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Reunited With Her Parisian Surgeon
Annie O'Neil
Raphael’s heart was lost…Until he found Maggie again!Brooding surgeon Dr Raphael Boucher finds his way to Sydney and the one woman he has never been able to forget. As they work together, it’s clear that Maggie Louis is the only person who can make him feel alive again. But Raphael must return to Paris and resolve his past before they can finally be together…


Raphael’s heart was lost...
Until he found Maggie again!
Brooding surgeon Dr. Raphael Boucher finds his way to Sydney and the one woman he could never forget. Working together it’s clear Maggie Louis is the only one who can make him feel alive again. But first Raphael must return to Paris and resolve his past before they can finally be together.
ANNIE O’NEIL spent most of her childhood with her leg draped over the family rocking chair and a book in her hand. Novels, baking, and writing too much teenage angst poetry ate up most of her youth. Now Annie splits her time between corralling her husband into helping her with their cows, baking, reading, barrel racing (not really!) and spending some very happy hours at her computer, writing.
Also by Annie O’Neil
One Night, Twin Consequences
The Nightshift Before Christmas
Santiago’s Convenient Fiancée
Her Hot Highland Doc
Healing the Sheikh’s Heart
Her Knight Under the Mistletoe
Italian Royals miniseries
Tempted by the Bridesmaid
Claiming His Pregnant Princess
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Reunited with Her Parisian Surgeon
Annie O’Neil


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07490-2
REUNITED WITH HER PARISIAN SURGEON
© 2018 Annie O’Neil
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This one definitely goes out to my readers. Without you this book literally could not have been made. You are the ones who built this hero and heroine... I hope you enjoy their story.
Annie O xx
Contents
Cover (#u30d5857a-7f0d-53ce-a3b3-9868e42c0900)
Back Cover Text (#uc4f33f65-59b5-56be-97a8-ca26746ed589)
About the Author (#u2753557e-3d94-53d8-9609-55a554dc475b)
Booklist (#uda9e8a5b-10ed-59c6-bb73-5d73b46a4d33)
Title Page (#u81101fa9-116b-5679-ad13-c63733c51606)
Copyright (#ud35799bd-2f32-5ae3-85f3-065e81bb7c19)
Dedication (#u1b0b4596-9873-5e38-a64a-51f87869b06e)
CHAPTER ONE (#u783082b5-ddc4-5ba8-875d-c1fcb16195d0)
CHAPTER TWO (#u0b64ae09-47fb-555e-ad08-6174c83c98fb)
CHAPTER THREE (#uc992cf8d-e084-5e1d-a93a-98612fac0ee1)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u512006d9-fc85-5339-aa7f-1d3e1ff78f9b)
SCENT. SOUND. TASTE. Even the air felt different in Australia; so did the sea water he was ploughing through. But as the days had bled into weeks, then months, Raphael had come to know that travelling halfway round the world hadn’t made a blind bit of difference. He was still carrying the same hollowed-out heart, weighted with an anvil’s worth of guilt. Leaving Paris hadn’t done a damn thing towards relieving the burden.
Volunteering had done nothing. Neither had working in conflict zones. Nor donating blood and platelets. He would have pulled his heart right out of his chest if he’d thought it would help. Working all day and all night hadn’t helped. And then there was money. Heaven knew he’d tried to throw enough of that at the situation, only to make a bad situation worse.
Jean-Luc didn’t want any of his money. Not anymore.
The truth was a simple one. Nothing could change the fact that his best friend’s daughter had died on his operating table.
He’d known he was too close to her. He’d known he shouldn’t have raised so much as a scalpel when he’d seen who the patient was. The injuries she’d suffered. But there had been no one more qualified. And Jean-Luc had begged him. Begged him to save his daughter’s life.
Raphael thought through each excruciatingly long minute they’d been in surgery for the millionth time.
Clamps. Suction. Closing the massive traumatic aortic rupture only to have another present itself. Clamps. More suction. Stiches. Dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe. He could see his fingers knotting each one in place. Ensuring blood flow returned to her kidneys. Her heart.
Her young body had responded incredibly well to the surgery. A miracle really, considering the massive trauma she’d suffered when the car had slammed into hers. All that had been left to do when he’d been called to the adjacent operating theatre was close her up.
No matter how many times he went through it, he stalled at the critical moment. There’d been two choices. He’d taken one path. He should’ve chosen the other. His one fatal error had built to that leaden silence when he’d returned to the operating theatre to see his junior lifting his hands up and away from her small, lifeless body.
They’d looked to him to call the time of death.
Raphael swam to the edge of the pool, blinking away the sea water, almost surprised to see that the sun was beginning to set. He pulled himself up and out of the pool in one fluid move, vaguely aware of how the exertion came easily now that he was trying to burn away the memories with lap after lap.
He was tired now. Exhausted, if he was being truly honest. Coming here to Sydney was his last-ditch attempt to find the man he had once been. The man buried beneath a grief he feared would haunt him until his dying day. He was driving himself to swim harder than he ever had before—churning the seaside pool into a boiling froth around him as he hit one side, dove, twisted, and then started again to see how soon he could hit the other—but his burning lungs did nothing to assuage the heaviness of his heart.
Love could.
And forgiveness could do so much more.
In fewer than twenty-four hours he’d see Maggie...
The years since he’d seen her last seemed incalculable. He remembered her vividly. A clear-eyed, open-hearted exchange student from Australia. Apart from Jean-Luc there had been no one in his life who had ever known him so well, who had seen straight through to his soul.
If, when they met again, she could see a glimmer of the man she’d known all those years ago he’d know there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
After toweling off in the disappearing rays of the sun, he tugged on a long-sleeved T-shirt and headed for the exit, already conditioned to look toward the white fence on the right, leading out of the baths towards the coastal path.
Le petit monstre de la mer.
He was still there. The cock-eared mutt that had been following him from his rented accommodation, along the coastal path to the Bronte Baths and back since he’d arrived in Sydney a week ago.
A reject from former tenants?
There were no tags, no chips. Nothing to identify him or his owners.
It shocked him that he’d cared enough to take the dog to a vet the day before.
At least it proved there was still a heart thumping away in his chest, doing more than was mechanically required.
He huffed out a mirthless laugh.
Or was it just proof that he desperately needed one soul in his life who wasn’t judging him? Who still wanted his company?
He winced away the thought. That wasn’t fair. After over a decade of virtually no contact, Maggie hadn’t merely agreed to meet up with him tomorrow night. She’d found him a job at her paramedic station. She’d gone above and beyond the call of a long-ago friendship.
The memory of her bright green eyes softened the hard set of his jaw.
From what she’d said in her emails, the under-staffed ambulance station sounded like a non-stop grind. Perhaps, at long last, this would be the beginning of the healing he’d been seeking, after eighteen months on the run from the pain he’d caused.
He certainly didn’t trust himself on a surgical ward. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps never.
“Allons-y, Monster.” He tipped his head towards the street and the dog quickly met his long-stride pace. “Let’s see if we can find you some supper.”
CHAPTER TWO (#u512006d9-fc85-5339-aa7f-1d3e1ff78f9b)
TICK-TOCK. TICK-TOCK.
Why had she brought him to a movie?
Raphael was going to think she hated him. But, no, she was just socially inept. And she wasn’t quite ready for him to meet the “real” Maggie.
Maggie’s phone buzzed in her backpack, adding to her mortification. She dragged the bag out from under her seat and fished around until she found it. Working in the emergency services meant checking your phone every time it beeped or buzzed, whether or not you were sitting next to your teenage crush from the most perfect year you’d ever had.
A year in Paris.
Raphael Bouchon.
Match. Made. In. Heaven.
Not that there’d been any romance. Just a one-sided crush that had come to an abrupt end when she’d boarded the plane back to Australia.
She pushed the button on her phone to read the message.
Dags, Dad needs more of those hyper-socks next time you come.
She speed-typed back.
They’re compression socks, you dill.
Her expression softened. Her brothers were doing their best in the face of their father’s ever-changing blood pressure. They were mechanics, not medics.
She glanced across at Raphael. I could’ve been a surgeon, like you.
An unexpected sting of tears hit her at the back of her throat so she refocused on her phone.
See you in a couple of weeks with a fresh supply. Maggie xx
She jammed the phone back into her backpack and suppressed the inevitable sigh of frustration. Moving to Sydney was more of a hassle than it was worth sometimes. But staying in Broken Hill forever? Uh-uh. Not an option.
She dropped her pack beneath her chair and readjusted in her stadium-style seat, only to succeed in doing what she’d been trying to avoid all night—grazing her thigh along Raphael’s.
“Desolé.” Raphael put his hand where his knee had just knocked Maggie’s and gave it an apologetic pat.
She stared at his hand. Long, gorgeous, surgeon’s fingers. Strong. Assured. Not the type of fingers that caressed the likes of her lowly paramedic’s knees.
Wait a minute.
Had it been a caress? If it had been then this whole high school reunion thing was swiftly turning into a dream come true. If not...
She glanced across at him and saw he wasn’t even looking at her. His bright blue eyes were glued to the flickering screen twenty or so rows ahead of them. Fair enough, considering they were at a movie, but...
“Non, c’est—it’s all right.”
Maggie fumbled her way through an unnecessary response, all the while crossing her legs, tucking her toes behind her calf to weave her legs together and make herself as small as possible. If they didn’t touch again, and she could somehow drill it into her pea-sized brain that Raphael wasn’t fabricating excuses to touch her, then maybe—just maybe—she’d stop feeling as if she’d just regressed back to her sixteen-year-old, in-love-with-Raphael self.
Ha! Fat chance of that happening.
Tall, dark and broodingly handsome, Raphael Bouchon would have to head back to France without so much as a C’est la vie! if she were ever going to give up the ghost of a dream that there had once been something between them to build upon.
The second she’d laid eyes on him tonight Maggie’s body had been swept straight back to the giddy sensations she’d felt as a teen.
Two hours in, she was still feeling the effects. Despite the typically warm, late-summer Australian evening, all the delicate hairs on her arms were standing straight up. The hundredth wave of goose pimples was rippling along her spine, keeping time with the swoosh and wash of waves upon the shores of Botany Bay. Off in the distance, the magical lights of Sydney’s famed harbor-front were glowing and twinkling, mimicking the warm sensation of fireflies dancing around her belly.
The outdoor cinema in Sydney’s Botanical Gardens was the perfect atmosphere for romance. Perfect, that was, if Raphael had been showing the slightest bit of interest in her.
It would’ve helped if she didn’t feel like a Class A fraud. Yammering on about living the high life in Sydney as they’d walked through the gardens toward the cinema instead of being honest had been a bad move. How could she tell him, after he’d achieved so much, that her “high life” entailed a pokey flat that needed an epic cleaning session, a virtually round-the-clock work schedule and quarterly trips to the Outback to tackle the piles of laundry her brothers had left undone.
Hardly the life of a glamorous city girl.
She was such a fraud!
Not to mention all of the appalling “Franglais” that had been falling out of her mouth since she and Raphael had met at the entrance to the gardens. Every single stern word she’d had with herself on the bus journey there had all but disappeared from her head. Including the reminder that this was not a date. Just an old friend showing another old friend around town.
Nothing. More.
The second she’d laid eyes on him...
Total implosion of all her platonic intentions.
Whether it was because thirty-year-old Raphael was even better looking than seventeen-year-old Raphael, or whether it was the fact that looking just a little...haunted added yet another layer of intriguing magnetism to the man, she wasn’t sure. Either way, Raphael had the same powerful effect on her that he’d had the first time they’d met at her host family’s home all those years ago.
Jean-Luc. A twist of guilt because she hadn’t kept in touch with him either cinched her heart.
She’d had a lot on her plate when she’d come home. She wasn’t Super Girl. She couldn’t do everything.
She readjusted in her seat and gave herself a little shake. Just watch the movie and act normal!
About three seconds passed before she unwove her legs and twisted them the other way round. She’d seen Casablanca a thousand times—could quote it line for line and had planned to do so tonight, back when she’d had just the one ticket...
Maggie dropped her eyelids and attempted another sidelong glimpse at the man she’d known as a boy.
His expression was intense and focused, though the rest of the audience was chuckling at one of Humphrey Bogart’s dry comments. Smiling was not Raphael’s thing.
Not anymore, anyway.
Back in Paris it had been an entirely different story. At least when they’d been together. His laugh had brightened everything, every day. It had made life appear in Technicolor.
Not that his surprise reconnection on social media had come in the form of an emotional email declaring his undying love for her—a love that demanded to be sated in the form of his flying halfway across the world to fulfil a lifelong dream of making sweet, magical love to her.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
His email had been polite. To the point. Bereft of what her father called “frilly girlie add-ons”. Silly her for thinking that vital little details like why he’d decided to get in touch and move to Sydney after years of successfully pursuing an emergency medicine surgical career without so much as a bonjour were “facts.”
Picking a movie as their first meeting hadn’t exactly been a prime choice in eliciting more information either. It had just seemed a simpler way of easing back into a friendship she wasn’t entirely sure existed anymore.
Back in Paris he might not have had romantic feelings for her, but there had been no doubting that their friendship had been as tight as they came.
Her eyes shifted in Raphael’s direction. Seeing the sorrow, or something a lot like it, etched into his features had near enough stopped Maggie’s heart from beating when they’d met up earlier that evening. Not that he was the only one who had changed...
She shivered, remembering the day she’d flown home from France as vividly as if it were yesterday. Seeing her brothers at the arrivals gate instead of her mum...their expressions as sorrowful as she had ever known them...
Leaving France had felt physically painful, but arriving home...
Arriving home had been devastating.
How could she not have known her mother was so ill?
She dug her fingernails into her palms and blew a tight breath between her lips.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just...life.
Her breath lodged in her throat as Raphael’s gaze shifted from the massive outdoor cinema screen to Maggie’s arms.
He leaned in closer, his voice soft as he asked, “T’as froid?”
“Cold? Me? No. This is Australia! Sydney, anyway,” Maggie corrected, her nervous laugh jangling in her ears as she rubbed her hands briskly along her arms. Just about the most ridiculous way to prove she was actually quite warm enough, thank you very much.
Being in lust did that to a girl.
That, and haphazardly wading her way through a state of complete and utter mental mayhem.
Sitting next to Raphael Bouchon was like being torn in two. Half of her heart was beating with huge, oxygen-filled thumps of exhilaration, while the other half was pounding like the hoofbeats of a racehorse hell-bent on being anywhere but here.
Raphael shifted in his chair and pulled his linen jacket off the back of his seat, brushing his knee against hers as he did. Accidentally. Of course. That was the only way things like that happened to her.
Just like Raphael “deciding on a change” and moving to Australia to become a paramedic. At her local station.
Sure she’d offered to help him, completely convinced it would never actually happen. And yet here they were, thigh to thigh, sitting in the middle of the Botanical Gardens, watching a movie under another balmy summer night’s sky.
Raphael held his linen jacket up to her with an It’s yours if you want it expression on his face. He was so earnest. And kind. Not to mention knee-wobblingly gorgeous.
“Megarooni gorge”, as her friend Kelly would say. Kelly would’ve been slipping into that jacket and climbing onto Raphael’s lap in the blink of an eye. Kelly had confidence.
Maggie...? Not so much. Just the thought of climbing onto Raphael’s lap reduced her insides to a jittery mass of unfulfillable expectation.
So she waved off his kind gesture, mouthing, No, thank you, all the while rubbing her hands together and blowing on them as she did.
Nutter. What are you doing?
“Please,” Raphael whispered, and his French accent danced along the back of her neck as he shifted the silk lining of the coat over her shoulders. “I insist.”
“Merci.” She braved the tiniest soupçon of French as she pulled the jacket and Raphael’s spicy man-scent closer round her. She mentally thunked herself on the forehead. Why was she acting like such a dill?
As if the answer wasn’t sitting right next to her on the open-air theater’s bleacher seating, looking like a medical journal centerfold.
Raphael Bouchon, Casablanca and the glass of champagne he had insisted upon buying her while they were waiting for the film to start were all adding up to one thing: the most embarrassing exchange student reunion ever. Besides, it wasn’t like a first date, when—
Whoa!
It’s not a date. This is not a date. You are showing an obviously bereaved, gorgeous friend from high school around Sydney. That’s. It. The fact that his arrival coincided with a non-refundable ticket to the Starlight Cinema and the most romantic film ever is sheer coincidence. And practical. Waste not, want not. And that includes Raphael.
At least that was what she’d keep telling herself.
Along with the reminder that this movie ended with a friendship. Nothing more.
She looked down to her fingers when she realized she was totting up the number of short-lived boyfriends who hadn’t made the grade over the years. Expecting anything different when everyone had been held up to The Raphael Standard was hardly a surprise. Inaccessible. Unattainable. Dangerously desirable.
And here she was. Platonically sitting next to the man himself. Not flirting. Not reveling in the protective comfort of his jacket around her shoulders. Not trying to divine any hidden meaning behind the chivalrous gesture no one had ever shown her before. Nor was she sneaking the occasional sidelong glimpse of his full Gallic lips. The cornflower-blue eyes that defied nature. The slightly over-long chestnut hair that all but screamed for someone to run their fingers through it. Someone like her.
And yet...
The mischievous glint in his eyes that she remembered so vividly from high school hadn’t shown up once tonight. And even though he’d only just turned thirty, the salt and pepper look had made significant inroads into his dark brown hair. The little crinkles beside his eyes that she might have ascribed to smiling only appeared when his eyebrows drew close together and his entire visage took on a faraway look, as if he wasn’t quite sure how he’d found himself almost twenty thousand kilometers away from home.
It didn’t take a mind-reader to figure out that his relocation halfway around the world was a way to put a buffer between himself and some dark memories. This was not a man looking for a carefree year with a Down Under lover.
Not that she would’ve been on his list of possible paramours. She wasn’t anywhere close to Raphael’s league. The fact that she was sitting next to him at all was a “bloody blinder of a miracle” as her Aussie rules footie-playing brothers would say, midway through giving her a roughhouse knuckle duster.
Sigh...
Maggie feigned another quick rearrangement of her hair from one shoulder to the other, trying to divine whether Raphael was genuinely enjoying the al fresco film experience. Or cinema en plein air, as he had reminded her in his chocolate-rich voice as her rusty French returned in dribs and drabs. There hadn’t been much call for it over the years.
She swung her eyes low and to the left. Yup. Still gorgeous.
As opposed to her.
She was a poorly coordinated, fashion-challenged dork in contrast to Raphael’s effortlessly elegant appearance. Not that he’d said anything of the sort when he’d first caught sight of her at their prearranged rendezvous point. Rendezvous? Get her! Far from it. He’d even complimented her on her butterfly print vintage skirt and the “land girl” knotted top she’d dragged out of the back of her closet. Not because it was the prettiest outfit she owned, but because it was the only thing that was ironed apart from her row of fastidiously maintained uniforms.
Appearances weren’t everything. She was proof of that. Freckle-faced redheads were every bit as competent as the next person. Well...maybe not literally, seeing as the person sitting next to her was a surgeon and she was “just” a paramedic. Anyway, her hair was more fiery auburn than carrot-orange. On a good day.
When they’d first met, in the corridors of the Parisian Lycée, she’d shaken off her small-town-girl persona and found the butterfly she’d always thought had been living in her heart. Well...a nerdy butterfly. Raphael had been every bit as nerdy as she back then. Or so she’d thought. But he’d called it...academically minded. He had been the best friend of her host’s brother and she’d fallen head over heels in love with him.
Her mother had been right when she’d cheekily told her daughter to keep her eye on the “Nerd Talent.” Now, at thirty years old, Raphael was little short of movie-star-gorgeous. His tall, reedy body had filled out so that he was six-foot-something of toned man magnificence. His chestnut hair looked rakishly windswept and interesting. He looked like a costume drama hero who’d just jumped off his horse after a long ride along the clifftops in search of his heroine.
Whether his cheekbones were über-pronounced because of the weight he claimed to have lost on his travels or because his genes were plain old superior was unclear. Either way, he was completely out-of-this-world beautiful.
Even the five o’clock shadow that she thought looked ridiculous on most other blokes added a rugged edge to a man who clearly felt at ease in the most sophisticated cities in Europe. Although she would bet her last dollar he’d do just fine in the Outback too. His body confidence spoke of a man who could change a car tire with one hand and chop wood with the other.
Not that she’d been imagining either scenario. Much.
Those blue eyes of his still had those crazy long black lashes...but shadows crossed his clear azure irises more often than not...
As if feeling the heat in her gaze, Raphael looked away from the flickering screen, giving her a quick glance and a gentle smile as she accidentally swooshed her out-of-control hair against his arm. The most outlandish hair in Oz, she called it. If she wanted it curly it went straight. Straight? It went into coils. Why she didn’t just chop it all off, as her brothers regularly suggested, was beyond her.
Again she stared at the half-moons her nails had pressed into her hands. After her mum passed it had seemed as if her hair was the one thing she had left in her life that was genuinely feminine. So she’d vowed to keep it—no matter how thick and wild it became.
“So!” Raphael turned to her, with that soft, barely there smile of his that never quite made it to a full-blown grin playing upon his lips. “Did you have anything else in mind?”
Maggie threw a panicked look over her shoulder.
Like holding hands underneath the starlit sky?
Gazing adoringly into one another’s eyes in between soul-quenching kisses?
She glanced at the screen and to her horror realized the credits were running. Sitting beside him and not making a complete fool of herself had been hard enough, but—Oh, crikey. She hoped he didn’t expect her to conduct an actual conversation in French. It had been hard enough when she was in her teens, but now that she hadn’t spoken a word in over thirteen years...
All of her tingly, flirty feelings began to dissolve in an ever-growing pool of insecurity.
“Sheesh. Sorry, mate... Raphael. Sorry, sorry...”
She stumbled over a few more apologies. Years of being “one of the guys” at work and growing up as the tomboy kid sister in a house full of blokey blokes had rendered her more delicate turns of phrase—if she had ever had them—utterly obsolete.
She puffed up her cheeks and blew out a big breath, trying to figure out what would be best. A meat pie and a pint?
She took in a few more blinks’ worth of Raphael, patiently waiting for her to get a grip, and dismissed the idea. French people didn’t go out for meat pies and pints! Why had her brain chosen this exact moment to block out everything she could remember about France?
Oysters? Caviar? More champagne?
Crêpes! French people loved them. Sydneysiders did, too.
There was a mobile crêpe caravan she’d visited a couple of times when she was in between patients. She grabbed her backpack and began pawing around for her mobile to try and find out where it might be parked up tonight.
What was it called? Suzettes? Flo’s Flaming Pancakes?
“Actually...” Raphael put his hand on Maggie’s forearm to stop her frantic excavation. “As I am starting work tomorrow morning, perhaps we’ll take a rain check?”
Maggie nodded along as he continued speaking. Something about heartfelt thanks for her help in getting him the job. The stacks of paperwork she’d breezed through on his behalf.
In truth, it was far easier to stand and smile while she let herself be swept away with the rhythm and musical cadence of each word coming out of Raphael’s mouth than to actually pay attention to what he was saying. Each word presented itself as a beautiful little stand-alone poem—distinctly unlike the slang-heavy lingo she’d brought with her from her small-town upbringing.
That year in Paris had been her mother’s last gift to her. A glimpse of what the rest of the world had to offer.
She’d found out, all right. In spades.
A glimpse of Raphael’s world, more like. And she wasn’t just talking about trips to a museum.
For her there was only one Raphael and he was standing right here, speaking perfectly fluent English, his mouth caressing each vowel and cherishing each consonant so that when his throat collaborated with his tongue and the words hit the ether each word was like an individually wrapped sweet.
A bon mot.
She smiled to herself. Of course the French had a phrase for it. In a country that old they had a beautiful phrase for everything. Including the exquisite pain of unrequited love.
La douleur exquise. And, wow, was she feeling that right about now. Why had she been so useful when he’d written to her a couple of months ago from...? Where was it? Vietnam? Or was it Mozambique? Both?
Regardless, his email hadn’t suggested he was intent on coming to Australia. Just “considering a change.”
Typical Maggie. She’d just picked up the reins and run with it. Filling out forms. Offering to get the right information to the right people on the right date at the right time.
“Best little helper this side of the equator,” as her mother had always said.
And now that he was here...
Total. Stage. Fright.
She’d been an idiot to think—
Nothing. You’re friends. Just like Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart.
“Yeah, you’re right. Early to bed sounds good. In fact...” she glanced at her watch “...time’s a-tickin’. Best get cracking!”
An image of Raphael tangled up in her sheets flashed across her mind’s eye as the rest of her barely functioning brain played a quick game of catch-up.
“Wait a minute. Did you say you were coming to work tomorrow?”
“Oui. Didn’t I tell you?” His brows cinched together in concern.
Again the nervous laughter burbled up, scratching and becoming distorted as it passed through her tight throat. “Well, yeah, I knew you were coming. My boss told us about it the other day. But I didn’t—” She stopped herself.
She’d thought she’d have more time to prepare. To become more immune to the emotional ramifications of working with the one man she’d imagined having a future with. In Paris. On a surgical ward. In a marital bed. Together.
“Maggie, if you do not want me working at your station...”
Raphael pulled out the vowels in her name, making it sound as if she were some sort of exotic bird or a beautiful length of stretchy caramel.
Quit staring at the gorgeous man and respond, Mags.
“No. That’s not it at all. I’m totally on board with it. You’ll be amazing. Everyone will love you. I must’ve gotten muddled. It’ll be nice for you. To hit the ground running, I mean.”
“Absolutement.” Raphael nodded. “I am completely ready to be a true Australian.”
Maggie couldn’t help herself. She sniggered. Then laughed. Then outright guffawed. “Raphael, I don’t think you could be a ‘true Australian’ even if you paddled backwards on a surfboard, dropped snags down your throat and chased them up with a slab of stubbies, all with a school of sharks circling round you. You’re just too...” She held her hands open in front of him, as if it was completely obvious.
“Oui?” Raphael looked straight down that Gallic nose of his, giving her a supercilious look.
Had she taken the mick a bit too hard and fast?
“What is it that I am too much of, Maggie?”
“Um...well... French.” She gave an apologetic shrug. “You know... You’re just too French to be Australian.”
The warm evening air grew thick. Whether it was an impending rainstorm or the tightening of the invisible tension that had snapped taut between them, she wasn’t sure. Her body ached to step in closer. To put her hands on his chest.
“I suppose I will have to rely on you to help me,” he said.
Whether he meant it or not was hard to tell.
“No wuckers, Raph,” she joked, giving him a jesty poke in the ribs with her elbow, trying to defuse the tension. “I’ll give you training lessons on Aussie slang and you can help me with my...um...”
Her vocabulary deserted her as her eyes met and locked with Raphael’s.
“Francais?”
It would be so easy to kiss you right now.
“Maggie?”
Oh, God. She was staring. Those eyes of his...
But, again, the bright blue was shadowed with something dark.
What’s happened to you since we last met?
Something about the slight tension in his shoulders told her not to push. He had his reasons for giving up his surgical career and zig-zagging around the world, only to land here in Oz. The last thing she was going to do was dig. Everyone had their “cupboard of woes,” her mother had often said. And no one had the right to open them up and air them.
Just chill, Mags.
He’d spill his guts when he felt good and ready. Listening to people’s “gut-spills” was one of her specialties. But when it came to spilling her own guts...there was no way she was going to unleash that pack of writhing serpents on anyone.
When they reached the aisle and began walking side by side the backs of their hands lightly brushed. Another rush of goose pimples shimmied up her arms, ultimately swirling and falling like a warm glitter mist in her tummy.
She was really going to have to train her body to calm the heck down if she was going to be his shoulder to cry on. Not that he looked even close to crying. Far from it.
Had she stuck her foot in it with the whole “you’re too French” thing?
“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I really enjoy working on the ambos, and the fact you have extra language skills is great. Work is different every day. And it was an amazing way for me to get my bearings when I moved to Sydney.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be at the wheel. I haven’t qualified for driving yet. All I know is I’m going to be working on an MIC Ambulance.”
Luckily Raphael missed her wide-eyed No! That’s what I do! response as he scanned the area, then turned towards the main bus stop outside the Botanical Gardens as if he’d been doing it every day of his life. He’d been born and bred in one of the world’s most sophisticated cities—acclimatizing to another must be a piece of cake.
“I was actually surprised by how easy it was to get my working papers. Something about a shortage of Mobile Intensive Care paramedics?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Maggie nodded, her brain more at ease in work mode. “They’ve really been struggling over in Victoria. Well, everywhere, I think. The most skilled mobile intensive care paramedics seem to be running off to the Middle East, where the pay is better. Well, not all of them. And it’s not because working here is horrible or anything... I mean it’s actually pretty great, when you consider the range of services we provide to the community—and of course to the whole of New South Wales when they need it. Like when there are forest fires. Or big crashes out in the back of beyond.”
She was rambling now. And in serious danger of sending Raphael packing.
He was one of the only people in her life who had known her before her mum had passed. There was something about that link that felt precious. Like a tiny priceless jewel she’d do everything in her power to protect.
Maggie looked up, her eyes widening as Raphael’s expression softened into an inquisitive smile. The trees behind him were laced with fairy lights and the buzz and whoosh of the city faded into a gentle murmur as her eyes met with his.
A flash of pure, undiluted longing flooded her chest so powerfully that she had to pull in a deep breath to stave off the dizzying effect of being the sole object of those beautiful blue eyes of his. The ache twisting in her lungs tightened into a yearning for something deeper. How mad would the world have to become for him to feel the same way?
Slowly he reached out his hands and placed them on her shoulders. The heat from his fingers seared straight through her light top, sending out a spray of response along her collarbone that gathered in sensual tingles along the soft curves of her breasts. He tipped his chin to one side as he parted his lips.
Was Raphael Bouchon, man of her dreams, going to kiss her?
“I think this is where I catch my bus.” Raphael pointed up to the sign above them. “I am afraid I will need my jacket back if we are going to part ways here. Will you be all right?”
“Of course!” she answered, too loudly, tugging off his jacket and checking her volume as she continued. “I’m the one who should be asking you that, anyway. Where was it you got a place again?”
It was the one thing she hadn’t helped with. Finding him a place. He’d told her it was already sorted, but that didn’t stop a case of The Guilts from settling in.
She should’ve offered him a bed...well, a sofa...while he sorted something out. Played tour guide. Called estate agents. Cleared the ever-accruing mess off of her countertops and made him dinner.
Not invited him to a movie and then scarpered.
But that level of support would have been slipping straight into the mode she was still trying to release herself from with her family.
The girl who did all the chores no one else wanted to do.
Besides, her home was her castle and there wasn’t a chance on God’s green earth that she would be inviting him round—or anyone, for that matter. She’d had almost seven years of looking after her brothers and father—enough housekeeping, laundry and “When’s the tucker gunna hit the table, Daggie?” to last a lifetime.
“It’s a place I found on the internet, near Bondi Beach. I thought it sounded...” he paused for effect “...Australian.”
Maggie laughed good-naturedly and leant forward to punch him on the arm. At the same time he leant down to kiss her on the cheek. Their lips collided and skidded off of each other’s—but not before Maggie caught the most perfect essence of what it would be like to actually kiss him.
Pure magic.
Raphael caught the sides of her arms with his hands, as if to steady them both, and this time when their eyes met there was something new shining straight at her. That glint. The shiny spark in Raphael’s almond-shaped eyes that erased every single thought from her harried brain except for one: I could spend the rest of my life with you.
The fear that followed in its wake chilled her to the bone.
* * *
An hour later Maggie held a staring contest with herself in her poorly lit bathroom mirror. Red-haired, freckle-faced, and every bit as unsure whether she was a country mouse or a city mouse as she had been thirteen years ago.
Closing her eyes, she traced her fingers along her lips, trying to relive the brush of Raphael’s mouth against hers. It came easily. Too easily. Especially when she had been in love with him for almost half her life.
Her eyes flickered open and there in the mirror was the same ol’ Maggie. The one who would never live in Paris. The one barely making a go of it in the big smoke. The girl born and raised and most likely to return to a town so far from Sydney it had its own time zone. In other words, she could dream all she wanted, but a future with Raphael Bouchon was never going to be a reality.
CHAPTER THREE (#u512006d9-fc85-5339-aa7f-1d3e1ff78f9b)
RAPHAEL TUGGED HIS fingers through hair that probably could have done with a bit of a trim. He chided himself for not putting in a bit more effort. For not trying to look as if he cared as much as he genuinely did.
Seeing Maggie yesterday had done what he’d hoped. It had re-awoken a part of him he’d feared had died alongside Amalie that day in the operating theatre.
When their lips had accidentally brushed last night there’d been a spark.
He was sure of it.
Enough so that he sorely regretted not kissing her all those years ago. But Jean-Luc’s mother’s warning had been a stark one. “Hands off!” she’d said, and so he had obeyed.
If he hadn’t been relying so heavily on Jean-Luc’s family for that vital sense of stability his parents had been unable to provide he would’ve gladly risked his pride and seen if Maggie had felt the same way.
For an instant last night he’d been certain of it.
This morning... Not so much.
Not that Maggie was taking a blind bit of notice of his does-she-doesn’t-she? conundrum.
Listening to her now, reeling off the contents of the ambulance they’d be working on, was like being in the middle of an auctioneer’s rapid-fire pitch.
From the moment she’d arrived at the station she’d barely been able to look him in the eye. More proof, if he needed it, that he hadn’t meant to her what she’d meant to him. After all, who took someone to a movie when they hadn’t seen each other in over thirteen years?
Someone with a life. Someone who’d moved on.
“Raphael?” She clapped a hand on the back door of the ambulance to gain his attention. “Are you getting this?”
He nodded, not having the heart to tell her he’d actually spent the long flight over memorizing the equipment breakdowns and layouts he’d been sent along with the confirmation of his posting.
“And over here we’ve got your pneumocath, advanced drugs, syringe pumps and cold intravenous fluids. It’s not so much a problem this time of year. The hypothermia. What with it being summer. But...” She screwed up her face and asked, “Is hypothermia a problem in Paris?”
She quickly flicked her green eyes towards him, then whisked them back to the supply bins as if looking at him for longer than three seconds would give her a rash.
“Well, you’ve got snow, so I suppose so,” she answered for him. Then, almost sheepishly, she turned back to him and said, “Neige, right?”
He nodded, parting his lips to say he was actually ready to head out if she was, but she had already turned back toward the ambulance and was reeling off yet another list of equipment specific to the MICA vehicles.
“Hey, Mags. Looks like the A-Team is being broken up.”
Maggie stopped mid-flow, her green eyes brightening as a beach-blond forty-something man came round the corner of their ambulance with a timorous woman who only just prevented herself from running into him when he abruptly stopped.
“All good things must come to an end I guess, Stevo.” Maggie heaved a sigh of genuine remorse, then shot a guilty look at Raphael with an apologetic smile following in its wake.
“Raphael, this is my partner—my former ambo partner—Steve Laughlin.”
“Crikey, Mags. It’s only been ten minutes. And no lines have been drawn in the sand yet. No offence, newbie!”
He turned to the young woman behind him and gave her a solid clap on the shoulder that nearly buckled her knees before turning back to Raphael.
“Nice to meetcha, mate.” Steve put his hand out for a solid shake. “You’ve got yourself one of Bondi Junction’s finest here, so consider yourself lucky. I’m counting on you to look after her. She can be a bit of a klutz—”
“I’m more than capable of looking after myself, thank you very much!” Maggie cut in.
“Yeah, yeah. Help me, help me!” Steve elbowed Raphael in the ribs and laughed. “You know what I’m saying, mate? All these girls really want is a big strong bloke to look after ’em. Get a load of these pecs, Casey. This is what happens when your partner doesn’t carry her fair share of the equipment bags.”
He flexed his arm into Popeye muscles and grinned as his new charge instantly flushed with mortification.
“Yes, Steve. Nothing to do with the hours you spend at the gym instead of helping your wife with the dishes,” Maggie answered drily, clearly immune to Steve’s über-macho version of charm. “And, for the record, I think I can live without a big strong Tarzan swinging in to rescue me, knowing that there’s a fully qualified surgeon sitting in your old seat. Twice as many patients in half the time, I’m betting.”
She gave Raphael a quick Am I right, or what? smile.
Raphael winced. Bragging rights over his surgical skills was something he’d rather not be a party to.
“Ah, well, then.” Steve gave Raphael a knowing look, completely missing his discomfort. “If you’re not busy curing everyone in Sydney over the next couple of hours, perhaps you’ll be able to shake a bit more fun into our girl, here. Tell her there’s a bit more to life than work, will ya? When we heard you were a Frenchie we all started laying bets on how long it’d take for you to get her out on the town after her shift. She’s got a thing about France, you know?”
He rocked back on his heels, crossed his arms over what looked like the beginnings of a beer belly and gave him a solid once-over.
“You’re a better looking bloke than I am, so maybe you’re in with a bit of a chance.”
“Hardly!” The word leapt out of Maggie’s throat, lancing the light-hearted tone of Steve’s comments in two.
“Easy, there, Mags.” Steve rolled his eyes and gave her a half-hug. “I’m just messing with you. Give the bloke a chance, all right? We’re just worried about you. All work and no play...”
“Yeah. I get it, Steve. Don’t you have some work you should be getting on with?”
Raphael stayed back from the group, preferring silence to watching the increasing flush heating up Maggie’s cheeks.
He stepped forward for a handshake when Steve did a quick introduction of his new junior partner, Casey, before heading for their own ambulance. As soon as they’d left Maggie poured her obvious irritation into filling up all the supply bins in their ambulance.
The idea of spending time with him outside of working hours obviously didn’t appeal. Had he said something last night to offend her? Perhaps taking a rain check on a post-film drink had been bad form if it wasn’t her usual mode opératoire to go out.
Raphael swallowed against rising frustration. Hitting the wrong note seemed to be his specialty of late. Making the wrong move. Insisting upon operating on a little girl he was far too close to, only to have to break the news to his best friend that his young daughter had just died on the operating table because of his mistake.
Jean-Luc would never forgive him. Not in this lifetime anyway.
He tried to crush the memory of what Jean-Luc had said to him to the recesses of his mind. A near impossible task as he revisited the cruel words each and every night while trying to fall into a restless sleep.
“You just take! All you do is take!”
The medical report had told a different story, had said that Amalie would have died anyway. Her injuries had been too severe. The loss of blood too great. But Raphael knew the truth. He was the one who had made the decision that had ultimately led to the little girl’s death.
He returned his gaze to Maggie, who had shifted back into her efficient self and was doing a swirly ta-da! gesture with her arms in front of the ambulance.
“Clocked that? Are we good? Am I going too fast? Too slow? Should I just stop talking altogether?”
Her eyes widened and he saw that his worries about Maggie not wanting to work with him had been ridiculous. Those green cat’s eyes of hers were alight with hints of hope and concern, making it abundantly clear that her nervous energy wasn’t anti-Raphael. It was worry that he might not be interested. It was hope that he shared her passion for the job she loved. And, if he wasn’t mistaken, there was an underlying pride at what she did for her community.
“All right, Frenchie? How’re ya settlin’ in, mate?”
Raphael turned at the sound of the male voice, not missing the pained expression taking hold of Maggie’s face as her eyes lit on the paramedic behind him.
A tall black-haired man—big—was holding out a hand. “Marcus Harrison. Fellow paramedic. Friends call me Cyclops. I’ll give you three guesses why.”
Raphael threw a quick look to Maggie, who shrugged, rolling her eyes rolling as if to say, Indulge him. It’ll be over in a minute.
When he turned back he was face to face with an eyeball.
“It’s glass. Get it? I’ve only got one eye. Been that way since I was a nipper. Too much rugby, and one day...” Marcus pinched his fingers in front of his eye then made a flying object gesture.
Behind him Raphael could hear Maggie muttering something about putting it away, already.
Totally unfazed by Maggie’s disgust, Marcus popped his eye back into the empty socket and doubled up in a fit of self-induced laughter. “Oh, mate. You should see your face. Priceless.”
“Are you finished?” Maggie asked, her tone crisp, but not without affection.
“Yeah, but...” Marcus bent in half again, another hit of hilarity shaking him from head to toe.
“Marcus, I’m trying to show our new colleague the truck.”
“What? He’ll be all right.” Marcus waved off her concerns. “You were a surgeon or something back there in Paris, right?”
Raphael nodded, knowing that a flinch had accompanied the reminder.
“Leave the poor man alone. He’s got enough on his plate without you showing off your wares and quizzing him about his credentials.”
Marcus strutted in a circle in front of Maggie. “Darlin’, let me assure you, you can look at my wares any day of the week.”
Again Maggie rolled her eyes. This clearly wasn’t Marcus’s first flirt session. Nor Maggie’s first refusal. Clearly having three older brothers had toughened her up.
Marcus crossed to her, leaned in, gave her a loud smack of a kiss on the cheek, then gave Raphael a good-natured thump on the back as he passed, heading towards the tea room whistling a pop tune.
“He seems...”
Raphael searched for a good word, but Maggie beat him to it.
“A right idiot. Except—” she held up her index finger “—when it comes to work. He is a first-class paramedic. Claims he always wanted to be a paratrooper, but the eye thing made that dream die real quick—so he became another kind of para. Paramedic,” she added, in case he hadn’t caught the shortened term. Something the Australians seemed to do a lot of.
“And you two are...?” Raphael moved a finger between Maggie and the space Marcus had just occupied. “Were you a couple?”
He caught himself holding his breath as he waited for an answer. Was he hoping she would say no?
“Pah!” Maggie barked, her eyes almost tearing up as she laughed at the suggestion. “You have got to be kidding me!”
Just as quickly she recovered, throwing an anxious look towards the tea room.
“I mean, he’s a lovely bloke, and will definitely make someone incredibly happy, but he’s not...” Her eyes flicked to his so quickly there was no time to catch her expression. “He’s a really good bloke. I’m lucky to know him. He’s taught me loads.”
Loyalty.
That was the warmth he heard in her voice. And it was a reminder of why he’d come to Sydney. She was loyal. She hadn’t even questioned why he was here. Just helped in every way she could.
He swallowed. She didn’t know the whole story.
He turned at the sound of Maggie snapping her fingers together before displaying a clear plastic bag of kit as if she were a game show hostess.
“Right. Back to work. So, we call these nifty little numbers the Advanced Airway Management Sets—or AAMS if you’re in a hurry.”
“Très bien. It all looks very familiar.” He nodded, aware that his attention was divided.
Again and again his eyes were drawn to the fabric of Maggie’s dark blue overalls tightening against her curves as she leant into the truck to replace the kit and then, by turns, pointed out the defibrillator, the suction kit, the spinal collars, spine board, inflatable splints, drugs, sphygmomanometers, pulse oximeters and on and on.
In her regulation jumpsuit she looked like an action heroine who donned a form-fitting uniform before bravely—and successfully—battling intergalactic creatures for the greater good of the universe.
Her fiery hair had been pulled into submission with a thick fishtail plait. Her green eyes shone brightly against surprisingly creamy skin. Ample use of sunblock, he supposed. An essential in Sydney’s virtually non-stop “holiday” weather.
Instantly his thoughts blackened. As if he’d come here for some R&R after a year and a half of trying to put some good back into the world.
“All you do is take.”
There was no coming back from the death of a man’s only child.
He scrubbed his hand along his neck, still hearing the heavy church bells ringing out their somber tones on the day they had laid Amalie to rest. Amalie’s funeral was the last time he’d seen Jean-Luc and the rest of the Couttards.
It was the first time they had fought. The last time they had had any contact.
“You took from my parents and now you’ve taken my daughter. No more!”
He opened his eyes to see Maggie waving a hand in front of his face. “Hello? All right in there? Time to jump in. We’ve been called out. Twenty-five-year-old mother, imminent birth. We’re about seven minutes out. Wheels up, mate!”
* * *
Five minutes into the ride, Maggie’s internal conversation was still running on a loop.
Mate?
What was it with her and calling Raphael mate? Almost as bad as Cyclops and Stevo calling him Frenchie.
Grr... Instead of bringing out that Parisian butterfly she knew lay dormant somewhere within her, Raphael’s appearance was turbo-charging the country girl she’d tried to leave behind in Broken Hill.
Then again, maybe he didn’t care what she did one way or the other. It was difficult to gauge exactly what was behind that near-neutral expression of his. Chances were pretty high that he hadn’t stayed up half the night reliving their near-miss kiss. How mortifying. She hoped her feelings weren’t as transparent as she feared.
Pretending to check for oncoming traffic, she gave Raphael a quick glance.
Still gorgeous. Still impossible to read.
But it went deeper than that. He didn’t seem present. And that was something he had always been—here, engaged.
Could a person change so much that they lost the essence of who they were?
She swallowed the lump of contrition rising in her throat. She had. She’d changed a lot since her bright-eyed and bushy-tailed days.
She glanced across again, unsurprised to find his expression stoically unchanged. Not that she could see his eyes beneath the aviator glasses he’d slipped on once they’d strapped in for the blue lights ride.
“You sure you’re all right?” She moved her elbow as if to prod him. The gesture was pointless as she was strapped into her seatbelt.
A curt nod was her response.
“This isn’t the first run you’ve had since you left France, is it?”
“No.” His gaze remained steadfastly glued on the road ahead of them.
Okay. Guess we’re not feeling very chatty today.
Not fair, Maggie. The man’s got a lot on his plate today. New country. New language. New job. Old friend...
An old friend she was having to get to know all over again.
The old Raphael would’ve been laughing and joking right this very second—teasing her about her driving, or about the fact that she couldn’t help making her own sound effect along with the sirens and each switch she flicked. He’d maybe even have started quizzing her about why her career had gone to the blue lights instead of the blue robes of the surgical ward.
Not a freaking peep.
When she’d told him to jump into the ambulance they’d done one of those comedic dances, with one person trying to get past the other, that had ended up looking like really bad country jigging. It should have, at the very least, elicited a smile.
Not from Raphael.
Not a whisper as to what was going on with him. Why he was here. Why he had downgraded himself.
The only thing she could guess was that the man was trying to put as much space as he could between himself and some intensely painful memories.
“You know, if you want to talk or anything...”
He glanced across, his brows tugged together. “About the job? No, no. I’m fine.”
“Or about other things...” She pulled the ambulance around a tight corner, grimly satisfied to see his expression change from neutral to impressed, if only for a nanosecond.
Why wouldn’t he talk to her? They’d once told each other everything.
Everything except the fact that she was a born and bred country girl doing her best to believe it wasn’t above her station to dream of life as a surgeon in Paris.
Come to think of it, neither of them had talked about their home lives much. Just the futures they’d imagined for themselves. Her host family’s beautiful Parisian home had been the base for most of their adventures. And the rest of their time had been spent exploring. With a whole lot of studying on thick picnic rugs in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower thrown in for good measure. After they’d hit the books they would roll over onto their backs, gaze up at the huge steel structure and talk about their dreams for the future.
Raphael had achieved his goals in spades. Resident surgeon in a busy Parisian A&E department. Addressing conferences around the world on emergency medicine. But then there had been an the about-face, eighteen months ago, and he had gone to work in refugee camps and free clinics in developing countries only to turn up now in Sydney.
Mysteries aside, Raphael’s life was a far cry from being a jobbing paramedic in one of Sydney’s beach neighborhoods with no chance of climbing up the ladder.
Cut yourself some slack.
She had returned from France only to be told her mother had died while she was flying home. A girl didn’t recover from that sort of loss quickly. And then there were the add-on factors: the shock of discovering her mother had known she was ill when she’d handed Maggie the ticket to Paris, the expectation of her grieving father and brothers that Maggie would step into the role her mother had filled—the role her mother had made her promise she would never, ever take.
Cramming her dream of moving back to France and becoming a surgeon into the back of a cupboard, she had cooked and cleaned and washed an endless stream of socks for her family while they got on with the business of living their lives...
It had taken her years to break out of that role. And she had finally done it. She was living life on her own terms. Sort of. Not really... Four weeks of her year were still dedicated to sock-washing, floor-scrubbing and casserole-making, but it was a step. Who knew? Maybe one day she would be the world’s first ninety-year-old junior surgeon.
She glanced across at Raphael, saw his jaw tight again as they wove their way through the morning traffic. It wasn’t her driving that drew his muscles taut against his lean features. There was something raw in his behavior.
If it was ghosts he was trying to outrun, he looked as though he’d lost the battle. It was as if they had taken up residence without notice, casting shadows over his blue eyes.
If only she could help bring out the bright light she knew could shine from those eyes of his.
A little voice in her head told her she’d never succeed. You don’t have the power to make anyone happy. That can only happen from within.
“So...” Her voice echoed in the silent ambulance as she tried to launch into the work banter she and Steve had always engaged in. “When’s the last time you delivered a baby outside a hospital?”
“Is there not a midwife attending?”
Raphael’s tone didn’t carry alarm, just curiosity. As if he were performing a mental checklist.
“There’s been a call made, but it’s usually luck of the draw as to who gets there first. We’d be fighting rush-hour traffic to get to the Women’s Hospital, so I don’t think we’ll have time to load her up and take her there. They said the birth was imminent when they rang. That the mum is already wanting to bear down.”
Raphael nodded, processing.
She doubted it was the actual delivery of a child that was cinching his brows together.
Maybe...
No guessing. You do not get to guess what has been going on in his life. He will tell you when he is good and ready.
She shot him another quick look, relieved to see that the crease had disappeared from his forehead.
Work would get him on track. It was what pulled her out of the dumps whenever she was down. It was what had finally pushed her up and out of Broken Hill.
That twelve-hour drive to Sydney had felt epically long. Mostly because she had known she’d never wanted to go back and that it would be the first of many round trips. They weren’t as frequent now...
Instead of saying anything in response, Raphael looked out of the window as they whipped past apartment block after apartment block on their way to the Christian housing charity that had put in the call.
Unable to bear the silence, she tried again. “The mother is Congolese, I think. Democratic Republic of Congo. A recent refugee. My Lingala’s pretty shoddy. How’s yours?”
The hint of a smile bloomed, then faded on his lips.
“Was there any more information about the mother? Medically?” he qualified.
“Nope.” Maggie deftly pulled the ambulance over to the roadside. “We’ll just have to ask her ourselves.”
* * *
A few moments later the pair of them, a gurney, and the two birthing kits Maggie had thrown on top were skidding to a halt in front of a group of men standing outside a door in the housing facility’s central courtyard.
“She’s in here.” One of the lay sisters gestured to an open door beyond the wall of men.
Like the Red Sea in the biblical tale, the men parted at the sight of Maggie and Raphael, letting them pass through, a respectful, somber air replacing the feverish buzz of what had no doubt been a will-they-won’t-they-make-it? discussion.
Abandoning the gurney out in the courtyard, Maggie grabbed the birthing kits, but stepped to the side so that Raphael could enter the room first. The distant mood she had sensed in him had entirely evaporated.
Inside, curtains drawn, a crowd of women in long skirts and brightly patterned tops shifted so they could see the beautiful woman on a bed that had either been pulled into the sitting room for the birth or was there because of constant over-crowding. Either way, the woman’s intense groans and her expression showed she was more than ready to push.
She was pushing.
“I’ll do the hygiene drapes if you’re all right to begin the examination,” Maggie told Raphael.
“Good. Bien.”
Out of the corner of her eye she watched as he unzipped one of the kit bags, quickly finding the necessary items to wash and sterilize his hands and arms in the small, adjacent kitchen, re-entering as he snapped on a pair of examination gloves. His movements were quick. Efficient. They spoke of a man who was in his element despite the dimly lit apartment and the crowd of onlookers.
But there didn’t seem to be any warmth emanating from him. And that surprised her. It wasn’t as though he was being mean, but... C’mon! The woman’s about to have a baby. A little bedside manner would be a good thing to use around now!
The women, as if by mutual consent, all pressed back against the wall, necks craning as Raphael made his way to the expectant mother’s side.
“You are happy with an audience?” Raphael asked the woman in his accented English, and the first proper smile to hit his lips all morning made a welcome appearance.
Finally! So it is there. Just hard to tap into.
The expectant mother nodded. “Bien sûr. Voici ma famille.” She groaned through another contraction.
“Ah!” Raphael gently parted her legs and lifted the paper blanket Maggie had put in place across the woman’s lap. “Vous parlez Français? Très bien.” He turned to Maggie. “You are all right to translate on your own?”
Maggie grinned. Trust Raphael to have his first patient in Oz be a fluent French-speaker.
A seamless flow of information zigzagged from the mother to Raphael to Maggie and back again—including the woman’s name, which was Divine.
Maggie smiled when she heard that. What a great name! As if the woman’s mother had predestined her daughter to be beautiful and feminine. Maggie was all right as far as names went, but Daggie—as her own family insisted on calling her—made her feel about as pretty as if she were called Manky Sea Sponge.
“Can you believe it?” Raphael was looking up at her, his brow furrowed in that all-work-no-play look she was still trying to get used to.
“Divine? Yeah.” She offered the mother another smile. “It’s a beautiful name.”
“This is Divine’s fourth pregnancy.”
Ah. That was the vital bit of information he had actually been alluding to. She’d heard. Registered. Moved back to the pretty name. Was he going to be like this all the time?
Three pregnancies without any problems meant this one would likely be a cinch.
Maggie shifted her features into a face she hoped said, Wow! Impressive! Not, Four children before you’ve turned thirty? No, thank you.
Her mother had been down that path, and look at all the good it had done her. A life of cooking and cleaning in the Outback before being hit by an A-Grade cancer cluster bomb. Pancreatic. Lymph. Stomach. At least it had been swift—though that hadn’t made it any less of a shock.
“First time for a home birth?” Maggie asked, to stop herself from exploring any further her instinctual response to a life of full-time parenting. She’d been down that dark alley plenty of times, and this was definitely not the time or place for a return journey.
“Non...” Divine bore down, her breath coming in practiced huffs. “I have never had one of my children in hospital.”
“Just as well,” said Raphael neutrally, in French, “because you are crowning. I can see your baby’s head now.”
Cheers erupted from the women around, and to Maggie’s complete surprise a chorus of joyous singing began.
Raphael indicated that Maggie should kneel down beside him as he kept pressure on the woman’s perineum to prevent any uncontrolled movements while first the forehead and then the chin and finally the child’s entire head became visible.
Finding herself caught up in the party-like atmosphere, Maggie beamed up at Divine, congratulating her on her ability to get through the intense moment without any tears or painkillers, and out of the corner of her eye watched Raphael check for the umbilical cord and its location.
“Are you up for one more big push?” Raphael asked over the ever-increasing roar of song. “We just need to get those shoulders out.” His voice was gentle, but it conveyed how strong the determined push Divine gave would have to be.
Divine tipped her head back, then threw it forward, her voice joining in extraordinary harmony with the women around her as she bellowed and sang her way through a super-powered push.
Raphael held the baby’s head in one hand, turning it towards the mother’s thigh, and gently pressed down with the other to encourage the top shoulder to be delivered as Divine bore down for the one final push that...oh, yes...yes...would bring her new son into the world.
“Felicitations, Divine. You have a beautiful little boy.”
Maggie was shocked to hear Raphael’s strangely vacant tone. Why wasn’t he as lifted and carried away by the raucous atmosphere as she was? No matter how often she tried to be blasé about moments like these—it was impossible. And to play a role in this miracle of a child coming into the world surrounded by song...

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