Reunited With Her Parisian Surgeon

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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