The Surgeon's Miracle

‘Frightful, isn’t it?’ he said with a playful wince. ‘Starting at the outside and working inwards is usually a good plan, but if you want to be sure, watch Andrew, not me. He’s pretty good on the old protocol, but I don’t care. Frankly I don’t have a lot of time for it. I’m much more interested in the people.’ His eyes flicked over her, the curiosity in them undisguised. ‘On the subject of which, how long have you known my brother?’ he murmured, and she felt her heart lurch a little.

Here we go, she thought, determined not to lie and hoping he wouldn’t put her in the position where she had to. ‘Six months,’ she told him, ‘since he started at the hospital.’

‘Good grief, the dark horse,’ he said slowly, shooting a glance in Andrew’s direction. ‘Still, I can see why he’d want to keep you to himself, but it’s too late now, he’s rumbled. You can save me a dance tomorrow night. Rumour has it I’m better than him.’

‘I wonder who started that rumour?’ she teased, but then confessed, ‘I wouldn’t know what he’s like. We haven’t danced together yet.’ Or anything else apart from work, come to that, she thought with another hitch in her pulse, but Will didn’t need to know that.

‘Well, here’s your chance. You can dance with us both and judge for yourself. Not that you’d be disloyal and unkind enough to tell either of us the truth,’ he said with gentle mockery. ‘So—tell me about yourself, Libby Tate. What makes you tick?’

‘Oh, there’s nothing to tell,’ she said lightly, wondering what Andrew would have told him and how much of it she was going to contradict if she said anything, but Will just smiled.

‘I’ll just bet there is,’ he said, his voice still low. ‘I think you’re probably a complex and fascinating woman, but I get the feeling he doesn’t know much about you, either. Curious.’

Suddenly she couldn’t do this—couldn’t lie to his brother, pretend they were together when they weren’t. Not like that, anyway—and not when he’d already worked it out.

‘We haven’t been going out together long,’ she admitted, for Andrew’s sake not revealing just how brief their non-relationship was, but Will just nodded and smiled slightly.

‘No. I thought not. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion you’re only here as a smokescreen to disguise the fact that he doesn’t have a social life—or am I mistaken?’