

Annie was now home and making a good recovery from the emergency thoracotomy that had saved her life. Francesca had been to visit her friend several times and, in the process, she was getting to know Annie’s fiancé, Nathan Shepherd, another trauma doctor who had recently come to Strathlochan to be with Annie. Theirs was a romantic story—not that Francesca had much time for romance. Not for herself, anyway. But she was very glad Annie was happy.

Francesca thought of the few other friends she had allowed into her life since her return to Strathlochan, including married doctors Cameron Kincaid and Ginger O’Neill, who ran the local Ackerman Centre for self-harm and eating disorders. Then there were nurse Gina McNaught and her Italian fiancé, Dr Seb Adriani, now working at the town’s new multi-purpose drop-in centre, and Frazer and Callie McInnes, both connected to Strathlochan’s air ambulance. Callie was a paramedic, but she had given up her flying role now she was pregnant, while flight doctor Frazer was considering returning to a hospital-based job when the baby was born.

Generally, though, she preferred animals to people, Francesca acknowledged. Animals didn’t let you down, didn’t judge you, didn’t lie or deceive.

‘It was a shock to discover you and your mother had left Strathlochan. We had no clue where you had gone,’ Sadie continued, startling Francesca from her wayward thoughts and
surprising her even more that her absence had been noted at all. ‘And I’m so glad I’ve seen you today, lass. I had no idea you were home.’

Home.
Francesca was relieved that she was behind the older woman so Sadie could not see her reaction to that word. She didn’t want to think of home, of childhood and all that meant. Once she had finished school after her Highers exams and had been old enough to make her own decisions, she had packed up and gone, deaf to the inducements, threats and promises of change. She’d ended up in Edinburgh where she had done her four-year training to be a diagnostic radiographer, a career that appealed to her interest in science and technology and, through her sporting activity, in anatomy and physiology.

Coming back to Strathlochan to take this job had been an act of defiance as much as anything else. It had been something she had felt she had to do and to face, even if no one but her understood the significance of it or knew of her inner struggle. She had carved out a good life here, had faced the demons and the memories, had moved on and was more settled than she had ever imagined she could be. The job provided constant variety and gave her independence to make decisions. Unlike some of her colleagues, she didn’t even mind the night shifts…indeed, she enjoyed them. Especially given the way the forward-thinking Trust ran Strathlochan’s hospital and medical services.

The local health board’s innovative management was one of the things that had impressed her so much when she had taken the job back here. Thought had been given to improving working conditions for doctors, nurses and other clinicians. While they still worked hard, and for long hours, their shifts had been changed from the old-style patterns still in place in many hospitals. In Strathlochan most now worked a rotation of five days on, two days off, three nights on and three
days off. It had worked well and the majority of staff appreciated the schedule. It not only improved general quality of life, but it had created good teamwork and aided patient care.