The Surgeon's Runaway Bride by Olivia Gates

Author:Olivia Gates [Gates, Olivia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780263852653
Google: 8Ii6HgAACAAJ
Amazon: 0263852652
Publisher: Harlequin Mills & Boon
Published: 2007-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

ROQUE moved the Doppler ultrasound probe over the man’s distended abdomen. The images were transmitted to the monitor lying between him and Jewel on the woven-vine-covered floor. She couldn’t see them with the screen facing away from her.

“What do you see?” she asked him as soon as he’d concluded his exam of the abdomen and moved on to the pelvis.

“Hmm, just a minute. I’m capturing more images.”

When the minute became five and he still didn’t answer as he clicked away on his laptop, her banked heat rose.

He’d been doing this, ignoring her, since he’d hurled the truth about his parentage at her.

For the hour it had taken to reach the Manis village, she’d shriveled with mortification, trying to imagine how it had been for him, his childhood, his struggles without the support of a family and the difficulties of his mother’s situation—and failing. Could they have had more different formative years?

Then she’d tried to imagine how many hardships he’d had to endure, what level of dedication had seen him rise so far with everything possible against him—and still couldn’t. It was beyond phenomenal.

She’d tried to approach him, convey all that stormed in her heart, but he hadn’t let her. Then they’d reached the village, met the villagers and organized their schedule of exams and educational sessions with the tribal elders, and he’d kept treating her like he did the air around him. It had been then that her mortification had morphed into resentment.

She’d been keeping him at arm’s length out of pure survival. But she hadn’t been ignoring him. Why was he?

Did he regret telling her something so profoundly personal? Did he think she was judging him? Did he think her such a shallow, snobbish, empty shell? Still?

His unapproachable profile made her think of worst-case scenarios, made her wish she hadn’t sent her team off to other cases so she was alone with him. As if he needed her support—in any way!

In another minute she gave up hope that he’d acknowledge or include her, and decided to find answers for herself.

But as he hadn’t even taken the time to make introductions, it was up to her to perform them herself and, using the few indigenous words she knew, she did.

Their patient was Moie and his wife was Tuia. Tuia was as alert as her husband was lethargic, her sun-baked body naked to the waist, like the rest of the tribe, and there was a child no younger than five sleeping on her back. Patting the spot she had vacated beside her husband, she made it look as if she was carrying nothing at all as she jumped to her feet, giving Jewel the optimum place to conduct her exam. Moie squeezed his yellowed black eyes, giving her his consent to examine him.

An overall look, followed by palpating Moie’s abdomen and pelvis and examining his edematous legs, told her a lot. But as he wasn’t up to making the effort, she turned to Tuia and questioned her about his complaints in an elaborate set of pantomimes.

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