Sunrise for Two Read Free

had really gotten
things wrong. He cared about people, he liked to think that he made
their lives better, but he knew that he had hurt her. He just
hadn't expected her to be beautiful, with big dark eyes that made
him think of poetry and art.
    He remembered the
amusement in her pretty mouth as he questioned her intelligence and
her professionalism. Then his mind replayed the sudden pain that
had flared across her expressive face as he reacted so badly to her
wheelchair, and he berated himself for his insensitivity yet again.
He pushed his hands into his pockets and tried to think of the
right words to say to her; a way to apologise for the shame he had
felt when he realised how badly he was behaving. He wanted to
explain that even if she had been able walk, he would have felt
ashamed of himself, but whenever he got near the subject of her
wheelchair his words tangled up, so he walked up to the operating
theatres and made himself a strong cup of coffee. He was an
orthopaedic surgeon. He wasn't interested in poetry and
art.
    He sat down and tried to
focus on his case list, but his mind wandered unbidden back to his
early childhood, an image of his mother listening to jazz music and
creating yet another gorgeous meal, slid traitorously into his
consciousness. She had always generated masterpieces with the
products of the bargain supermarket that she had to use. And the
sound of her warm laughter blossomed into his mind. He took a
breath, and shut down the thoughts. He had patients to see and he
needed his head to be clear.
    The nurse in charge of
the operating theatre where he spent most of his time joined him in
the coffee room. “You okay?” she asked.
    “ It's been a
long week.” he said with a smile, fighting an almost physical urge
to face Harry again and apologise.
    “ It’s been an
awful week,” the nurse said softly, “and you've pushed through the
waiting list like a train, do something good this
weekend.”
    He nodded and wondered
what Harry would say if he invited her out for dinner. He was still
wondering when the man in charge of surgery paged him and asked him
to meet him in the boardroom. Reluctantly he walked down to the
entrance of the hospital, took the plush elevator that only lead up
to one floor and wondered what entirely pointless meeting he had
forgotten now.
    The training meeting was
underway when he arrived, there was a complicated diagram on the
screen about the need to train doctors in new types of operations.
He sat down at the big polished table and felt his pulse quicken.
Harry was sitting opposite him, and he drank in her gloriously dark
skin and her cheekbones. She was wearing an elegantly tailored
shirt, buttoned almost to her neck, and he couldn't help noticing
her generous breasts. He looked around the room, looked at the men
nodding and smiling at her and wondered how many of them had
noticed her intoxicating build. Harry felt his hungry gaze and
arched an eyebrow, he smiled apologetically and looked back at the
screen. She was more beautiful than he remembered. Long gently
curly hair, a lovely mouth and a delicate build with those eye
catching curves that looked feminine even in her cotton
top.
    The clinicians were
detailing the nuances of their operations and procedures, and Harry
was making rapid notes with her black fountain pen, addressing all
the possible ways of capturing the images in a way that would allow
for people to look at them from different angles. Chris watched the
normally aggressive head of anaesthetics deftly managed by the
combination of her smiles and her clear headed perspective on the
practicalities of implementation. There were eight men in the room,
all older than her and all asking her questions at once, if she was
nervous then it didn't show, but she did drink a lot of
coffee.
    They stopped at lunch
time, and she sat back in her chair, her relief obvious. The new
head of the transplant team stepped quickly out of his seat and sat
down on the table close